Chapter 305: Sentinels Clash: The Locals

The unfinished front‑line base, at the northern end.

Here is a T‑shaped corner.

The space is sufficiently spacious.

Sewage that flows from other areas, passes through, and then rushes toward the broken channel does not hinder the Krig and clearance‑crew reserves that have concentrated their main forces here.

The combat camp deployed three hundred Krig at this T‑corner, and the Krig also demonstrated notable construction ability, erecting numerous simple defensive works and fixed heavy fire positions.

Three reserve squads also stationed here helped complete the constructions and now, wordlessly, keep watch over the surroundings together with the Krig.

To the east, near the edge of the broken channel.

The reserve platoon leader, wearing a ceramic‑steel helmet, with short dark hair, young yet with a resolute face, is now using his vision far beyond that of ordinary people to observe the outside world.

Mai Se·Wa Lun is the name of this platoon leader.

Even without the helmet's visual aid, he can clearly see the "people" who have lost their bodies, even their conscious freedom.

His impressive Spiritual Perception tells him that the "people" curled up in egg cases, imprisoned, are compatriots.

Thus, with an unmasked angry expression, he stares at the machines moving among the tower‑column array, acting according to preset procedures.

Not long after.

A group of massive machines, their tails bearing many long mechanical tentacles and looking like "king squids," suddenly appear in Wa Lun's view.

The hovering "squids" flying in the air scan the surroundings with eyes that emit red light and can trigger intense claustrophobia.

Just by their motions and behavior patterns, Wa Lun knows these "squids" are a type of sentinel patrolling near this "Pasture."

Seeing the sentinels drawing near, Wa Lun removes the explosive arrow attached to the outer armor of his right leg and tells everyone, "Friends are visiting."

He says.

After re‑donning his helmet, Wa Lun returns to the line and proactively positions his half‑crouched squad at the forefront, using their massive bodies to provide extra "cover" for the Krig behind them.

Among them, several Krig lift open equipment crates marked "EMP (electromagnetic pulse)."

Moreover, to avoid premature exposure, the alerted engineering team pauses construction, reducing vibration and noise.

They wait wordlessly for a moment.

On everyone's helmet screens, a few red dots quickly appear, indicating sentinels sweeping from left to right across the broken opening a hundred meters away.

But soon, the sentinel red dots show no slowdown, vanishing in an instant on the right side of the screen, completely gone.

Sentinels that act according to preset logic patrol the outside world; if they detect no anomaly, they will not deliberately pay attention to the long‑abandoned sewage channel.

Of course, this also shows that the technology embodied in the sentinels cannot easily detect or capture Umbrella's "employees."

Another brief wait follows.

After confirming the sentinels have left, the Krig remain silent, checking their weapons and gear.

The reserves do the same.

Although these Astate in their early twenties crave battle and seek enough experience and merit to become full‑time legion members early, they can still tell heavy from light, so they do not proactively "provoke" the machines.

Upon learning the threat is cleared, the engineering team resumes "overtime" to finish the schedule.

The Intelligence Department personnel continue using various instruments, cooperating with reconnaissance, preparing an emergency team to penetrate the sewage channel interior to gather surrounding intelligence.

Boom~…!

Suddenly, a faint explosion sounds from outside.

?!

The reserves who first heard the noise immediately fix their gaze on the broken opening, raising alertness.

Next are the Krig who have their weapons readied.

As platoon leader, Wa Lun reports the situation and then leads a reserve squad to the broken opening.

Together with six brothers at the edge, Wa Lun looks outward and spots a spaceship about thirty meters long, spindle‑shaped, with more than a dozen symmetrical sections and flashing blue "electromagnetic rings."

However, the ship is exhausted, fleeing from a swarm of sentinels.

At this moment, two sentinels have landed on the ship's top, using mechanical tentacles to emit high‑energy red‑light beams, indiscriminately cutting and damaging the hull, especially the electromagnetic rings that seem to power the ship.

Boom~! Boom~! The hull suffers successive low‑intensity explosions.

The fire from the explosions is especially visible against the charred sky.

But the ship is not entirely defenseless.

Tap tap!!

Mounted on the ship's top are parallel gun turrets apparently operated by a "person," spitting dazzling fire snakes at the two most threatening sentinels.

As for the "person"…

Wa Lun and his brothers can see clearly inside the turret through the tiny transparent observation windows on either side.

It is a short‑haired "woman" dressed in filthy, tattered clothes.

Bang! Bang! The large‑caliber live rounds successfully destroy those two sentinels.

At the same time, turrets placed elsewhere on the hull also spray ammunition at the trailing sentinels.

Unfortunately, the sentinels in flight are unusually sensitive, making them hard to lock onto.

Worse, the sudden incident and firefight attract more sentinels patrolling the "Pasture."

In an instant.

The "Pasture" erupts like a stung beehive, hundreds of sentinels surge out, forming a massive net that swarms the spaceship.

Now, all turrets need not aim carefully; even random sweeps can hit or destroy sentinels.

Yet in less than the blink of an eye, the wave of sentinels already engulfs the ship.

Finally, with all electromagnetic rings destroyed, the ship loses power and crash‑lands on a surface littered with wreckage and ruins, left to be slaughtered by machines.

When the sentinels gather, ready to dismantle the ship and also dismember the "people" operating it, a sudden blinding blue light erupts, blocking the sentinels' dismantling attempt.

The blue light spreads rapidly outward from the ship's center, reverse‑swallowing the wave of sentinels.

Once hit by the blue light, the sentries lost control of their bodies, froze, their eyes dimmed, and they fell from the sky one after another.

It was as if a "machine rain" had fallen over this area.

The blue light dissipated.

Originally numbering in the hundreds, the sentries were utterly wiped out by the starship's maneuver.

Electromagnetic pulse.

Walen and his brothers, watching from afar, knew that the blue light was the electromagnetic pulse released by the starship.

From this, Walen and his group also learned more information: the machines had no defense against electromagnetic pulses, or rather, sentries like these were low-end goods, so they had not been deployed.

Guarding against electromagnetic pulses is a necessary measure for humanity of the Main Universe entering the interstellar age; the harsh space environment is one factor, and another is that humanity has long frequently used nuclear bombs for "mining."

Having witnessed the entire battle, Walen and his companions uploaded the footage captured on their helmet screens via a wired communications base station, awaiting the latest orders while continuing to monitor the external situation.

Immediately afterward.

More than ten people in tattered clothing, wielding unconventional firearms, crawled out of the starship through the rift, helping each other as they sprinted toward the nearest channel entrance.

But shortly after a brief lull, more sentries kept pouring out of the pasture, attempting to pursue the "people."

Faced with this situation.

"Damn!!"

A muscular man with a full beard, wearing a sleeveless vest, with a slot device on the back of his head, shouted in a Russian-accented voice:

"For Yidian!! For humanity! Fight these bastards!!"

As he roared, the muscular man aimed his gun at a sentry and pulled the trigger.

"Zzz!"

A fierce current shot from the muzzle, directly paralyzing the sentry that wanted to dive‑bomb attack.

With the muscular man leading, the others no longer bothered to flee; they raised their high‑powered "stun" weapons and prepared to fight back.

At the edge of the distant rift.

For Yidian?

For humanity?

Beneath their helmets, Walen and his companions showed varying expressions, for they could understand the muscular man's speech, and most importantly, the other side also called themselves human.

At that moment, a direct order from the Sweeper Corps appeared at the top right of their screens.

The content read: "Rescue the targets being hunted by machines, thereby gaining more information about Earth in the Parallel Universe."

With superior approval, Walen and his group finally no longer needed to stand by idly.

And the Earth of the Parallel Universe?

This was no longer within the Reservists' consideration; they only cared about how to complete the mission and rescue the target as much as possible…

After all, a group of "people" being hunted by machines is very likely to be their compatriots.

Thus Walen immediately shouted over the comms: "First and second squads, prepare for battle; the remaining squads continue to stand guard, let those machines taste the flavor of explosive shells!"

"Yes!" the brothers all replied loudly.

Having said that.

Walen and his six brothers beside him sprinted forward, leaping straight out of the rift; shortly after, another squad also left the position, repeating the same action, disappearing into this channel.

By contrast, on the muscular man's side…

"Zzz! Zzz!" the stun guns roared.

The muscular man and his companions were desperately holding on; even though they could still hold out for now, they all knew the final outcome would be a dead end.

Immediately, the muscular man turned his head to the right and shouted at the youngest crew member beside him, only fifteen or sixteen years old: "Ma Ke! It's up to you to deliver the information about the machines preparing a large‑scale invasion to Yidian! We'll stay here to cover your retreat and draw fire!"

"But Captain…"

The crew member named Ma Ke hesitated slightly, obviously preferring to stay and fight here rather than flee alone.

Upon hearing that, the muscular‑man captain stepped forward and kicked him, shouting angrily: "Get the hell out of here, damn it! Don't let me see you!"

Ma Ke was staggered by the kick, nearly tripping, but thereby he saw ahead in the sky that sentries were continually increasing in number, gathering.

Looking at that sight, Ma Ke realized that unless a miracle occurred, the probability of the group surviving together was infinitesimally close to zero.

Facing reality.

With wet eyes, Ma Ke no longer hesitated and shouted loudly to the muscular man: "Yes! Captain!"

Then he gripped his stun gun, turned without looking back, and sprinted desperately toward the nearest channel entrance.

But before Ma Ke had run far, he heard an increasingly obvious and very heavy "thud, thud!" footstep sound.

Looking ahead.

There were thirteen hulking Sweeper Reservists blocking his path to the entrance, and they too were sprinting forward, but in the exact opposite direction.

The distance between the two sides was rapidly closing.

At the very front, Walen had already arrived in front of Ma Ke.

!!!

Without overthinking, and without time to feel fear, Ma Ke instinctively stopped, planted his feet, raised his stun gun, pointed the muzzle at what looked like a "machine giant" Walen, and pulled the trigger without hesitation.

"Zzz~!"

A violent current surged from the muzzle.

"Hum~!"

But the energy shield automatically generated by the tau‑steel armor canceled out this current.

The tau‑steel armor Mark‑II (Mark‑II) equipped with a shield‑generation device, while its shield power cannot compare to Thor's hammer or the Terminator, is also not something that a mere "little" stun gun can shatter.

At this moment, Walen, looking down from above, glanced at Ma Ke, couldn't be bothered with anything, lifted his gaze to the sky, and incidentally aimed his explosive‑arrow gun at a sentry, then…

"Pap! Pap!" two rapid shots.

Boom! Boom! Standard explosive arrows successively pierced the sentries' mechanical bodies, and then violent explosions occurred from inside out.

At the same time.

Two tactical squads arrived one after another, surrounding Mark, Zhuang Han, and others in the center, and amidst the astonished and shocked gazes of these "locals," they mechanically performed the actions of moving their guns and firing aimed shots.

The pleasant report of the explosive arrows, together with the commotion of the sentries' explosions, echoed throughout this area.

Although there were only thirteen reservists, unable to achieve the shocking scene of a legion's volley, Wa Lun and his men demonstrated what it means to never miss a shot, showing it to perfection.

To ordinary people, sentries in flight are hard to lock onto and capture; to the reservists, they are no different from the moving targets used in training.

In just half a minute, Wa Lun and his men each expended a magazine; fortunately the results were good, temporarily clearing the sentries in the vicinity.

They freed up a little leisure.

Only then did Wa Lun shift his attention to the "locals" who had never relaxed their vigilance toward them from start to finish.

To save time and avoid unnecessary misunderstanding, Wa Lun actively lifted his helmet, revealing a human-like face, glanced at Mark, who still had his gun aimed at him, and reminded him:

"Don't aim those toy guns at me anymore; also, if you want to stay alive, come with us."

Upon hearing Wa Lun's words, the group of "locals" looked at each other in bewilderment.

Mainly because everything happened too fast; originally it was a hopeless situation, never expecting that a "miracle" would actually descend…

Zhuang Han spoke first: "Are you all idiots! Move! Before more dogs and scum arrive here, we must quickly get away from this open area!"

"Yes, captain."

With Zhuang Han's order given, the "locals" no longer hesitated and left together with Wa Lun and his men.

This Zhuang Han, the captain, is not careless; rather, he understands the strength disparity between his side and Wa Lun and the other reservists.

If Wa Lun wanted to take action, they would have had no chance to wrangle here; moreover, this open area is not the best place for negotiations.

The bonus chapter wanted to upload the fight scene from the animated version of The Matrix, but the review didn't pass.

Interested readers can search on Bilibili for "The Matrix animated version" short clips with the keyword "Second Revival."

(End of chapter)