Chapter 353: Crushing (Part 1)

"The humans' defensive strength has increased again..."

His gaze ignored the darkness, taking in everything from hundreds, or even thousands, of meters away.

The Forerunner stood on the roof of a factory building within the shipyard; as the light flickered in his eyes, the Russian Army soldiers' deployments and patrol arrangements within the naval port were all grasped by him.

After a long while, realizing that these arrangements posed no great threat to them, he leaped down from the roof of the factory building.

Perhaps startled by the dull sound of a heavy object hitting the ground, the Combat Robots standing as straight as doorposts on duty at the factory entrance all turned their heads to look at him in unison.

Then, the infrared rays scanning him swept over the Forerunner's body and vanished; they quickly withdrew their gazes and continued to guard the entrance of this massive dockyard building without moving.

The Forerunner did not take this to heart.

Although, like the vast majority of Decepticons, he looked down from the bottom of his heart upon machines like Combat Robots that possessed no intelligence, he—having once been responsible for Base No. 2 in the mountainous region of southwestern Brazil and its nearby defensive deployments—still relatively acknowledged the utility of such low-cost, mass-producible combat machines.

For the moment, he did not waste any more time on them; after landing and steadying himself, he walked straight past the robots guarding the front of the factory and into the dock.

"Lord Forerunner, what is the situation on the human side?"

As soon as the Forerunner entered the dock, a Decepticon Worker immediately noticed him, then approached him with a somewhat fawning manner and asked ingratiatingly.

"Unclear, it should just be a routine adjustment!" Shaking his head, the Forerunner replied casually.

The Decepticon Worker who had approached him was Hephaestus, one of the two Workers Sun Cheng valued most.

Although his attitude was somewhat arrogant—clearly, the Decepticon concept of hierarchy had been deeply branded into his own Core—the Forerunner was, after all, the trusted aide who had followed Sun Cheng the longest, and the information he possessed was naturally far more than that of the other Decepticon Workers, especially this team of Workers led by Hephaestus who had never been to Base No. 2.

Not long ago, he had already received news from Base No. 2 that was enough to make him excited.

His master—Frenzy, an ambitious Decepticon and a great Leader who could absolutely be called qualified—had successfully replaced his old body with a brand-new, powerful New Body not long ago, possessing strength that matched his ambition.

This was absolutely thrilling news, because as Master Frenzy completed his body replacement, the intelligence transmitted from Brazil also mentioned that the Decepticon Workers within Base No. 2 had already received the master's grace and had also begun replacing their bodies with stronger New Bodies; Master Frenzy had even generously bestowed upon them a brand-new identity and status—Engineer.

By extension, as long as these Workers under the master's command did not commit any offenses in the future, they would certainly all be granted permission to replace their bodies with new ones.

By that time, even if the Engineers' New Bodies were inferior, they surely wouldn't be any worse than his current one.

Of course, this was based on the premise that the Forerunner also did not replace his own body.

But was that possible?!

"I am the most loyal subordinate to the master..."

This thought could not help but pop up in his Core again, and the Forerunner felt as if a ball of fire had been ignited within his chest.

He believed the master must think so too; otherwise, he could not have handed such an important Task to him, letting him protect Hephaestus and these Workers who were ten thousand miles away from Base No. 2.

However, the Forerunner's gaze passed over Hephaestus and rested on a massive submarine in the dock before him that was nearing the end of construction, and his expression immediately turned sour.

"The progress has been delayed for so long; Hephaestus, you all have disappointed the master too much..."

The massive submarine in the dock was precisely one of the two Yasen-class attack nuclear submarines he was building on behalf of Sun Cheng as part of a cooperation agreement with Russia.

Before being sent to Russia, the Forerunner had already read the entire content of the agreement signed between him and Russia, and naturally, he knew that Sun Cheng had originally promised the Russians that he could build them a Yasen-class in just over twenty days.

And now? The time was about to be doubled, but so far, the construction of the two Yasen-class attack nuclear submarines was only just nearing its end.

This was merely the construction of the hull nearing its end; the outfitting process for installing internal equipment, which was also very time-consuming, would, barring any accidents, take at least another twenty or thirty days.

Although the Russians had only inquired about this twice and did not feel any displeasure due to their delayed delivery, as if they were very accustomed to this situation.

But the Forerunner would never feel any happiness about this, because every extra day they were delayed here in Russia meant one day later they could return to Brazil, and the time for replacing his own body would also be later than others.

Those Workers were one thing, but the key was that the Forerunner knew that the master now had more than just him as a Warrior under his command.

Being spoken to like this by him, Hephaestus's expression immediately became somewhat awkward.

"Lord Forerunner, this... we are also helpless... after all, the human country beneath our feet has industrial strength that is truly too poor..."

If Hephaestus knew the history of Russia in this world, he would probably be unable to resist complaining, "Even though it inherited most of the legacy of the former Soviet Union, the dissolution of the Soviet Union still caused unimaginable, devastating damage to Russia."

That was correct; this devastating damage was truly too severe.

The Yasen-class attack nuclear submarine was a brand-new type of attack nuclear submarine designed by Russia's top leadership after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in order to continue the nuclear triad strike capability of the Soviet era.

Compared to the Oscar and Akula-class, the excellence of the Yasen-class was very obvious; if it were built by the Soviet Union at its peak, perhaps the first Yasen-class would have successfully launched in at most three or four years, and subsequently, it might have reached a speed of mass production of one every two and a half or even two years.

However, the severely wounded Russia had lost too much.

After the design was completed, the reason the construction process of the first Yasen-class attack nuclear submarine lasted for over a decade was, on one hand, because Russia's military industry was severely wounded, and another reason was that financial appropriations were intermittent; the first Yasen-class attack nuclear submarine waiting for construction in Dock No. 6 of the Severodvinsk Shipyard even experienced a situation where work was stopped for nine consecutive months, and work stoppages were also very frequent during the construction process of the first Yasen-class.

Once Hephaestus and the others came to Severodvinsk to fulfill the contract and build two Yasen-class for Russia, not to mention that Sun Cheng had also arranged for a team of Decepticon Workers to come to the Severodvinsk Shipyard, the efficiency of those engineers specifically redesigned for building submarines was far beyond what Russia's military industry could catch up to; after all, these iron machines could easily lift hundreds of kilograms of materials and equipment, and they did not need to rest for twenty-four hours a day.

But so what?

The high-strength steel and other alloy materials needed to manufacture the Yasen-class—some of which Russia had obtained the technology for from Sun Cheng but had not yet fully mastered, and thus could not manufacture for the time being; others simply could not meet the standards of the Yasen-class—could only be transported from Brazil, over ten thousand miles away.

The time wasted at sea for a round trip was more than twenty or thirty days; thanks to the Ghost having been completely modified for the second time, it now possessed the ability to transport nearly two thousand tons of supplies at once; otherwise, if they had relied on ordinary cargo ships to transport these super materials that any country would covet, they might have been hijacked somewhere.

As the person in charge of building the two Yasen-class attack nuclear submarines, Hephaestus knew better than anyone that his own master also had to take the blame for this.

The "twenty-plus days to build a Yasen-class for Russia" that Sun Cheng had originally touted was actually an ideal time derived by the Workers under the most ideal circumstances, and it originally only had reference value.

Unfortunately, he did not have the courage to blame his own master; even mentioning it implicitly was something he dared not do. The Decepticon concept of hierarchy was deeply branded into the bones of every Decepticon.

But such an answer from him clearly could not satisfy the Forerunner, who was impatient to return to Base No. 2.

He snorted coldly and was just about to reprimand Hephaestus a few more times when, suddenly, a harsh explosion rang out violently.

Immediately, a piercing alarm sounded throughout the entire naval port.

"Not good, there's a situation!"

Accompanied by the piercing alarm, dense explosions soon followed one after another, causing the Forerunner's expression to change drastically.

Possessing extremely high intelligence, he naturally realized immediately that something might have happened to the naval port.

"You stay here, I'm going out to take a look!"

Hurriedly giving instructions to Hephaestus and the others, the Forerunner leaped up, transformed into his Mechanical Beast form in mid-air, and quickly rushed out of the dock.

The loud sound of the explosions had already triggered the alert systems of the several Combat Robots guarding outside the dock; one by one, they had already entered combat status, their eyes vigilantly scanning the surroundings without stop.

"You don't need to go anywhere, guard here!"

The Forerunner, who had already received authorization before coming to Russia, immediately used his highest authority to issue an order to the Combat Robot guards to protect the dock.

After completing this, he himself kicked off the ground and leaped onto a nearby portal crane, nimbly jumping and running on it, and with a few flashes, rushed toward the direction where the firelight and explosions were coming from within the naval port.

"Boom..."

"Bang..."

"Rat-tat-tat..."

Along the way, there were sounds of explosions and frantic gunfire everywhere; having only just approached a little, the scout felt a violent throbbing from his Core.

He vigilantly jumped down onto the roof of a barracks within the naval port, suppressed the restless agitation constantly coming from the throbbing Core within his body, and cautiously raised his head to look toward a place ahead suspected to be in the midst of intense crossfire.

The next moment, his eyes shrank sharply, and he could not help but growl out loud, "Decepticon?!"