Chapter 325: The Ruin Cities.
Jie Jie’s gaze pierced through the gaps in the silk threads, firmly locking onto the Queen Ruin City.
The Queen Ruin City was highly intact, with four legs, a long tail, and an elongated head. Its size was larger than the one he had encountered before.
Despite its massive size, it wasn’t bloated. It relied on a framework of metal to support the ruin city, with sturdy metal plates covering the exterior. The structure leaned towards being hollow.
Clearly, due to the heaviness of the metal materials, a lot of optimization was done to reduce the internal fillings of soil and bricks for better mobility.
“Screech screech screech~”
Rusty metal joints were emitting sounds, as the silk threads connecting them were lifted. The four legs supported the torso while moving, and the long neck swept across the ground like a whip, submerging the hunters in dust.
“Beat me, beat me, and I’ll giggle with you!”
The ruin city moved forward, and Jie Jie let out a series of sharp cries.
“~~~”
The sound of a challenge came from the opposite ruin city, causing the Queen Mantis to no longer pay attention to the small insects that were bound to be crushed. Her gaze was fixed on the rudimentary ruin city approaching with ill intent.
With two legs for movement and a heavy tail for body support, the Queen Mantis had already deduced the construction of Jie Jie’s ruin city.
The two-legged structure made the front base unstable, reducing mobility and unsuitable for walking in bad environments. The tail filled with lots of material was particularly cumbersome.
What were its attack methods? Just stepping and firing sharp objects from between the two legs?
From the first glance at Jie Jie’s ruin city, the Queen had determined it to be a discarded item destined for dismantling, with its greatest use being to provide parts.
Some of the parts were familiar, originating from her own ruin city.
Outstanding female offspring of the Queen Mantis would be chosen as successors, taking part of the clan to establish their own domains, spreading the Queen Mantis population across the land.
As a gift, the Queen Mantis would dismantle part of her ruin city to give to her departing offspring as a nest.
Apparently, the nest of her offspring became the building material for the male mantis’ nest.
With little sentiment for her offspring, the Queen welcomed the parts that would return to her hands, along with potential mates, like a forgotten investment suddenly returning with substantial interest.
Even after death, the male’s bodily functions didn’t disappear instantly and could still be used for reproduction.
The Queen’s ruin city wobbled as it approached Jie Jie.
The two ruin cities moved towards each other, and after a few steps, they entered combat range.
The Queen Mantis pulled the foremost silk thread, and the long neck resembling an Old Mountain Dragon of the Queen’s ruin city swung heavily.
There was no choice but to withstand it.
Jie Jie tightened the silk threads in preparation, stabilizing his ruin city in a defensive stance to receive the blow.
“Boom!”
Parts of the ruin city scattered upon collision.
Fortunately, Jie Jie’s ruin city had plenty of soil as a buffer layer and a stable base, so neither the skeleton nor the entire structure was damaged.
Meanwhile, the force acted reciprocally, and it was clear that the neck of the Queen’s ruin city underwent significant deformation but recovered somewhat as she tightened the silk threads.
Pulling the silk threads to move the steps, Jie Jie’s ruin city initiated a simple and straightforward collision.
“Clang!”
The speed of the collision was quite limited. Neither of the main bodies of the ruin cities was damaged; only his extended Strike Dragon Gun was knocked askew.
Glancing at the shooting angle of the Strike Dragon Gun, clearly, it couldn’t directly pierce the core of the Queen’s ruin city.
Without confidence in piercing the Queen’s core, Jie Jie decided not to reveal his most effective trump card.
But there were other mini Strike Dragon Guns on his ruin city.
Before he could determine which mini Strike Dragon Gun could cause damage, he felt a stumble.
The Queen’s ruin city raised its tail slightly and retreated, stepping closer with its rear end. The lifted tail swung heavily again.
Although it had a head and a tail, the actual fighting style of the Queen’s ruin city was like a crab, with both head and tail acting as pincers.
“Clang!”
Once again, the sound of a heavy strike rang out. Jie Jie simply bore the weight of the tail and pulled the right-side silk threads, using his right leg to collide with the left hind leg of the Queen’s ruin city.
The right-side mini Strike Dragon Gun, fire!
Several silk threads were cut, and the stones connected to them lost their upward pull, being dragged by gravity to hit the control button of the mini Strike Dragon Gun.
“Click!”
The human-made artifact emitted a crisp sound, distinct amidst the collision sounds of the ruin artifacts, and unusually clear.
He hadn’t forgotten to maintain the Strike Dragon Gun while maintaining the ruin city! He even opened it up to study its internal structure and added some ingredients!
Besides gunpowder, it also contained body tissue shed during the Flame King Dragon’s transformation, i.e., explosive dust.
The explosion exceeded the tolerance threshold of the mini Strike Dragon Gun, which should have been blown away by the strong impact force. But due to directional constraints, the mini Strike Dragon Gun was directly shot out.
The Strike Dragon Gun spun rapidly, scraping against the metal structure of the Queen’s ruin city’s leg, producing a harsh spark. It was deflected but struck the exposed silk threads maintaining the armor, scattering them!
A piece of metal armor fell off the left hind leg area of the Queen’s ruin city, exposing more silk thread structures.
But he lacked the ability to destroy these silk threads further.
However, the previously fired Strike Dragon Gun gave him new ideas.
Fill an iron box with explosives, leaving only one opening and a pipe, then add an iron rod inside the pipe.
Ignite the explosives, and the iron rod will shoot out to cause damage.
He thought about experimenting with this idea later.
The underlying principle of firearms was just simple kinetic energy, limited by materials, gunpowder, machine tools, etc.
But he could easily manipulate bricks, pile up broken materials, and substitute machining with brute force capable of bending steel. He could replace gunpowder with the explosive dust from the Flame King Dragon.
Isn’t this a cannon? Yes, this is a cannon!
Jie Jie felt his subjective kinetic energy and desire to act were about to explode.
But the Queen’s ruin city didn’t stop attacking because of his distraction, continuing to collide and trample his ruin city.
Of course, he didn’t stop counterattacking either. The remaining mini Strike Dragon Guns completed their missions in the collisions.
If luck was bad, they were directly deflected; if lucky, they could peel off the armor, but mostly it was the former.
The spear of humans versus the shield of humans, the shield just needed to be hard enough, but the spear had far too many considerations!
At this moment, a signal flare pierced through the dust, and the flying airship hanging in the sky completed its preparations. After slightly lowering its altitude, it dropped several fully loaded cannons.
The hunters wiped the blood, sweat, and dust from their faces, staring wide-eyed at the two colliding ruin cities.
