Million Imperial Coins (Seeking Monthly Votes, Collections)

"Cease fire! Cease fire!"

Wang Zhong grabbed Tax Brother, who was still firing wildly at the swirling blue light, and roared so hard that spit nearly sprayed into the other man's helmet.

"Our crappy guns are useless against that thing! Do you think you're shooting a Khorne Bloodletter?"

"This is a Tzeentch ritual! You need psychic powers or, for God's sake, a larger caliber cannon!"

The barrel of the shotgun Tax Brother had modified from a Stubber was glowing red. He panted heavily, his single eye locked onto the warehouse.

Ren and his group had completely deformed; their bodies twisted and elongated like melting candles, while shifting geometric patterns emerged on their skin. Their chanting had devolved into inhuman shrieks.

At the center of the crimson pattern, space had torn open, revealing a glimpse of a bizarre scene filled with countless churning eyes, books, and distorted clocks.

"Damn it... Heretics!"

Tax Brother spat. "Are we just going to leave it alone?"

"Leave it? How the hell are we supposed to stop it?"

Wang Zhong pointed at the sky, then toward the factory perimeter where explosions and gunfire were drawing closer, merging into a continuous roar.

"Hear that?"

"It's getting much livelier out there than it is in here!"

"Alru Group isn't stupid. With this much commotion, reinforcements must be on the way!"

He dragged Tax Brother backward while shouting into the squad channel: "Everyone! Retreat! Back to the robbery... ah, I mean, back to the Resource Recovery Main Battlefield!"

"But Brother Loyalty," Xue Brother said, aiming his laser rifle at the center of the ritual, "are we just going to let them finish the summoning? What if a Greater Daemon comes out..."

"Let it come!"

Wang Zhong had already turned and started running, his voice filled with a reckless, manic excitement over the channel. "It's none of our business! We're players! The Fourth Calamity!"

"Even if a Greater Daemon shows up, it has to follow the script: survive the scripted death first, then wait for the patch update to release a guide!"

"Besides, have you ever seen a game put the final boss in the first chapter of the starter zone? If the developers actually dared to do that, the players would dig up their ancestors' graves to curse them!"

The logic was bizarre, yet inexplicably convincing.

The players of the direct-action squad looked at each other, then simultaneously stowed their weapons and scrambled after Wang Zhong toward the depths of the factory.

Over there, the sound of Soul of Cadia and his team dismantling equipment was like a heavy metal cutting convention.

Passing the warehouse, Wang Zhong took one last look.

Ren was slowly turning his head. On that face where features were no longer discernible, countless tiny mouths grinned simultaneously, emitting overlapping, mocking whispers:

"Knowledge... grants you a choice... clever ants... go forth... and forage... in the feast of change..."

"Damn, that's creepy as hell."

Wang Zhong felt his scalp tingle and ran even faster.

When they rushed back to the smelter area in the northwest corner, the sight before them made everyone gasp.

Not out of fear, but out of excitement.

The Promethium Smelter worth eighty thousand coins was already gone.

In its place was only a massive, smoking foundation pit, surrounded by dozens of thick pipes and power cables that had been violently severed.

Soul of Cadia was leading a group of people, moving like ants, dismantling the third Large Ore Crusher into parts and stuffing them into Portable Recovery Terminals that players were taking turns activating.

The numbers on the terminal screens jumped frantically; every crisp "ding" meant several thousand Imperial Coins in the bank.

"Brother Loyalty! You're back!"

Soul of Cadia wiped the grease from his face, grinning like he'd just robbed a bank. "How was it?"

"What's the situation over there? I heard the explosions getting closer!"

"Forget about that, it's too complicated to explain right now."

Wang Zhong quickly scanned the battlefield. "How's the haul? Give me the numbers!"

"It's insane!"

Tau-kun, you are right, but Bolter is righter ran over from the east side, carrying a processor board he'd just ripped from a console.

"The Conveyor Control Tower is dismantled, thirty-two thousand!"

"The Raw Material Pre-processing Line on the west side, forty-five thousand! Plus seven Large Ore Transporters, twelve thousand each! Total recovery value so far."

He glanced at the data syncing on his terminal, his voice cracking: "One million, two hundred and seventy-eight thousand, four hundred Imperial Coins!!!"

The channel fell silent for a second.

Then it exploded.

"How much???"

"One million two hundred thousand???"

"I'm bad at math, don't lie to me!"

"That averages out to over two hundred coins per person?!"

"Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit!"

"We're rich! We're actually fucking rich! This haul is pure profit! Pure profit, brothers!"

The players' eyes were bloodshot—not from the heat of battle, but with the look of paupers staring at a mountain of gold.

Wang Zhong's heart was pounding against his ribs, but he forced himself to stay calm and asked quickly, "How much have you dismantled? How much is left to strip?"

The voice of [Mechanicus Oil-Lover on the Run] came through the channel:

"According to the preset priority list, 78% of high-value targets have been dismantled and recovered."

"Remaining large-scale equipment available for recovery includes: the Central Cooling Tower Core Unit, Promethium Refinery No. 2, three Medium Conveyor Drive Engines, and various scattered medium-sized equipment. Raw material inventory is valued at approximately 150,000 coins."

"If we strip everything, the total value is expected to exceed 1,600,000 Imperial Coins."

He paused, then added, "But we don't have enough time."

"Based on the frequency analysis of external gunfire, the attackers have breached the outer perimeter of the plant. They are expected to enter this sector within fifteen minutes."

"As for the Alru Group reinforcements, calculating by standard hive city military response speeds, they will arrive in one hour at the latest."

Wang Zhong's mind raced.

1.6 million coins.

That's over three hundred per person.

What can three hundred coins buy?

That decent Lucius Pattern Lasgun in the shop is only 80 coins, a set of basic ballistic armor is 50, and a basic physical enhancement is 100...

In other words, as long as they could evacuate safely today, these five thousand players would instantly trade their bird guns for cannons, upgrading from a miner guerrilla force into a proper light infantry company!

"Speed it up!"

Wang Zhong gritted his teeth. "All squads! Forget about precision dismantling! If you can blow it up with explosives, do it!"

"Recover the scraps immediately after the blast! I don't care if the recovery rate is lower! Just be fast!"

"Technical team! Mark the structural weaknesses of the cooling tower and the refinery for me! Plant the charges!"

"Squads One and Two! Get to the raw material warehouse!"

"Grab whatever you see! If you can't carry it, pile it up and use the terminal to recover it!"

"Go, go, go! Time is money, friends!"

The players howled and sprang into action once more.

This time, they weren't being careful; they were completely unhinged.

The demolition team lugged around simple explosive packs redeemed from the shop—stuff ridiculously cheap at 15 coins a pack, with a blast radius equivalent to three grenades taped together—and charged toward the base of the cooling tower.

The technical team sprawled on the ground, using markers redeemed from the shop to draw big X's on the metal casing.

"Here! The coolant pipe node! Blow it and the whole structure collapses!"

"And here! The main load-bearing pillar! Damn, is this pillar solid steel? Did the Alru Group actually not embezzle funds when they built this thing?"

"Stop yapping! Set the charges!"

"Three, two, one, get down!"

"BOOM!!!"

With a dull roar louder than any previous explosion, the upper half of the cooling tower slowly tilted, buckled, and collapsed, sending dust billowing into the sky.

The players didn't wait for the smoke to clear before rushing in, sweeping the ruins with their recovery terminals.

[Recovery complete: High-strength alloy structural components... Estimated value: 43,000 Imperial Coins]

"Awesome!!!"

Almost simultaneously, explosions erupted from several directions across the plant.

Other player squads followed suit, beginning a campaign of violent demolition.

And amidst this frenzy of constructive destruction, the outer perimeter defense of the plant was finally torn wide open.

At the same time, Arlu City, Simans Chamber of Commerce Security Council.

"Trash! All of you are trash!"

The Bald Director's fist slammed into the reinforced alloy desktop for the third time; this time, the entire surface buckled, its edges curling upward.

On the holographic projection screen before him, divided into a dozen small windows, the real-time combat situation of the various plants in the Crimson Bright Wasteland was displayed.

Refinery No. 3, where the players were located, had the most chaotic feed:

Smoke and explosions were erupting everywhere inside, while outside, a dark mass of armed personnel—dressed in motley gear but moving with methodical precision—were using the plant buildings as cover to trade fire with the remaining foremen and the Chamber of Commerce security guards.

"Siclaman Rebel Organization... remnants of the Black Royal Family that should have been wiped out eighty years ago!"

The red light in the Bald Director's single eye seemed to overflow. "Where is the intelligence officer?! Why didn't we receive any warning about a military mobilization of this scale?!"

At the console, an operator replied with a trembling voice, "Director..."

"The last signal from the Chief Intelligence Officer of the Alru Group's intelligence department and his core subordinates was received seven days ago, and they have been out of contact since."

"We thought he was just on a routine infiltration mission..."

"Thought? You thought?!"

The Bald Director whipped his head around, his gaze making the operator nearly collapse. "The Chamber of Commerce allocates three million in budget to your intelligence department every year!"

"And this is the trash you've raised with all that 'thinking'?!"