Free Web NovelChapter 132: Chapter 132: Native Building Materials
At his words, the faces of all the prisoners present filled with terror. They stopped tormenting Mike and stared at the gun in Shen Feng’s hand.
They seemed to hesitate, unsure whether they should run.
"S-Sir... you have to run! The monsters are coming! If you stay here, you’ll be eaten..." one prisoner said to Shen Feng, his face a mask of terror.
Another man beside him muttered, "How did those monsters get here? Isn’t this place off-limits to them?"
"What monsters?" Shen Feng asked, his brow furrowed.
The dozen or so fleeing prisoners were now very close. Suddenly, from the shadow behind the man in the rear, something covered in legs like an octopus shot out. Its entire body glistened with a metallic sheen as it pounced on the last prisoner in the line!
"AHHH—Get off! Get the hell off me!" the prisoner shrieked, as if facing the most terrifying thing imaginable. He desperately reached back, trying to rip the creature from his back.
But the moment he grabbed it, his hands began to turn silvery-gray. Then, starting from his fingertips, they began to disappear bit by bit, dissolving into a silvery-gray powder that fell away!
The silvery-gray affliction spread rapidly up his neck and head. It was as if his whole body was being gnawed away, large gaps and pits appearing at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Yet, not a single drop of blood flowed from the gaps and pits. It was as if the blood in his remaining flesh had been sealed off, converted before it even had a chance to spill.
It all sounds slow in the telling, but it happened in just a few seconds. The man’s screams had stopped. As if in a daze, he slowly turned around, revealing his back to the others.
The back of his head, his back, half his neck, and both his legs had been completely devoured, turning into a silvery-gray powder that drifted to the ground.
Only half of his flesh was left, and even that was still rapidly turning into silvery-gray powder.
As the others watched, they could clearly see his exposed spine and internal organs—an exceptionally horrifying sight.
His brain had been devoured first!
Then, the remaining part of his body was also quickly gnawed clean, leaving only a pile of silvery-gray powder on the ground.
Before everyone’s eyes, the pile of silvery-gray powder coalesced like a liquid. It then split into three mechanical monsters, each with dozens of legs and wearing the face of the very prisoner they had just consumed. They lunged at the remaining men!
The mechanical monsters were incredibly fast. In an instant, they were upon two more prisoners. Another gruesome feast of consumption began. Moments later, the two men were devoured and broken down, and now there were nine mechanical monsters!
All of them had human faces!
By now, the fleeing prisoners had reached the others and were about to bolt past them.
BANG! A single gunshot. A hole bloomed in the lead prisoner’s forehead, stopping the others in their tracks.
"Stay right here," Shen Feng said coldly, simultaneously pulling the Electromagnetic Pulse Gun from his backpack.
’Just from watching them consume their victims, he understood. This stuff was this world’s version of nanomachines.’
’These things must have split off from the Gray Tide.’
Shen Feng aimed the Electromagnetic Pulse Gun at a mechanical monster dozens of meters away and pulled the trigger.
There was no sound, and the onlookers saw nothing. Yet, the three nearest mechanical monsters instantly disintegrated, reverting to a cloud of silvery-gray powder.
No, it wasn’t just silvery-gray powder. After disintegrating, the powder’s color rapidly shifted to black, as if it had been truly killed, showing no further reaction.
Seeing the Electromagnetic Pulse Rifle was effective, Shen Feng nodded slightly. He fired a few more quick shots. The remaining six mechanical monsters instantly crumbled into black powder, and after a few flickers of arcing electricity, they became completely inert.
’The electromagnetic pulse is effective against the Nanomechanical Insects.’
’Extremely effective, in fact.’
’But if that’s the case, how did the world end up like this?’
’After all, even with the formation of the Gray Tide, as long as EMPs are effective, humanity should have had plenty of weapons to fight them.’
’A nuclear bomb is the most powerful Electromagnetic Pulse Bomb, after all.’
’You wouldn’t even need a ground detonation. A few nukes set off in the atmosphere above the Gray Tide would paralyze everything within a radius of hundreds of kilometers.’
At the same time, a metal pillar in the line of fire also blew apart, the shattered material turning into black powder!
Seeing this, Shen Feng couldn’t help but frown slightly.
The prisoners present saw that the gun in Shen Feng’s hand had actually annihilated all those mechanical monsters. They were all dumbfounded, unable to believe their eyes.
They had run into these mechanical monsters in other sectors before. Back then, their only option had been to flee. Luckily, the monsters never came to the prison sector.
As far as they were concerned, these monsters were invincible.
Ordinary weapons had no effect at all.
Yet this young man had used that strange coil rifle to wipe out the monsters without so much as a sound.
"E... EMP?" a prisoner murmured.
He was a bomber responsible for a series of explosions, so he knew a thing or two about the subject.
A corner of Shen Feng’s mouth curled up. "You know about EMPs? What’s your name?"
’A talented individual, what a surprise.’
"My name is Billy..." the prisoner said hurriedly. "I... I know a little. I’ve made an Electromagnetic Pulse Bomb before..."
"Very good..." Shen Feng nodded. Just as he was about to say something, with a THUD, a dark figure fell from the sky and landed in the middle of the crowd!
The figure was over a man’s height and reflected a silvery-gray light, though parts of its body were marred with dark patches.
This thing... it was a humanoid Nanomechanical Robot!
Shen Feng’s eyes widened. He fired instantly, blasting away the upper torso of the Nanomechanical Robot.
But in the next instant, a dull THUD THUD THUD THUD echoed as dozens of humanoid Nanomechanical Robots dropped from the ceiling!
"Native construction material, discovered."
"Native construction material, discovered."
"Native construction material, discovered."
"Discovered..."
These Nanomechanical Robots were completely different from the multi-legged monsters from before. Their eyes glowed red, and they let out electronic, mechanical whines as they lunged at the humans!
Their speed was extremely fast. The prisoners present had no time to escape before they were grabbed in a death grip by these Nanomechanical Robots, who then began to devour and assimilate them!
Fuck!
Shen Feng cursed, blasting the Nanomechanical Robot in front of him to pieces before casually tossing out an Electromagnetic Pulse Bomb.
In the next instant, with a BANG, arcs of electricity flickered on the Electromagnetic Pulse Bomb, and an invisible electromagnetic pulse wave spread out in all directions.
"Damn you, Shen Feng!" Jingwei’s furious voice suddenly screamed in his mind.
Shen Feng felt a wave of dizziness wash over him. A searing pain erupted in his chest, so intense that it drove him to one knee.
After a few seconds, Shen Feng shook his spinning head to clear it. As his senses returned, he stood up and surveyed his surroundings.
He saw that the Nanomechanical Robots had been blasted into piles of powder by the Electromagnetic Pulse Bomb.
But he’d thrown the bomb a fraction of a second too late. In that brief window, parts of the captured prisoners’ bodies had already been devoured and dissolved.
Some of their faces were sheared flat, large chunks were missing from their bodies, and one had half his head gone, revealing the damaged brain inside.
The men were grievously wounded, struggling and wailing on the ground. It was clear they weren’t going to make it.
Mike, who had already been badly wounded, now had half his face gnawed away by the Nanomechanical Insects. His eye socket was a hollow void. He lay there, unmoving, clearly dead.
The only prisoners left alive and not gravely injured were Billy and two other convicts serving sentences of over a thousand years.
With a grim expression, Shen Feng swept the area with his Electromagnetic Pulse Rifle. Once he confirmed there were no more active Nanomechanical Robots, he switched to his assault rifle and delivered a final shot to each of the prisoners who were beyond saving but still struggling. free𝑤ebnovel.com
After doing all this, he asked Billy:
"Have these Nanomechanical Insects ever attacked this place before?"
Billy was terrified out of his mind. He frantically shook his head and said:
"No, these monsters rarely come to this area. I don’t know what happened this time... And they never attack the people in the Hibernation Pods..."
’What’s going on? Have the Nanomechanical Insects gone out of control again?’
’Or have they changed their original protocols after an iteration?’
Lost in thought, Shen Feng walked over to the shattered pillar. He glanced at the black metallic powder on the ground, then examined the destroyed column. His expression grew even darker.
’This entire mega-structure wasn’t built by Nanomechanical Insects assembling devoured materials.’
’Every part of this mega-structure... it’s all made of Nanomechanical Insects.’
’That includes this pillar, the floor, the ceiling, all the metal structures, and these Hibernation Pods!’
’From the very beginning, I’ve been surrounded by Nanomechanical Insects. I had never escaped their grasp!’
’It’s just that the Nanomechanical Insects forming the floors, ceilings, and metal components seem to be in a long-term state of hibernation, not actively moving.’
’Iteration?’
’Evolution?’
Shen Feng turned his head and said to Billy:
"Take me to their nest. Now."
~
*(Author’s Note: Just got back from working overtime. The third Chapter of the day is in progress.)*
