Chapter Ninety-Eight: Driving Back

The mechanical unit had been repaired successfully, and a plan had already been made for restoring the remaining combat automata. The heavy artillery golems in the cannon depot would serve as their new bodies. Those hulking machines were usually kept to the rear in battle, and if they were repaired with ordinary materials, their structural strength would remain more than sufficient.

In truth, Sun Licheng had another idea as well: the sight of these mechanical puppets wildly brandishing huge blades all day long was utterly at odds with his own notion of warfare.

In his subconscious, true modern combat was a storm of shells and aircraft. So he had long been considering how to mechanize his troops. Besides, his chief aim in this world was to find the fragments of the divine godhead. He did not need immense military strength to conquer other lands; so long as his small force remained elite, that was enough.

Driven by this thinking, the number of combat automata in the underground fortress had been slowly increasing, and many discarded puppets had been dragged back into the repair shop. There, they would be transformed into long-range firepower.

“What? Why can’t we wipe out the beasts in the tunnels completely?”

Sun Licheng asked Craftmaster in bewilderment.

He had his own ideas about the tunnels connected to the underground fortress. The monsters within them, however, were the greatest obstacle to his plans, which was why he had proposed a tunnel warfare strategy. To his surprise, the moment he brought it up, everyone opposed it.

“Boss, it’s like this: the beasts and monsters in the tunnels were deliberately placed there by the gods. Not only are they themselves formidable, but if we really slaughtered every last monster in this place, it would surely draw the attention of the divine realm and bring even fiercer enemies down upon us. So if we’re going to develop here, we have to be careful about everything.”

Ignoring Sun Licheng’s angry glare, Craftmaster replied.

At that answer, Sun Licheng instantly lost his nerve and dropped back into his command chair with a plop.

He had thought that having won such a fortress, he would finally be able to straighten his back and be a real man for once. Yet before even emerging from the tunnels, he was already deflated. It was unbearably frustrating.

But then Sun Licheng thought again and realized he had been wrong. What the gods cared about was preventing the goblin empire from rising from the ashes. His own goal was to keep heading south in search of the Earth God’s fragment of divinity. There was no conflict at all between the two. His gloom had come entirely from delusions of kingship and dominion.

Once he understood his own mistake, Sun Licheng calmed down and began discussing the next steps with everyone.

A day later, in the tunnels, a rock on the cavern wall suddenly rotated quietly through a full circle. On that stone was a tiny electronic eye. Seeing no fierce beasts in the tunnel, Craftmaster, who controlled the rock, pressed a switch.

After a series of clicking sounds, a stone wall slowly opened, revealing a hidden exit of the underground fortress.

The six Death Dances leaped out the instant the door opened, each taking up a position at one of six key points. Then several mechanical puppets pushed a six-wheeled truck slowly out through the doorway.

Sun Licheng had originally intended to fly back in the ornithopter, but after Craftmaster’s calculations, that route proved far too dangerous. On one hand, the underground fortress air tunnel had collapsed, and clearing it would take a great deal of time. On the other hand, the skies over the Forsaken Land were always a focus of the gods’ attention. A goblin empire ornithopter suddenly appearing there would be tantamount to Sun Licheng going to the divine realm and shouting, “Brothers, I’m here!” It would be a suicide mission, plain and simple.

Thus, Sun Licheng had no choice but to go home by another means: driving.

After some study, he chose a six-wheeled all-terrain truck. The vehicle was nine meters long, two and three-tenths meters wide, and its cargo bed was seven meters long. To haul back even more goods, Sun Licheng also attached a trailer six meters in length behind it.

Once the vehicle was chosen, he loaded the truck bed with many uniforms, boots, and other individual combat gear. He also placed two small machine tools aboard, and the remaining space was reserved for carrying the armored mechs stationed at the valley fortress.

Fearing they might disturb the other monsters, the vehicle was not started in the tunnels. Instead, it was pushed back to the surface by the mechanical puppets.

The journey went smoothly. Not long after, the group returned to the valley fortress. Sun Licheng drove the mech onto the trailer, had Dogmeat crawl into the cockpit, and then waved farewell to Craftmaster and the others, taking his leave.

According to the follow-up plan, Qinglong and the other combat puppets would gradually emerge from the underground fortress, take over important strongholds such as the forward camp and the valley fortress, and send a Death Dance squad to the flower-growing tribe’s camp, ultimately turning these places into solid support points.

As for building defensive installations and repairing mechs, Qinglong and the others were fully capable of handling those tasks on their own.

As Sun Licheng was waving goodbye to everyone, no one noticed that above the clouds, a snow eagle had swept across the sky.

“So Sun Licheng has made contact with the goblin empire?” In a cave deep within the Forsaken Land, the Lord of Stars asked the Earth God, who nodded.

“What should we do? Go tell Sun Licheng to keep his distance from those goblin fellows?”

His Majesty the Earth God asked.

The Lord of Stars thought for a moment and shook his head. “The situation is too strange now. We absolutely must not expose ourselves. We do have bodies now, but this mechanical one is far too fragile. We can only hide carefully. If we went out now, and this turned out to be the scheme of some god, then not only would we be unable to help Sun Licheng, we might even bring him enormous trouble.”

“Understood. I’ll have the snow eagle continue watching them.”

The Earth God nodded.

Behind them, dozens of red lights suddenly appeared—that was the electronic gaze of dozens of combat puppets. Yet the two sovereigns paid the sudden appearance of the combat puppets no mind at all. The Lord of Stars merely waved his hand, and the red glow in the puppets’ eyes dimmed once more, then vanished completely.

At that very moment, Sun Licheng was driving his six-wheeled truck joyfully across the plateau at full speed.

He had not expected that a truck, which seemed so clumsy and heavy, could feel so comfortable in motion. The tires were made of some unknown resin, springy and resilient; more importantly, the chassis of this truck could constantly adjust the vertical position of its wheels in response to the rise and fall of the ground, keeping the body level at all times. Sitting inside, one could scarcely feel any bumping at all.

“What a pity there’s no music player or radio. Can’t listen to songs—kind of boring,” Sun Licheng hummed a little tune as he said this to Dogmeat.

Dogmeat did not understand what Sun Licheng meant by songs, and stared at him with a pair of wide eyes, looking very cute and puzzled.

The vehicle was fast. In less than a day, Sun Licheng had returned to the forward camp. There, he drove the truck inside and concealed it, loaded the machine tools and supplies onto a wagon, and then drove the mech while pulling the wagon, taking Craftmaster and Dogmeat back to the flower-growing tribe.

Two days later, they finally returned to the valley where the tribe was located. The sentries posted above the valley spotted them and hurried back to report. Before long, Little Cabbage and the others came out to greet them.

Though only a few days had passed, Sun Licheng, having survived a battle of life and death, felt a great warmth in his heart when he saw these companions again. He greeted everyone enthusiastically, and even lifted a little wolf-rabbit from the arms of the young medusa, Vena, tossing it high into the sky and drawing a string of complaints from the girl.

Back at the tribe’s encampment, Sun Licheng handed the supplies over to Little Cabbage and the others for distribution, and the whole camp instantly erupted with excitement.

These slaves had lived bitter, miserable lives before. They had never seen such fine clothing as combat uniforms, and upon hearing that these were being issued to them, they hastily bowed in gratitude to Sun Licheng.

“Little Cabbage, come in. I have some things to ask you.”

After letting the excited tribesmen take the equipment away to change into it, Sun Licheng called Little Cabbage into his large house.

Once Little Cabbage was inside, Craftmaster flew out to close the door. Sun Licheng’s expression immediately turned severe as he asked, “Do you know a man named Malt Hopes?”

Having spoken, Sun Licheng fixed Little Cabbage’s eyes with a hard stare, and a chill of killing intent instantly spread through the entire room.