"This is... Quite the harvest!"
John exhaled, wiping a smudge of grease and dust from his forehead. It had taken two gruelling days to hack through the sheer volu of machine chest pieces brought back from the graveyard.
His progress had been throttled by his own ntal Points; despite his growing power, the huge ntal Points required to extract and activate different items from the machines’ storage programs were a draining ordeal.
He had worked through the night, fueled by the adrenaline of their recent gains and the looming threat of the hivemind.
While he focused on getting the items out, he had delegated the fortification and structural planning of their territory to his companions. John was humble enough to admit his own shortcomings—despite the System’s help and his combat prowess, he knew next to nothing about military stuff or the requirents of a sustainable base.
Fortunately, his friends were more than capable of filling those gaps. The four of them possessed significant military experience or backgrounds.
Elena, having survived more deadly frontline clashes than anyone else present, naturally stepped into the role of lead advisor. She acted as the seasoned veteran, providing the ground-truth reality of what a base needed to survive a siege.
She worked closely with Cissel, who had taken charge of the drafting and engineering side of the project, as she claid to be the best to do it. Even if Elena had field experience, she didn’t know how to draw designs!
Together, they laid out blueprints on big piece of paper that Elena kept in her storage device, while Lanmar stood by, offering frequent and insightful pointers, filling the gaps they missed regarding how siege battles unfolded in the pocket trials.
John hadn’t specifically asked Lanmar to assist, but sothing had shifted in the Bulltor after their serious talk a couple of days prior. A deep respect had taken root; Lanmar seed driven by a newfound desire to crush the chanical enemies of his people. As for the uncertain future or the potential friction between their groups, he seed content to push those worries aside for the sake of survival.
In the area near the river, the labour was divided with clockwork efficiency. Ricky and Luke managed the sorting, ticulously categorising every item John extracted.
They organised the loot by type—power sources, weapon components, and defensive traps—while a few of the Bulltors provided the muscle. The massive Bulltors hauled the items that John had finished with, discarding those deed useless by Ricky and Luke to the far side of the riverbank.
Before John had fully focused on his work, however, he had set firm non-negotiable terms for the base design. He was paranoid about the hivemind’s versatility, specifically their use of waterways. And he had a quest to fulfil; so special requirents were needed to succeed in it.
"Treat the river as a potential breach point," John had warned them during the initial briefing. "The chanicals will use it to sneak into our territory or, worse, poison the water supply. We are not including the river branch within the defensive walls."
Elena had originally wanted to enclose a section of the river for easy water access, but John had overruled her suggestion. Instead, he insisted on digging a dedicated lake inside the base periter.
It would be fed by the river via a controlled inlet that could be instantly severed and sealed off during an attack, ensuring they had a clean, internal water source that couldn’t be used as a weapon by aquatic chanical beasts.
He also demanded that the entire base be designed with anti-air contingencies, knowing the hivemind’s affinity for swarming insects.
He had deferred to Lanmar to explain the specific tactics of the chanical enemies, while Cissel integrated those threats into her defensive layers.
"We truly have enough to fortify a massive area," John remarked, standing up and stretching his stiff back. He surveyed the mountain of loot they had amassed.
The machines were far more generous with the items they brought here than the Bulltors. Or perhaps it was thanks to the huge diversity of claid storage devices and programs between the two.
While the Bulltors carried personal equipnt and weapons, the machines were walking treasure chests of technology. A large portion of the haul—roughly one-fifth—consisted of energy cells and generators designed to power their weapons and units. These were invaluable for keeping their own future tech running.
The rest was geared almost entirely toward warfare—weapons made up a full third of the total loot. The remaining assets were a mix of defensive walls, sophisticated traps, massive buildings with special recharging sockets to serve the units, and the crown jewels of their collection: the deadly defensive towers.
"The towers are our greatest asset," Cissel explained. She knelt on the grass, spreading out a series of technical diagrams and papers she, Elena, and Lanmar had worked upon in the past two days. "I’ve mapped out a periter layout that places them at key intervals. If we distribute them evenly along the outer walls of our territory..."
"No, that’s wrong," John interrupted, his voice sharp enough to draw everyone’s attention.
Cissel paused, looking up with a puzzled frown. "What do you an? This provides the most overlapping fields of fire, enough to defend the whole outer zone of the base."
John leaned down, clearing a space on the ground. He pulled out the regional map he had previously obtained from Lanmar—a map where their current location wasn’t represented, nothing more than a blot of black ink. He pointed to the darkened area where they stood.
"If we put them on the periter, we’re just showing our hand too early, plus... We’ll be limiting our options and chances down to one..." John said, his eyes narrowing as he visualised the coming conflict. "We shouldn’t just be building a wall. We need to turn our entire territory into a death trap."
He tapped the centre of their designated zone. "We need to lure them in. If we cluster the towers or place them only on the edge, the hivemind will simply probe for a weak point or overwhelm a single section with sheer numbers.
But if we distribute the towers strategically throughout the interior of the territory, we create a sure kill zone they can’t escape from once they cross our base borders."
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