242: Chapter 242 Drill Strike Defeates the Enemy, Chen Tiezhu's Unparalleled Bravery

Meanwhile, in another cave behind the Chen family mountain, Chen Tiezhu, piloting the earth dragon, also encountered a powerful Yao Beast, and a fierce battle began.

Boom!

The moment the drill collided with the Yao Beast's scales, the entire cave seemed to be struck by lightning; the rock walls shook and rattled, and stone debris rained down.

Chen Tiezhu gripped the control levers tightly, his knuckles turning white; he didn't even notice the skin between his thumb and forefinger splitting and bleeding.

He pressed his entire body against the cockpit, his forehead resting on the front control panel, a piece of oily cloth clamped in his mouth. His eyes were bloodshot, staring fixedly at the jammed spiral drill in the center of his view.

"Get... inside!"

He let out a low growl and slammed his left foot down on the main energy valve.

Hum—!

Six exhaust ports behind the earth dragon erupted with crimson flames. The core furnace operated at overload, power lines crackled, and temperature alarms screamed in his ears, but he simply smashed the alarm.

The temperature at the tip of the drill soared. The eight-thousand-degree heat caused the Yao Beast's purplish-gray horny scales to begin softening, smoking, and melting into black sludge.

The friction between metal and biological tissue emitted a piercing shriek, like thousands of steel needles scraping against rock, making one's teeth ache.

The Yao Beast's limbs bulged with veins, its muscles knotted like twisted tree roots, as it struggled desperately to lean back and shake off the sharp spike driven into its neck.

Its tail swept like a whip, tearing a three-foot-long gash in the rock wall, sending stone chips flying.

But it couldn't move.

Chen Tiezhu had calculated this move long ago.

Before rushing in, he had turned off the automatic balance System, putting the full weight of the mecha on its front legs. Borrowing the leverage from the protruding rock wall to the front right, he essentially used the three-hundred-ton mecha as a crowbar.

"Your skin is tough?" He spat out a mouthful of blood-tinged saliva and wiped his face. "The drill I forged is specifically designed to break turtle shells!"

Before the words left his mouth, he yanked the control lever with his right hand, and the internal structure of the drill switched instantly—from forward high-speed rotation to reverse spiral grinding, just like a screwdriver being twisted into flesh.

Sizzle—!

The sound of flesh and blood being forcibly torn apart was clearly audible.

The Yao Beast finally let out its first scream—not a roar, but a high-frequency shriek, like the mournful sound of metal before it snaps.

Its compound eyes bulged, pupils shrinking to pinpricks, its limbs twitching violently, and its tail whipped the ground frantically, but the drill had already cut seven inches deep, reaching the spinal nerve bundle.

Chen Tiezhu didn't stop.

He knew such monsters would launch a counterattack before dying—either self-destructing their core or releasing psychic pollution.

He wasn't afraid of these things; he was only afraid of failing to land the killing blow and letting it escape back underground.

"Come on!" He roared, his voice booming through the external speakers in the cave. "Hold on for another ten breaths, and I'll acknowledge you as my ancestor!"

As he said this, his left hand pressed the emergency brake valve. The mecha's recoil System instantly absorbed the force, but the drill maintained its high-speed reverse rotation.

This release and tension perfectly avoided the Yao Beast's final wave of energy backlash.

Pfft—!

A large mass of black-purple flesh mixed with mucus was forcibly twisted out, like rotting organs wrapped in electric sparks, exploding into a foul-smelling mist in the air.

The Yao Beast fell to its knees.

Its forelimbs went limp, its knees smashed into the ground, kicking up a ring of dust.

It still wanted to struggle, but its spine had been completely shredded; its tail twitched twice, like a fish out of water, and finally went limp and still.

Chen Tiezhu panted heavily, soaked in sweat, which mixed with machine oil and dripped from his chin.

He stared at the completely flat life curve on the monitor and slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air.

"Dead?"

He didn't believe it.

He waited another five breaths.

Only after confirming there was no mistake did he slowly release the control lever and take off his helmet.

His face was covered in oil, his hair matted with sweat, and his left mechanical arm trembled slightly from the overload, a faint burnt smell rising from the interface.

He raised a hand to wipe his face, tossed the helmet onto the passenger seat, grabbed a water bottle, and took a large gulp, coughing twice from the rush.

"That's it?" He sneered, his voice raspy. "You dare dig holes in my Chen family's backyard?"

He raised his mechanical arm, connected to the communication channel, his tone as heavy as if pressed by a thousand pounds of iron: "Target eliminated, cave entrance sealed, all personnel on high alert."

After the order was given, he did not shut down the power System, nor did he withdraw.

Instead, he restarted the mecha, its feet firmly planted in place. Although the drill had been retracted, the two Rune Cannons on its shoulders quietly deployed, locking onto the dark tunnel ahead.

He narrowed his eyes, staring at the corpse that was still smoking.

Something was wrong.

It was too easy.

That strike just now had used 90% of the earth dragon's limit output; any ordinary Yao Beast would have been blown to pieces long ago.

But this thing had a strange energy circulating and resisting until the very last moment—it didn't act like a beast, but rather like... a Puppet controlled by someone.

Furthermore, the layer of purplish-gray moss on the ground was still moving.

It was like breathing.

Or perhaps it was some kind of signal transmission.

He looked down at his feet. In the cracks of the ground that had been shattered during the battle, those mosses were slowly gathering, forming a strange ring pattern, with the center point directly facing the Yao Beast's corpse.

"What kind of trick is this..." He frowned, reaching into the hidden compartment at the base of the console to pull out a wrench engraved with runes, which he casually stuck into the ground.

Hum!

The wrench vibrated, and the runes lit up with a faint glow.

This was a private early-warning device he kept, using an old-fashioned method taught by Old Lin, specifically designed to deal with those "things that shouldn't move."

Sure enough, as soon as the wrench was inserted, the light immediately turned from blue to red.

Chen Tiezhu's pupils contracted.

"There is something underneath."

He didn't call for help.

And he didn't retreat.

Instead, he set the mecha to low-power mode, turned off all external lights, and left only a small lamp in the cockpit, casting light and shadow across half his face.

He sat there like an iron statue, his eyes fixed on the ring of moss.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

Suddenly, the corpse's abdomen squirmed.

It wasn't coming back to life.

It was splitting open.

A thin crack spread from the chest cavity to the abdomen, as if being pried open by something from within.

There was no blood, only a wisp of extremely faint purple mist slowly spilling out, crawling along the ground toward the moss ring.

Chen Tiezhu didn't move.

But his finger was already resting on the firing button.

The purple mist entered the ring and instantly froze.

Following that, the entire ring pattern began to glow, the frequency steady, blinking on and off like a heartbeat.

"Damn it." He cursed under his breath. "It really is transmitting information."

He immediately understood—this Yao Beast hadn't come to attack; it had come to deliver intelligence. Its mission was to lure someone out and then transmit the battlefield coordinates back.

To whom?

He didn't know.

And he didn't want to know.

The problem now was: should he pursue?

He checked the mecha's status—energy remaining at 37%, drill cooling incomplete, left arm drive shaft warning flashing. If this thing went underground again, it might fall apart itself.

But if he didn't do anything...

That wisp of purple mist was almost integrated into the center of the ring; once the connection was complete, the enemy might launch the next wave immediately.

"Damn it all." He gritted his teeth and slammed his fist onto the console. "I shouldn't have believed in any 'tactical withdrawal'; I should have wiped out your nest in one go!"

After cursing, he raised his head abruptly, his eyes fierce.

"But it's not too late now."

He reached for the communicator and gave a low-voiced order: "The second team, ambush both sides of the cave entrance; the third team, guard the rear path; the fourth team, prepare incendiary bombs. I'm going to burn this forest—down to the roots."

Just after giving the order, he suddenly paused.

Because the ring of moss had stopped moving.

The purple mist froze in mid-air, as if held in stasis.

The entire cave was terrifyingly quiet.

Even the wind had stopped.

Chen Tiezhu slowly raised his eyes and looked into the depths of the tunnel.

There, it was pitch black.

But he knew—someone was coming.

Not a Yao Beast.

And not the insect race.

It was something even more troublesome than those.

He silently pulled down the cockpit shield, restarted the drill preheating program, and the mechanical arm slowly raised, pointing toward the darkness.

"Come on then." He whispered, "Let's see who dares to mess with my Chen family's land."