Planet of Sand and Oasis of Iron

Chapter 34 34. Fast Travel Isn’t This Quick

Of course, what may seem like shocking operations to outsiders is...

It can’t be said that my heart is pounding, it can only be considered as heart failure.

Cypher didn't care, because he was now in a mechanical body. On the other side, Tien was enjoying it, and even shouted at the passing sand dunes and storm, as if he was making a noise in the wind and sand.

Complaints from the back row were heard one after another, and some people even bit their tongues due to the occasional bumps and vibrations - the happiest person was probably Lin Shenxue.

She fell unconscious the moment she hit the ground, and was now swaying with the car's constant adjustment of its posture. Occasionally, one could see her fair face turned over, eyes rolled up, and she looked like she was enjoying a good sleep.

Young people are in good health and fall asleep.

Without paying attention to the surrounding situation, Seifer stared at the electronic map in front of him. The distance between the two cities, which previously required two nights and one day to stay at home, was now being rapidly shortened.

Even if the radio waves on the sand clearly showed that there were unidentified units nearby, it didn't matter. In just a blink of an eye, they left the threat range.

It's so funny. I can't catch up. I can't catch up at all.

As the vehicle jolted and swayed with constant adjustments, Cypher suddenly asked with interest, "This disposable propulsion system, plus the fuel it consumes, shouldn't be cheap, right?"

Tien clenched her teeth and let out a muffled laugh from between her teeth.

She vaguely said it wasn't much, just a few hundred thousand, and that this amount of money would naturally be part of the city management allocation - provided that things could be done well.

Rushing all the way, leaving a straight... oh not so straight path, when Sefer's car passed over a giant sand pile composed of sand dunes that was slightly tilted upward, the bundled auxiliary thrusters made a "bang bang" sound.

Then all of them were detached, leaving only the main propulsion engine, and the stabilization engine in the cargo box was started according to the settings. This slowed down the rapid propulsion of the vehicle slightly.

But there is only one thing, Lin Shenxue hasn't woken up yet... Sefer always feels that if he continues to advance at such a high speed, she might die.

"Don't worry, this isn't the kind of machine that can perform small-scale infiltration or sabotage operations. No matter how much it speeds up, it can only go so far."

Tien waved her hand nonchalantly, her mindset quite optimistic. "Instead of worrying about that, it's better to worry about the quicksand areas that might appear. Try to avoid those kinds of places. If you get stuck in one, this car will become an iron coffin."

That's true. Although I always feel that the main body has some weird little secrets, no matter what the secrets are, they will definitely be meaningless after being buried underground by tens of thousands of tons of sand.

Concentrating on driving, this car, which seemed very "primitive" from the beginning, roared through the night sky and crossed the rugged road with little sand but a lot of unweathered rocks.

The terrain became increasingly bizarre, and occasionally one could even see bottomless gullies. In the night wind, fine sand slowly rolled down, as if to completely fill it with sand and soil.

In the dark night farther away, you can even see towering mountains. They stand in the night like a backdrop, illuminated by the overly bright moonlight.

moonlight……?
The first two times he came out, Sefer never looked up at the sky. He even ignored the information in the sky because the light on the sand was too strong. However, during this fast journey, he had some time to breathe.

After driving to a relatively flat section of road, which was also a flat terrain covered with yellow sand, he looked up at the sky... Even the view of the sky transmitted by the external camera made him a little dazed.

"What are you doing? Don't be distracted. The road ahead is going to be difficult to walk on... Some time ago, a few mercenaries got into an argument here and ended up blowing up the mountain, which was already not very solid."

What happened a few days ago was spread quite widely...

Cypher felt the force of the car's hull crushing the rocks, turning them into gravel, and asked thoughtfully, "Why are there two in the sky..."

"The sky? Oh, you mean the moon? These days, everyone's going to be mad at the thought of someone actually being interested in things in the sky." Tien was clearly in high spirits. She'd been inexplicably excited since leaving Node City. "But our location tonight isn't very good. There aren't just two moons in the sky, there are three."

"Three."

"Yes, one is hiding behind the other. Sometimes, if you're lucky enough to see an arc during your night shift, I wouldn't recommend looking up for too long."

Cypher was curious: "Why?"

"Don't you think its light is dazzling?" Tien pointed at the map indifferently and entered the updated environment into it.

"Looking at it too much might even make you blind—Okay, cheer up. We've reached the external communication array area of the Forge Node City. If nothing goes wrong, you should be able to receive the signal."

As he was speaking, the main engine that had been spewing flames just now began to "grunt" a few times, and the fuel was completely exhausted and the flames stopped. The speed of the whole car slowed down abruptly, so that those who had already adapted to it in the back row complained loudly.

As Tien unbuckled his seatbelt and went to the back to deal with the people's problems, Cypher also left his seat - leaving the rest to the automatic driving.

He patted Lin Shenxue's cheek. She suddenly widened her eyes and looked around in confusion, finally fixing her gaze on Sefer.

There were a few words written on the tablet that he was holding like a baby.

'where am I? '

"If mercenaries launch an attack on the outskirts of the Crucible Node City, we, as a unit protected by the city, will receive immediate support from there."

"So, what I just did was..."

"By the way, before you only talked about whether the burger was delicious or not. I wanted to ask if you have any other suggestions for improvement? For example, seasoning, matching ingredients, sauces, etc."

Immediately changing the subject to help her forget about that potentially bad memory, Cypher found a pretext for her to send her thoughts over the comlink and asked if he could play back the previous battle log.

Although he is an "experienced mechanic", with his smart mind and hands-on ability, Lin Shenxue has quickly learned how to use various devices in this world.

The picture was placed in front of Seifer's eyes. He squinted his eyes and noticed two facts.

First, Tien's command ability is no joke. Several vehicles that are obviously at the level of urban defense firepower, plus mercenary vehicles that may act alone, are able to fight against the opponent's vehicles that are specially used for delivery, firepower and attacking, and they are indistinguishable. He is really something.

Second, in visual combat, smoke generators and smoke bombs are quite effective. A lot of the enemy's firepower, including main gun firepower, fell into the empty space due to the confusion of smoke bombs.

The most important thing is that the opponent has sent out relatively small units...about the size of medium tanks, and they were all torn to pieces by the sufficient vehicle-mounted firepower.

I think if the other side had deployed special operations units immediately at that time, they would have been directly smashed into pieces by the saturation firepower and could not be put back together.

It's no wonder Tien managed to sneak into a mecha back then. It felt like she was really pushing herself to the limit, boarding someone else's car only to be outmaneuvered...

Reading and taking notes carefully, Seifer concentrated on summarizing what he saw and his own feelings - these would definitely be useful in the future.

During this process, time passed slowly, and the vehicle gradually drove onto a straight and wide road made of concrete, with a thin layer of sand and dust on the surface.

The Crucible Node City is just around the corner.

(End of this chapter)