Armor-Piercing Munition: Face Me, Carbon-Based Monster!

"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 metal is."

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

"That's not wrong..."

Chen Jian pondered for a moment and then spoke:

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

"If it really turns out to be some undiscovered element 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 time."

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

....

Meanwhile, in Shen City.

Huang Meng wiped the sweat off his face and poked his head out of the somewhat 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 settlements 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 environment 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 Meng 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 environment 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 members before."

"Some say the underground of the Mountain City ruins contains something that affects the magnetic field here."

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

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

"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 Meng 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 Meng thoughtfully gazed at the PDA screen. At this moment, 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 moment, he even felt that everything here was just exaggerated by the Mechanical 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 some "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 Meng gave the order:

"No need to delay any longer."

"We're 11 kilometers 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 immediately 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 Meng kept a close watch on the map on his PDA, and after a moment, 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 Meng 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 equipment 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 some liquid was oozing out.

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

It seemed... it wasn't water.

"Wait!"

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

"What's the situation?"

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

This time, he finally confirmed 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 metallic 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 Meng.

"The ground here is a bit unusual."

"What is this powder?"

"Looks like aluminum powder?"

Huang Meng looked at Jin Zhong's fingers, observed for a moment, and said,

"Aluminum or silver powder? The sheen seems dimmer 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 Meng 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 moment, he looked back at Huang Meng and said,

"No reaction."

"The compass doesn't respond to this metal."

"But... these powders..."

"They're gathering."

"It's like they're alive!"