Alloy Puppet Alley

One-Eye's hands slammed onto the alloy railing, his body leaning forward, exuding an overwhelmingly oppressive aura:

"Ten days ago, during the first major exam, the Gravity Well weeded out the weaklings among you—those with frail bodies who didn't even qualify to bear pressure!"

"But! The Empire spends a fortune training you, not to turn you into durable punching bags for the Zerg and heretics on the battlefield!"

One-Eye's voice suddenly shot up, like a thunderous roar: "What the Empire needs are war machines that can rip off Exotic Beast heads and kick them around like balls! Butchers who excel at slaughter!"

"So, the rules for this second assessment have changed!"

"Today, we're not testing pressure resistance! We're only testing two things—your actual combat lethality, and your stamina endurance under extreme high pressure!"

As One-Eye's words fell, he swung his mechanical arm sharply.

Behind the square, the massive metal complex usually cordoned off as a restricted area suddenly erupted with a violent grinding of machinery.

The ground trembled wildly as hard alloy armor plates slid to both sides. A closed corridor, a hundred meters long and about ten meters wide, forged entirely from pitch-black special alloy, slowly rose from beneath the earth, revealing itself before all the recruits.

At the corridor's entrance, harsh scarlet warning lights flashed.

From the depths of that pitch-black passage came a faint, spine-chilling sound of metal gears turning and a cold, electronic synthesized voice.

"This is your exam site today—[Alloy Puppet Alley]!"

One-Eye pointed at the dark passage, like a meat grinder, and loudly announced the brutal assessment rules:

"This alley is a full hundred meters long. Not only is it obstructed throughout, but inside, it's densely packed with ten Level 1 Combat Puppets, programmed by the military with indiscriminate kill protocols!"

"These iron lumps have no pain, no fatigue, and each one's armor thickness and physical lethality match a recruit who's just stepped into the Quasi-Martial Artist threshold!"

"The rules are simple!"

"Within a five-minute countdown, get from this end to the other!"

"Whether you fight your way through or flee in panic, methods are unrestricted. Performance affects final ranking, not pass or fail."

"As long as you're still breathing and can make it halfway within the time limit, you pass! Conversely, if you're beaten down by the puppets in the alley and can't get up, or if you time out without passing, you're eliminated!"

One-Eye grinned, revealing a cruelly vicious smile: "I won't repeat the consequences of elimination. Now, first batch, enter the alley immediately!"

The brutal assessment left no one even a second for mental preparation.

The first batch of a thousand recruits, their numbers called out, faces pale as death, urged on by the Supervision Team like livestock driven into a slaughterhouse, gritted their teeth and charged into that pitch-black [Alloy Puppet Alley].

Bang!

The heavy alloy doors slammed shut behind them, sealing the corridor into a fully enclosed meat grinder.

Barely ten seconds passed.

"Ah—!! My leg!"

"Help! Help! This thing can't be broken!!"

Extremely shrill screams, mixed with the crisp snap of breaking bones and dull metallic impacts, instantly pierced through the corridor's thick walls, reaching the ears of over twenty thousand recruits in the square.

On the large screen outside the square, real-time infrared surveillance footage from inside the puppet alley was immediately displayed.

The scene in the footage was utterly gruesome.

Those Level 1 Combat Puppets, like tireless death gods, swung their alloy heavy fists, launching a merciless, one-sided slaughter against the recruits!

Many recruits who had received Gene Enhancement Serum in the first exam, their strength skyrocketing to five or six hundred kilograms, had been brimming with confidence.

But when they actually clashed with these puppets, they exposed a fatal weakness!

They had brute force, but absolutely no understanding of striking techniques or Qi-Blood distribution!

In the surveillance footage, a recruit who had injected gene serum roared as he swung his fist, wildly and without technique, slamming it into a puppet's chest armor.

Bang! The puppet's chest was indeed dented, but the massive recoil instantly dislocated the recruit's wrist!

Before the recruit could even scream, the painless puppet countered with a cold mechanical elbow strike, smashing heavily into his temple.

The recruit rolled his eyes and passed out on the spot, then was mercilessly trampled underfoot and ejected from the corridor by the conveyor belt like trash.

Extreme panic spread through the corridor.

No knowledge of defense, no understanding of Force Unloading, no clue how to destroy a puppet's power core in one blow.

Those recruits who only knew wild, flailing punches exhausted their meager stamina in no time, then were overwhelmed by the surging tide of puppets.

In just half an hour.

First batch, second batch, third batch...

Thousands of recruits were driven into the puppet alley, but the pass rate was abysmally low, utterly appalling!

Hundreds upon hundreds of recruits were eliminated, crying out as Logistics Robots directly loaded them onto transport ships headed for underground Mining Stars.

Even those who barely managed to cross the hundred-meter finish line within five minutes were mostly battered and broken, with cracked ribs, lying like dead dogs dragged out of a pool of blood, gasping for air at the finish line.

This wasn't just a test of strength; it was an examination of a martial artist's Qi-Blood distribution and instinctive combat limits under extreme high pressure and desperate battle!

On the high platform, the chief examiner, Iron Wrist, watched the constantly jumping elimination data, his cold face showing no mercy: "Hundreds of kilograms of strength, but fighting like street brawling thugs.

These wastes who don't know how to convert power into killing efficiency will just be rations for Exotic Beasts on the front lines."

One-Eye the instructor said nothing. His single remaining eye, like a precision radar, continuously scanned the recruit formations below that hadn't yet entered, and finally, with extreme accuracy, locked onto Jiang Yue standing in the middle section.

"That kid made a splash in the underground boxing ring—proved his combat lethality is no joke."

One-Eye secretly anticipated in his heart, "I wonder, in front of this military meat grinder that truly tests the foundation of martial arts, what kind of answer will he deliver?"

Meanwhile, down in the square below.

"Batch seven, enter!"

The cold electronic announcement finally called out Jiang Yue's batch.

"Brother Jiang, be careful! This alley is too sinister!" Xu Bo was sweating all over from nervousness, his lips trembling.

"Jiang Yue, don't fight head-on. If you get surrounded, use the footwork I taught you to dodge and weave. Conserving stamina to cross the line is the key!" Shen Qing also warned in a low, extremely serious tone.

Yet, listening to their advice, staring ahead at the [Alloy Puppet Alley]—dark and deep like the abyss of a giant beast, with screams constantly echoing from within—

Jiang Yue felt not a shred of fear or hesitation. He simply took a deep breath.

Dodge? Conserve stamina and run through?

No!

For an ordinary recruit, this was a path of survival against all odds, a road of elimination.

But for Jiang Yue, this hundred-meter-long combat corridor, packed with high-intensity alloy targets under extreme pressure...

It was the perfect stage to test the terrifying transformation of his physical body over the past three days!

To verify the killing efficiency brought by the Six Harmonies Breathing Method!

"Crack, crack..."

Jiang Yue twisted his neck slightly, interlaced his fingers, and pushed them outward. The bones and fascia of his body, honed to their peak, erupted in a series of dense, muffled pops like beans crackling in a pan.

He yanked down the zipper of his training uniform, revealing the tight black combat vest underneath, and cast no further glance at anyone around him.

Under One-Eye's expectant gaze, and in the cold, sidelong glances of aristocratic prodigies like Chu Lin—

Jiang Yue, like a ferocious beast finally breaking free of all its chains, strode forward with a steady, mountain-like gait, carrying a tangible aura of pressure, and stepped boldly into that steel corridor filled with death and the roar of metal!