21: Chapter 21: Jiang Yanxue's Shock as She Disassembles a Military Personnel Vehicle!

A white light burst forth.

But—this white light existed only within Chen Chen's personal field of vision.

In the stealth state, the Power of Rules visually masked the dismantling process.

The surrounding Aberrants saw nothing.

The twelve-ton military armored troop carrier disintegrated silently in the white light.

Eight giant tires, whole slabs of armored steel, the precision transmission system, and thick axles were all crushed and reorganized by the Power of Rules, transforming into standardized material units.

A series of system notifications exploded in his mind.

"Obtained: C-Grade Military Explosion-Proof Tire * 8!"

"Obtained: High-Strength Armored Steel Plate * 100!"

"Obtained: Military-Grade Mechanical Parts * 80!"

"Obtained: Intermediate Vehicle Core * 2!"

Chen Chen's eyelid twitched.

C-Grade Military Explosion-Proof Tires.

Their load-bearing limit far exceeded civilian goods; they were specifically designed for heavy-duty vehicles.

That tire wear warning that had been annoying him for half a day could finally get lost.

One hundred high-strength armored steel plates, eighty military-grade mechanical parts—the "high-strength steel for gun barrels" and "precision mechanical gear sets" required by the heavy machine gun blueprint could be perfectly derived from this batch of military supplies.

The two intermediate vehicle cores were even scarcer, priceless items in the trading hall.

Chen Chen's hands moved with extreme speed; with a thought, the materials flowed like water into his thirty-six-slot storage backpack.

The blue numbers on the slots jumped frantically—22 of the 36 slots were filled.

The larger the item, the more slots it occupied.

A dull thud came from beneath his feet.

The roof of the vehicle where the Bone-Hammer Elite had been lying vanished into thin air, and the creature slammed directly onto the concrete floor from a height of over two meters.

With the dozen-ton vehicle gone, it had no cushion at all, and the right side of its body slammed into the ground, causing spiderweb-like cracks to appear.

"Roar—?"

The Bone-Hammer Elite scrambled up from the ground.

Its murky eyes were filled with confusion.

It looked left and right, its nostrils flaring violently, trying to figure out where its bed had gone.

It couldn't find it.

A two-and-a-half-meter-tall muscle monster stood on the empty ground, looking as bewildered as an infant who had lost its toy.

If this scene were filmed and posted to the regional channel, it would laugh ten thousand people to death.

Chen Chen stood less than two meters behind it.

An experience pack delivered to his door—it would be a waste not to take it.

His right hand drew the armor-piercing military dagger from the tactical belt on his leg.

The Black-Iron grade high-carbon steel blade did not reflect light in the stealth state, and its edge was thin enough to cut through the air.

The power of fifty points of Constitution surged into his legs.

His knees bent slightly.

He pushed off the ground.

The concrete floor exploded into a bowl-sized crater beneath his boot soles.

His entire center of gravity shifted from stillness to extreme explosive force in a fraction of a second, his body transforming into a blur that the naked eye couldn't track.

The armor-piercing military dagger stabbed into the base of the Bone-Hammer Elite's occiput.

The effect of the "Ignore 20% Physical Defense" affix combined with the piercing power of fifty points of Constitution—the tip of the blade penetrated the calcified skull and thrust straight into the depths of the brainstem.

He twisted his wrist forty-five degrees.

"Puchi."

Brain matter mixed with black blood gushed out from the blood groove, splashing onto Chen Chen's tactical gloves.

The Bone-Hammer Elite didn't even manage to finish that "roar." Its legs went soft, and its two-and-a-half-meter body hit the ground with an earth-shaking thud.

Its massive bone-hammer right arm swung out from inertia, smashing a set of nearby industrial shelves to pieces.

It was thoroughly dead.

"Killed Level 3 Elite Aberrant: Bone-Hammer Tyrant!"

"Obtained 80 Experience Points! Obtained: Intermediate Vehicle Core Fragment * 3, Berserk Strength Potion * 1!"

"Experience points full. Level increased to Lv.4!"

"Obtained Free Attribute Points: 12 points."

Chen Chen pulled out the military dagger, shook off the black blood on the edge, and collected the loot into his backpack.

The noise created when the Elite Aberrant's corpse hit the ground was too loud.

The twenty frenzied Aberrants in the workshop went completely haywire, letting out heart-wrenching roars and sprinting toward the source of the sound with bloodshot eyes.

But when they rushed to the fallen Elite Aberrant's corpse, they couldn't find anything.

The scent, body heat, and sound of a living person—all were completely masked by the stealth rules.

Chen Chen had already retreated to the corner of the workshop.

Leaning against a rusted load-bearing pillar, he watched the group of Aberrants sniffing around their kin's corpse and pounding the ground in frustration.

He lowered his head and checked the stealth countdown.

One minute and forty seconds remaining.

That was enough.

Chen Chen followed the base of the wall, his Shadow Tactical Boots silent, as he slipped out through a breach in Workshop C.

Behind him, the twenty Aberrants were still roaring frantically at the air.

Workshop A. Second-floor command room.

The machete in Jiang Yanxue's hand almost slipped from her grip.

She had just been watching the entire process through an Aberrant "eye" lurking on top of the shelves in Workshop C—

That dozen-ton military armored troop carrier had vanished into thin air right before her eyes.

It wasn't driven away, nor was it blown up.

It simply disappeared.

As if erased from a canvas by an eraser, not even a single screw remained.

Immediately after, that Bone-Hammer Elite, which even she found troublesome, had tripped in an utterly absurd manner and then ended up with a hole in its head.

From start to finish, through the monster's senses, she hadn't even caught a glimpse of a human figure.

Not even a single footprint.

Jiang Yanxue slowly retracted her talent.

She put down the machete, leaned her back against the wall, and stared at the cracks in the ceiling.

"A dozen-ton vehicle, instantly stored. Absolute stealth, not even my SS-Grade talent can penetrate it. Instant kill on an Elite monster."

She went over these three pieces of information in her mind.

Each one, taken individually, was enough to subvert her understanding of reality.

With all three layered together—

She licked her dry lips, forming a very shallow arc.

...

Workshop A was a size smaller than Workshop C, but the trouble was two sizes bigger.

Chen Chen pressed against the outer wall, the infrared image in his goggles making his scalp tighten.

Dense, dark red heat source signals packed the entire first floor like a sardine can.

A rough count showed over thirty.

These Aberrants weren't wandering aimlessly; they were layered around the iron staircase leading to the second floor, forming a natural meat-grinder formation.

A few were even stacking on top of each other at the corner of the stairs, claws resting on the handrail of the level above, heads constantly sniffing toward the second floor.

They had smelled the scent of a living person.

For Jiang Yanxue to have held out until now in such a siege—any ordinary person would have long since become a pile of broken bones and viscera.

Chen Chen leaned against the corner of the outer wall and sent a private message to Jiang Yanxue.

"I'm on the first floor of Workshop A. Make some noise and draw the monsters at the stairs away. I need to get something."

The reply came almost instantly.

"How much noise?"

"The bigger, the better."

Three seconds of silence.

Deep inside Workshop A, near the north wall, the behavior of a low-level Aberrant suddenly became strange.

It stopped its aimless wandering, its legs straightened as if controlled by a remote, and its head slammed violently into the three-meter-high industrial iron rack beside it.

"Boom—!"

The racks collapsed one after another like dominoes.

The sound waves echoed crazily throughout the empty workshop, no different from setting off a string of firecrackers inside one's head.

The effect was immediate.

The group of Aberrants surrounding the stairs rioted, collectively turning their heads and sprinting toward the source of the sound.

Monsters in a frenzied state already had low intelligence; when they encountered a loud noise, only one string remained in their brains—kill.

Over thirty monsters swarmed out, the horde surging toward the north wall.

The staircase was clear.