Wasteland Development Diary

In the dark of night, the samurai crabs skillfully crawled forward, executing pinpoint assassinations on the enemy.

The outer Camel Soldiers were the first to fall.

By the time the four enhancers realized what was happening, they had already been approached closely by the samurai crabs; two Alchemists were instantly killed, while their quad bikes were overturned and butchered during their escape by the ambushing samurai crabs.

The only one who struggled briefly was the gunman who had pierced through Tie Ma.

Every enemy light point represent on the screen was extinguished within two minutes.

To all this, Zhou Yi was accustomed.

Combat was a brutal life-or-death struggle; one could neither be lucky nor merciful and reluctant, and had to eliminate the enemy's living forces as quickly as possible.

In the Dead Sea, Zhou Yi had been worn out dealing with various monsters' assaults and challenges.

No matter how many times he won, he was still relentlessly attacked by the monsters.

To minimize casualties among his troops, there were times when Zhou Yi had to constantly dodge and flee.

He began to observe and learn from some powerful Guangna Species that ruled certain areas, wondering why they weren't challenged. These Guangna Species, instead, relentlessly hunted other monsters, causing other groups to flee everywhere, too scared to resist.

Zhou Yi discovered that some of the area rulers weren't significantly stronger than the others around them. If the hunters banded together and attacked these rulers as they did his own team, they could harm or even kill them.

But they never did that, choosing instead to flee in terror.

Monster rulers always struck preemptively, killing part of the monster group, especially the strong ones. This instilled panic in the lower monsters; they completely lost the will and courage to resist.

After extended observation and numerous tests, Zhou Yi derived his strategy at Dragon Field.

One must strike preemptively, hit hard, and rapidly reduce the enemy's numbers. Particularly by killing the strong ones, it would deter the weaker ones and break their will to resist.

This method proved very effective.

Henceforth, Zhou Yi only needed a few battles to make most monsters keep their distance.

On this basis, he made certain optimizations.

Zhou Yi selected some of the stronger samurai crabs and gave them a portion of the "Light Seeds." These samurai crabs' shells were evolving toward black, and they required more energy than others in their group.

These strong individuals were very hungry.

With the supply of Light Seeds, they would undergo metamorphosis by molting their shells.

These samurai crabs then possessed stronger and lighter black shells, with significantly enhanced speed, strength, and explosiveness; their claws also evolved in different ways.

The claws of the Black-armored Samurai Crabs, some elongated and sharpened into dual-sided sharp swords, Zhou Yi called Double Swordsmen.

Some claws became bigger and more powerful, like a pair of hammers, capable of delivering powerful hammer strikes and breaking the armor of high-defense individuals. Since they were adept at demolition and engineering work, Zhou Yi named them Hammerhead Soldiers.

The last group took a different evolutionary path.

Their physiological structures changed significantly, developing into a slightly odd, upright form.

The large back shells turned into segmented black shell armor covering their entire body. The head shell was thick, akin to a space-suit helmet without a glass visor.

The claws of the Upright Crabs turned into three-toed claws, which allowed for more flexible grasping and climbing. Their lower body featured two thick legs, not with claws or feet, but more like stilts made of bones, yet they moved very swiftly and did not affect their balance.

The other three pairs of legs were tucked behind their backs, able to tightly grip the weapon boxes on their backs or quickly draw weapons to hand over to the claws, supporting quick rolling movements as auxiliary limbs.

These Upright Crabs weren't very tall, generally under 1.5 meters, but their armors were broad and thick, and their limbs were sturdy, providing a very stable center of gravity.

They were fewer in number but had very high potential, being able to use a wider array of tools.

Moreover, Upright Crabs were the only ones that spontaneously engaged in weight lifting, running, and training their strength, speed, and explosive power. They also modified weapons for their specific use and exchanged combat techniques with their peers, demonstrating higher intelligence and combat understanding than others in their group.

Zhou Yi named them Weapon Masters.

Double Swordsmen, Hammerhead Soldiers, and Weapon Masters were the three branches into which the samurai crabs evolved.

Their common traits were the black shells and their eyes turning silvery white, their bodies no longer showing silver patterns directly, only surfacing when absorbing the power of Death Light.

Zhou Yi named them Black Samurai.

They could maintain a stealth state, blending into their surroundings, difficult to detect.

This characteristic was notably effective in combat.

The success of this night raid also proved that their capabilities were equally viable for ground operations.

There was just one thing Zhou Yi didn't understand.

He asked the remote control, "Are these people too weak? Why does it seem like the enhancers hardly put up any effective resistance?"

Red Kestrel replied, "Once there is a clear disparity in their mechanical bodies, there is no contest, just the weak being unilaterally hunted by the strong."

"These Black Samurai, their strength, or rather, their destructive power has already reached level D. You deployed 30 Black Samurai and 104 ordinary samurai crabs against these 4 enhancers and 28 ordinary humans, the result was bound to be this way."

The drone said, "With the strength like the Black Samurai, they should be the leaders of a crab group, usually exclusive. It's incredible that you can get them to cooperate with each other."

"Especially the Weapon Master inside, I have never heard of this evolutionary branch."

Zhou Yi thought to himself that it was because he was their leader in their eyes, having raised them from young.

With an absolute core, everyone could perform their duties.

After confirming none of the enemies survived, Zhou Yi finally made his way to the badly damaged Tie Ma.

The surface of this farm machine had many black marks from flames, and corrosion, and the headlights dangled, dragging on the ground, while the machine gun on its back was completely misaligned. Sparks were still crackling from the hole in the roof, but the body of the farm machinery remained relatively intact.

Zhou Yi said, "Sorry, I arrived late."

"Thank you for your help, you were very timely," Tie Ma responded with a crackling noise, apparently, there was some problem with the speaker.

"I was almost torn apart by these bastards. These guys are really despicable..."

Through its story, Zhou Yi learned that Tie Ma had originally come to stop these people from expanding the storm, aiming to protect the newly cultivated farmlands and consequently fell into an ambush and was beaten.

Zhou Yi jokingly pointed at its now misaligned machine gun and said, "It seems your firepower is still not enough."

"This is actually just for show, there are no bullets inside. Because bullets are expensive, the machine gun is also a fake one, just for appearances."

Tie Ma added, "The traps they set messed with my mechanics, causing me to lose a lot of energy and I could barely maintain basic power."

Only then did Zhou Yi understand.

It turned out to be a fake weapon for bluffing.

At that moment, Red Kestrel suddenly emitted an unprecedented sharp alarm.

"Be careful! There's something in the Mushroom Forest!"

"The energy intensity is very high!"

"At least level C!"

Zhou Yi turned his head to look.

At that time, the sun was just rising, and there came deep rumbles from the Mushroom Forest as if something was stirring.

Then a mountain seemed to slowly rise from within.

Suddenly, a loud horn sounded from behind.

"Big brother, I'm here!"

Then, Zhou Yi saw, in the direction from where the horn sounded, two thick red flames lit up, charging head-on and colliding with the giant object in the Mushroom Forest.

In the blinding flash of the explosion and the deafening boom, the mountain that had been rising slowly collapsed.

Zhou Yi let out a cry of surprise.

"Tong Niu has come back with the fertilizer."

Tie Ma explained, "Unlike me, it's equipped with real stuff."