Planet of Sand and Oasis of Iron

Chapter 71: The Many Are Beating the Few, So Come On, Don’t Leave (Part 71)
Vehicles cannot enter the city because it is small and has many shelters, making it unfriendly to small units.

It is not so friendly to mobile strongholds - and if you use the main gun to fire indiscriminately in the city, the final losses will be attributed to the mercenaries.

Otherwise, if everyone fights without restraint, all kinds of high-powered weapons will be used indiscriminately. Not to mention, the city that has been built with great difficulty will be smashed to pieces. Who will bear the loss?

The answer is mercenaries.

It would be fine if the damage was only caused accidentally during a fight, but if heavy artillery was used in a city, that would be a different story.

Seifer asked Lin Shenxue to move around in the defense circle to a limited extent to protect the vehicle body - this made her very dissatisfied. Isn't it to protect the crew?

Heading towards the downward passage, Cypher casually replied, "How do you think your value can surpass this advanced experimental base?"

"That's not right!"

"Hmm... Let me put it another way. You are an important crew member of mine. If the armor is destroyed, your life will be safe. So protecting it is also protecting you."

Lin Shenxue was obviously persuaded.

So Seifer continued, "Does this make you feel better?"

'……really.'

For some reason, it took so long, even until Cypher was standing at the door, before she answered, but the text that came through was just a standard format, and I couldn't understand what she was thinking.

Women are so weird, oh, it seems I am the same now, that’s okay.

In this way, Cypher relieved the pressure of the upcoming battle and waited for the door to open.

Yes, although he has a body of steel, his heart is still that of an ordinary person. When facing the unknown and possible failure of the battle, Cypher will also be nervous.

He kept rehearsing in his mind the possible encounters that might come next. The moment the closed door opened, he stood by the door and waited for a while.

It was pitch black inside, with only the familiar dappled glow of the city lights. The machine detected a large amount of heat that hadn't dissipated yet. It looked like...

The city's defense machines were scattered all over the city. There was even one machine embedded in the metal plate of the gate, which was constantly spewing out some red light.

There was total silence in the communication, and no signal could be detected.

Slowly walking into the city entrance, Cypher activated the thrusters and the machine slid forward immediately - during this time, the city remained silent.

The administration building was completely flattened, with not even a single brick left standing. The parking area seemed fine, as no cars were parked there.

The maintenance area I visited before was also intact. After all, all the combat vehicles had been taken outside... The only difference here from before was the combat units lying on the ground, or embedded in the ground or in the buildings.

Not only are there two legs, but there are also some autonomous machines, mobile defense turrets and even fixed defense turrets.

There are also many equipment that look advanced but have the same standard. In Cypher's scan, the number of I/O company machines is far higher than those with strange paint colors or even weird shapes.

In the area visible to the scanner alone, there were at least eight or nine machines of various types belonging to both sides scattered around.

If Sefer could clean up the battlefield now, he would not only become financially free immediately, but also financially free.

What a joke! These assets will be liquidated after the war, and it won't be the mercenaries' turn to intervene.

Soon, Cypher's machine passed through the square in the city center. There were several holes in the previously bustling square and many explosions had wreaked havoc here.

Yet it still looked flat and vast, undamaged—but there were no living people moving around nearby.

So when Safe tuned the frequency and tried to contact the outside world, his built-in alarm sounded one second faster than the body alarm.

His hands were faster than his brain. The sliding machine instantly dodged to the side and left its original position. At the same time, an armor-piercing bullet penetrated the ground and blew a small hole.

More artillery pieces suddenly rose up, and without a word, Seifer hid in the buildings and moved quickly through them, firing back with the two weapons in his hands with the help of fire control.

Then he understood why they had to go to so much trouble to adjust the firing arc of energy weapons - after all this time, the fired beam could curve and turn multiple times in the air and then hit the target?

What kind of magical design was this? No matter how he complained in his heart, the energy beam hit the turret, piercing and exploding it. Even with these explosions happening one after another, as long as the fire control could take care of it, there would be no blind spots. All he could say was... smell good, very good.

Although the machine's speed has decreased, and the reaction speed and distance of dodging have also been reduced, this has resulted in more outstanding firepower, so it cannot be considered a decrease in strength.

While moving quickly, I suddenly received a message on the communication line.

"Rustle... Help, help, here... Rustle... Strange Vision..."

This was followed by a series of unclear call signs and names, which seemed to indicate that the city management unit was under fire attack.

Cypher immediately turned in that direction, and the thrusters maintained a normal cycle. Although the speed was a little slower, it was balanced - no matter how fast those fixed turrets turned, they were like turtles in front of the machine.

In a few minutes, he crossed the city and headed to the sinkhole area that had collapsed earlier.

The foundation here has been re-laid to create a downward transportation channel. Under the road, which is wide enough for oversized vehicles to pass through, is the new urban area that has been leveled and covered with metal frames for support.

Needless to say, there is a vision in the middle of the city - but the portal to this vision is only about half built, and there is not even enough time to merge at the top, so it is just left there awkwardly.

There were no signs of fighting.

Cypher immediately turned around, and as expected, a series of small combat shells whizzed over. After the roar of the explosion, a silver-black armor rushed out from the shadows.

Pull the trigger, the weapon fires and it retreats. When the missile compartment hanging behind the opponent's shoulder is loaded, it swiftly swings the strange electric whip that can be pulled to an extremely long length!
"..."

Without any attempt to introduce itself, the machine attacked without any courtesy, even charging towards the one-way frontal defense shield.

Just as he was about to distance himself and use long-range firepower to eliminate the opponent, Seifer suddenly stopped and sprinted forward at full power!
This action of seemingly using his fragile body to catch the swinging energy whip seemed even more terrifying because of the threat coming from behind.

As expected, at the moment when he sprinted and jumped out of the range of the whip, a blazing bullet pierced through the floor at the place where he should have retreated just now.

Seeing that the sneak attack failed, the other machine clinging to the wall gave up its act and jumped down from above, spraying a barrage of covering bullets at Cypher and his teammates while also rushing over.

"..."

Two against one, or a new model against an old model, are you guys playing dirty?

Even a steel player like Cypher, who was born to fight, couldn't use this old model to fight against two guys who were obviously pilot killers.

The three machines were entangled in an unfinished area, suffering varying degrees of damage during the fight... It seemed like these two guys were letting it go?

Acutely aware of this, Seifer fled to the entrance where the visions were concentrated without hesitation.

Sure enough, the two machines' movements immediately slowed down in sync, clearly expecting him to do so.

Once the speed slowed down, the attack became fierce immediately, so after three or two contacts, Seifer, with his natural keen perception, dodged the opponent and slid sideways relying on the resilience of his body.

While estimating the damage to the aircraft, all the engine energy was pushed to the engine at the back, and it slammed into one of the aircraft at an unstoppable speed.

That machine was hit and lost its balance. The other one was about to flee, but saw Cypher's left arm make a "clicking" sound, and the gun was replaced with a strange sleeve.

"Buzz...Boom!"

The machine, which thought it could be safely dodged, was caught off guard by a sharp and extremely strong firing pin at a very close distance, which pierced the connection between its shoulder and torso.

Flames and high-pressure, hissing gas gushed out of the firing pin sleeve. Seifer maintained this posture and continued to advance!

The armor and structure peeled off, and the three machines rushed into the gate of the vision together under the reckless overload propulsion of several nozzles.

The city, which had just been echoing with the metallic noise of explosions and collisions of aircraft, suddenly returned to silence.

The only sounds left in the entire city were the crackling of some combustible materials and the hissing of special energy slowly leaking out of the defeated machines.

(End of this chapter)