Outside Flame Pass—
"The heavenly fire shall engulf you, the plague ants will crawl all over your bodies, demons will rise from the ground to gnaw at your bones, and the great god will surely bestow upon you an unbreakable curse for all eternity..."
Matsushima Keiko was munching on an apple, her eyes wide as she stared at the other party.
This guy came to issue a challenge, but somehow turned into a shaman dance mid-sentence.
Finishing the apple, she licked the juice off her fingers, clapped her hands in satisfaction, a glint of ferocity flashed in her eyes, and a flash of a knife appeared.
The next moment, the priest's head slid off.
"Not bad, this new Tactile Nerve Flow Enhancer works pretty well."
Suddenly, a strand of spider silk shot out from outside the tent, bounced back, and the head fell into Daisila's hands. Daisila looked at it and handed it to Helli.
Helli skillfully pried open the back of the head and indeed saw an inferior brain-machine interface.
"Mind upload for brainwashing? What kind of a messed-up move is that?"
"You really should control your temper, killing an envoy like this. Luckily, Old Huang is in charge; anyone else would've beat you up by now."
"DAISILA!!!"
Matsushima Keiko's eyes lit up, her short legs moved swiftly, and with a leap, she jumped into Daisila's embrace, joyfully exclaiming, "When did you come over?"
"I arrived yesterday, been outside, and just got to this temporary command post today."
Matsushima Keiko rubbed her face vigorously against Daisila's chest, then looked up at the other three: "Helli, Pilot, Clamp, you guys came too? Hey, how come you two look different?"
Clamp is a hunter of the hunting flow, usually bulging with equipment, not to mention the Pilot, who always carries a mechanical box on his back.
But now, both of them wore a white exoskeleton, somewhat resembling the standard exoskeleton of the Mechanical Legion, but clearly slimmer, as if a lighter model. It was the back, typically weaker, that bulged oddly, containing who knows what.
With her intuition as a blade-wielder, Keiko could feel that the two had both grown stronger.
"Hahaha, long time no see, Keiko, you're still so short," the Pilot chuckled, patting the head of this Japanese girl, only to be bitten hard by her.
"Hey, hey, it's just a joke, let go, let go!"
Finally, after promising a basketful of benefits, the middle-aged bearded Pilot got Keiko to release her bite.
"You guys got new gear and can even fly! I want some too!"
"We caught lots of marine species near the coast, had enough points to exchange for these, what do you have to trade?" the Pilot sneered.
To make these hunters understand that there's no such thing as a free ride, Gao Gong implemented a mission points system. Each mission completed earns fixed points, which can be exchanged for good items within the alliance, such as Keiko's newly acquired Tactile Nerve Flow Enhancer, which cost 300 hunter points.
Keiko glanced at the points needed for the "Flying Bird Module," 4000.
"Daisila," Keiko looked pitifully at her.
"Always sloppy in your work and messing up every task," Daisila scolded her without sympathy, "you forget that hunter points cannot be traded."
"What's so great about that," Keiko retorted sourly, "I'll just chop a few more heads later and I'll definitely have enough points."
"Just worried you won't earn enough points to cover your deductions," Clamp quipped.
In truth, the rules of the 'Mechanical Hunters' are quite few: don't betray teammates, don't kill randomly, don't attack the boss. Just a handful, yet this girl somehow keeps stepping on landmines.
Keiko was also angry, "He called me a little runt, why can't I chop him down! Just because he's the boss?"
Daisila, the Pilot, and Clamp all rolled their eyes together.
"Alright, let's go, I'll get you some good blades later," Daisila comforted her as if she were consoling a child.
As the group walked out the door, they saw a massive virtual projection. On one side of the projection were countless sinister motorbikes, flame-spewing electric guitars, speakers piled as high as small mountains, and jets of fire spewing continuously.
A motorcycle legion composed of three thousand bikes, with tens of thousands of white-skinned monsters atop them.
"What on earth, are they planning a concert?" Even Keiko, with her nerves of steel, was speechless.
"Do they really think we're going to charge at them?" Clamp quipped again, "Is this ancient warfare? Who's still playing the volley fire tactic."
"I don't even think we need to step in, just bring in a bunch of rocket launchers, and it's problem solved."
"This is the area with the most severe radiation; the targeting radars are useless," Daisila explained, "Relying on rocket launchers alone won't kill all the enemies."
"Huang Wen, Huang Wen, rotate a camera view for me. I want to see what their leader looks like, if he's as ugly as ours."
From a hundred miles away, drones gradually ascended, the view shifted to Flame Pass, also known as the ancient dam, where a tall figure stood alone on a mechanical platform, overlooking the entire scene.
"Wow, this guy looks weird."
'God' was tall, about two meters, with long white hair flowing down to his feet, beady yellow eyes, sucking on a metallic pacifier.
The guy had his upper body naked, with a deep yellow coat hanging from his lower body, which upon closer inspection seemed to be made of human skin.
'God's' yellow eyes darted around, seemingly spotting the group from hundreds of miles away, and that invasive gaze made them all instinctively assume combat stances.
The next moment, the virtual screen burst into a shower of white light points.
They all looked at each other, unsure of what to say.
On the front line, Huang Wen watched the drones explode from the opponent's glare, muttering to himself.
"Not so easy to deal with."
With the help of 'Battlefield Intuition', he could feel the aura emanating from the opponent, exceeding even that of a B-level Radiation Beast.
It might not reach A-level, but it's definitely a formidable enemy.
This battle seems not only to verify the new Hunter and new Mecha but also to test how far a Hunter who breaks through the limit can reach in strength.
Thinking of this, Huang Wen's eyes gleamed with radiance.
Come on, give it a try!
In the perspective of the hidden drone, 'God' continuously roared something with his arms, smoke spewing from his mouth, covering the entire Flame Pass, engulfing the Motorcycle Faction below like a waterfall.
Stimulated by the smoke, the Flame Boys screamed wildly, as if on drugs, even taking up weapons to carve bloody wounds on their bodies, smearing the blood on their faces and bodies.
Similar mist emerged from their bodies.
'An addictive psychoactive drug?'
'This feeling, a Beast Tide?'
One by one, the drone's vision went dark.
His micro drones were a specially customized version; general radiation environments couldn't affect them, only environments similar to a Beast Tide could interfere with such electronic products.
In the distant drone perspective, white mist gradually covered the entire Flame Pass. The next moment, the roaring engine sounds erupted, and motorcycles filled with steel spikes roared out, thick black smoke spewing from their exhausts.
This burns crude processed petroleum; could it be that there are still oil wells in Flame Pass?
As we know, with the second Mechanical War causing the continent to fracture, most oil fields on land sank to the ocean floor, only large corporations have the technology and capability to extract oil from the seabed.
On the sea surface, towering black mist from crude oil processing stations appeared like lighthouses, shining.
Another thing Huang Wen couldn't understand.
Where did they get so many people?
In theory, over these three days, Mechanical Hunters have been attacking everywhere, and they have killed as many as two thousand Flame Boys, yet their numbers don't seem to decrease.
Synthetic people? Clones?
Even so, they shouldn't grow this fast.
In the white mist, the motorbike tide charged forward recklessly and quickly started fighting with the first line of defense.
Still, it was the unmanned tactics Huang Wen excelled at, with various machine guns appearing on every highland.
Drones dropped small bombs from above.
There were even dozens of self-driving grenade launcher vehicles.
Gunshots, explosions, and cannon shots instantly burst through the fog.
The vehicles exploded, the Flame Boys on them were knocked to the ground by machine gun fire, then crushed into minced meat.
Over a hundred vehicles were almost immediately destroyed.
This felt like using Maxim guns to mow down cavalry, the damage was absurdly large.
Some Mechanical Hunters on the battlefield's edge muttered, worried that the battle might be over before they even stepped in.
But soon, the Flame Motorcycle Faction proved that as a top-tier warlord force, they were no pushovers.
Long spears shot out from the fog, spanning several kilometers, piercing through the unmanned positions, directly pinning the machine guns.
Some rushed back and forth, ramming their motorcycles and grenade launcher vehicles against each other despite the artillery fire.
Some Butchers shot at the shells with machine guns, managing to explode quite a few of them mid-air.
Unexpectedly, the firepower of the Flame Motorcycle Faction was not weak. Although they lacked high-precision equipment like fighter jets, exoskeletons, and energy weapons, they basically equipped everyone with machine guns, rocket launchers, and rifles.
More importantly, this group was fearless, willing to crawl forward even if their limbs were blown off.
Huang Wen remained expressionless.
If manpower was all that mattered, then why would high-tech weapons be necessary?
The number of Flame Boys was decreasing at a stable rate: 10,000, 9,000, 8,000, 7,000…
After consuming nearly half of their numbers, they finally broke into the Mechanical Hunter's positions.
The piercing electronic sound arose, the high-frequency drumbeats almost uninterrupted.
The next moment, hundreds of flames shot high into the sky.
The two-headed priest screamed frantically, the mist began to swell, and all electronic components were rendered useless by the mist.
Meanwhile, Gao Gong, on his way, received the system task.
[Mission: G Team]
Difficulty: Difficult
Mission Brief: Vengeance is your mission, machinery is your destiny, freedom conquers ignorance, battle armor overthrows the Divine Throne
Mission Objective: Defeat the army of the Motorcycle Faction
Mission Rewards: Experience +35,000, Desert Reputation +1,500
Extra Rewards: Mechanical Puzzle Fragment (1/5)*1, Motorcycle Faction Alliance Specialties
Note: Assassination is just a means, our goal is the Mecha revolution!
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