Chapter 158: Interception Wall

To be exact, Ning Hai's abilities extended far beyond mechanical design. Ever since Xie Han forcibly brought him back to New City, Ning Hai had shown no emotional outbursts, though he still harbored some lingering resentment over the karate chop Xie Han had delivered to the back of his neck. Regarding this, Xie Han could only feel profoundly helpless. Given the circumstances at the time, if he hadn't subdued him with a blow like that, was he supposed to wait for Ning Hai to start screaming at the top of his lungs and attract a horde of soldiers? Did anyone actually think staring down the barrels of guns was fun? At the very least, Xie Han thought it was not fun at all.

The capabilities of New City were far beyond anything Mountain City could compare to. The list of G1 mechanical spiders compiled by Ning Hai was completely fulfilled in just two days. Small-scale nuclear fusion was also a relatively straightforward matter; the most crucial component was simply the nuclear fuel, of which the experimental base still retained a reserve. Since the consumption rate of these mechanical spiders wasn't excessively high, providing a hundred units or so should not pose any problem.

In truth, Ning Hai had never anticipated that New City's capabilities—or rather, its industrial might—would be so formidable. Even the armor plating he had requested was delivered in its entirety. Of course, he had no way of knowing that for many items New City lacked, Xie Han simply found ways to source them from the modern era, making the process remarkably simple.

Under such favorable conditions, the first true G1 mechanical spider was assembled in the machinery plant within a mere week. Ning Hai named this G1 mechanical spider "Mo Li" (Departed Jasmine), signifying his longing for his infected and deceased wife. Naturally, Xie Han and the others raised no objections to this.

Mo Li stood 3.5 meters tall and was 9 meters long, making it slightly larger than the models from Mountain City. Its entire body was encased in heavy black armor, equipped with four six-barreled vehicle-mounted heavy machine guns offering a 360-degree field of view, while a 75mm plasma cannon was concealed within its chest. Its ventral brood chamber was fitted with as many as four Metal Storm systems. More importantly, it possessed a rudimentary low-altitude jumping capability, allowing it to leap to heights of roughly 3 to 5 meters. The tips of its eight legs were crafted from a super-alloy, which, theoretically, could pierce through the armor of armored personnel carriers.

In its contracted form, Mo Li took the shape of an armored sphere with a diameter of 4 meters, and its maximum theoretical running speed could reach 70 kilometers per hour. Powered by nuclear propulsion, a single charge of nuclear fuel could sustain its operation for over a month. Within its nuclear propulsion unit, a self-destruct sequence was installed, capable of detonating the nuclear fusion generator when necessary to unleash a terrifying low-yield nuclear strike.

The G1 mechanical spider program was slated to produce only ten units, intended for the security and defense of New City. Ning Hai’s G2 program would only be initiated once the assembly of these ten mechanical spiders was completed. The volume of the G2 would be divided into two versions: a smaller G2-1, which would be half the size of the G1 and omit the Metal Storm system, and a larger G2-2, a truly monstrous machine whose volume would be three times that of the G1 mechanical spider. Designed around the concept of a mobile firepower fortress, it would boast terrifying firepower output.

However, designing the G2 was not a task that could be completed easily. According to Ning Hai's estimations, it would take another year and a half to two years just to complete the design phase. In other words, outfitting New City with the G series would require a minimum of two to two and a half years.

Aside from designing mechanical spiders, Ning Hai had been assigned another task: redesigning and manufacturing a satellite communication and control platform. If this design succeeded, New City could leverage the platform to crack satellite encryptions and thereby achieve remote control. The value of satellites was immense, something no one could afford to ignore. For the sake of this communication and control platform, many technological decryption projects within Doomsday Corporation had been temporarily halted to exclusively assist Ning Hai in fulfilling this mission.

While New City's light industry already possessed a foundational base, its heavy industry was practically non-existent, save for the manufacturing machinery plant, which could barely be counted. The bedrock of any city—or nation—is heavy industry. New City had to establish its own heavy industry before it could manufacture large-scale machine tools, equipment, and heavy weaponry. Relying solely on the production of light weapons when dealing with zombies was undoubtedly flirting with danger.

After resting for a week—which coincided with the completion of Mo Li's production—Xie Han once again led a trade caravan toward the southwest of Wangtian City. Last time, Xie Han had established a settlement of over thirty thousand people out that direction. Of course, that wasn't the main point; the crucial detail was that merely ten kilometers away from this settlement lay a massive state-owned steam turbine factory. To New City, the steam turbine factory was like a colossal treasure trove, and every single component within it was desperately needed.

To transport Mo Li, Yang Huayuan had been forced to spend an entire day retrofitting a transport vehicle capable of accommodating Mo Li's four-meter-wide body. With the addition of Mo Li, coupled with the Sky Patrol unit, the caravan's firepower—barring the appearance of heavy artillery—was certainly not something ordinary soldiers could withstand.

For a New City that now possessed Ning Hai, there was no longer any need to pander to Mountain City's so-called demands. In fact, right after successfully kidnapping Ning Hai, Xie Han had tossed their weapon requisition list straight into a ditch.

The caravan was still a dozen kilometers away from the settlement, yet the landscape was already crawling with dense swarms of zombies. They were pressing together, surging toward the location of the settlement. Across the vast plains, scattered zombies were shifting toward a single destination, gradually converging to form a terrifying tide of the undead.

Xie Han frowned slightly and said with a wry smile, "Our luck is truly impressive. We actually stumbled right into a zombie attack on a settlement." The appearance of the caravan inevitably attracted a few nearby zombies, which abandoned their original trajectory and closed in on the convoy. Within the span of a few minutes, a sea of black had formed around the stationary caravan, numbering at least several thousand.

In truth, the command vehicle had detected the zombies here much earlier, but zombies congregating near settlements was a common occurrence. Combined with the absence of any sound of gunfire echoing from the settlement, Xie Han hadn't paid it much mind, leading the caravan to blunder straight into the thick of it. Although several thousand zombies weren't an overwhelming number, making a loud commotion would only draw even more of them in. Now that the zombies had already surrounded them, sporadic gunshots began to ring out as soldiers picked off the ones getting too close. Under such circumstances, Xie Han didn't need to issue an order; the soldiers possessed the autonomy to judge whether opening fire was necessary.

As the sporadic gunshots grew increasingly dense, leaving Xie Han no time for hesitation, he gave the command: "Clear out these zombies." The distance of the approaching zombies varied, but every single one was well within the sweeping range of the caravan's machine guns. The rat-a-tat-tat of machine gun fire erupted, mowing down the surrounding zombies rank by rank. Swept by nearly fifty machine guns, the several thousand zombies were completely felled within two or three minutes.

However, while the machine guns had fulfilled their mission, the assault rifles were only just beginning to demonstrate their true utility. Soldiers equipped with automatic rifles locked their crosshairs onto the heads of zombies still struggling amid the piles of corpses, systematically blowing their brains out. The entire hunting operation lasted a little over seven minutes before those zombies were thoroughly wiped out.

"Attention, no zombies are permitted within a hundred meters of the caravan. Shoot to kill anyone that comes closer." Xie Han's order echoed down the line. Rows of automatic rifles began scanning for targets, and the crisp reports of rifle fire rang out at regular intervals.

Clearing away this nominal threat did little to ease Xie Han's mind; his brows remained knitted together in a deep frown. Gazing out toward the distant settlement, he muttered under his breath, "This is far too strange. Under such a fierce zombie assault, there isn't a single sound coming from this settlement. Could the zombies have already breached it?" Indeed, from beginning to end, aside from the gunfire of his own caravan, Xie Han hadn't heard a single peep from the settlement. The overall atmosphere felt profoundly bizarre.

"Surely we aren't this unlucky? We traveled all this way just to watch them get torn apart and devoured by zombies?" By this point, the only plausible explanation seemed to be that the settlement had fallen to the undead. Xie Han mulled it over with a sense of reluctance and said, "Engage the command vehicle's hovering function..."

Xie Han's stance was clear: drawing conclusions too early without witnessing the reality with his own eyes was not his style. Once the command vehicle elevated five meters into the air, its powerful propulsion system accelerated the craft to fifty kilometers per hour as it flew toward the settlement. A distance of some ten kilometers was well within the half-hour hovering endurance of the command vehicle for a round trip.

Once the command vehicle was airborne, the imagery transmitted from its surveillance system revealed a dense, ocean-like tide of zombies surging below, which Xie Han estimated to number between three hundred thousand and half a million. To his astonishment, the surveillance feed also displayed dozens of colossal wind turbines, tens of meters high, standing tall and rotating sluggishly in the gentle breeze. These wind turbines were quite peculiar; apart from the main rotor blades, the entire towers were studded with smaller auxiliary wind wheels. Even the slightest breath of wind caused these smaller wheels to spin at a dizzying speed.

Xie Han's immediate thought was that this was a wind farm; only wind farms possessed such vast arrays of wind turbine generators. However, as the massive command vehicle approached within three kilometers of the settlement, the first thing that caught his eye was a pristine interception wall resembling an electric barrier. This barrier encircled the entire settlement, which had been built upon the plains. Behind this interception wall stood a towering perimeter wall constructed of brick and earth, upon which throngs of human heads were now visible. Aside from faint, indistinct shouts, however, there was still not an extra sound to be heard.

"Not breached by the zombies? What on earth are they playing at? Could it be that the zombies suddenly found their conscience, deciding merely to patrol outside the high walls and let the people inside enjoy a free view of their decaying, rotting corpses?" Witnessing such a bizarre scene left Xie Han momentarily speechless, even breeding a darkly cynical thought.

Yet, he quickly discovered the cause behind this surreal spectacle: it was precisely that crimson-red interception wall.

Within a hundred meters in front of this crimson barrier, circles upon circles of zombies lay heaped together, sprawled across the ground with plumes of hot, billowing steam rising from their bodies. The entire scene resembled a gigantic distillation plant.

Realizing that the settlement had not been overrun, Xie Han instantly exhaled a breath of relief. "The strangeness of this settlement must lie in this interception wall. But what is its function? Could it be that their entire settlement relies solely on this single wall for protection?" Xie Han found it rather incredible; it seemed the apocalyptic world truly was full of wondrous anomalies.

Clearly, the massive bulk of the command vehicle had also been spotted by the inhabitants of the settlement, sparking a chorus of shouts, though Xie Han could no longer make out what they were yelling. He pondered the situation: the command vehicle's hovering time was limited, and driving it directly into their settlement would make the return journey to the caravan rather hazardous. Besides, who knew whether this settlement harbored hostile or friendly intentions? If he walked into a nest of vipers with ill intent, wouldn't he be walking straight into a tiger's mouth?

"Return to the caravan!" After weighing his options, seeing no signs that the settlement had fallen, Xie Han ordered the command vehicle to head back.

Upon the command vehicle's return to the caravan, Xie Han found himself hesitating. The current zombie tide was surging with ferocious momentum, and given the settlement's geographic position, relying entirely on that peculiar interception wall seemed altogether too precarious. After a brief internal debate, Xie Han opened the hatch of the command vehicle and sprinted over to the transport truck carrying Mo Li. Stripping away the canvas cover to reveal Mo Li's pitch-black metal armor, Xie Han called out, "Mo Li, initiate startup!"

Mo Li's operating system was far superior to the G-series mechanical spiders of Mountain City; those older models required a somewhat primitive manual verification startup sequence. Mo Li's system, however, operated on a standby mode equipped with artificial intelligence, capable of verifying the controller's identity through pre-set audio waveforms and executing commands accordingly.

At Xie Han's command, Mo Li's metallic frame began to unfurl. Within a mere minute, accompanied by the faint whir of activating joints, Mo Li completed its transformation into combat posture, revealing its ferocious visage. Xie Han reached out, grabbed one of its legs, and with a few swift leaps, hoisted himself onto Mo Li's back.

Mo Li's eight legs shifted in unison. Disembarking from the transport vehicle, it exerted force against the ground, launching its massive frame forward in a powerful bound that carried it six to seven meters through the air. Operating its eight legs simultaneously, Mo Li instantly accelerated to a speed of over fifty kilometers per hour, charging furiously toward the settlement.

The hardness of its armor was sufficient to withstand large-caliber sniper rounds, so as it sprinted forward, it simply plowed through any zombies in its path, sending them sprawling. Its powerful eight legs and razor-sharp tips struck the earth with every stride, hammering any unfortunate zombie directly into the ground. Propelled by nuclear power, its force was immense—resembling a giant bulldozer roaring through the horde of undead and carving a clear path through the sea of bodies.

"A spider knight?" Xie Han laughed aloud. Bringing it along had been a brilliant foresight; a designated riding position had been integrated into Mo Li's back armor. The sheer ferocity of the mechanical spider exceeded Xie Han's expectations; he could only wonder how terrifying it would become once it unleashed its full firepower.

Mo Li cut through the ocean of zombies like a high-speed motorboat, advancing at high speed through the sea of corpses. Seven or eight minutes later, it drew within sight of the settlement. With a mechanical spider of such colossal proportions, it was impossible for the people inside the settlement not to notice it. Compared to the command vehicle from earlier, the charging, rampaging mechanical spider exuded an aura of pure, frenzied adrenaline.

Xie Han stared in disbelief at the settlement's defensive perimeter. Earlier, from the command vehicle, he had observed them keeping the zombies a hundred meters away, but now the line of defense had contracted to less than thirty meters. This shift had occurred over the span of a mere twenty minutes, astonishingly fast. Lifting his gaze to the dozens of massive wind turbines that had nearly ground to a halt, and feeling the absolute stillness of the air, he suddenly understood: "This settlement's interception wall relies entirely on massive wind-generated power. Once the wind dies down, this barrier faces the immediate danger of shutting down."

"Damn it, they're practically walking a tightrope in mid-air. Wind power, just like solar power, is utterly unreliable." Recognizing the profound crisis facing the settlement, Xie Han hesitated no longer. "Mo Li, break through into the settlement!"

Possessing artificial intelligence, Mo Li nodded its mechanical head as its speed surged dramatically. Its eight iron limbs moved in a frantic blur like high-speed spinning rotors, mincemeating any zombie that crossed its path. The spectacle left Xie Han dumbfounded. "If we had dozens more of these mechanical spiders, we wouldn't even need weapons; just utilizing those eight legs alone would be enough to mulch vast swathes of zombies." Driven by nuclear power, they would never suffer from energy shortages.

As Mo Li rushed within dozens of meters of the interception wall, a towering wave of searing heat rushed toward him, making Xie Han feel as though his hair was instantly singed. The rising heat currents rolling off the corpses on the ground were so intense that they blurred his vision ahead.

"Temperature exceeds design threshold. Evacuate, evacuate..." Mo Li's automated judgment system scanned the high-temperature zone and, executing a sharp pivot, leaped away in a bound that cleared the bizarre thermal current circle. Although Mo Li made a split-second escape, Xie Han discovered to his shock that half of his hair had been scorched off, feeling entirely dehydrated, while the riding saddle beneath him and the spider's armor were both piping hot.

"Impressive... This interception wall is truly formidable..." Fortunately, Mo Li's reaction time was swift enough; had they charged another ten meters forward, he likely would have been roasted alive. While inwardly cursing the settlement's defenders for failing to warn him, he also took note of the piles of zombies that had been cooked and gradually charred on the ground, finally comprehending the true mechanism of the interception wall.

Xie Han reached up to brush his hair, only to discover with bitter irony that his locks had been reduced to ash, leaving whatever remained on his scalp looking as though it had been hacked at randomly by a dull razor. "What the hell... These bastards! I came here out of the goodness of my heart to assist them, yet their wall is this dangerous and they didn't even drop a word of warning. Damn it, how am I supposed to show my face in public like this?" If Xie Han hadn't maintained awareness of his status, his internal monologue would likely have escalated into furious roaring.

Fuming with anger and gritting his teeth, Xie Han barked, "Mo Li, prepare the Metal Storm! Blast these damned zombies into dust!"