Armed Train in the Apocalypse

The progress of the Armed Corps in the jungle was not fast. They weren’t natives and had to occasionally deal with the attacks from surrounding mutated plants.

Adopting a single file, alternating march formation, everyone maintained a distance of about three meters.

The first in line was often the Perception Evolver. According to the standards of the convoy, soldiers operated under a three-tier warning system for combat: close range is one kilometer, mid-range is three kilometers, and long range is ten kilometers, with visibility reducing as terrain demands.

Yet even at the lowest standard, the close combat reconnaissance was already approaching the edge of the camp.

Mechanical spiders were conducting deep reconnaissance of the camp’s terrain, while soldiers concentrated more on scanning the surroundings of the camp for potential interference factors.

Tong Zizhan and his companion walked in the middle of the formation, appearing like vacationing tourists compared to the cautious combat soldiers around them.

Tong Zizhan flipped his wrist, and with a ”thud,” his military knife pinned a fist-sized red flying insect to a tree trunk.

Muttering, ”This Tier Two aura is useless, just attracting mosquitoes.”

”Just use your ability. The stuff in this Plant Zone is ferocious, even Lin Jin’s Tier Three aura doesn’t scare them, let alone yours.”

Gao Yuan stepped forward, observing the little pinned insect on the tree still struggling, pulled out a material package, and casually collected it, ”It’s actually a Tier One evolved insect, worth quite a few points.”

Tong Zizhan glanced at him and asked in confusion, ”Where did you spend all those points you earned?”

”Exoskeleton customization.”

”That stuff can be customized?”

”It couldn’t before, but now it can.” Gao Yuan pulled out the knife and handed it back to Tong Zizhan, with a hint of heartache on his face, ”But it’s quite expensive.”

”Specifically customized one with ultra-long-distance communication and lightweight features.”

Tong Zizhan was slightly startled, ”Isn’t that a sentinel?”

Gao Yuan shook his head proudly, ”That’s version three modification, created alongside the development of my model as a batch-processed exoskeleton. The actual performance is a far cry; the exoskeleton itself weighs 30kg, but with monitoring, communication devices, it zooms to 50kg. Not even talking about stealth, carrying something weighing over a hundred pounds isn’t light or portable, it’s just classified as exoskeleton in the convoy’s taxonomy.”

”Mine is the [Scavenger-3C/F], which is communications + multifunction version, without any suffixes, genuinely an exoskeleton using Tier Two materials, weighing no more than 30kg.”

Tong Zizhan looked surprised, ”How did you manage such a weight difference? And what’s with the C and F stuff? It’s only been a few days and the naming’s already this complicated.”

Gao Yuan rolled his eyes, ”It’s not made yet, how should I know?”

Suddenly like remembering something, he questioned, ”C stands for communication, F for function, doesn’t the connection come naturally? Speaking of which, you also came from a big company, how do you not know this?”

Tong Zizhan shrugged, ”I cold-applied just to try it. Who knew they’d hire me? The training manager said I had potential as an undercover, later I realized the company just wanted new faces unfamiliar with it. But Old Gao, you’re a veteran employee, how did you get placed in such a throwaway post?”

Gao Yuan’s face darkened, before long bringing up this painful topic.

”...The old company got acquired.”

Tong Zizhan chuckled a few times, as if saying, ”See, what good was all that stuff you learned, you’re still working with me.”

Joking while adjusting various squad positions.

”What happened to your old Scavenger version one set?”

”Sold it.”

”How much?”

”200 points.”

”Damn, who’s the poor soul that bought it?”

”Heh, 200 points was him begging me to sell.”

Suddenly the communication came with a report from the officer, ”About two hundred natives are leaving the camp and are orderly advancing toward our position. They’re not carrying weapons...”

Gao Yuan frowned slightly, murmuring, ”What are they up to?”

”Who cares, let’s go check it out.”

Tong Zizhan just took a step when Gao Yuan tugged on his sleeve, pointing to another direction, ”I have a feeling there’s a surprise this way.”

Tong Zizhan looked at his old friend’s expressionless eyes, snorted coldly, ”You better be right about that feeling.”

Finished speaking, he changed direction.

...

Zhang Hui, leading Zou Ji, moved silently through the jungle. With slowed speed and the characteristic of the natives being accepted by the Plant Zone, they were almost invisible, making no sound.

Zou Ji was a bit nervous, ”Is this really reliable?”

Zhang Hui whispered, ”We’ll ambush first, if discovered, we’ll surrender. As long as you don’t say it, I don’t say it, who knows we ambushed?”

Zou Ji’s eyes widened, like opening a door to a new world. Could it really be played like this?

These adults have such thick skin.

Learned something new.

”I’m older than you, so I’ll distract them, you ambush, understand?”

Zou Ji nodded repeatedly.

Just about to ask more details, he suddenly noticed that Zhang Hui in front stopped walking.

In a moment of confusion, he saw two armed soldiers in gray-green coats swaggering over. Their epaulettes were more intricate and dignified than those of regular soldiers.

Not stooping or deliberately choosing harmless trees to leap from, they simply crunched the humus beneath their feet, laughing and joking as they walked right in front of the two.

The surrounding mutated plants seemed to ignore the two entirely.

At the moment the two fixed their gaze, Zou Ji’s heart tightened.

Why... couldn’t he sense these two?

Even natives harmonious with the Plant Zone could be detected at this range.

But these two living beings seemed nonexistent!

Even though they already stood in front of him.