[Thanks to darthseer, full-time angel, and a few big monthly tickets who started reading in 2000! ]
This is a week after the capture of Khanom.
The outer walls of the fortress are being rebuilt. The original inner and outer walls have been turned into ruins in the previous battle, and only the walls of about ten meters on each side barely remain. It will take at least nearly a month to restore to the previous level, but there is no point in doing that. The reason is that the design of the fortress was a product of twenty years ago. Under the threat of high-level ability users and all kinds of heavy firepower today, the defense of the outer wall of the concrete structure is dispensable.
Zero's original meaning was to use local materials, using wood from the Emerald Forest and stone from the ruins to build a ten-meter-high wall of mixed materials. The defensive power is no longer considered. The main function of this high wall is to support heavy firepower equipment including heavy artillery, and replace the defensive ability of the city wall with a powerful firepower net.
But now, pieces of metal armor plates as high as 20 meters have been shipped to the fortress. They were accurately erected on the city wall under the lifting of the crane, and the workers were welding, welding each piece of armor plate into a section of metal city wall. Billy and his technical team were on hand around the site, and Franklin even stepped in to help the workers speed up the work.
Steel brackets with a width of 30 centimeters are connected to the armor plate and the city wall at an oblique angle. As the brackets are locked with thick screws, they are like the arms of a giant stretching obliquely from the ground to the sky, supporting the armor. wall. These brackets will strengthen the impact resistance of the armored walls. With them, it is difficult to blow up all the city walls at the same time like last time even if the missiles are concentrated fire.
The original gates were replaced by two armor plates up to 20 centimeters thick, and the devices that activated them were replaced by hydro-mechanical systems. They will be installed at the end, and materials and machinery are now temporarily parked in the open space outside the fortress .
When the entire outer wall is updated, the defense of Canon Fortress will jump several levels. Being able to obtain these materials is also thanks to the fact that Ling led Man Shan and two hundred soldiers to sweep several towns near the fortress a few days ago.
On the afternoon of the second day after capturing Canon, Zero led Manshan and his soldiers northward along the blood-stained road, and found two towns a hundred kilometers away, namely Montgomery and Marley Town. As Zero expected, these two towns are actually the supply bases of the fortress, but after so many years, due to the increase of factories and workers, a small town with a population of about 2,000 people has gradually formed.
At that time, Essien's fleeing team came to these two small towns to rest and had a battle with Zero. The battle was naturally one-sided, Ling didn't even make a move, Man Shan and his team defeated the deserter in a crushing posture. The battle took place just outside the town of Marley and lasted only half an hour. When Zero and the others entered the town, the bodies of three or four hundred knight soldiers had already been left outside the town.
The rest went smoothly, and Zero took over two small towns. Food processing plants, water purification plants and a steelmaking plant are concentrated in the two small towns. The steel factory was a complete accident. A whole batch of armor plates and steel brackets were found in the warehouse of the factory area. After asking, it turned out that they planned to update the outer wall of the fortress next spring.
If it wasn't for Zero and the others who attacked the fortress first, the attack would not be so smooth after Kanon updated the defense system.
Two days after taking over the two small towns, a force of knights marched towards Mengge Town. This is a team of one thousand people, and there are more than ten paladin mechs on two trucks. Outside Mengge Town, Zero was under heavy artillery fire. In the end, Zero first destroyed the paladin mechas, disintegrated the heavy firepower of the Knights, and then joined forces with Man Shan to defeat this army.
That night, after the knights left more than half of the soldiers' corpses, they returned in a hurry. Zero immediately transferred a 500-man army from Kanon, and Berrien accompanied the team. It was night, after merging with Zero, they entered at full speed, ran for 200 kilometers in the middle of the night, and attacked another town, Tucson. Strictly speaking, Tucson is a military base, and it is a thousand-man army stationed under the 2nd Army on weekdays.
The commander is Mesa, the deputy head of the 2nd Legion, a seventh-level ability user. After receiving the news that Kanon had fallen, I learned that the two towns of Mengge had also fallen into the hands of Zero. The most important thing is that when the soldiers who escaped from Marley Town learned that Zero had only 200 soldiers with them, Mesa immediately mobilized nearly 90% of the soldiers in the base to Mengge Town, trying to take back the two towns in one fell swoop.
But Mesa was still afraid of the opponent's ability users, so he only sent a major as the commander. But when he learned of the results of the battle, he was still taken aback. All ten paladin mechs were destroyed, and even half of the troops were killed or injured. You must know that the enemy army has only two hundred people!
When Zero entered the base with Berrien, Man Shan, and an army of 500 people, Mesa didn't even have the intention of resisting, and escaped from the base overnight with his personal guards. So the battle at the base ended in less than 10 minutes, thanks to Berrien's powerful lightning ability. Under the hands of a high-level elemental domain ability user, an army composed of ordinary people is no different from a lamb waiting to be slaughtered. With every movement of Lien's hands and feet, all kinds of powerful abilities blasted over, and the army at the base fell in pieces.
In such a situation, the commander of the base fled again, and the soldiers quickly lost their will to resist. In the end, there were 200 soldiers who surrendered, and they temporarily detained Zero, and this special town of Tucson, consisting of military bases and outlying residential buildings, just fell into Zero's pocket.
There is no processing factory in Tucson, and its supplies are also supplied by the two towns of Montgomery and Marley. There are about a thousand residents in Tucson, four or five hundred of them are workers, and the rest are responsible for some simple jobs. For example, the cleaning and maintenance of facilities in towns, etc. The place where workers usually go to work is in the military base, and there is an arsenal in the base.
Most of the arsenal's work is the production of some spare parts for the second-generation Griffon Knights, while the others are rifles, guns, missiles and other equipment dedicated to the Knights. Zero confiscated a troop inventory, mainly ammunition. A batch of armor pieces of unknown purpose were also found in the warehouse. After being explained by the supervisor, it was discovered that these were the special mechas of the fourth-generation mecha "Sky Angel".
From this point, it can be seen that the fourth-generation mecha researched by the Pope's Hall, * "Sky Angel" has reached the stage of mass production. However, the outer mechs that Sky Angel needs are very special, in addition to the rare materials, the requirements for guns and metal processing technology are also quite strict. Even if it can be mass-produced, the number of outputs may be very limited.
No matter how limited it is, a fourth-generation mecha that can have the mobility of a Griffin Knight and the firepower of a paladin is still a big threat to high-level players.
Even if it is still not comparable to the ninth level, the number of the ninth level is limited, and the sky angel can be mass-produced.
Mass production is an advantage, but also a threat!
After occupying Tucson, Zero asked people to escort the supervisor and the information about Sky Angel back to Canon. The supervisor and the data are all handed over to Billy. In the hands of Billy, an expert, these data will become an important basis for studying the strategy against the Sky Angel. As for the arsenal, all production of Griffon Knight armor will be discontinued from the date of zero control, and all will be put into the production of other equipment instead.
It can be said that because of this arsenal, the value of Tucson Town is only lower than that of Canon.
So far, with Canon as the starting point and Tucson as the end point, the area of nearly 500 kilometers south of the Bloody Road is under Zero's control. Zero left only a small number of soldiers stationed in the two towns of Marley and Montgomery, and their most important task was to maintain law and order on weekdays. In Tucson, Ling transferred Su to replace Man Shan, while five hundred soldiers remained.
The two hundred knight soldiers who surrendered broke them up and sent them to work in the wood mine in the Emerald Forest and the cloud iron mine in the Eternal Mountains.
Zero took Man Shan back to Kanon Fortress, and most of the slaves who fled into the Emerald Forest had followed the call. There were more than 5,000 slaves in this group, and Zero announced on the spot that they were no longer slaves, but workers, and each received a reward of 2 gold coins. In front of gold coins and food, these slaves finally knew that they had a chance to change their destiny, and they all supported Zero very much.
With the workers, the three oil well platforms can start working. It's just that only half of the workers came back, and Zero had to give priority to oil well platform operations. As for wood mines and cloud iron mines, a small number of workers are allocated. But a few days later, the first batch of workers recruited from the outer islands arrived at the fortress. There were 2,000 of them in total, and they were quickly assigned to work in the two mines.
Next, workers and soldiers recruited from the outer islands continued to arrive one after another, so the Kanon Fortress became extremely lively and full of vitality.
Standing under the roof of the main building of the fortress, overlooking the busy scene below. The workers who come in and out are like densely packed worker ants, and the fortress is a nest. The worker ants are working hard, using their actions to make the nest stronger and stronger. In another week, the basic installation of the armored city wall can be completed. Then there is the installation of city gates and hydraulic machines, and finally the configuration of adding heavy firepower.
After all this is done, the defensive power of the important case will jump several levels. Seeing this, Hook was calm on the surface, but there were waves of shock in his heart.
"Can't believe it?"
Man Shan's voice came from behind, turning his head, Hu Ke saw Man Shan's fat body like a hill moving with difficulty. Sitting down on the edge of the roof, Man Shan crossed his arms, looked down and said: "Our head is really capable. To be honest, I never thought that one day I would be able to sit on the roof of Canon Fortress."
"That man will lead us into a new era. No, to be precise, we are already in the new era." Hook murmured.
"Yeah, how long has it been since the Sea God's Order until now, we have already set foot on this continent. I thought we would never have another chance in this life." Man Shan scratched his head and said, "Actually, I was thinking, what if If we had united earlier, would we have already conquered this continent without relying on an outsider?"
"Outsider?" Hook looked at Man Shan, squinted his eyes and said, "This is a dangerous title."
Man Shan laughed and said, "Come on, Hook. Don't pretend, don't tell me, are you really willing to be his subordinate?"
"Oh, so you are not reconciled."
Man Shan was silent for a moment, and said, "Are you willing?"
Hook was silent.
Man Shan said again: "A few days ago we built a military base called Tucson. You know it."
"Um."
"We will quickly transfer the female swordsman, call it Su. Hey, replace me with this woman, and then bring me back. After all, he still doesn't trust us." Man Shan touched his With a bald head, he said lightly.
"It's normal." Hook said calmly, "And that one is high-level. If the Vatican calls, Tucson will immediately become the front line. I don't think there is anything wrong with letting a ninth-level man sit there. As for trust issues , Just like you said, how long has it been since the Sea God’s Order, I don’t think it’s possible to build enough trust in such a short period of time. It’s like you still treat him as an outsider?”
"Then in the future, if one day conquers the city of Rome, they might treat us as pirates. After all, we have a criminal record."
Hook glanced at him and said, "You may not be thinking too much, Man Shan, I have to remind you. Your thinking like this is very dangerous."
Hook turned around silently and left the rooftop.
Man Shan still touched his bald head, and murmured: "Dangerous? I don't think so, but I think it is necessary to make plans for myself."
At this time, several off-road vehicles drove out from the Emerald Forest. In one of the cars sat a woman, Oran. Man Shan whistled, smiled and disappeared on the rooftop.
In the main building of the fortress, a room on the fifth floor has been converted into a laboratory. The Destiny, which arrived at Broken Bay a few days ago, not only brought Billy and his technical team leader, but also the doctor Ji Ya. This female student brought out by Victor has low-level abilities in the perception domain. These abilities cannot be used on the battlefield, but they are of great help to Ji Ya's research.
At least some links like X-ray perspective, Dr. Ji Ya only needs to look at it with his eyes, and what he omits is a lot of time. From a local point of view, nothing can be seen, but in the long run, the time saved by Ji Ya cannot be ignored.
Ability users, no matter what level they are at, have unparalleled advantages.
After reaching Canon Fortress, Zero has cleared a room for her laboratory. At the same time, people brought in some necessary equipment from the Destiny, and within half a day, the distribution of the room was completed. Now here is a surgery, and some simple equipment and facilities. As for more complete equipment, it will take time to purchase.
In any case, with this laboratory, Lei Ming's corpse can already be analyzed routinely.
At that time, Lei Ming's body was preserved by Kaiton with ice flames, and under the equipment in Ji Ya's hands, the army leader's body had already been turned into some parts. His chest cavity was fully opened, and there was a chest expander to expand it, and there was already a cavity inside. As for the original organs, they have been taken out one after another in these two days, and soaked in containers filled with nutrient solution one by one to keep them active.
Lei Ming was dead, but his organs still maintained incredible vitality. According to Ji Ya's words, they were living beings one by one. The initial report on Lei Ming has been collected and passed to Zero.
Zero was sitting in the command room of the main building, and in the brain in his hand was a report on Thunder.
Dr. Ji Ya preliminarily judged that Lei Ming was not a human being, but something like an artificial human. An artificial human is not a human being, the latter is a life born from a certain human gene, which can be regarded as a replica of the original gene owner. However, the artificial man is a creation out of thin air, and in fact Lei Ming is like this.
Although he looks like a man, after tearing off that layer of human skin, what he reveals are various high-tech biological organs and man-made fiber pipes. Even Lei Ming's brain has 20% non-biological structures. That is the core processor of Lei Ming's brain, and Ji Ya's evaluation of it is no less than a super intelligent brain.
As for the others, whether it is the heart or other internal organs, they are all living organs. They are not only independent individuals, but subtly form a subject. Their entire function is to supply eighth-level energy to Lei Ming, and convert the energy into high-frequency pulse current, which can disguise Lei Ming as a high-level elemental domain ability user.
In fact, Thunder is more like a humanoid weapon.
In general, Thunder is not human, or even life. In addition to the internal organs of the brain, his muscle tissue is just a bionic base layer. What connects the internal organs and the body is not blood vessels but energy conduits. Even the eyes are a pair of electronic eyes, capable of remote vision, precise positioning, multi-mode vision and Screen capture and other functions.
In this way, Zero can explain why killing Thunder cannot get evolution points. I haven't heard of an example of destroying non-living bodies to get evolution points. That's because non-living bodies don't have the characteristics of self-evolution, so they can't bring evolution points to destroyers.
However, Lei Ming is still valuable, and his biological organs have greatly touched Ji Ya. The doctor had locked herself in the laboratory for several days and didn't show up. Except that food was brought to her from time to time, and at the same time she threw the research result report to Zero, Ji Ya seemed to have disappeared from the world.
Looking at these reports, Zero tapped the table with his fingers. There was an eighth-order artificial human like Lei Ming twenty years ago, so the achievements of the Pope's Hall in the field of science and technology cannot be ignored. But it seems that Lei Ming is the only artificial human in the entire Pope's Hall, and since Lei Ming, the Pope's Hall has still focused its research on mechas.
In other words, the resources used by high-level artificial humans like Lei Ming must be huge, so the Pope's Hall did not continue on this path. From the perspective of a visitor from the Central Continent, the Pope's Hall has actually touched the threshold of biological weapons a long time ago, and it is still a very high-level threshold. It's a pity that he didn't continue to study due to limited resources, but this doesn't seem to be a big problem for Zero. Behind him is not only a whole alien federation, but also the city of dawn under construction, and a powerful city like Asgard. allies.
Lei Ming's body might serve as a reference, and after making improvements and perfecting the use of materials, it is not impossible to mass-produce eighth-level ability users. Zero doesn't need to produce an eighth-level artificial human out of thin air, as long as the heart that can provide eighth-level energy can be adapted to a living person, then by implanting foreign organs, Zero can make a fifth-level or sixth-level ability user one by one. fall to a high level.
Even if they have no possibility of further evolution, an eighth-tier army that can be mass-produced is a terrifying force that sweeps across the continent!
So in the column of Ji Ya's feedback information, Zero tapped down some of his thoughts.