Translator: AnubisTL
"Six hours," Chen Jiang murmured, pondering briefly before jumping into the driver's seat of the off-road vehicle. "That should be enough time. Let's go see if we can find the remaining armor-piercing bullet fragments."
"We probably won't be able to collect them all in one go. Let's search for half an hour. If we don't find anything by then, we'll leave this area and head back."
"Yes, sir!"
Half an hour later.
Chen Jiang and Scar Dog leaped out of the off-road vehicle, their faces expressionless as they stared at the item before them in silence.
After a moment, Scar Dog pointed at the fragment with a complex expression, unsure whether to say, "The fifth one, Brother Jiang. We've got them all."
In the past half-hour, they had found the remaining four fragments of the armor-piercing bullet.
The entire process had been unnervingly smooth.
None of the fragments had been dropped by mutated beasts; they had all been simply lying on the ground, waiting to be picked up.
It was so easy that they began to suspect the armor-piercing bullet fragments might be some kind of trap.
In fact, they hadn't encountered a single mutated beast the entire time. Even during the day, it was unheard of for no mutated beasts to appear at all. This was highly suspicious.
Of course, neither of them dwelled on it too deeply.
After all, in the wilderness, illogical occurrences were commonplace.
Chen Jiang picked up the last fragment from the ground.
[Ding! The player now possesses five armor-piercing bullet fragments, granting them a Permanent Armor-Piercing Bullet Energy Cartridge.]
[Item Name: Armor-Piercing Bullet Energy Cartridge]
[Item Tier: One-Star Item]
[Item Effect: This energy cartridge imbues bullets fired from your weapons with a potent armor-piercing effect.]
[Item Description: This item will prove highly effective against races with formidable defenses.]
"Hmm."
Chen Jiang hummed softly as he pressed the nail-sized chip onto the energy cartridge of the Steel Sword Autonomous Rotating Turret. As the chip adhered, the semi-transparent liquid within the cartridge began to flow slowly, gradually shifting in color to a deep blue glow, resembling specially formulated dark blue nail polish.
"All set."
Chen Jiang glanced at the countdown timer for the Pursuit Order. "Time's running out. Let's head back."
According to the real-time display, they were five and a half hours away from City 18.
In five and a half hours, his location would be revealed to a mechanical race player in City 18.
At that point, his situation would become extremely perilous.
To avoid this, he had to put City 18 in an even more dangerous situation before his own situation became critical.
"What an unreasonable item!" Scar Dog cursed as he jumped into the passenger seat. "What kind of Pursuit Order is this? It's completely unfair! If everyone played like this, who would dare climb the rankings?"
"You'd just get hunted down the moment you hit the top."
"There must be limitations we don't know about," Chen Jiang said casually before slamming his foot on the accelerator. The car spun a full 180 degrees, aiming back the way they'd come. He narrowed his eyes and said, "But it's not a problem. We can handle it."
"Hold on tight!"
Vroom!
With a deafening roar from the engine, the battered SUV, looking like it was about to fall apart at any moment, surged forward like an old warhorse charging into battle, roaring and snarling as it tore across the wasteland!
Meanwhile, in City 18...
Fei Yiming sat calmly in a corner of the conference room, surrounded by several other figures. He remained silent, and no one seemed to notice or care.
He was the mechanical race player who had initiated the Heaven's Eye Pursuit Order against the human player Chen Jiang.
The Heaven's Eye Pursuit Order lived up to its reputation as a two-tier item. Its powerful effect allowed real-time tracking of the targeted player's location—a formidable advantage.
However, it came with a significant drawback: failure to eliminate the target within 24 hours would result in the user's death through a backlash.
But circumventing this flaw was simple.
All that was needed was to find an expendable individual to activate the Pursuit Order. This way, they could obtain real-time enemy tracking without risking the backlash in case of failure.
Yes, Fei Yiming had been assigned this role.
At that moment, an elderly man with a face scarred beyond recognition slammed his fist heavily on the conference table. His eyes glowed with a crimson light as he rasped, "Enough!"
"You're all getting more pathetic with age. To deal with a single human player, you're requesting authorization to deploy the x19 Dongfeng Missile?"
"Are your hearts made of mouse guts?"
The old man's appearance was so terrifying it could make children stop crying.
His eyes were clearly not human, but mechanical constructs. Every exposed organ on his body, except for his face, was unmistakably mechanical.
He looked like a robot with a human head.
After a pause, the old man continued, his voice raspy as he scanned the faces of everyone present. "In this Ten Thousand Races Arena, the mechanical race is the only race to have survived from the previous Arena."
"Our advantage is the greatest."
"But you must also remember what we sacrificed for this."
"Our home world has become a battlefield."
"We possess an established civilization, and we wield firepower weapons like the x19 Dongfeng Missile and even more devastating armaments!"
"This is the glory of the mechanical race!"
"But you must understand that all our high-powered weapons are restricted in this Arena. To unlock the x19 Dongfeng Missile's launch authorization, we must expend a staggering fifty thousand merit points!"
"To earn fifty thousand merit points, you must kill fifty thousand aliens."
"Yet you propose to expend such a massive cost to eliminate a single human player? This is utterly absurd!"
"I will never approve this proposal!"
"The mechanical race boasts fearless warriors, superior weaponry, and overwhelming numerical superiority!"
"Eliminating a human player with a strange cannon hardly warrants requesting authorization to launch an x19 Dongfeng Missile!"
"Is that clear?"
The figures seated nearby exchanged glances before lowering their heads and solemnly replying, "Understood!"
Fei Yiming, who had been sitting silently throughout the meeting, remained silent.
What concern is this to me? he thought. I merely activated the Heaven's Eye Pursuit Order.
Meanwhile, Chen Jiang spent another half-hour driving back to the wasteland.
With time to spare before the official start of the war, he still had over two thousand semi-scrapped items. It would be a waste not to continue upgrading his cannon.
Whether it was the mechanical race's overreliance on the Heaven's Eye Pursuit Order or some other reason, they hadn't even sent anyone to investigate the wasteland.
Considering that the first wave of enforcers had been annihilated right at the wasteland's entrance, it was baffling that the mechanical race hadn't bothered to send anyone to check the area.
(End of the Chapter)
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