Abyssal Wanderer.

"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!"

Shen L shouted the moment the driver fell.

Upon hearing the enemy attack alarm on the communication channel, Jiang Zhou immediately ordered the Chainbearer Modified Armor to take off and simultaneously turned his view towards the Heavenly God Path, trying to find out which direction the enemy was attacking from.

then……

Was it Tian Shen Dao who fired the shot?

Jiang Zhou was stunned for a moment when he saw the crosshairs in the sniper scope.

Immediately, the Chainbound Modified Armor began to maneuver rapidly in the air, adopting a posture as if searching for the source of the enemy.

Meanwhile, Jim got up to go to the driver's seat to see what was going on, but was stopped by Hanel behind him.

"Danger."

Hanel shook his head at him.

"A sniper is aiming at us. Don't show your face."

The last few dragon symbiotes rose up and lay on the side window that had been pierced by bullets, using their bodies to block the sniper's line of fire.

Only then did Shen L rush into the driver's seat, steady the driver's headless body, and keep him in the position he should have been in when he was shot.

A fleeting sadness crossed his face—this was not the time to mourn the sacrifice.

"Trajectory, trajectory, trajectory..."

Shen L muttered to himself, and the Apollo pituitary gland in his brain began to rapidly calculate the sniper's position based on the point of impact.

"Emergency Physician! At your current altitude, point the pointer at the broadcast tower, at the eleven o'clock position, at the silver office building with the 'June Girl' advertisement. Stay mobile and watch out for glare!"

About five seconds later, he shouted into the channel.

That was precisely where the Heavenly Gods were lying in ambush, and Jiang Zhou already knew that.

"I'll go right away."

After saying that, he pretended to perform a zigzag maneuver in the air while pondering why Tenshin-do had suddenly fired at the driver.

First, we must rule out the possibility that the Heavenly God Path is controlled by the enemy.

If the Celestial Path were controlled by the enemy, he wouldn't have killed just one driver—whether it was Jim, himself, or Hanel and Shen L, they were all obviously more valuable targets.

Then, without considering that the Celestial God had suddenly lost his mind, if he really had, Jim would probably have died under the apothecary's bone blade earlier.

In other words, we must consider the premise that the driver deserved to die.

"Have you found the sniper yet?"

Shen L asked anxiously over the communication channel.

Landing atop the building, Jiang Zhou watched as Tian Shendao calmly disassembled his sniper equipment as he answered:

"No, they've already evacuated. The enemy's preparations were very thorough."

Damn it!

Upon hearing this answer, Shen L cursed angrily from the driver's seat, just as Jim pushed open the door and walked in.

"What are you doing here? Don't you know it's dangerous here?!"

Just as Shen L was wondering where to vent her anger, she couldn't help but retort the moment she saw Jim.

Jim didn't say anything, but simply walked over and squatted down next to the driver's seat.

The all-terrain vehicle's anti-gravity engine was on at that moment, but he immediately noticed that the driver's hand was on the emergency brake lever to shut off the engine.

If the emergency brake is applied during descent, restarting the anti-gravity engine will take at least ten seconds. Add to that the time to detect the anomaly and to react... if he actually does that, the entire ATV will probably freefall through the elevator shaft.

They will be severely maimed or killed at that time.

But Jim remained silent—after all, it might just be a coincidence, and he couldn't convince Shen L based on that alone.

As he stood up, he quietly took out a handkerchief and wiped the dashboard, which was covered with the driver's brain remains, before calmly meeting Shen L's gaze.

"Did you find anything, great detective?"

Shen L asked with an unfriendly expression.

Jim shook his head.

"Then hurry back to the carriage! Don't let our men sacrifice themselves for you in vain!"

He said sternly.

Jim didn't explain anything, but quietly put away the handkerchief stained with human brain tissue and silently walked back to the carriage.

"Have the pharmacist check this."

Jim walked up to Hanell and handed her the handkerchief.

Hanel looked puzzled, but did as she was told. When she returned a short while later, her puzzled expression had turned into a gloomy and wary one.

"Jimmy, the pharmacist said he tasted it in..."

Jim made a shushing gesture.

[The smell of the Apollo virus, right?]

He opened a secret channel and asked.

Hanel nodded.

At this point, the all-terrain vehicle started up again. After the driver's body was removed, Shen L was in charge of driving.

Was that previous shot fired by the mortician?

"Hanell asked."

Perhaps because he had received support from the Celestial Path when fighting the apothecary, Hanel immediately guessed the sniper's identity.

Jim nodded.

[I previously checked the neural activity of everyone here and found no signs of zombies in disguise. This means that the previous driver, like Hayashibara Eri, was infected with the superhuman virus.]

Jim said so.

The next question is, were there any other infected people besides the driver?

To verify this, we would need to obtain and examine the cerebrospinal fluid of each of them.

As if guessing what Jim was thinking, Hanel said this.

Meanwhile, Jiang Zhou roughly understood why the Heavenly God Path chose to fire at that time.

Their identities were already questioned by Icarus's people, and if the driver were killed beforehand, this suspicion would likely escalate into direct conflict.

In other words, Tian Shendao knew the driver had a problem, but he still used the driver's value until the very last moment.

As for how Tian Shen Dao sensed that the driver was suspicious, Jiang Zhou couldn't figure it out either.

If we had to put it in perspective, this is most likely not a "notice" but rather the result of some kind of indirect game.

If that's the case, then it's really hard to say who has the advantage in this city.

[Don't say anything, just pretend we don't know there are infected people.]

Thinking of this, Jim said directly.

Without irrefutable evidence, such matters cannot be explained in a short time.

But what if they did it again?

Hanel was still somewhat worried.

Don't worry, if you prepare in advance, the risk of doing it again will be significantly reduced.

As Jim spoke, a whooshing sound whistled past—it was Jiang Zhou returning in his Chainbreaker Modified Armor.

If this happens again, Jiang Zhou will be able to save Jim and the others immediately.

"I mean... are you really some kind of corporate elite? I even gave you the location, and with such high-level equipment, you can't even catch a sniper properly." Shen L looked at Jiang Zhou, who flew back empty-handed, and couldn't help but mock him again.

Jiang Zhou did not reply to this; he simply pointed to the elevator shaft, indicating that it should be driven down quickly.

…………

At the same time, on a rooftop on the seventh basement level of the resettlement area, the draftsman, whose entire set of equipment had been connected, stood up. At this moment, his body was about three times larger than before, making it look as if his entire upper body was embedded in the center of a four-meter-tall, slightly square-shaped power armor.

The semi-autonomous mechanical appendages of the draftsmen have now become controllers for driving various external equipment, which is also how the Empsa Path can temporarily enhance its combat power—just like the tentacles of an octopus, the Empsa Path's appendages themselves have a certain degree of intelligence, while the Coordinator is responsible for coordinating the actions of all appendages.

In fact, the autonomy of those appendages can be upgraded, and the equipment that Neptune Transportation provided to the cartographer this time was infused with autonomous programs of considerable intelligence. By connecting them to the cartographer, he could use equipment far exceeding its original adjustment level without severely eroding his mental index.

Of course, this ability comes at a price—when the appendages are smarter than the body, it becomes difficult to say who the true master of the body is.

However, the advanced equipment currently used by the draftsmen was meticulously calibrated by Neptune's transportation technology department over a long period of time. Most of its autonomous programs maintain an optimal balance between performance and controllability.

That is why today's illustrators can be said to have reached a depth of 7 in terms of paper drawing skills.

As for comparing him to a Depth 7 Coordinator, his brain, which has only undergone Depth 3 enhancement, will still be a significant disadvantage.

But this doesn't matter to the illustrator!
After all, the difference in strength between the enemy and ourselves is too great, and we are bound to win by simply overwhelming them with numerical superiority.

"Am I right, Baptiste?"

The draftsman turned his head and looked at the head that was soaking in the jar, asking, "Given this guy's intelligence level, he's a decent external wet component, so I just plugged him in and put him in charge of the ballistic calculations for the Rampades-type blast pulse gun."

Baptiste, who was filling the can, released a few bubbles.

"Humph……"

Not receiving a satisfactory answer, the draftsman snorted slightly in dissatisfaction.

"Now that their trump cards have been discovered, what do I have to worry about?"

At this point, the illustrator showed an extremely displeased expression.

"The mortician is still alive... Although I felt from the beginning that he was a problem, I never thought that he would be the one to deal with in the end."

It's not the mysterious emcee, not the makeup artist with formidable combat skills, and not even the pharmacist with obvious mental problems.

The final stumbling block turned out to be the mortician who had adjusted the depth the least.

To be honest, the opponent was just a Deep 2 Coordinator of the Theseus Path. With my current strength, killing him would be no more difficult than crushing an ant.

But the problem is that the other side has at least one "anti-lithium bomb" and a sniper who can accurately snipe him from several kilometers away—now he knows how terrifying the morticians' puppets are.

Whether in terms of personal business skills or in terms of the intelligence to anticipate and plan.

If there hadn't been a prior exchange, then the sniper's anti-lithium bomb was definitely intended for himself.

Given the terrifying explosive energy of the anti-lithium bomb, even if one uses all defensive measures, a direct hit would be fatal, and being affected by the core of the explosion would result in serious injury.

The dog-like emcee actually refused to ban this prohibited weapon...

Thinking of this, the draftsman couldn't help but curse inwardly.

Fortunately, the enemy snipers had already figured it out – the enemy hadn't laid an ambush on the seventh basement level, but instead came down with the Icarus Liberation Front members.

That being the case...

"coming."

Sensors placed near the large elevator detected a signal, and the draftsman aimed and set up his gun there.

The Rampades-type blast pulse gun begins charging.

The weapon base, connected to a metal appendage, began to deform. An alloy rail about five centimeters in diameter extended from the base, and countless tiny electromagnetic coils began to light up in sequence in the groove of the rail, like a spine awakening.

Based on the signals transmitted from the sensors, the draftsman calculated the time of the enemy's arrival and planned the lead time for firing.

At this moment, the energy conduit is drawing energy from the Hellfire Fission Reactor and injecting ionized gas into the acceleration chamber of the guide rail.

The electromagnetic coils in the grooves of the track began to light up one by one, with the blue and white light spreading upwards section by section. When the last coil lit up, the entire guide rail had become a flowing river of light.

Then, the moment his prosthetic eye caught the crimson lines of the anti-gravity engine beneath the all-terrain vehicle…

Full power firing!
A straight line of light instantly connected the gun barrel to the all-terrain vehicle.

The trail of light is blue-white, but it only stays in the air for a fraction of a second. When the air is passed through by the plasma, it is instantly ionized, leaving behind the smell of ozone along its path.

The engine of the all-terrain vehicle was hit directly.

The moment plasma comes into contact with solid matter, the confining magnetic field completely disintegrates, and the high-density energy contained within it is released instantaneously in less than a millisecond.

Flashes of light, flames, and then the slow, deliberate sound of an explosion.

The roar of the explosion was delayed by a full three seconds before the flash came – this was the safe distance the draftsman maintained, fearing that the puppet carrying the anti-lithium bomb was also on the vehicle and might cause a secondary explosion.

The imagined secondary explosion did not occur.

For the illustrator, it was hard to tell whether this was good news or bad news.

Shouldn't you check the situation first?

Baptiste asked—more of a sarcastic remark than a question.

But the illustrator shook his head seriously and then said:
"Don't worry, those structures will come over like hyenas that smell blood. We can just watch from here."

As the draftsman spoke, the heat sink of the blast pulse gun popped out, and it began to reload.

As if to prove his words, a large number of constructs emerged from the surroundings and began to surge toward the elevator shaft that had been previously exploded—weapon-laden domestic robots, sex dolls, security robots, heavy construction machinery, hijacked flying cars with autopilots…the constructs that could be seen everywhere in the resettlement area were all there.

They quickly disappeared into the dust raised by the explosion.

"If he's not quite dead, we'll give him another shot right here."

After replacing the heat sink, the draftsman re-set up the gun path.

He waited for about five minutes until the dust gradually dissipated.

The structures that had rushed in earlier were evacuated one by one from the elevator shaft.

Apart from being covered in a little dust, they looked completely unharmed—it seems they hadn't encountered any living creatures that could move or resist.

The illustrator was finally relieved.

Looks like they've completely wiped them out...

Thinking this, he put away the Rampades-type blast pulse gun and then jumped off the sixty-meter-high building.

As he fell halfway down, the power system of the Hecate Armor activated, four streams of plasma jets shot from the vectoring nozzles, and the buffer system kicked in. He landed silently like a falling leaf, walking towards the wreckage.

The sensors he had previously placed next to the elevator shaft had all been destroyed, so even with those constructs as proof, he still had to go and personally confirm the results of the battle.

This is his hunting habit.

He soon arrived at the all-terrain vehicle in the elevator shaft, which had been reduced to wreckage—calling it wreckage would be too kind; it was a deformed mass of metal that had melted instantly and then solidified again after the explosion. In some past era, it might have been exhibited as an abstract sculpture.

No one could survive if they were still on that vehicle.

Inside the elevator shaft, due to the confined space, the dust stirred up earlier didn't dissipate quickly enough. It wasn't very clear to see using only visible optical wavelengths. Therefore, the draftsman tilted his head back and activated the high-energy radiation detection sensor.

Hmm, I still can't see through it. There seems to be lead powder in this smoke and dust, and it's not very clear even with radiation detection.

But why did the previous explosion generate lead dust?

Jiang Zhou seized the opportunity very well.

Before the draftsman could even realize the problem, a four-armed silver armored vehicle, over two meters tall, suddenly swooped down from the smoke and dust, landing directly on the draftsman.

Two high-frequency vibrating armor-piercing daggers pierced straight towards the cartographer's chest—originally intended for his head, but the cartographer reacted instantly and shifted his position, missing a fatal blow.

The dagger pierced the draftsman's chest armor, but the armor, made of some unknown material, stopped vibrating after being embedded in it. The high-frequency vibrating armor-piercing dagger, capable of cutting steel like tofu, could not continue vibrating.

But this is no challenge for the Chainbreaker Modified Armor—with its powerful output, even without relying on high-frequency vibrations to destroy the crystal structure, it can still cut through the armor by simply slamming it with its blade.

At the same time, the two electromagnetic railguns on the armored shoulders were pressed directly against the draftsman's chest, and the internal coils began to accelerate the projectiles.

"I'll teach you to wreck my car!"

The moment he fired, Jiang Zhou roared ferociously. (End of Chapter)