33: Chapter 33: A Powerful Subjugation, The Arrogant Mechanic Bows Down

At this moment, on the roof of the dilapidated train ahead, Ye Qingyu found herself in a desperate situation, pushed to the brink.

Her pride and joy, the S-rank talent [Mechanical Resonance], allowed her to instantly perceive the structure of any machine and perform ultra-fast assembly and repairs.

It was precisely because of this monstrous talent that she had been able to collect scrap metal along the way, craft these fierce, homemade cannons, and survive as a lone wolf in this cannibalistic wasteland until now.

However, even the cleverest housewife cannot cook a meal without rice. No matter how strong her talent was, she couldn't conjure ammunition out of thin air.

With the final dull click of an empty chamber, all the homemade cannons around her began to emit smoke from misfires.

The crude gunpowder she had concocted herself and the scrap metal chunks she used as projectiles were completely exhausted.

"Damn it!" Ye Qingyu kicked the scorching barrel in anger, her chest heaving violently from her labored breathing.

Without the suppression of her firepower, the Ghouls below, who had long been unable to restrain their bloodthirsty nature, instantly let out excited howls.

Several exceptionally large and muscular Ghouls, their muscles bulging like rock, suddenly leaped high into the air.

Their razor-sharp black claws dug fiercely into the edge of the carriage, and within a few movements, they scrambled up to the edge of the roof.

The intense stench of rotting corpses rushed towards her, nauseating and foul.

Ye Qingyu gripped the heavy wrench in her hand tightly, her knuckles turning pale from the excessive force.

A flash of despair crossed her eyes, but it was overshadowed by a pride that refused to die.

She was a typical STEM genius, with a proud and stubborn personality.

She never trusted anyone, believing only in the cold machines in her hands.

Was she really going to die at the hands of these disgusting monsters today?

Just as Ye Qingyu gritted her teeth, ready to go down with the elite monsters rushing up.

"Woooo————!!!" A violent whistle, loud enough to shatter the heavens, suddenly exploded from the thick fog behind her!

The sound was so immense that it felt as if the very air around them was trembling violently.

Ye Qingyu turned her head in astonishment.

She saw the dense, blood-colored mist being violently torn apart by an irresistible gale.

A heavy steel behemoth, more than ten times the size of her wooden carriage and covered in armor emitting a dark green ghostly light, descended like a god, crashing into the monster horde with terrifying kinetic energy capable of crushing everything in its path!

"Bang! Bang! Crack!" The hair-raising sound of bones and flesh shattering rang out densely at that moment.

The massive Gale Abatis Armor on the front of train no. 0099 was quite simply the most ruthless reaper of lives.

Those originally ferocious Ghouls were as fragile as paper toys in the face of this speeding steel fortress.

Hundreds of monsters didn't even have time to scream before they were directly smashed into bursts of blood mist and pulped flesh.

The train's wheels ruthlessly rolled over the remains, leaving shocking, dark red tracks on the rails.

This behemoth of a train, carrying an unstoppable momentum, stopped precisely beside Ye Qingyu's dilapidated vehicle.

The two vehicles stood side by side, and the stark contrast in size made Ye Qingyu's heart twitch violently.

She stood there blankly, her hand holding the wrench trembling slightly.

She tilted her head up, looking at the towering, massive locomotive front.

Su Chen was standing on the observation deck at the front of the train.

His black tactical trench coat snapped in the wind, and his deep, cold eyes were looking down condescendingly at the still-dazed Ye Qingyu.

The remaining Ghouls who had narrowly escaped being crushed, upon feeling the terrifying killing intent of an unparalleled overlord radiating from Su Chen, were so frightened that they whimpered and lay on the ground, lacking even the courage to flee.

"Get on." Su Chen's voice was not loud, but it pierced through all the surrounding noise, carrying an imperial authority that allowed no refusal.

"Or, die here." This was a blunt ultimatum, devoid of any emotional color.

Ye Qingyu's body jolted, and she snapped out of her extreme shock.

When she heard Su Chen's arrogant tone, which sounded like he was bestowing charity, the deep-rooted pride and rebellious nature in her bones were instantly ignited.

She was a genius from a top university! She had survived in this apocalypse on her own until now!

What she hated most was being looked at by others with such a condescending gaze!

"I, Ye Qingyu, do not need anyone's charity!"

Ye Qingyu lifted her face, covered in soot but still exquisite, her eyes glaring at the towering Su Chen like an enraged little leopard, completely unafraid.

She gritted her teeth, her chest heaving violently, and retorted loudly: "So you have an armored train, big deal?!"

"As long as you dare to give me some basic gunpowder and scrap metal materials, I can make weapons myself and fight my way out!"

"I will never live under someone else's roof!"

Hearing this defiant response, full of pride and stubbornness, Su Chen did not get angry as he usually would; instead, he let out a sneer of extreme contempt.

"Stubborn to the end."

Before the words had even faded, a dazzling flash of purple lightning instantly erupted from Su Chen's legs!

A Bronze-grade high-tier movement skill, [Thunderclap Step]!

Su Chen's figure instantly left a lightning afterimage in place.

Ye Qingyu only felt a flash of purple light before her eyes, and a gust of wind, mixed with a strong masculine scent, rushed towards her.

The next second, Su Chen's tall and upright figure had appeared on her narrow roof as if he had teleported.

At that moment, an elite Ghoul hiding in the corner finally overcame its fear and lunged roaring toward Ye Qingyu's back.

Its sharp claws were less than ten centimeters away from Ye Qingyu's fair neck!

Ye Qingyu was terrified, wanting to swing her wrench, but it was already too late.

Yet Su Chen didn't even glance at that monster.

He merely extended his right hand with extreme casualness. That strong, powerful hand caught the thick neck of the elite Ghoul mid-lunge with pinpoint precision!

The monster's momentum came to an abrupt halt, and it struggled helplessly in mid-air.

Su Chen's gaze was cold as a blade, and his five fingers tightened suddenly.

"Crack!" A bone-chilling sound of bone shattering reached Ye Qingyu's ears clearly.

That elite Ghoul, capable of easily tearing through iron plating, had its cervical spine crushed by this man using nothing but the raw physical strength of a single hand!

Su Chen tossed the lifeless, massive corpse off the roof as if discarding trash.

He turned his head to look at Ye Qingyu, who was standing inches away, her pupils contracted violently from extreme shock.

That oppressive gaze seemed to want to strip away all the disguises of this proud genius.

Thud. The dull sound of the body hitting the ground echoed in the thick, blood-colored mist, but it felt like it had slammed heavily into Ye Qingyu's heart.

This proud mechanic girl was staring fixedly at Su Chen's right hand, which hadn't even been stained by a drop of blood, her brain falling into a brief blankness.

Crushing the cervical spine of a Bronze-grade mutant with nothing but raw physical strength and without any effort?

Is this even the kind of power a human can possess?!

Su Chen ignored the horror in the girl's eyes; he lowered his head slightly, his gaze sweeping over the few scrapped homemade cannons at Ye Qingyu's feet.

These weapons, cobbled together from old pipes, rusted gears, and inferior springs, might be a life-saving firepower net in the eyes of ordinary survivors.

But in the eyes of Su Chen, who possessed the Omni-Modification talent, this was simply a pile of crude, shoddy junk.

Su Chen slowly crouched down. His long, powerful fingers picked up a rusted, dilapidated steel pipe from beside Ye Qingyu's feet very casually.

Immediately after, he used the tip of his foot to flick up a few pieces of scrap metal shrapnel that had shattered due to a barrel explosion.

"You... what are you doing?" Ye Qingyu subconsciously took half a step back, her eyes, like those of a startled fawn, filled with wariness.

Although she was shocked by Su Chen's terrifying martial prowess, as a genius from a top university's Department of Mechanical Engineering, she still possessed her own pride deep down.

"What am I doing?" A playful, cold sneer curled the corners of Su Chen's mouth, his deep gaze seemingly able to see straight through the girl's stubborn disguise.

"I just want to show you what real technology is."

As soon as he finished speaking, the mental energy within Su Chen surged out like a bursting flood.

The server's only SSS-rank talent, [Omni-Modification], was instantly activated at this moment!

"Hum——!" An incomparably dazzling, silver-white stream of light suddenly erupted from Su Chen's palm.

This light was so pure and mysterious that it instantly wrapped the broken steel pipe and the pieces of scrap metal completely within it.

Ye Qingyu subconsciously raised her hand to cover her eyes, but her curiosity, belonging to a mechanical fanatic, drove her to stare fixedly at the ball of silver light through the gaps in her fingers.

The scene that followed completely shattered the physics worldview this mechanical genius had built over the past nineteen years.

Within that silver-white stream of light, the rusted steel pipe and the irregular scrap metal pieces did not undergo any high-temperature smelting, nor were they subjected to any physical forging.

They were, at a molecular level visible to the naked eye, rapidly decomposing, stripping away impurities, and then rearranging and combining into a perfect, flawless geometric form!

"This... this is impossible!" Ye Qingyu's small, soot-stained mouth was wide open, enough to fit an egg inside.

Her S-rank talent [Mechanical Resonance], which she took pride in, was frantically sending warnings to her brain at this moment.

She could clearly perceive that the carbon structure inside that pile of originally worthless scrap metal was undergoing a crazy mutation.

Strips of high-frequency oscillation micro-circuits, invisible to the naked eye, were automatically generating inside that piece of metal.

In less than three seconds, the silver light suddenly dissipated.

In its place was a long, narrow combat blade with a futuristic sci-fi design and a dull, ghostly blue hue on the blade!

[Ding! Omni-Modification successful!]

[Consumed: ordinary steel pipe * 1, scrap metal * 3. Obtained: Black Iron top-tier — High-Frequency Oscillation Combat Blade!]

[Weapon Trait: When activated, the blade can generate high-frequency micro-oscillations of 30,000 times per second, possessing terrifying cutting power, capable of easily slicing through ordinary steel armor.]

Su Chen weighed the newly born weapon of mass destruction casually. Then, as if discarding a worthless toy, he tossed it at Ye Qingyu's feet.

"Shhh——!" The High-Frequency Oscillation Combat Blade, without having its oscillation mode activated, merely by its own sharpness and weight, pierced deeply into the wooden roof deck as if it were cutting tofu.

The hilt vibrated slightly in mid-air, emitting a series of crisp metallic hums.

"The pile of junk you were messing with just now, do you even call that machinery?"

Su Chen straightened up, hands in the pockets of his black tactical trench coat, looking down condescendingly at the dumbstruck Ye Qingyu.

His cold and overbearing voice was like a heavy hammer, smashing the last shred of pride in the girl's heart.

"True machinery is the art of slaughter, the reshaping of rules."

"Not the firecrackers you have that only make a noise."

Ye Qingyu tremblingly extended her small, oil-stained hands and carefully gripped the hilt of the combat blade.

The moment she touched it, her S-rank [Mechanical Resonance] talent immediately fed back the internal structural diagram of this weapon.

A perfect streamlined blade, unobstructed energy conduction circuits, and that naturally formed high-frequency oscillation generator!

Not a single screw! Not a trace of welding! This was simply an industrial miracle forged by God's own hand!

"How did you do it... how on earth did you do it?" Ye Qingyu muttered to herself, her once rebellious eyes now completely replaced by a fanaticism that had reached the extreme.

As a hopeless mechanical fanatic, the miracle of Omni-Modification that Su Chen had just displayed held a fatal attraction for her.

This made her feel even crazier than any gold, silver, or treasure, or even the promise of surviving in the apocalypse!

She admired strength. But she worshipped even more the god who could completely crush her in this field!

"Want to learn?" Su Chen looked at the girl's distraught appearance, a smile of success curling the corners of his mouth.

"Then get on my train obediently. Be my beast of burden, and help me maintain those top-tier devices you've never even seen before."

"Perhaps one day, if I'm in a good mood, I'll teach you a thing or two."

This time, Ye Qingyu did not retort.

She hugged the High-Frequency Oscillation Combat Blade tightly, as if she were holding a peerless, rare treasure.

This proud girl, who a second ago would rather die than submit and would never live under someone else's roof, now, like a docile kitten, silently bowed her proud head.

She didn't even want the scrap metal supplies she had painstakingly accumulated in her carriage.

She followed the steel gangway lowered by train no. 0099, obediently following behind Su Chen, and stepped onto this heavy armored train that resembled a steel behemoth.

As soon as she stepped into the first passenger carriage of train no. 0099, Ye Qingyu was completely dumbfounded.

What rushed to meet her was not the nauseating stench of corpses and sulfur from the wasteland, but a warm, dry, and pure air that even carried a faint, pleasant fragrance!

The constant-temperature air conditioning system inside the carriage was running quietly, maintaining the temperature inside the car at the most comfortable range for the human body.