chsdbacks Chapter 83 Using mechs to fight mechs
Chapter 83 Using mechs to fight mechs
Chapter 82 Using mechs to fight mechs
The second level of the Tower of Babel, the Titan Forge, is located within the camp.
The air was filled with the smell of stale engine oil and the metallic stench of corrosion.
The massive meshing of gears had long since ceased, with only the occasional crackling of electricity echoing in the distance, reverberating through the deathly silent steel jungle. Lorraine stood before a giant holographic map.
The map was projected by holographic projectors found in the vicinity, and pale blue light particles in mid-air constructed the magnificent full view of the second layer of this mobile city, the Titan Forge.
This is the heart of the Tower of Babel, the most glorious industrial marvel of the Golden Age, and the miraculous place where all the industrial goods for the entire Tower of Babel were produced.
But at this moment, 99 percent of the area on the map is flashing a blinding red light.
That's the mark of "Abyss Erosion".
"Big brother, this is the area controlled by sister Messiah now. It's ridiculously large. Apart from the area where we are, the entire Titan Forge has been eroded by the Moment of Anomaly."
Ohm stood beside Lorraine, who was wearing a somewhat oversized work jacket with the cuffs rolled up several times, revealing a section of her pale wrist.
She had just acquired a physical body and wasn't used to the cold yet, so she would unconsciously rub her hands together from time to time.
She looked at the densely packed red forbidden areas on the map, her eyes dimming.
"To protect me, Sister Messiah proactively absorbed all the pollution data."
"Now the entire second-level security system, production line, and even those sleeping Tier 4 Titans are all under her subconscious control, turned into rabid dogs that kill anyone they see."
Lorraine nodded slightly, her fingertip tracing a red line across the holographic map.
"If we want to save the Messiah, we must eliminate these mechs parasitized by the Abyss, sever their data connection with the Messiah, and reduce her computational load."
"Our camp has enough fighting strength. As long as we prevent these corrosive mechs from attacking all at once, we can divide and conquer them and wipe them out."
"but----"
Ohm took a bite of the jerky in his hand, his cheeks bulging, and mumbled, "It's too big, and too much."
She swallowed her food and gestured an exaggeratedly large circle with her hand.
"Each floor of the mobile city Tower of Babel is at least the size of a medium-sized city."
On the second level alone, there are at least 30,000 out-of-control automatons, including over a thousand Tier 3 automatons, and deeper inside, there are even some Tier 4 behemoths—true god-like machines, Titans.
Ohm turned to look around.
Anna, the third-tier Ice and Fire Witch; Lyra, the second-tier Fate Witch; Victor, the third-tier Knight; and a group of awkwardly assembled automatons.
Finally, there's Olivia, who's imprisoned in the Emerald Cocoon for her ascension ceremony, and herself, the third-tier Witch of a Thousand Machines.
This is the camp's current total combat strength.
"You think just a few of us can clear out the entire second floor?"
Ohm shook his head, his ahoge drooping limply. "Big brother, according to my calculations, if we fight without rest, it will take us a year to kill them all. By then, we'll have been killed by those two Fimbulwinters."
"Who said we were going to do it ourselves?"
Lorraine gave a meaningful smile.
He turned around and snapped his fingers.
"Click, click."
A series of rapid metallic clanging sounds rang out.
Twenty round, chubby engineering puppets slid out of the shadows. Some held welding torches, others held wrenches, their single eyes flashing with excited blue light. They stood in two neat rows, like soldiers awaiting inspection.
"Ohm, you are the Witch of Machines."
Lorraine lowered her head slightly, her gaze level with Ohm's, and a flame called ambition burned in her dark eyes.
"Since the enemy is a machine, then we will use machines to fight machines."
He pointed to a huge, gray building on the map.
"Don't you have the All-Powerful Mechanical Repair Factory? With this building, we can continuously produce mechs and use them to fight mechs. This kind of machine is best suited for this kind of heavy work."
Ohm was stunned.
She blinked her big eyes and quickly accessed the database in her mind to perform calculations.
A few seconds later, she spread her hands with a bitter expression.
"Using mechs to fight mechs is theoretically feasible. But, big brother, even a skilled cook can't make a meal without rice."
She counted on her fingers: "To manufacture even the lowest-spec Tier 2 mech, we need two tons of high-strength alloy, thirty kilograms of mithril circuitry, and a core energy converter—all that junk we picked up on the first floor—"
"Even if all of them are used up, it will only be enough to produce a few hundred Tier 3 mechs and a few thousand Tier 2 mechs."
"And this is far from enough to deal with the remaining, overwhelming number of mechs on the first level."
Ohm sighed and kicked a piece of scrap metal at his feet.
"Even if I run my all-purpose mechanical repair shop at full capacity, I can't create any mechs without raw materials."
"Material?"
Lorraine stood up, his gaze passing through the layers of steel supports to the Titan Forge, below this level.
"Ohm, have you forgotten how this city works?"
He opened "The Witch's Codex".
A pale golden light screen unfolded before him, and lines of data streamed down like a waterfall.
Lorraine's finger precisely tapped a coordinate point on the edge of the map.
[Facility Name: Ore Refining Center No. 7]
Status: Down/Moderately Damaged
[Function: Receives raw ore mined from the first layer, "Rust Border," and smelts it to produce various military-grade alloy ingots.]
"The first level is called 'Rust Border,' it's all mines there."
Lorraine's voice was calm and resolute. "The design logic of the Tower of Babel is a perfect closed loop. The first level is mining, the second level is smelting and manufacturing, and the third level is living. As long as we build this refining center, we can continuously turn the stones from the first level into bullets for the second level."
Ohm's eyes suddenly lit up.
It was a sudden realization after being enlightened, and even more so, an instinctive excitement as a "machine soul".
"That's right! As long as we can repair the ore refining center—no, wait!"
"It sounds easy, but how are we supposed to fix it? The ore refining center is an extremely complex machine. Even if it were just left there, we wouldn't know how to fix it."
Ohm blinked in confusion, instinctively saying no, but the next second, she seemed to remember something and suddenly looked up: "Wait, brother, you don't just know how to build the first-floor buildings, you can also build these second-floor ore refining centers, right?"
Lorraine looked at her strangely: "You're only just realizing it?"
Do I look like the kind of person who would bring up things they're not sure about?
Lorraine gathered the other witches, leaving Lyra and all the mechs to guard the house, and arrived in front of the ore refining center.
This is a colossal building as majestic as a mountain.
Hundreds of thick exhaust pipes pierce the dome, and the long-cooled reaction vessels hang silently in mid-air like the hearts of dead giants.
A thick layer of dust had accumulated on the ground, and every step raised a choking cloud of smoke.
This place has been asleep for three thousand years.
"That's really... terrible."
Ohm stroked a broken drive shaft, feeling the cold, rough texture on his fingertips.
For humanity, this is a wasteland.
But for her, who was once a machine spirit, this place was like her own backyard that had been smashed to pieces. The dilapidated state of every building and the rust on every machine broke her heart.
These are miracles from the Golden Age, miracles that will never return and can never be replicated.
Stop daydreaming and get to work.
Lorraine's voice interrupted her melancholy.
With a wave of his hand, the twenty engineering puppets immediately dispersed.
"Anna, you're in charge of igniting and preheating those frozen reactors."
"Victor, go clear the blockage on the conveyor belt; it's hard work."
Lorraine issued instructions methodically.
His brain was like a sophisticated computer, breaking down the complex repair project into simple steps with the help of "The Witch's Codex".
"Yes, young master!"
Everyone quickly sprang into action.
Pale flames ignited beneath the reactor, and the engineering corps performed tasks that only their repair equipment could accomplish. Victor, his fighting spirit surging, hoisted several tons of waste rock and tossed it aside.
Lorraine then led Ohm to the central control console.
The screen on the console was already broken, and various wires were exposed like a tangled mess.
"Can it be fixed?" Lorraine asked.
"With the blueprints, it's just a matter of minutes!"
Ohm puffed out his little chest confidently.
She stretched out her hands, and ten data probes, as thin as hair and made of magic, instantly emerged from her fingertips, piercing directly into the control panel's interface.
【The Witch of Machines: Data Deconstruction】!
In an instant, Ohm's eyes were filled with a pure stream of light and data.
In her view, the lifeless factory was instantly deconstructed into countless lines and nodes.
Where the circuit is broken, where it is worn out, where parts are missing—everything is immediately clear.
Using the original blueprints provided by Lorraine, Ohm quickly identified the specific parts of the ore refining center that had been damaged.
"Engineering Puppets No. 3 and No. 4, proceed to Sector B to replace the pressure valve!"
"Number Five, connect that red wire to the blue connector, don't connect it backwards!"
"Big brother, could I borrow your camp relocation order? I need to retrieve a few spare gear sets from the storage space!"
Ohm's voice became crisp and rapid, filled with unquestionable authority.
At this moment, she was no longer that gluttonous little girl, but the true queen of this steel city.
Lorraine smiled and cooperated.
Holding the camp relocation order, he conjured massive, intricate gears out of thin air as his mental energy surged, precisely locking them into the transmission slots under the manipulation of the engineering puppets.
Time passed second by second.
As the last component was put back in place, Ohm abruptly pulled out the data probe and slammed down the red start button.
"Get moving, you little brat!!!"
boom-!!!
A deep rumble, like the roar of a giant beast from the depths of the earth, instantly shattered the dust in the air.
Then came the second tone, and then the third tone.
A blinding red light suddenly shone from the reactor that had been silent for three thousand years.
The massive drive shaft began to rotate slowly, emitting a tooth-grinding metallic scraping sound, then it grew faster and smoother.
The gravity conveyor belt, which had long been idle, started running again, emitting a thunderous roar.
"Warning: Raw material feeding — Warning: Refining furnace temperature rise — System self-check complete — Production line restart successful."
The cold, synthesized electronic sounds echoed in the empty factory.
A few minutes later.
The first stream of molten iron, reddish-brown like boiling lava, gushed out from the discharge port, meandering along the guide channel and illuminating Ohm's oil-stained little face.
A wave of heat hit us.
Ohm stood by the railing, his hands gripping the handrail tightly, his knuckles turning white from the force.
She watched the molten iron flow, the giant drive shafts turning again in the flames, and listened to the deafening roar of the machinery.
This sound might be noise to others.
But to her, it sounded like a heartbeat.
It is the heartbeat of this city that has been dead for three thousand years, starting to beat again.
"before----"
Ohm's voice was choked with emotion. She didn't turn around, but just stared blankly at the firelight below.
"I used to be locked in that tank, and I could only watch through the camera as the entire Tower of Babel rusted and rotted away little by little. I watched the lights go out one by one, and the mechs fall one by one."
"I thought that until my consciousness completely faded away, this city would also become a pile of scrap metal."
She turned around and looked at Lorraine.
The firelight reflected in her eyes, shimmering with tiny tears, yet filled with an unprecedented hope.
"But big brother, you've come."
"Look, it's alive again."
Ohm laughed, tears streaming down her cheeks and dripping onto her work clothes.
"I think life is really good now."
"It's even better than during the Golden Age."
"Back then, although it was lively here, I was just an observer. But now—I have hands and feet, I can feel the heat of these railings, I can smell the molten iron."
She took a deep breath, as if it were the sweetest scent in the world.
"Moreover, I can fix it myself."
Lorraine stepped forward and gently wiped away a smear of engine oil from her cheek.
His fingers were warm and dry.
"We have taken a brand new step."
Lorraine turned around, her gaze sweeping beyond the refining center, towards the deep, dark Titan Forge area.
There, countless raw materials await mining, and countless enemies await crushing.
"Next, we will restore the glory of this city to its golden age."
He stretched out his hand and pointed to the molten iron flowing in.
"Now, get your machine repair shop running at full speed."
"I want to see our own steel legion within three days!"
Ohm wiped his face hard, his eyes instantly becoming sharp and fanatical.
She snapped to attention, gave Lorraine a somewhat perfunctory military salute, and said in a clear, resonant voice, "Yes, sir!"
Rumble—
As the girl made her vow, the first wisp of black smoke in three thousand years billowed from the chimney of the No. 7 Ore Refining Center.
Like a black dragon awakening, it roars in declaring war on the sky occupied by wind, snow and monsters.