Armor-Piercing Munition: Face Me, Carbon-Based Monster!
Chapter 281 - 121 Close Reconnaissance_2

Chapter 281: Chapter 121 Close Reconnaissance_2

"This is Taishan, one of the highest mountains within a few hundred kilometers."

"In theory, humans have a natural reverence for mountains. Even in the post-apocalypse, there should be someone attempting to climb it."

"But now it seems... this mountain has been completely forgotten."

"That’s... quite normal."

Xie Liu, standing beside, spoke:

"Mountain climbing holds little significance for us and instead presents uncontrollable risks."

"Generally, no one is willing to leave the relatively safe zones of human activity to explore, unless carrying out a hunting mission as Hunters or Holy Blood."

"But back to the point... Captain, is this mountain really that special?"

"Certainly special."

Chen Jian sighed softly and replied:

"The foremost of the Five Great Mountains, a place of sacrifice... but there’s no point discussing this now."

"Let’s go, climb the mountain."

"Xie Liu, climb a tree to set up a relay base station, make sure to expand the solar panels above the canopy."

"Got it."

Xie Liu, carrying a mini base station, climbed a relatively straight tree while Chen Jian led Lei Jie, climbing swiftly upwards.

Without a path, the difficulty of climbing increased more than twofold.

Even wrapped in the Nezha exoskeleton, Chen Jian still felt the immense physical exertion.

It took them a full four hours to finally reach the peak, and by then, it was already midnight.

"Set up the base station and connect to the network."

With Chen Jian’s order, the three of them cooperated seamlessly, swiftly completing the base station deployment.

Almost simultaneously, several green dots lit up one by one on the visor in front of Chen Jian’s eyes.

"Base station activation complete, connected to core network."

"Signal search complete, Heaven Dome-S has received the cellular network signal."

"Image data transmitted."

"Route planning complete."

"Signal relay established, signal coverage complete."

"Commander, the equipment is ready, should we begin reconnaissance?"

"Begin reconnaissance! Xie Liu, Lei Jie, we’re withdrawing."

Chen Jian ordered quietly, and the three retraced their steps down the mountain, while at the same time, reconnaissance intelligence analyzed by Fu Xi began to be transmitted back in bulk.

The first to be established was the high-altitude infrared imaging map of Quan City, or Huadu, from which the scale of the city appeared not very large.

Spanning only two kilometers horizontally and vertically, the area of the peripheral production and living facilities was also quite small.

Compared to a large city like Jinling City, it was akin to a village or town.

However, what belied its small area was its extremely high population density.

The dense lights already revealed everything, and the heat signals moving on the streets inside the city further indicated its bustling nature.

Instinctively, Chen Jian zoomed in, trying to discern the patterns of activity among the city’s residents.

But he failed to notice that Xie Liu had already removed his intelligent visor.

Thus, he saw a scene within the city that was almost nauseating.

Countless naked bodies surrounded a massive bonfire in revelry, humans venting their desires like beasts.

Some grabbed burning logs from the bonfire and brandished or lashed them, while those beneath them emitted incomprehensible howls.

In this revelry, the concept of gender had long since blurred.

Chen Jian even questioned if they still knew whether those around them were human.

They were merely exhausting every method to pursue ultimate pleasure, and when the camera zoomed in to the maximum, Chen Jian even saw certain other utensils he never imagined would appear in such a place.

But merely this was not enough to make Xie Liu take off his visor.

When those people lost their final sense of reason under the influence of drugs, they also lost their perception of danger.

Many seemed to treat this revelry as the last one of their lives.

Blood, suffocation, abuse...

When the negative perceptions brought by harm were blocked, all behaviors associated with "pleasure" became their ultimate pursuit of enjoyment.

Even if it led to their death.

Chen Jian saw the corpses on the ground.

Yet the residents turned a blind eye.

No...

They could see too.

Some people even showed a particular interest in those bodies.

"Damn it..."

Chen Jian raised the camera.

This scene gave him genuine physiological discomfort, to the point he didn’t want to look again.

"Are these people... like this every day?"

Hearing his words, Xie Liu shook his head painfully before answering:

"Not every day."

"They have fixed ’carnival days,’ and we just happened to catch one..."

"Good."

Chen Jian exhaled slowly and continued:

"This is good news for us. If the entire city is in a frenzy, the difficulty of our infiltration should be lowered significantly."

"Not necessarily."

Lei Jie shook his head and said:

"I saw the palace."

"The situation there is completely different from within Huadu City."

"Transfer the image feed to me."

Chen Jian briefly ordered, and then the image of the palace appeared on his visor.

This was a structure built atop the mountain.

It was similarly not large, nor was it the stereotypical magnificent, solemn palace.

On the contrary, it was a cluster of grey-white squared buildings.

No lights shone from it, and if not for the thermal imaging detecting the patrolling Huadu Guard inside the palace, it might have been mistaken for some concrete relic from before the cataclysm.

Unlike the frenzied atmosphere in the city below, everyone here maintained a very sober posture.

In the viewfinder, Chen Jian saw several guards doing shift exchanges, and from their skilled movements, it was obvious that this routine had been in practice for more than just a day or two.

"Really impressive, the drug dealers not using their own products."

Lei Jie spat disdainfully, while Chen Jian calmly replied:

"It’s the same everywhere."

"Fu Xi, deploy hummingbird drones to start internal reconnaissance of the buildings."

"Understood, drones have been deployed, taken over by War Skull."

"War Skull taking over."

The cold prompt from the War Skull system sounded, and then the image on Chen Jian’s visor split into three, displaying the footage captured by the two hummingbird drones.

As the altitude lowered, the images gradually drew closer.

Five minutes later, War Skull completed the 3D mapping of all the buildings inside the palace, but four of those buildings were completely sealed, leaving even the hummingbirds with no entrance to infiltrate.

This was where Xu He’s role came to play.

Where hummingbirds couldn’t go, he could enter.

With Xie Liu’s assistance, he pinpointed on the screen the actual "palace," the so-called Huadu Queen’s daily office location.

The location he pointed out coincided perfectly with two of the buildings the hummingbirds couldn’t enter.

The target was confirmed, and by the time Chen Jian’s team returned, it was just 3 a.m.

"What do we say?"

Lei Jie asked:

"Should we go now or wait until tomorrow?"

Chen Jian hesitated slightly.

Tonight was precisely Huadu’s carnival day, and if they set off immediately, the squad would face minimal external resistance during infiltration.

But the problem was, it was already late.

By 3 o’clock, reaching Huadu would be at least 4:30.

When entering the palace, it should be around 5 a.m.

This timing was quite awkward.

The time available for their action was too short; even if they managed to bypass the guards, by daylight, the abnormalities within the palace would certainly be discovered.

Catch-22.

Chen Jian was still contemplating how to handle this when Ji Xing suddenly spoke:

"According to reconnaissance info, the number of guards inside the palace should not exceed 100."

"We have six people available for action."

"Which means each person only needs to deal with... 16 targets at most."

"If we’re fast enough, we have a complete chance of killing all these guards without alerting other armed forces within Huadu City."

"By then, our time... will be much more sufficient."

"That makes sense."

Chen Jian nodded slowly.

"Lei Jie, did you bring your QCQ201?"

"I did. Since a decapitation operation was mentioned before, how could I not bring it? You also brought your 06."

"Then there’s no problem."

Chen Jian exhaled deeply and then ordered:

"War Skull, plan the entry route and monitor enemy movements."

"Xie Liu, Li Shi, Ji Xing, bring Xu He, we’re... launching a full-speed raid!"