63: Crab King's Nest

Diving down the spiral ramp to the bottom-most level of the Ro-Ro ship—

Deck E. The depth gauge displayed a number that had already broken past 180 meters.

The water pressure here was staggeringly high, causing the mecha's joints to emit overburdened creaks.

But compared to the physical pressure, the visual impact of the scene before him was far heavier.

If the upper levels were a parking lot for family cars, then this place was a mass grave for heavy industrial machinery.

The beam of the searchlight swept across the area.

What met his eyes were no longer the fragile iron sheets of sedans, but mountains of heavy construction vehicle wreckage.

Hundreds of yellow heavy-duty bulldozers, massive dump trucks, crawler excavators... These industrial behemoths that once dominated the world were now huddled together like a pile of scrap metal.

Some were overturned, others broken apart.

Huge buckets and tires were tangled in a chaotic mess, forming a steel crater over ten meters high.

"Good grief..."

Old Chen's voice carried a hint of awe: "The metal density here is ten times higher than above.

Look at those 'roots'."

Indeed, the 'Metal Parasitic Fungus' here could no longer be described as 'filaments'.

Connecting these heavy machines were silver-gray pipes as thick as water buckets.

They were like greedy giant pythons.

They tightly coiled around the main arms of excavators and the chassis of trucks, even directly piercing through thick armored steel plates.

These thick pipes pulsated slightly in the turbid water, emitting a low rumble.

It was as if they were extracting the last bits of metallic marrow from within these dead mechanical giants and transporting it to the center of this circular lair.

"Devouring on this scale..."

Su Qingyu's face turned pale as she watched the radiation readings on the screen soar:

"Every vehicle here weighs at least dozens of tons, yet they were moved here like building blocks to form a nest.

This is definitely not something those little crabs could do."

Jiang Ran controlled the mecha to stop at the edge of the 'crater,' not rashly climbing over the wall piled from discarded bulldozers.

He could feel a vast and terrifying presence sleeping on the other side of the wall.

It wasn't just the aura of a wild beast.

There was also an industrial oppression mixed with the smell of engine oil, rust, and primal killing intent. This was a true forbidden zone.

"Stay alert."

Jiang Ran's voice was low, and the high-frequency blade in his hand had already switched to maximum power: "We're about to knock on the biggest door."

With the roar of the mecha's engine.

Jiang Ran controlled 'Tyrant' to scale the steel wall stacked from several broken bulldozers.

The moment he crossed the top, the light from the searchlight seemed to be swallowed by another, more pure and dazzling radiance.

"My god..."

In the communication channel, the usually calm Su Qingyu let out a dazed murmur.

At the bottom of this turbid, dark abyss filled with rust and the scent of death, a blue 'sun' actually hung suspended.

It was a massive sphere over five meters in diameter, located right in the center of the lair.

It wasn't a solid object, but rather woven from countless fungal filaments as thin as optical fibers.

These filaments displayed a mesmerizing, ghostly blue color.

Inside the translucent tube walls, high concentrations of liquid luminescent material flowed. It was like a heart that was still beating.

Surrounding it were the thick transport pipes converging from all directions.

They continuously injected the metallic essence extracted from the discarded machinery into it.

Through some unknown biological purification reaction, it was transformed into an extremely pure stream of energy inside the sphere.

Thump... Thump... With every pulsation, this blue heart released a visible ring of ionizing light into the surrounding waters.

The surrounding water molecules were instantly electrolyzed, producing countless tiny bubbles like an unending silver avalanche.

"Perfect... This is a miracle of the Creator!"

Old Chen's voice suddenly became hysterical, sounding as if he wanted to crawl through the radio signal to lick the screen:

"That is the mother body of the Metal Parasitic Fungus!

It's the core of the original strain!"

He danced around in the command room, completely unaware that he had knocked over his wine bottle.

"Do you see that blue light? That's cherenkov radiation!

But this thing has no nuclear fuel!

It's using biological enzymes to perform cold fusion-level metallic element restructuring!

It is itself a living, self-repairing biological reactor core!"

Old Chen's face was almost pressed against the screen, staring greedily at the glow: "Forget about repairing some damn cracks.

As long as we bring this thing back and plug it into the furnace of the black iron, our power output could triple!

No, five times!

This is a priceless treasure!"

Jiang Ran looked at the beautiful yet lethal glow, but the gaze behind his faceplate was not clouded by greed.

In this wasteland world, the more beautiful something was, the more terrifying the danger it usually signified.

This heart was the energy source of the entire shipwreck ecosystem, the 'Holy Grail' of these metal monsters.

"If this thing is really as important as you say."

Jiang Ran slowly tightened his grip on the Electric Spear, his gaze moving from the light to the deep shadow beneath it:

"Then its owner definitely won't allow us to take it away easily."

As if to confirm his words, the blue heart suddenly contracted violently.

Immediately after, the small hill below it, which originally looked like a pile of silt, suddenly split open with a massive fissure.

Two crimson lanterns glowed faintly in that shadow.

As those two crimson lanterns lit up.

The small hill of silt located beneath the 'heart' began to vibrate violently.

"Rumble—"

A large amount of silt and metal fragments slid off the 'mountain,' kicking up a turbid dust storm.

Then, the thing slowly stood up.

Its size was so massive that even the 'Tyrant' mecha piloted by Jiang Ran had to look up.

When the thick layer of sediment covering its back completely fell away, everyone gasped.

That was not a naturally formed carapace at all.

On the broad back of that giant beast was a massive, bright yellow heavy-duty excavator bucket fused into it.

The bucket clearly came from some mine-grade behemoth of the old era, with a width exceeding four meters.

Although the edges were rusted, the manganese steel bucket teeth, several centimeters thick, were still hideous and terrifying.

The Metal Parasitic Fungus was like a layer of silver-gray glue.

It had perfectly 'welded' this massive industrial component to the Crab King's original flesh and blood body.

Its chitinous carapace had completely assimilated with the bucket.

One could even see blood vessels and nerve bundles passing through the rivet holes on the bucket, spreading and growing across the steel surface like a living circuit board.

"What... what kind of monster is this?"

Su Qingyu's voice was full of disbelief: "It grew an excavator bucket onto itself?"

"It didn't grow it; it 'armed' itself with it."

Old Chen stared fixedly at the screen, his eyes containing both fear and fanaticism, and even a hint of jealousy:

"This Crab King has lived for a long time, long enough that it has learned to use these discarded human creations to strengthen itself.

It used the fungal colony to dissolve the steel and restructure it.

Damn, this beast is actually a natural mechanic!"

The 'industrial monster' straightened its body completely.

That heavy excavator bucket was like an insurmountable shield, perfectly protecting all its soft tissue weaknesses.

Beneath the bucket, eight walking legs as thick as load-bearing pillars were deeply embedded in the riverbed, each joint covered in armor modified from crawler track plates.

It stood there like a semi-biological tank that had gained life. The overwhelming pressure it radiated.

It didn't just stem from biological wildness, but was mixed with a coldness and brutality unique to heavy industrial machinery.

"Looks like we've encountered the 'Chief Engineer' of this place."

Jiang Ran tightened his grip on the Electric Spear, but his heart sank.

Facing a monster that used a mining bucket as a vest, could this toothpick-like spear in his hand even pierce through?

"Watch out for its claws!"

Su Qingyu reflexively warned.

"Those aren't claws!" Jiang Ran's pupils contracted sharply.

As the industrial behemoth raised its arms.

At the positions of the forelimbs where sharp crab pincers should have been, there was instead a pair of cruelly modified heavy Mechanical Arms.

The original chitinous limbs had been severed and replaced by two suffocatingly thick cylinders—

They were 'Hydraulic Breakers' used for demolishing reinforced concrete buildings.

Each breaker had a diameter of over half a meter.

Although the originally bright engineering orange paint was mottled, those solid steel chisels flashing with cold light were still sharp.

The hydraulic hoses at the connections had long been damaged.

In their place were thick purple blood vessels.

Like a biological pump, they frantically delivered high-pressure bodily fluid power to these two killing machines.

"Ang—!!"

Accompanied by a low roar, the breaker on the left suddenly shot out.

It wasn't a swing; it was a piston-style projectile strike.

The speed was so fast that it didn't seem like the agility a creature of this size should possess.

Jiang Ran didn't have time to dodge completely.

He could only control the mecha to lean hard to the right while raising the composite armor shield on the left arm to try and deflect the force.

“Clang—!!!!”

A dull, thunderous bang exploded underwater, sounding as if someone had struck a ten-thousand-ton copper bell right next to his ear.

Although the breaker's steel chisel didn't directly hit the cockpit, it slammed into the deck on the left side of the mecha.

But that terrifying kinetic shockwave instantly swept across the surroundings.

The concrete floor within a ten-meter radius instantly crumbled into powder, and the powerful recoil force slammed into the 'Tyrant' mecha along with the water current.

"Warning: Inertial dampener overloaded! Cockpit vibration level: Extremely Critical!"

Jiang Ran felt his brain buzz, and he almost blacked out from the shock.

That three-meter-tall heavy mecha.

Was actually knocked off its feet by the aftershock, flying backward seven or eight meters like a ragdoll.

It only stopped after slamming hard into a discarded dump truck.

"Cough, cough..."

Jiang Ran tasted the rust in his mouth; the shock just now had caused him to bite his tongue.

"There's no blocking that..."

He looked at the monster slowly retracting its breaker and charging up for a second strike, a flash of horror in his eyes.

If the previous pincer-hand was cutting damage, this thing was pure blunt force trauma.

Even if his mecha's armor could withstand cutting.

In the face of this instantaneous striking force of several thousand tons, the precision components inside and the fragile human body would be directly shattered.

It was like wearing a bulletproof vest and being slammed in the chest by a pile driver.

"This thing's output is three times that of a normal hydraulic press!"

Old Chen shrieked while looking at the data panel: "Its muscle fibers have modified those two breakers into high-frequency rock drills!

Jiang Ran, don't tank it!

Don't tank even a single hit!

That thing can smash your cockpit, seat and all, into a meat patty!"

Before he could finish, the Crab King moved again.

This time, it raised both breakers simultaneously.

Like gavels pronouncing a death sentence, they slammed down toward the mecha that had just scrambled up.

"Thrusters, maximum output! Lateral maneuver!"

In the nick of time, Jiang Ran abandoned all balance control and forcibly activated all the attitude control nozzles on the right side.

The 'Tyrant' mecha, like a staggering drunkard, rolled clumsily to the left.

"Boom!!!!"

The two massive breakers slammed hard into the spot where the mecha had just been standing.

The originally hard reinforced concrete deck shattered instantly, exploding into a crater several meters in diameter.

Countless fragments of stone hit the mecha's outer armor like buckshot, making a series of crisp rattling sounds.

Jiang Ran rolled twice in the mud.

He quickly adjusted his posture and rose to a half-kneeling position, the Electric Spear in his hand already preheated and ready to meet the opponent's pursuit.

However, the expected follow-up attack did not come.

After missing its strike, the massive Crab King did not become enraged and charge madly like those lower-level Iron-Eating Crabs.

Instead, it moved its heavy walking legs and actually began to retreat slowly.

It retreated directly beneath the glowing 'Metal Fungal Mother Body,' and then its body suddenly sank low.

"Click."

It adjusted the angle of the broad excavator bucket on its back.

Like a massive riot shield, it blocked the path between the mecha and that precious 'heart' without leaving a single gap.

Its crimson compound eyes peeked out from the edge of the bucket, watching Jiang Ran coldly, filled with cunning and vigilance.

"It's... defending?"

Su Qingyu watched this scene in surprise: "It didn't chase you because it's afraid you'll take the chance to steal that core?"

"It's more than just defending."

Jiang Ran's face darkened as he looked at the ring of dense red dots that suddenly lit up on the radar screen: "It's calling for backup."

"Buzz—"

The Crab King suddenly vibrated the bucket on its back, emitting an extremely low-frequency hum.

This sound couldn't be heard, but it could be transmitted through the water, causing one's internal organs to resonate with it.

With this command, the 'crater' formed by the car wreckage all around suddenly came to life.

Countless dark shadows crawled out from the gaps in those discarded vehicles.

Dozens of millstone-sized 'Scouts,' along with five or six massive 'Soldier Ants'.

Like well-trained soldiers, they quickly blocked Jiang Ran's retreat path and began to systematically flank him on both sides.

They were in no hurry to attack.

Instead, they occupied all the high ground and cover. Their stance was clearly intended to trap this foreign mecha here.

"It knows that a 1-on-1 is risky, so it chose to gang up."

Old Chen's voice was a bit dry: "This beast already has territorial awareness and tactical thinking.

It considers itself the king here, and those little crabs are its royal guards."

Jiang Ran took a deep breath, looking at the scene before him:

Directly ahead was a 'bucket tank' with maxed-out defense and attack power that also knew how to play defensively.

Behind him was a swarm of mutant crabs watching him like tigers.

In the middle was that enticing, priceless treasure.

This was a dead end, but also a gamble filled with temptation.

"What a miser."

Jiang Ran flexed his wrist, which was a bit numb from the shock, and a crazy arc actually curled at the corner of his mouth:

"Since you're protecting that treasure so much... then I'll just snatch it right in front of your face."