strictlysupreme Chapter 165 A New Lord-Level Monster Appears!
Chapter 165 A New Lord-Level Monster Appears!
Those two orbs of light, resembling blood-red moons, were not sources of light at all.
Those were two enormous eyeballs.
As that deep voice descended, the billowing black mist in the dark abyss suspended in mid-air above the central courtyard was violently torn apart by some invisible force.
A strong, suffocating stench, mixed with a high concentration of ozone, poured down like a mudslide.
The [Living Mind Radar] on the command platform emitted a series of sharp, explosive sounds comparable to fingernails scraping a blackboard.
The scout's head embedded in the base had bulging eyes, and on the green holographic screen, the skull symbol was so red it looked like it was about to bleed.
[Warning! A super-dimensional energy source has been detected!]
[The anomaly anchor point in the current area has been activated!]
【Thousand-Eyed Aberration - Flesh and Blood Mother Tree (Lv.45 - Lord Level / Semi-Awakened State)】
[Danger Level: Extremely Lethal (Exceeds the current panel assessment limit; immediate disengagement measures recommended)]
"Level 45? And he's a lord!"
Jiang Ming stared at the glaring red text that popped up on the system panel, and without hesitation, ripped off the connection cable of the panoramic periscope and slapped Marlowe hard on the back of the head.
"What are you looking at! Shift to reverse! floor the gas! Get out of here!"
The level 45 boss monster was a full 15 levels higher than the old monster he killed in the Crimson Monastery.
Even if he were to possess this heavily armed bronze-level fortress, he would still be nothing more than a mouthful of trash.
Moreover, that thing now occupies the entire abyss terrain, and its size is absolutely outrageous.
"My goodness! This pressure is overwhelming! Even my great-grandmother is waving at me!"
Marlowe let out a shriek and frantically scratched at the control panel with his two bright green claws.
boom--!
The Flesh Furnace engine roared under its strain, and two plumes of thick black smoke suddenly spewed from the exhaust pipe.
The heavy tank forced itself to perform an extremely wild drift on the slick glass floor, its tracks spinning wildly and sparking a shower of sparks as it sped toward the dilapidated revolving door it had come from.
"Want to leave? If you become fertilizer for my farm, then stay."
That deep voice resounded in my mind once again.
Immediately afterwards, a hand emerged from the pitch-black abyss above.
That can't even be called a hand.
It was a gigantic appendage forcibly kneaded together from countless reinforced concrete, twisted car wrecks, and the corpses of hundreds and thousands of humans and monsters.
The giant hand, with its five fingers spread wide, revealed a gaping maw filled with fangs in its palm. With the force of a mountain crashing down, it slammed down on the heavily armored fortress that was frantically reversing.
Before the giant hand even landed, the terrifying wind pressure had already shattered all the glass curtain walls surrounding the atrium.
The twin-mounted machine gun turrets on top of the tank emitted a piercing metallic twisting sound under the pressure.
"Chen Qi! Blind its palm!" Jiang Ming gripped the armrest of the command platform tightly.
"Go to hell!"
Chen Qi gritted his teeth, his eyelids shattered from the shock, and blood flowed down his cheeks.
He slammed the control lever shut, and the barrel of the [Psionic Armor-Piercing Chain Gun] on the right instantly turned bright red.
The eerie blue beams of light formed a blinding line of fire, pouring down on the palm of that giant hand as if they were free.
Crackling sounds!
Armor-piercing bullets with added spiritual damage pierced into the giant maw filled with fangs, exploding into clusters of eerie blue fireballs.
The giant hand felt the pain, and its descent slowed down by a fraction of a second.
Just a fraction of a second is enough.
Jiang Ming opened the system synthesis panel with one hand and dragged out the last few boxes of [Military C4 High Explosive] from his storage ring without hesitation.
Immediately afterwards, he stuffed the [Complete Bone Wings of the Fallen Feather Guard (Purple Epic)] he had just obtained, along with the three [High-Level Spirit Essences] he had previously accumulated, into the crafting slot.
They completely ignored the failure rate displayed by the system.
[Ding! Ultimate synthesis triggered!]
[Obtained: Extreme Psionic Storm Bomb (Purple Rare Consumable)]
[Effect: Upon detonation, it generates a powerful psionic turbulence with a radius of 300 meters, causing a devastating severance of all mental connections and triggering blinding light.]
"Marlowe! Close your eyes!"
Jiang Ming pulled open a crack in the roof hatch, aimed at the trajectory of the giant hand, and hurled the explosive bomb, which emitted a dangerous purple light, through the crack.
Then, with a bang, the hatch locked shut.
The bomb had barely traveled ten meters from the hand when it struck the wind pressure belt pressed down by the giant hand.
boom--!!!
There were no flames, only a pure, deathly white light that exploded in the courtyard.
This light is a hundred times more dazzling than looking directly at the sun.
Inside the carriage, even though Jiang Ming had closed his eyes beforehand, a pale afterimage still remained on his retina.
Immediately afterwards, an extremely shrill scream, as if it could churn a person's brains, pierced through the thick armor and echoed outside the carriage.
The giant hand, its nerve connections severed by the psionic storm, lost its aim and slammed down heavily, grazing the left side armor of the tank.
boom!
The entire second floor of the China World Trade Center was shaking violently.
A large layer of composite armor on the left side of the tank was scraped off, sparks flew everywhere, the vehicle tilted violently, and the two tracks on the left side were lifted into the air.
"Push it back down!"
Marlowe turned the steering wheel with all his might, the tendrils inside the flesh-and-blood engine writhing wildly, forcibly adjusting the car's weight distribution.
With a muffled thud, the tank crashed heavily to the ground, its tracks crushing the corpses of the faceless monsters scattered on the ground, before ramming into the cargo passage at the edge of the second floor.
The screams from behind grew increasingly violent, and countless thick, fleshy blood vessels, like tentacles, followed along the passage, corroding the walls and ground into pools of foul-smelling blood wherever they went.
"There's no road ahead! It's the edge of the Black Fog!" Marlow shouted, looking at the radar on the screen that had completely crashed.
At the end of the passage, a thick, impenetrable black mist blocked the way like an invisible wall.
"Run it over!"
Jiang Ming stood up, staring intently ahead. "This truck's bulldozer blade has localized hardening properties. With the engine fully loaded, break through it!"
"Let's give it our all!"
Marlowe ripped off the overloaded, smoking fuse on the neural connection wire, letting the current strike his brain directly.
Two nearly transparent, high-temperature exhaust plumes shot out from the rear of the tank.
The damaged steel behemoth let out the wildest roar of its life and plunged headlong into the thick black mist.
The moment I entered the black mist, that eerie feeling of weightlessness that stripped away all my senses returned.
A sickening scraping sound came from outside the carriage, like thousands of steel files scraping the armor of the tank.
Jiang Ming sensed that the speed of the tank was decreasing rapidly.
The spatial laws within the black mist were frantically repelling this attempt to forcefully penetrate.
"Not enough kinetic energy!" Marlowe's face was covered in blood, and his hands were gripping the control panel tightly.
Book lovers are all in the discussion area, chatting about the charm of science fiction novels.
Jiang Ming glanced at the left panel.
The flesh engine's consumption tank is almost empty; without flesh fuel, the frenzied overload simply cannot sustain it.
Without saying a word, he directly took out the cyan crystal core dropped by the [Bone Troll Lord] he had killed earlier from his storage ring.
This thing was originally intended for enchanting weapons.
"Give it to me!"
Jiang Ming smashed open the access cover of the engine power supply channel with a punch and stuffed the cyan crystal core directly into the boiling flesh and blood furnace.
The moment the high-level crystal core was inserted into the furnace, the entire engine burst into a dazzling red light.
The tank, which was about to come to a standstill, suddenly jolted, and the dark gold patterns on the bulldozer blades instantly shone brightly.
stab-
It was like using a red-hot, sharp knife to slice through a thick layer of cowhide.
A huge gap was forcibly torn open in the black mist.
The afternoon sun was a bit too bright.
A deafening sound of shattering glass followed.
A colossal steel beast, billowing black smoke and with its left-side armor almost completely flattened, burst out of the ruins in the lobby of the China World Trade Center.
The tracks rolled over the flowerbeds outside the building, leaving two charred brake marks tens of meters long on the road.
There was a deathly silence all around.
A full five seconds passed.
Two hundred meters outside the building, on the military's blockade line, Company Commander Zhao Hu abruptly threw away the cigarette butt that was almost burning his fingers and roared at the top of his lungs, "Defensive formation! It's Brother Jiang's tank! Medics, prepare the stretchers!"
The hatch on top of the tank was kicked open.
Jiang Ming crawled out, his face covered in engine oil and dust.
He gasped for breath, greedily inhaling the air of Blue Star, which, though filled with the smell of gunpowder, at least lacked the stench of blood and flesh.
"Ming-ge..." Chen Qi also crawled out of the turret, one arm hanging limply, obviously dislocated during the impact, but he grinned like a fool, "We... survived."
"Nonsense." Jiang Ming let out a long breath.
Several military jeeps broke through the blockade like madmen and stopped next to the armored vehicle.
Chu Tianfeng pushed open the car door, not even putting on his military cap, and strode over.
His pupils contracted sharply as he stared at the mangled, heavily armored fortress.
What kind of monster is hiding in the China World Trade Center that could beat this ferocious beast into such a state?
"Jiang Ming, you guys..."
As soon as Chu Tianfeng opened his mouth, half of a silver metal cylinder, stained with blood, flew through the air in an arc and landed steadily in his arms.
"What you want."
Jiang Ming exhaled a gray smoke ring and pointed in the direction of the building with the finger holding the cigarette.
"Everyone inside is dead, not a single one is left. This thing was pulled from your special forces captain's body."
Chu Tianfeng shuddered and gripped the metal cylinder tightly, his knuckles turning white from the excessive force.
Jiang Ming jumped off the chariot, casually stuck his greatsword into the asphalt road beside him, and stared sharply at Chu Tianfeng.
"I risked my life to bring out the intelligence you requested. Commander Chu, now it's time to talk about my final payment."
Chu Tianfeng gripped the blood-stained metal cylinder and took a deep breath.
Chu Tianfeng gripped the blood-stained metal cylinder and took a deep breath.
Without saying a word, he turned around and waved to an armored command vehicle behind him.
"Communications department! Bring the decoder over immediately! I need to see its contents within five minutes!"
Several technicians carrying heavy military decryption equipment scrambled over and immediately started operating it on the hood of the engine.
Company Commander Zhao Hu and several medics tried to come over and bandage Jiang Ming, but Jiang Ming waved them off.
He drank a bottle of intermediate-level recovery potion, and the minor injury was healing at a visible speed.
Marlowe lay on the tank tracks, rubbing the damaged armor plates and sighing with heartache.
"The password is locked. Forcing it will trigger a self-destruct program..." The technician was sweating profusely.
Chu Tianfeng was so anxious that he kept pounding on the car door.
Jiang Ming leaned against the tank and suddenly spoke: "The password is the establishment date of Dongjiang City's No. 3 defense line, plus the last few digits of your captain's license plate. He muttered that before he died."
The technicians frantically entered commands.
"drop--"
As the green light turned on, a somewhat distorted holographic image unfolded above the command vehicle.
That was a first-person perspective recording of the special forces team after they entered the building.
In the scene, everything is upside down and disordered: faceless monsters, walls of flesh, assimilated soldiers...
Finally, the camera suddenly rises, focusing on the enormous fleshy cocoon in mid-air, and the two red moons that gradually light up in the unfathomable darkness behind it.
What followed was a string of glaring system detection data.
[Energy Level: Beyond Tier 4 (Possibly a Cataclysmic Reproductive Entity)]
[Status: Incubating. Estimated full awakening time: within 72 hours.]
After the holographic image finished playing, the scene was deathly silent.
Company Commander Zhao Hu swallowed hard, his legs feeling weak.
Chu Tianfeng's face was beyond ugly; it was blacker than the bottom of a pot.
"A catastrophic breeding mother..." Chu Tianfeng gritted his teeth, each word seemingly squeezed out from between his teeth, "Once it completes its incubation, the entire Dongjiang City, along with the surrounding millions of survivors, will all become nutrients for it to lay its eggs."
He turned sharply to look at Jiang Ming, his eyes filled with shock.
To survive against a monster of this level, and even manage to break through the boundary of the black mist to escape.
The young man's strength had completely overturned his understanding.
"You've confirmed the intelligence." Jiang Ming flicked away his cigarette butt, getting straight to the point. "I've exceeded expectations on this task. You promised I could pick and choose any of the strategic reserve materials from the Dongjiang Military Region. That's still a promise, isn't it?"
"It counts! Of course it counts!"
Chu Tianfeng stood at attention without hesitation and gave Jiang Ming a perfectly standard military salute.
"Brother Jiang, you not only brought back intelligence, but you also bought us these precious seventy-two hours. You saved the entire Dongjiang City!"
Chu Tianfeng turned to Lei Zhan and roared, "Immediately notify the artillery positions and the air force to aim all high-yield bunker-buster bombs at the China World Trade Center! As soon as that layer of black mist shows any sign of spreading, wipe this place completely off the map!"
After giving his instructions, Chu Tianfeng personally walked up to Jiang Ming and gestured for him to enter.
"Brother Jiang, come with me. An ordinary ammunition depot is not worthy of your armory. I'll take you to the true heart of the military region—the top-secret No. 03 underground fortification."
Half an hour later.
The bronze-level heavy fortress, led by several armored vehicles, drove into a hidden base deep in the mountains north of Dongjiang City.
After passing through five heavy explosion-proof doors that required both iris and fingerprint verification, a huge underground warehouse with a futuristic feel appeared before Jiang Ming's eyes.
Unlike the previous conventional ammunition depot filled with wooden crates.
There was no pungent smell of gunpowder, and the air purification system operated extremely quietly.
The vast space is filled with temperature-controlled bulletproof glass display cases and special containers.