48: Mad Engineer

That burst of exploding fire.

It was reflected on the damp rock walls on both sides of the canyon, like a torn, blood-colored curtain.

However, this "greeting gift," which would have been enough to throw ordinary armed forces into a panic...

...did not stir even a hint of alarm on that garbage dam.

On the contrary, those searchlights that were already on seemed to have received some unified construction signal.

They raised their heads in perfect unison.

All the light beams were no longer locked onto the black iron ghost, but instead focused entirely on that crooked "Tower of Babel" atop the dam.

"Is this their boss?"

Jiang Ran adjusted the focus of the holographic screen, bringing the figure bathed in countless beams of intense light before his eyes.

He had expected to see a typical post-apocalyptic warlord draped in animal skins, wearing gold chains, and possessing a face full of scars.

Or perhaps a charlatan playing god, like that group of actors from before.

But the man who appeared on the screen made Jiang Ran narrow his eyes slightly. It was an extremely gaunt old man.

He wore a set of tattered camouflage work clothes, long since unrecognizable in color, stained with cement mortar and engine oil.

On his feet were a pair of cracked, suede labor insurance shoes.

Most striking was the yellow construction safety helmet he wore on his head.

The helmet was covered in scratches and impact craters.

Its original bright yellow had been stained a muddy brown by dirt.

Only in the center of the forehead was a large character for "Dragon" written crookedly in red paint, like a blood-stained talisman.

He held neither a scepter nor a gun.

His left hand tightly gripped a roll of yellowed, brittle engineering blueprints.

His right hand held a large aluminum alloy spirit level with a bubble, the kind most common on construction sites.

At this moment, he was leaning over the rusted scaffolding railing of the tower, with more than half his body hanging out.

He didn't look at the fragments of burning bamboo rafts on the water at all, nor did he care about his subordinates who had just been blown to pieces.

His bloodshot, cloudy, yet exceptionally excited eyes...

...were staring intently through oily reading glasses at the perfect, streamlined hull of the black iron ghost.

Jiang Ran was very familiar with that kind of look.

It wasn't the look of a hunter seeing prey.

It was the madness of a crazed artist, or rather, a chief engineer who had become obsessed.

The obsession of suddenly finding a piece of peerless unpolished jade in a pile of trash.

"It seems that rather than killing people..."

Jiang Ran looked at the crazy old man who was gesturing at the black iron with his spirit level and sneered:

"This guy seems more interested in how to 'construct'."

"Look... look at that curve! Look at that waterline!"

Atop the tower, the crazy old man in the yellow hat suddenly jumped up in excitement.

He completely ignored the stench of burning corpses below; in fact, because he was so excited, his safety helmet almost fell off.

He raised the spirit level in his hand.

Across a distance of several hundred meters, he gestured at the black iron ghost in the air, babbling incessantly with spit flying everywhere:

"The verticality is perfect... the center of gravity distribution is perfect... that's high-strength alloy steel! Not those rusted scraps of iron!"

"Old Third! Old Third, did you see that?!"

He grabbed a burly man next to him, who was also wearing dirty work clothes and carrying a screwdriver, and pointed at the warship below, roaring:

"I knew it! Why does our dam always sink?!

Why does the 'Wall of Sighs' always leak?!"

"Because it lacks a bone! It lacks a real main load-bearing keel that can hold down the foundation!"

At this very moment.

In the eyes of this "Dragon King," what was parked below was not at all a fully armed killing machine that had just blown up several of his men.

Instead, it was a top-tier prefabricated component that had happened to come to his door, tailor-made for his great, never-ending "Dam Project."

"That ship... its length is just right to wedge into the narrowest stress point of the canyon!"

The Dragon King frantically drew circles on the yellowed blueprint, his eyes so fanatical it was frightening:

"Sink it! Fill it into the foundation! Pour cement over it!

My dam will come to life!

It can be another fifty meters higher! No! A hundred meters! We can build a tower that reaches the heavens!"

This pure, pathological professional obsession was even more absurd than simple murderous intent.

"This guy is a lunatic."

Su Qingyu watched the dancing old man on the screen and felt a chill run down her spine.

"He wants to dismantle our ship to fill a hole?"

"Not just fill a hole."

Jiang Ran looked at the spirit level tightly clutched in the old man's hand and said coldly:

"In his eyes, we aren't even enemies."

"We are just a pile of high-quality, moving—building materials."

"Keel! Go and get that keel for me!"

Standing atop the Tower of Babel, the Dragon King had fallen completely into a frenzy. He waved his spirit level, screaming at the top of his lungs, followed by an order that was both laughable and pathetic:

"Don't bend the main beam! That's the main load-bearing structure!

Just clean out the bugs inside! Be gentle! I still want that shell!"

His command, like a whistle to start work, instantly ignited the violent machinery of the entire canyon.

"Rumble... Rumble..."

A massive roar of diesel engines suddenly came from the steep rock walls on both sides of the canyon.

The sound was so loud it even drowned out the low hum of the black iron's nuclear reactor, carrying the brute force and arrogance of the old industrial era.

The rock walls, which had seemed bare and naturally formed, began to tremble violently.

Then, under the intense light of the black iron ghost's searchlights, the camouflage on the mountain walls on both sides was torn away.

The green camouflage nets used to hide the cliffs, along with the fake rocks made of foam and wood underneath...

...were violently pulled down by dozens of thick steel cables.

Revealing the true face hidden behind.

It wasn't caves, nor was it military bunkers.

It was a massive construction platform built behind the hollowed-out mountain walls.

On those dimly lit, oil-stained platforms stood rows of hideous mechanical monsters.

They were not regular army artillery, yet they were more oppressive than artillery.

They were "Trebuchets" made by dismantling the arms of heavy excavators and bulldozers from the old era...

...and then re-welding and modifying them in a way that was full of violent aesthetics.

Thick hydraulic arms were exposed, gleaming with the luster of engine oil.

The massive counterweights were welded with rusted chains and concrete blocks.

These heavy machines, given a second life by the mad engineer...

...now seemed like a group of mechanical guardians hidden in the mountain, waking up.

"They're all damn Trebuchets!"

Jiang Ran saw the true purpose of those machines, and his gaze sharpened.

This was a tactic only a madman could come up with:

Not using precious ammunition, but using the cheapest, most primitive, yet most effective physical kinetic energy to deal with his steel behemoth.

"zero, lock onto the mountain walls on both sides of the canyon and prepare to counterattack."

"Target is loading... non-standard ammunition."

"Not armor-piercing shells, not grenades... construction waste?"

Su Qingyu looked at the flashing loading signal on the screen, her voice somewhat strained.

As the mountain camouflage was completely stripped away.

Those catapults modified from heavy machinery finally bared their "fangs."

Their appearance was extremely crude:

The massive bucket arms of the excavators were used as throwing arms, but no stones were placed at the end of the arms.

Instead, simple metal cages were welded onto them.

Dozens of Dragon King Stockade thugs in work clothes...

...were like ants moving house, transporting round, black objects into the cages.

"Those are asphalt barrels."

Jiang Ran's voice was cold and precise:

"Dozens of barrels of boiling industrial asphalt mixed with waste engine oil."

"They want to use this to 'stick' us in the water, and incidentally smother us like roast ducks."

This tactic was full of the savage pragmatism of a post-apocalyptic civil engineering team lacking resources.

Since they couldn't blow up the "keel"...

...they would cover the hull with viscous, high-temperature asphalt, sealing all observation windows and weapon ports, and boiling or smothering the people inside alive.

Finally, they would get an intact, asphalt-wrapped steel coffin, which could be directly filled into the dam as a foundation.

"Prepare—Pouring!"

With the hysterical scream of the Dragon King atop the tower, the industrial platforms on both sides of the canyon instantly turned into a sea of fire.

Dozens of massive excavator bucket arms were suddenly catapulted out amidst the roar of hydraulic systems.

"Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—"

Asphalt barrels, carrying the sound of violent wind and the pungent smell of tar, were hurled into the air.

They traced dozens of orange-red parabolas in mid-air.

Fuses at the barrel mouths burned in the wind.

Like an ignited black meteor shower, they covered the black iron ghost in the center of the canyon from all angles.

This dense attack almost blocked every inch of space above the warship.

"Target locked! Range coverage one hundred percent!"

Su Qingyu gripped the handrail tightly, her heart nearly in her throat.

If they were hit...

...liquid asphalt at several hundred degrees would instantly coat the entire bridge. That feeling of being sealed in high-temperature darkness was scarier than death.

"Don't worry about them."

Jiang Ran's command remained steady and calm.

He didn't even rush to activate the close-in weapon system to intercept, but simply uttered two words:

"Field."

"Full power."

"Understood. Klein Field, deploying at full power!"

Following zero's command, an invisible energy field instantly centered on the black iron ghost, expanding outward to form a transparent shield over fifty meters in diameter.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

The next second, countless burning asphalt barrels slammed hard against this invisible energy barrier.

There were no violent explosions.

Those iron barrels filled with viscous liquid...

...at the moment they touched the field, it was as if they had hit a highly elastic glass wall.

The barrels burst open, and scalding black asphalt splashed in all directions.

But they could not penetrate that physical barrier and could only slide down the surface of the hemispherical shield.

The black iron ghost was instantly placed within the center of a flowing sea of black fire.

The water surface around the hull was ignited by the burning asphalt, forming a ring of fire that blazed furiously around the warship.

And in the center of that ring of fire...

...under the protection of that faint blue light, the black iron ghost didn't even have a scratch on its paint.

In fact, because of the isolation properties of the Klein Field, not even a hint of the smell of smoke drifted into the bridge.

It stood motionless in the sea of fire.

Like a ghost warship emerging from hell, it was so clean it was out of place with the surrounding filth.

"Is that all you've got?"

Jiang Ran looked at the asphalt flowing in vain on the screen, his face showing extreme disdain.

He picked up the microphone for the high-decibel broadcast.

His voice, carrying unconcealed mockery, was transmitted clearly through the canyon's loudspeakers to the ears of the "Dragon King" atop the tower:

"Is this your construction plan? Your skill level is too low."

"Since you love building illegal structures so much..."

Jiang Ran's finger pressed the weapon launch button, the blue light in his eyes surging: "Then I'll send you a 'demolition package' as well."