Armor-Piercing Munition: Face Me, Carbon-Based Monster! Chapter 525 - 265: Alive (Part 2)

"How did you figure it out?"

Chen Jian continued to ask.

He Shuo shrugged and replied,

"Intuition."

"After all, we don’t know what the ring is, and we also don’t know what this tal is."

"Two inexplicable things are always naturally linked, right?"

"That’s not wrong..."

Chen Jian pondered for a mont and then spoke:

"Let’s put it away first, take it back to the base, and analyze it with our equipnt."

"If it really turns out to be so undiscovered elent in human history... we might be taking a significant step towards the truth of the apocalypse."

"Understood."

He Shuo nodded and then asked,

"But speaking of which... if this thing really is significant, would the Mountain City People... not know about it?"

"That’s not necessarily the case."

Chen Jian chuckled.

"These monsters weren’t created by them; they were just making use of them."

"We might just really get lucky this ti."

"It’s just uncertain how significant this find is..."

....

anwhile, in Shen City.

Huang ng wiped the sweat off his face and poked his head out of the sowhat stuffy tank.

In front of them was Shen City, and they were already quite close to their final destination of the journey.

He looked at the map on his PDA and remarked,

"This is truly the largest ruin I’ve ever seen."

"But it’s very strange, why are the human settlents around Shen City so small?"

"Given the scale and resources of this ruin, establishing a city similar to Jinling City shouldn’t be difficult, right?"

As he finished speaking, Jin Zhong replied:

"It’s a geographical issue."

"Shen City’s location is too poor; floods from the Yangtze River inundate the plains around the Shen City ruins almost every few years. If you want to build a city, you can only develop within the Shen City ruins."

"However, the safety environnt inside Shen City is also poor."

"Not only are there the sizable Blood Skull forces, but also many secondary and tertiary level monsters."

"We’ve tried to clean the Shen City ruins before but ended up with nothing."

"With nothing?"

Huang ng keenly noted Jin Zhong’s wording.

"Not withdrawing due to high casualties, just... with nothing gained?"

"Exactly."

Jin Zhong nodded slightly, then replied,

"The internal environnt of Shen City is very complicated, and the monster ecosystem is quite complex as well."

"I don’t know how to describe it... but here... is like a maze."

"Once inside, the biggest problem is not how to defeat those monsters, but rather how to find the right path."

"The compasses we used here often fail—just like what happened to those Forbidden Army mbers before."

"So say the underground of the Mountain City ruins contains sothing that affects the magnetic field here."

"I used to firmly believe this theory, but after spending ti at Base 011, I’ve read a lot of docunts and slowly started to realize that if it were truly strong enough to affect a compass from dozens of kiloters away, there should have been significant changes in the geographical environnt by now."

"At the very least, the growth state of these plants would exhibit sothing."

"But in fact..."

As he spoke, Jin Zhong pointed at the Shen City ruins ahead and asked,

"Do you think the vegetation here is any different from what we’ve encountered in other ruins?"

"No."

Huang ng shook his head decisively.

"Just as dense, just as uniform."

"Indeed."

Jin Zhong sighed and then said,

"That’s the strangest part."

"It’s not just the vegetation, but also the wildlife here; there’s no difference from other places."

"They are unaffected—they’re living just fine."

"Perhaps it’s because they rely more on instinct and are able to filter out other unknown influences."

"It’s possible."

Huang ng thoughtfully gazed at the PDA screen. At this mont, the drone that took off in advance had already reached the skies above the Shen City ruins.

From the aerial view, there was indeed nothing abnormal about the ruins.

For a fleeting mont, he even felt that everything here was just exaggerated by the chanical God Sect.

—After all, according to them, Mountain City was also a forbidden area.

But now?

According to the latest news, the commanders have successfully cleared the monsters around Mountain City, opening a channel from the outside world to Mountain City.

And it turns out, it wasn’t so "Divine Country," but just a bizarre underground city established by people who had lost hope.

By analogy, the truth of the Shen City ruins couldn’t be that extraordinary either.

Its danger level wasn’t even as high as Mountain City’s.

With this in mind, Huang ng gave the order:

"No need to delay any longer."

"We’re 11 kiloters away from the target location, and the drone has already observed the position of the underground facility entrance."

"The route is planned, we can proceed."

"Received."

Jin Zhong imdiately nodded, then raised his hand to gesture, issuing the order to continue moving forward.

The combined infantry-tank team set off once again, taking less than half an hour to cross the blurred boundary inside and outside the ruins, officially entering the interior of the ruins.

Huang ng kept a close watch on the map on his PDA, and after a mont, he suddenly frowned and said,

"Strange!"

"The magnetic field here really is being interfered with."

"The inertial navigation system has failed—but the cellular network positioning is still functional."

"What’s going on here..."

"Is it serious?"

Jin Zhong quickly asked.

"Not too serious."

Huang ng shook his head and continued,

"The drone signal is unaffected, and from the aerial thermal imaging, there’s no sign of monster activity on our route."

"The path ahead should be smooth, estimated arrival in half an hour."

"Understood."

Jin Zhong breathed a slight sigh of relief.

What he feared most was the issue of getting "lost," but it was evident that with the advanced technological equipnt of the Huaxia Army, this problem no longer existed.

Even without cellular networks, as long as communication with the drone remained normal, this squad was almost impossible to lose.

He followed closely alongside the 30A tank, advancing all the way, with the tracks crushing the humus accumulating on the road, leaving deep ruts.

The ruts glistened with a hint of moisture, as if so liquid was oozing out.

Jin Zhong instinctively took a closer look, but soon discovered sothing unusual.

It seed... it wasn’t water.

"Wait!"

Jin Zhong raised his hand, signaling the team to stop. Huang ng poked his head out again and asked,

"What’s the situation?"

Jin Zhong didn’t imdiately answer. Instead, he crouched behind the tank tracks, bent down, and carefully examined.

This ti, he finally confird that there was no standing water on the ground.

The soil was indeed damp, but what was reflecting was not water.

It was a thin layer of tallic dust.

Jin Zhong frowned tightly.

He reached out, pinched a small piece of soil from the track, rubbed it in his hand, and then raised his hand to Huang ng.

"The ground here is a bit unusual."

"What is this powder?"

"Looks like aluminum powder?"

Huang ng looked at Jin Zhong’s fingers, observed for a mont, and said,

"Aluminum or silver powder? The sheen seems dimr than aluminum powder."

"Is it everywhere around?"

Jin Zhong slowly nodded.

"It’s all underground!"

"This stuff should be deposited beneath the soil, churned up by the tracks."

"We’ve visited Shen City before but never found this stuff, though it’s possible because we never overturned the ground."

"Could this be the reason for the magnetic chaos here?"

"I don’t know."

Huang ng shook his head.

He pulled an old-fashioned compass from his pocket and tossed it to Jin Zhong. Jin Zhong understood and brought the compass close to the ground.

After a mont, he looked back at Huang ng and said,

"No reaction."

"The compass doesn’t respond to this tal."

"But... these powders..."

"They’re gathering."

"It’s like they’re alive!"