The Objective

Although Qiongqi's comprehension is a bit lacking, it's still barely enough. And to be honest, operating a spaceship is much easier than calculating a sword formation, since he doesn't need to understand the working principle of every component in a refrigerator; he just needs to open the refrigerator door.

So, imitating the Chang Gui's actions, Li Fan not only learned how to drive the various devices inside the shuttle, but also found a 3D printer, or rather, a food synthesizer.

This equipment can process and purify various organic materials—basically, just dig up some soil, mix in some water, and synthesize them—to produce emergency food similar to compressed biscuits. It's probably a cheap device for these cloned Bio-Human crew members. The taste is truly indescribable, but the advantages are its extreme adaptability, low cost, and large quantity that keeps you full.

So Li Fan produced a huge batch of emergency biscuits, watching the advance team's expedition through holographic projection while stuffing them into Qiongqi's mouth to fill its belly. And you know what? It actually felt a bit like watching a movie...

Judging from the images constantly transmitted back by the advance team, this underground ancient monster city complex was enormous. This reminded Li Fan of the destroyed worlds he had seen when Moon Worship went to the Tai Su Void Abyss. Could it be that before the emergence of human civilization in this Taiji Realm, an ancient civilization had already been purified by the company?

Moreover, judging from the various architectural blocks, murals and reliefs, unique writing, and functional design of this frozen city, this monster civilization has already reached a considerable level. Unfortunately, the company's advance team is moving too fast, making a destructive advance along the way, blowing up and burning all the ice, rocks, or buildings that are blocking the way, so Li Fan has no time for a thorough archaeological excavation.

This clone is quite skilled; he should be considered an elite monster. Not only is he fully armed with a metal exoskeleton SBS, looking like Bida, but he also has many electronic device operation skills. While traveling at high speed, he sets up signal amplification devices like camera tripods every so often, or when communication is interfered with, to maintain the normal communication of the command and information chain.

According to Chang Gui's explanation, the advance team and the main cabin of the shuttle have similar processes. They carry out their missions autonomously and only communicate with each other and request corrections to their course when they need to transmit the collected data back for backup. The main cabin is the same; it will periodically report the mission progress and collected data to the main ship in orbit.

Of course, the next time the shuttle communicates with the system, Li Fan's intrusion will definitely be known to the company's system. Fortunately, this is a locally produced civilian ship. Due to technological and equipment limitations, there is a generational gap in technology, so communication can generally only be conducted during the day when there is no interference from the False Moon. Moreover, the radar is not very good. It seems that because Li Fan's attack was too fast, and this shuttle is not military equipment, it only detected one 'unknown signal' before being rushed in and wiped out before the analysis was completed. Therefore, it was classified as 'unknown wild animal'...

Well, now that the Non- Material Dao Body has grown into this ghastly form, Li Fan isn't worried about his identity being exposed.

However, judging from the progress of the advance team, they have broken through the frozen layer and the collapsed area, and entered the spacious underground city square, which is like a dungeon. A large number of monster remains and corpses have also appeared around them, so they are probably very close to their target.

If there are no major problems, the advance team should be able to reach the 'target' location predicted by the company system tonight and confirm the specific information of the 'target'.

Li Fan was on high alert; whatever was hidden beneath the ice, he wouldn't let the company get their hands on it.

Destroying the shuttle alone might not be very useful, since the ship and its crew are all consumables, and the company clearly doesn't care; they can send another batch of people down at any time.

Even if he goes back and activates the Sun Sword Array to cover this area again, the Moon has been shining on it for a long time since Li Fan deactivated the sword formation, so it's uncertain how much the sword formation has been eroded, and it's not entirely safe.

Therefore, Li Fan reasoned that since the company had specifically sent people to conduct a careful on-site search, it was probably because they were worried that using large equipment like the shuttle to dig into the ground all at once might accidentally damage the 'target'.

That makes things simple. Once we confirm the 'target's' status and start collecting data, we can just destroy the 'target' directly.

This will solve the problem once and for all, completely thwarting the company's plans!

Just as Li Fan was eating biscuits, watching the real-time footage transmitted back by the advance team, and wondering what valuable things the company was mining, the shuttle's radar suddenly went off.

"Alarm! Alarm! Unidentified signal detected! Unidentified signal detected! Signal analysis in progress..."

What is that? Another unknown wild animal?

Li Fan operated the command system, dispatching nearby drones to conduct reconnaissance.

Unlike Li Fan, who was moving at full speed through the shuttle, this newcomer's movement speed was relatively slow. Of course, it was relatively slow. In the optical images transmitted back by the drone, there was something huge, leaping and undulating like a dolphin, breaking through the ice and roaring as it bounced from the northern icy sea. Visually, it was probably about ten feet long.

... What the hell is that? A green... whale?

Before Li Fan could confirm it carefully, the advance team's channel suddenly exploded with activity!

"Main cabin! Main cabin! 'Beep--' detected! 'Target' activated! Repeat! 'Target' activated!"

"Suppressive fire! Suppressive fire!"

"Retreat! Retreat! There's more! Retreat!"

"Aaaaaah--!"

I mowed the lawn? What's going on?

Li Fan squinted and glared at the sudden chaos, then roared, weapons opened fire wildly, and the view of the four advance team members and the four drones shook violently! The scene was in complete chaos!

Meanwhile, the shuttle on the other side wasn't quiet either, screaming "Analysis complete! Danger! Unregistered wild animal! Level 6 life form! Level 6 life form!" A bunch of red warning signs popped up on the radar screen!

Holy crap! I can't see everything with just two eyes!

Fortunately, Li Fan could grow multiple heads to see...

Okay, let's take it one step at a time. That huge green thing that jumped over must be some kind of Non-Thing, or some kind of mutated monster, at least not a creature Li Fan knows from Earth. To describe it, it's like... a spiky slug?

A green, slimy slug, about the size of a whale, its body covered in silvery spikes, its surface moistened with mucus. These spikes seemed to be a retractable protective layer, extremely sharp enough to easily pierce through ice. When it landed on land, the spikes extended further, protecting the delicate slug body. From a distance, it looked like a sea urchin, arching its way across the snowfield, its target the ruins of the ancient monster city. It was most likely there for its 'target'.

However, this thing moves at a speed visible to the naked eye, not even as fast as a car, so Li Fan decided to send the drone swarm to probe and intercept it first.

The advance team encountered something entirely different in the dungeon, something that Non-Thing object either. It looked like... um... a lump of flesh?

It was a pale white lump of flesh, and upon closer inspection, it had many withered, twig-like legs, resembling an ant egg that had only just hatched its arthropods. It was probably more than a person's height.

In fact, the equipment of these combatants in the company is quite powerful. The firing mode of the High-Energy Ray Rifle can be changed from the ray cannon to the laser submachine gun mode, shooting out a large area of red light with a "biubiubiu" sound, smashing the ant eggs to pieces, and boiling the thick white sap. Moreover, with the assistance of drones, theoretically, the squad can form a solid position and fight their way out.

However, there were too many of these lumps of flesh, densely packed together, and the radar scan revealed nothing! As a result, all the drones fell silent, and the advance fighters lost their firing assistance, forced to aim visually in the darkness with the limited light they could find.

But with so many legs, the fleshy balls could move incredibly fast and silently. After a concentrated barrage of fire destroyed one or two, a whole swarm suddenly emerged from every corner of the darkness, overwhelming the advance team! Suddenly, a huge number of them fell from above, and the entire channel was filled with the hysterical screams of the advance team!

Was it really necessary to shout so loudly? And he calls himself a combatant...?

"Warning! Combatant dead!"

Huh? What's going on?

Li Fan frowned deeply. These meat eggs were very weak; they shouldn't have been able to damage the company's armor, right?

Then, in the next instant, a dramatic change occurred. Through the drone's camera, Li Fan clearly saw that, apart from one combatant being engulfed and dismantled by the mass of flesh, the other three suddenly burst forth, breaking through the encirclement of the Non-Thing swarm in an instant. It was as if they had activated a cheat code, rapidly aiming and firing. The light and shadow in the camera were changing so fast that they were completely blurred. The reaction speed of these clone soldiers far exceeded that of ordinary people. With the enhancement of their equipment, the speed of the three of them was unbelievable. Li Fan was practically watching three Martial God fight!

Could it be that he took drugs?

Li Fan glanced at the armor data and, sure enough, the three soldiers' reflexes were significantly heightened. The dead soldier had no obvious external injuries; it was likely sudden cardiac arrest. It seemed they had been given some kind of drug. But why were they screaming so horribly? Was it a side effect of the drug?

"Retreat request rejected! Continue advancing! Head-on breakthrough! Visually confirm target!"

Li Fan issued the order from the main cabin. Without the drone's assistance, the combatants who were taking emergency evasive action seemed to be controlled by commands written in their genes. Without saying a word, they immediately turned around, formed a triangular assault formation, and although they screamed wildly as if they were having a mental breakdown, they still fired all the way, smashing up piles of flesh and stepping on the white sap and bits of flesh, and continued to stride into the depths of the underground city.

Well, it's definitely possible to do it if you want to. This rifle is pretty good; it not only has multiple attack modes, but you also don't need to reload and can fire continuously...

"Rifles are prohibited."

The combatants immediately ceased fire, magnetically attached their rifles to their shoulder armor, and simultaneously extended meter-long monomolecular blades from their armored wrists, screaming as they plunged into the mass of flesh to fight.

As expected of a dedicated combatant, although a bit noisy, they were swift and efficient in their attacks. With the support of their equipment, they truly possessed the combat power of Martial God. They hacked their way through the Non-Thing flesh, carving a bloody path through it, and continued to push forward unstoppably. Even when one person suddenly suffered cardiac arrest and collapsed to the ground dead, they did not slow down.

"The use of monomolecular knives is prohibited."

The armored vehicle seemed to have no other weapons. The two remaining combatants screamed in a strange manner, whether from anger or fear. Then, one of them stopped fighting and started jumping wildly, while the other roared and grabbed the long legs of the two fleshy figures, swinging them around like sledgehammers to create opportunities for his teammates.

But after touching the fleshy mass for only five seconds, she began experiencing severe epilepsy, incontinence, vomiting, and ultimately died of a brain hemorrhage. Was she scared to death? She could still function physically after a minute of visual observation, but couldn't withstand five seconds of touch...? It seems these fleshy masses on the ground caused quite a bit of psychological damage...

So the last surviving soldier in the advance team began a desperate charge, leaping onto the ground to carry out the 'visual confirmation' mission. A whole bunch of little balls of flesh followed in her wake...

Take some time to keep an eye on that 'Level 6 Life Form' on the other side.

The situation here is much more harmonious.

When the swarm of drones appeared in large numbers from the glacier, the spiky slug stopped moving and cautiously kept its distance from the metal drones, extending its dense, silvery metallic spines like a ruffled animal.

Li Fan commanded a swarm of drones to surround it, and the creature moved back. When a single drone was sent forward to take pictures, the slug would suddenly stab and knock it down. Perhaps it was maintaining the maximum distance for a counterattack, but instead of launching an attack?

This guy is so big, yet surprisingly timid...

Since the other side had chosen to maintain a stalemate, Li Fan decided to ignore it for the time being, as the remaining advance troops were probably arriving soon.

From the helmet's perspective, it was a huge white mass of flesh as tall as a five-story building, covered with trembling pustules—no, eyeballs. Turning around, you could see they were all eyeballs!

Those eyes only met the camera for a single glance before the system popped up a barrage of warnings: "Large numbers of combatants appearing," "Combatant's vital signs low," "Combatant's heart rate disorder." The screams stopped, replaced by choked coughs of blood. It sounded like the clone's lungs were filled with blood, and he was only still moving because he had been given a lot of stimulants.

Wow, that's amazing! Can system technology and clone warriors achieve this level...? It's just a little bit short.

Indeed, this large fleshy ball is definitely not the 'target'. Since it can be illuminated by optical effects without the system forcibly modifying the frequency blocking signal, then this large fleshy ball, and the slug on the ice field, must both be Non-Thing attracted by the 'target', right?

Inherited from the ancient and extinct Demon Race civilization, sealed by the Beichen Sword Array for five hundred years, it is the 'target' that both the company and the Non-Thing demon gods covet and come to fight for.

"Remove restrictions on the use of weapons."

The soldier then accelerated and leaped towards the white mass of flesh, pulled a metal can from its waist, and shoved it into the mass's eyeball.

The next instant, the shuttle went completely dark inside and out, the signal was interrupted, and the ship felt weightless for three seconds before restarting. The holographic image then lit up again, and the underground city ruins collapsed and caved in, causing the entire mine to collapse.

Damn it, a single-soldier nuclear bomb... What kind of monster am I fighting?!

"Signal lost; underground nuclear fusion detected."

All underground signals were lost, while the drone's signal gradually reconnected. The 'Level 6 life form' then, without hesitation, hopped back to the icy sea, jumped into the water with a splash, and disappeared...

So cowardly...

Forget about it, let's start mining. Let's see what we can dig up.