Chapter 509: War Hammer: What Do You Mean You Conquered the Zerg

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Protagonist:

Lin En

Lena

"The unification of Wade Tower requires a true Imperial God Machine."

After saying this, Ayla withdrew her hand from the load-bearing beam. Several Qi Diao Zhe nearby exchanged glances, and no one dared to speak.

They had of course heard of something called an "Imperial God Machine."

In the old legends of Wade Tower, it was a war giant beast that only appeared during the Golden Age and the era of Imperial expeditions, its Iron Body towering like a building, shaking the Earth when it walked, and capable of destroying city walls with a single blow.

But legends are legends.

The largest war machine they had seen in their lives was the "Little Titan" that Ayla had just spent two hours assembling.

Now this thing had already scattered into a pile of wreckage on the ground. Yet Ayla began to consider a "true Imperial God Machine," which sounded unrealistic no matter how one heard it.

Gun Stone sat on a distorted Armor Plate nearby, his newly connected mechanical leg not yet very obedient, twitching from time to time.

He held it in for a long time, and finally couldn't help but speak: "I say, shouldn't you consider something closer first?"

Ayla turned her head to look at him.

"For example?"

"For example Hei Tie Cheng."

Gun Stone reached out and pointed toward the distance.

"We've just detained five or six hundred of them; this can't be hidden. The people of Hei Tie Cheng aren't dead men; once the news is transmitted back, it won't be long before they definitely send people over."

"By then, it might not be just this many people."

Ayla was silent for a few seconds.

Then she said: "No."

Gun Stone was stunned: "What no?"

"They won't dispatch an army of the same scale again in a short time."

"How do you know?"

Ayla gave no answer, but instead walked directly toward the Hei Tie Cheng officer tied up not far away.

Among the captives, the middle-aged officer who had originally been responsible for commanding the entire attacking Troop was sitting on the ground, half his face covered in blood, his right Wrist dislocated by the final impact of the Little Titan, his complexion at this moment frighteningly ugly.

Seeing Ayla come over, he subconsciously straightened his Waist. Not out of respect, but purely out of fear.

After all, a few hours ago, he had personally watched this woman drive a wrecked Mecha assembled on the spot and forcibly crash through his entire battle line.

That last minute was even more outrageous. Clearly beaten into scrap iron by the Gun Geng Yi Gu Hun Chuan Pao, it had inexplicably stood up again.

That kind of scene, he never wanted to see a second time in his life.

Ayla walked to In Front of him, without pleasantries, and asked directly: "How many available troops does Hei Tie Cheng have left?"

The officer kept his mouth shut and said nothing. Ayla thought for a moment, then turned her head to look beside her.

"Gun Stone."

"What?"

"He's unwilling to answer."

Gun Stone immediately showed a very kind smile, limped over, and drew a pair of pliers from his Waist.

"When I used to hang out in Hei Tie Cheng, I learned a bit about interrogating people."

The officer's complexion changed on the spot: "Wait!"

In less than five Minutes, everything was explained clearly.

Hei Tie Cheng's standing armed forces totaled over two thousand people.

That sounds like a lot, but those truly fully equipped, having undergone systematic training, and able to be used as field Troops numbered less than twelve hundred.

The Troop that attacked the Seventh Dock just now was one of the most Elite batches among them.

Over five hundred people, twenty-plus vehicles, heavy exoskeletons, mortars, rocket launchers, plus that extremely precious Gun Geng Yi Gu Hun Chuan Pao.

Hei Tie Cheng's original plan was very simple: to crush the Seventh Dock flat in one breath.

The result was not only did they fail to crush it flat, but they also delivered half of their own arm over.

The remaining forces in the city mostly had to maintain order, guard Warehouses, protect the merchant guild, and control Outer Areas outposts.

The regular troops that could be quickly mobilized were already few and far between.

After listening, Ayla lowered her head and drew a simple troop distribution map on the ground. Gun Stone stood beside her looking for a long time, his expression gradually becoming wrong.

"What do you want to do?"

"Attack Hei Tie Cheng."

"Now?"

"Now."

Gun Stone's Mouth Corner twitched: "No, we just finished fighting."

"The wounded haven't all been carried away, the corpses haven't all been cleaned up, and you're preparing to raid their home?"

Ayla raised her head and glanced at him: "That's why we should go now."

"They've suffered the greatest losses, the news is most chaotic, and the forces in the city are fewest. Once they reorganize their Defense and recall the armed forces in the Outer Areas, the difficulty will increase."

Gun Stone wanted to say something, but finally closed his mouth.

But there was an indescribable wrongness. A few hours ago, everyone was still thinking about how to survive in Hei Tie Cheng's hands, and now Ayla had already begun calculating how to swallow Hei Tie Cheng.

This pace really is a bit too fast, but it makes perfect sense.

For one, what Ayla said really was reasonable.

For another, that battle just now had already emboldened everyone; Hei Tie Cheng wasn't invincible either.

Their imposing armor vehicles got flipped over, heavy exoskeletons got kicked flying, and the vaunted mining melt-through cannons that could supposedly destroy city walls ended up as nothing but piles of scrap metal on the ground.

More importantly, they now had vehicles, guns, heavy weapons, and over five hundred prisoners.

If they were ordinary people, those five hundred mouths would be trouble. With Ayla, they were five hundred reusable parts.

She quickly began reorganizing.

Those who could drive kept driving, those who could repair engines were formed into a separate maintenance team, medical personnel handled the wounded, and those originally responsible for heavy weapons continued maintaining the confiscated equipment.

As for Hei Tie Cheng's original officers, all were stripped of Command Authority, to be guarded by Gun Shi and Seventh Dock's people.

A prisoner couldn't help asking: "Aren't you afraid we'll run?"

Ayla was checking an armored truck's transmission system, not even lifting her head.

"You can." The man froze.

"What did you say?"

"Those who want to run can run."

Ayla pulled her hand out of the engine compartment, her hands covered in black grease.

"Hei Tie Cheng just lost an army; what can they still give you when you go back?"

"If you stay and finish the work, I provide food, water, and shelter."

"Obey arrangements, work one year, and you can regain freedom."

The surrounding prisoners all fell quiet.

These terms couldn't be called kindness, but in Wade Tower, they were already good enough to seem unreal.

When Hei Tie Cheng caught people from outer settlements, there were usually only two outcomes.

The mines, or the slave market.

Live a year and regain freedom? Quite a few even suspected they'd misheard.

A young soldier hesitated for a long time, then stepped forward voluntarily.

"I know the firepower deployment at Hei Tie Cheng's west gate."

Immediately after, another raised a hand.

"I worked at a machinery repair factory in the city, know where the armor vehicle warehouse is."

"There's a maintenance passage next to the North District granary that leads straight into the inner city."

More and more people began speaking up voluntarily. Gun Shi watched, eyelids twitching.

This woman had just beaten them until they were picking their teeth off the ground. Now she hadn't even used much punishment, and they were already selling out their former employer.

He suddenly felt Hei Tie Cheng might really be done for this time.

Several hours later.

A convoy that looked strange no matter how you looked at it appeared outside Hei Tie Cheng.

At the very front was that armored unit that had just been dispatched to encircle and suppress Seventh Dock.

Not many vehicles were missing. Even Hei Tie Cheng's own flags were still hanging on them.

The defenders on the city walls were excited at first.

Someone even whistled.

"They're back!"

"I said it, what kind of waves can a bunch of Qi Diao Zhe stir up?"

"Seventh Dock's probably already been flattened."

But as the convoy gradually approached, the voices slowly died down. Because they discovered something was off.

On the turret of the lead armor vehicle stood a woman.

Black long hair blown back by the wind, a pair of purple eyes particularly striking in the setting sun.

While the officer originally commanding this army sat gray-faced in the truck behind.

Hands still tied with rope. The city walls fell into dead silence.

A few seconds later, a piercing alarm rang through all of Hei Tie Cheng.

"Enemy attack!"

"Close the gates!"

"Everyone to the walls!"

The heavy city gates began slowly closing. Ayla stood on the roof, glanced, didn't stop them.

She'd long since learned Hei Tie Cheng's situation from the prisoners' mouths.

This so-called city was essentially just a large-scale outpost converted from an old industrial district.

The walls were thick, weapons plentiful, but the vast majority of defensive facilities were built on old-era industrial structures.

In other words.

In her eyes, these things were defects everywhere.

Hei Tie Cheng's people tried to demand their immediate surrender via broadcast.

Ayla couldn't be bothered to respond.

The first shell soon flew out from the city top, landing ahead of the convoy, blasting up a large area of earth and stone.

A vehicle burst into flames on the spot. Gun Shi poked his head out from the side.

"What do we do? Force the attack?"

"Not necessary."

Ayla jumped off the armor vehicle. She walked a stretch along the city wall, finally stopping beside the main city gate.

This gate of Hei Tie Cheng was originally a heavy sluice gate used by the old industrial district to transport large-scale mining machinery; later generations welded a large quantity of steel plates onto the outside, making it look abnormally solid.

But they clearly did not understand the original design; the outer armor was very thick, yet the mechanical locking mechanism that truly controlled the opening and closing was still the old stuff left behind from several hundred years ago.

Ayla looked for two minutes, then immediately called over several confiscated heavy trucks.

Steel cables were connected to the inner structure of the city gate. Several engineering personnel cut two hydraulic locking pipelines according to her requirements.

Then, all vehicles accelerated simultaneously.

The engines let out a deafening roaring, the steel cables tightening.

Screech! A piercing metal distorting sound rang out, the guards on the city wall instantly panicking.

"What are they doing?!"

"The gate lock! The lock underneath is broken!"

"Quickly send people to repair it!"

It was already too late.

Accompanied by a dull loud boom, the entire set of old mechanical locking structure was forcibly torn apart.

The steel city gate that looked impregnable slowly cracked open a gap.

The Qi Diao Zhe outside instantly burst into a cheer, but inside the city it was thoroughly chaotic.

Hei Tie Cheng's most elite field troop had just been wiped out to the last man, and now even the city gate was being forcibly dismantled right before their eyes.

Even more lethal was that the news could no longer be suppressed.

The expeditionary troop failed, the Seventh Dock was not destroyed.

That black-haired, purple-eyed woman was not only alive, she had even brought Hei Tie Cheng's own troop back to kill their way in.

The outer area workers were the first to riot, immediately followed by the mining area slave laborers, and finally the civilians.

The Iron City Merchant Guild and the management had ruled here for so many years, relying never on love and support.

But on making everyone believe that resistance had no meaning.

But now, this premise was shattered.

Someone secretly cut power to the West District defense tower, a side door was also secretly opened.

Even among the security squad responsible for guarding the city, there were people who directly threw their guns onto the ground.

When Ayla truly stepped into Hei Tie Cheng, the expected street fighting simply did not happen.

This city had already cracked open from the inside first.

Gunshi took people to control the armory, the Seventh Dock people went to the granary.

Ayla directly issued a command.

"First control the purified water station, then the power plant, granary, armory last."

Gunshi froze for a moment.

"Not capture the City Lord first?"

Ayla looked at him.

"If the City Lord runs, we can catch him again."

"If the purified water station is blown up, people will die tomorrow."

Gunshi went quiet for a few seconds, ultimately saying nothing.

That night, the Hei Tie Cheng City Lord naturally failed to escape.

He carried several crates of valuable supplies, attempting to leave via the underground transport passage, but was blocked at the exit by his own security squad, who delivered both him and the crates to Ayla.

Ayla did not even execute him immediately.

The things she wanted were far more useful than one person's head.

Population records, grain reserves, mine distribution, outer settlements, industrial equipment.

And everything transported back from the Seventh Dock several decades ago.

When checking the last item, her movement suddenly stopped.

In an already yellowed old file, there was recorded an extremely special piece of spoils.

It was a large Empire war machine wreckage dragged back from underground the Seventh Dock.

With Hei Tie Cheng's level at the time, it was fundamentally impossible to repair.

They could only dismantle the outer armor and a small number of parts; the remaining main body, because it was too heavy and too complex, was sealed in the old industrial district underground warehouse.

For several decades, no one asked after it.

Ayla stared at that file for a long time, then stood up and kicked the Hei Tie Cheng City Lord once.

"Lead the way."