EFB Chapter 86 The All-Purpose Mechanical Repair Shop
Chapter 86 The All-Purpose Mechanical Repair Shop
Chapter 85 The All-Purpose Mechanical Repair Shop
"How many troops should we deploy?" Lorraine asked.
Ohm was silent for two seconds.
"----a lot of."
This answer is too vague; it's not like Ohm's style.
Lorraine frowned, about to ask further, when she heard a muffled rumbling sound coming from the depths of the distant tunnel.
That didn't sound like the footsteps of several mechs.
It is the resonance generated by thousands of metal feet simultaneously stepping on the ground.
"Damn." Victor stood on the crenellations, gripping the Wolf King Greatsword, his face paling. "What's that?"
Lorraine activates omniscient vision.
In the field of vision, the three main passages of the Titan Forge area were simultaneously lit up with a dense array of red dots.
Each point of light represents an Invading Mech. These points of light converge into a river, surging from the depths of the tunnel like an ant colony whose nest has been disturbed.
A quick glance revealed that there were over five hundred vanguards.
And from behind, more and more were still pouring out.
"Ohm, quantity." Lorraine's voice turned somber.
"The first wave—at least two thousand units."
Ohm's voice trembled, "It's still increasing. Sister Messiah has mobilized all the berserk mechs within a five-kilometer radius. She... she's using the Corruption Network to unify command—"
Anna's expression also turned serious.
Thirty units and two thousand units are completely different concepts.
Although her Ice and Fire Magic Towers are terrifyingly powerful, their magic power is ultimately limited. If all twelve towers fire simultaneously at full power, they can probably sustain the attack for about twenty minutes.
"Young Master, I'll give it a try." Anna raised both hands simultaneously without hesitation. "I have to destroy more than two thousand mechs within twenty minutes."
The twelve Ice and Fire Magic Towers lit up simultaneously.
Six spewed pale flames, and six released deep blue chills.
The two forces converged a hundred meters in front of the city wall, forming a thirty-meter-wide zone of ice and fire that strangled each other.
The erosion mechs at the forefront plunged in, first frozen into ice sculptures by the extreme cold, then shattered by the high temperature, with fragments flying out and hitting the mechs behind them.
The explosions continued in succession.
The effect is excellent in the first thirty seconds.
A small mountain of mech wreckage had been piled up in front of the tunnel entrance, with metal fragments mixed with abyssal oil, emitting a pungent, burnt smell.
But starting at the fortieth second, the situation changed.
The subsequent erosion mechs climbed up, stepping on the remains of their comrades.
They didn't care how many died ahead of them, how hot the shards under their feet were, or even that their armor had been deformed by the intense heat. They just charged forward, filling the area of fire with sheer numbers and paving a path with their corpses.
"The mechs from the second passage have come around!" Ohm screamed.
Lorraine turned to look.
From the right, another wave of eroding mechs surged out from the flank passage of the Forge District, bypassing Anna's direct fire coverage and flanking the city along the outer wall.
"I'll do it!"
Ohm's twelve heavy turrets suddenly turned, their muzzles aimed at the mechs on the right flank.
A barrage of shells rained down, knocking the corrosive mechs off balance, with the front-line mechs being blasted into pieces.
However, the rate of fire of the heavy turret is not fast enough.
Unlike Anna's Ice and Fire Tower, it cannot create continuous coverage firepower; there is an interval of nearly three seconds between each volley.
Three seconds is enough time for dozens of mechs to rush through the gap.
Furthermore, when Ohm is operating the heavy turret, she cannot transfer her consciousness to the mechs. Even if she could, the sheer number of mechs would be far beyond her capacity to handle.
"They're coming from the left too!" Victor roared.
The third passage.
Lorraine stood on the city wall, looking down at the horde of mechs surging in from three directions simultaneously, his expression gradually darkening.
Anna's Witch Tower unleashed a barrage of attacks from the front, its Pale Flames turning the tunnel entrance into a scorching inferno. However, the sheer number of Corruption Mechs was overwhelming; as soon as one batch died, another would immediately take its place, as if they could never be killed off.
Her magic was being depleted at a visible rate, and fine beads of sweat began to appear on her forehead.
Ohm's heavy turret swept back and forth on the right flank, its massive shells constantly blasting the corrosive mechs into pieces. However, the passageways on the flanks were wider than those on the front, allowing the mechs to spread out more, and the artillery fire could not cover all targets.
More than a dozen erosion mechs have already reached the base of the city wall, frantically hammering the wall with their distorted mechanical arms.
The fourth-tier city wall would not be easily destroyed by an attack of this magnitude, but the continuous "thump thump thump" of impacts was enough to send chills down one's spine.
"Victor, take Lyra and guard the left flank!" Lorraine ordered.
Victor leaped off the city wall, wielding the Wolf King Greatsword. The blade of the fourth-tier weapon drew an arc of light, slicing through three mechs in one strike.
Lyra followed behind him, her black and gold heterochromatic eyes swirling with the power of misfortune. The few corrosive mechs closest to her suddenly jammed at their joints, collided with each other, and inexplicably fell to the ground, only to be chopped into pieces by Victor one by one.
However, this tactic is too inefficient.
Victor is a person, not a meat grinder.
He can kill three platforms with one sword, and there are still thirty or three hundred more to come.
Lyra's doom power has a limited range, only able to interfere with the operation of a dozen or so mechs at a time, which is a drop in the ocean against such an overwhelming swarm attack.
Anna couldn't withstand this level of magic consumption either.
"Ohm!" Anna roared through gritted teeth, "Can't you think of something?"
Ohm's voice came from inside the turret, trembling with tears: "I...I was thinking about it..."
Lorraine glanced at Anna's condition.
In just a few minutes, the magic reserves had dropped to below 60%, while the number of corrosive mechs showed no signs of decreasing.
In the omniscient field of vision, red dots continued to emerge from the depths of the second layer, so dense that it made one's scalp tingle.
"Olivia can't move during the promotion ceremony," Lorraine quickly calculated. "Anna won't last much longer, so Victor and Lyra can only block one direction—"
In the past, Olivia's bloodthirsty vines could block off at least an entire passage. Without her, the defenses are essentially missing a corner.
"Ohm," Lorraine suddenly spoke, his tone steady, "how many mechs can your all-powerful mechanical repair shop produce now?"
Ohm paused for a moment.
The refining center just restarted yesterday, and alloy ingots have already begun mass production.
Ohm's exclusive building, "Universal Mechanical Repair Factory," has the core function of manufacturing mechs—as long as there are enough raw materials and magic, she can mass-produce them at a speed far exceeding the norm.
"Raw materials—enough," Ohm's voice suddenly became clear after trembling. "The refining center operated all night last night, and the inventory of alloy ingots is 3,750, enough to manufacture."
"Stop calculating," Lorraine interrupted her. "Put it all in. Now."
"But, big brother, the manufacture of mechs takes time, and programming them takes at least..."
"Use your overclocking commands."
Ohm was silent for half a second.
Overclocking commands can boost mechanical performance by three times in a short period of time.
Using it in a repair shop means that the manufacturing speed will triple, but the mental burden on Ohm himself will also triple.
She was also controlling twelve heavy artillery turrets at the same time.
"————Okay." Ohm didn't hesitate any longer.
Behind the city wall, the massive all-purpose mechanical repair factory suddenly emitted a deep roar.
Thick smoke billowed from the chimney, and the sounds of forging hammers, gears meshing, and metal stamping inside the factory suddenly became rapid, three times faster, like a heart being forcibly pulled to its maximum speed.
Thirty seconds later, the gates of the repair shop were flung open with a bang.
The first batch of mech pilots marched out in neat formation.
They are completely different from those aberrant mechs corrupted by the abyss.
The brand-new alloy shell gleamed with a cold, silvery-gray metallic luster, the hydraulic rods at the joints operated smoothly, and Ohm's signature pale blue light spot was embedded in her eye sockets—that was her imprint of consciousness.
Ten units, twenty units, thirty units — one hundred units!
They filed out of the fortifications without hesitation and headed straight for the battlefield outside the city walls.
"Numbers 001 to 100, target the right flank tunnel entrance, execute the annihilation agreement."
Ohm's voice came out simultaneously from the communication modules of every mech, cold, precise, and devoid of any superfluous emotion.
One hundred silver-gray mechs, arranged in three wedge formations, charged into the erosion mech group on the right flank.
This was a heartless massacre.
The mechs manufactured by Ohm are on par with the Erosion mechs in terms of hardware specifications, but the difference lies in command.
Driven by the Messiah's insane data, the Corruption Mechs exhibit chaotic behavior, charge haphazardly, and show no coordination with each other.
Ohm's mechs were meticulously calculated in every step: three mechs would surround and kill one, flanking from the side, and using wreckage to create obstacles and cut through the enemy lines.
Within fifteen seconds, the vanguard of the right-wing erosion mechs was pierced through.
"Good!" Victor slashed down a mech on the left flank, glanced back, and grinned. "This metal lump is effective!"
But Lorraine's attention wasn't on that.
He stared at the gate of the repair shop.
The second batch is coming out.
Another hundred units. This time it was even faster; it only took twenty seconds from the opening of the gate to the completion of the entire formation.
Upon receiving orders, they rushed straight to the left flank, replacing Victor, who was already exhausted from the fighting.
"Ohm, can you hold on?" Lorraine asked.
"----good."
Ohm's voice was a little unsteady, but his tone was firm. "The alloy ingots in the refining center are being replenished automatically, and my repair shop won't stop. Big brother, hold the front for me, and leave the rest to me."
Anna snorted coldly upon hearing this.
"There's no need for the lord to worry about the positive aspects!"
She clasped her hands together abruptly, and the output mode of the twelve ice and fire magic towers switched from scattered coverage to concentrated penetration.
The pale flames and deep blue chills twisted into a spiral beam of light, piercing directly through the entrance to the passage and clearing a ten-meter-wide passage for the erosion mechs crowding the entrance.
But the gap was quickly filled by newly arrived mechs.
The tug-of-war unfolded simultaneously on three fronts.
Anna defends the front, while the Ice and Fire Tower continues to reap the rewards;
Ohm's mech forces were locked in a fierce battle with the Corruption mechs on both flanks, and for every one lost, a new one was built to replace it.
Victor led Lyra to roam behind the lines, specifically hunting down any survivors who managed to break through the mech defenses.
The entire battle lasted for nearly an hour.
When the last Corruption mech was pinned to the ground and its head ripped off by Ohm's mechs, the ground outside the city walls was already covered with a thick layer of metal debris. Corruption oil formed streams, slowly flowing from the cracks in the fragments.
Anna knelt on one knee on the city wall, panting heavily, her magic reserves almost depleted.
Ohm's voice came from inside the turret, weak but filled with undisguised excitement: "Big brother—we held them off."
Lorraine did not rush to respond.
He stood on the city wall, scanning the entire battlefield with his omniscient vision. Ohm had built nearly four hundred mechs in total, more than one hundred of which were lost in battle, and the remaining three hundred or so were lined up outside the city wall, their pale blue lights flickering in the smoke.
"Ohm," Lorraine said.
"Um?"
How many alloy ingots are left in stock?
"—I've been running the refining center a lot, and now I've saved up over a hundred yuan."
Lorraine nodded, his gaze piercing through the smoke to the dark tunnel deep within the Titan Forge.
"Increase production. Double the number of mechs tonight."
Ohm paused for a moment, then asked, "Big brother, do you think they'll come back?"
"Yesterday we disturbed their nest, and today they're retaliating with all their might."
Lorraine's tone was calm. "There will only be more tomorrow. The Messiah's erosion network is shrinking, but shrinking means higher density, and the remaining mechs will be more concentrated and more ferocious."
He paused, then looked in the direction of the repair shop.
"Olivia's promotion will take another four days. During these four days, your repair shop will be our lifeline."
Ohm was silent for a few seconds.
Then, thick smoke billowed from the chimneys of the repair shop again, and the sound of forging hammers resumed, more urgent and denser than before.
"Don't worry, big brother," Ohm's voice came from the smoke and dust, carrying a competitive tone, "I can build something that even Sister Messiah would be afraid of."
Lorraine's lips curled up slightly.
He turned to look at Anna. Anna was sitting against the battlements, her hair plastered to her cheeks with sweat, her face a little pale, but her eyes were still sharp.
"Young master," Anna looked up, "don't let those tin cans steal my job next time."
"Your magic is almost depleted, and you're still being stubborn."
"Hmph, that's because it happened so suddenly today. Give me one night to recover, and I can burn twice as much as I want tomorrow and still be clean."
O
Lorraine didn't respond to that.
He walked to the edge of the city wall and looked down at the more than 300 silver-gray mechs lined up in front of the repair shop.
The pale blue dots of light are neatly arranged, resembling a quiet sea of stars in the twilight.
Four days.
If Olivia can hold out for four days, she will be able to complete her promotion.
With the Tier 3 Abundant Earth Mother, the Tier 3 Ice and Fire Witch, the Tier 3 Myriad Machine Witch, and the ever-expanding mech legion, even the two Tier 4 generals of Winter would have to think twice before they arrive.
If there are enough third-tier witches residing in the territory's buildings, their effectiveness can even rival that of fourth-tier monsters.
Lorraine looked away and whispered something in the direction of the repair shop.
"Ohm, build them until they dare not come."
"yes!"
They didn't come back that night.
Lorraine did not relax. He had Victor take turns guarding the city walls with Anna and Lyra, while he himself plunged into the repair shop, keeping an eye on the production line with Ohm.
The refining center operates day and night, with scalding hot alloy ingots being continuously fed into the repair shop along conveyor belts.
Ohm reduced the overclocking command multiplier from three times to one and a half times—the continuous high load had taken a toll on her mental health, and Lorraine forced her to slow down: "It's okay to go slower, don't burn yourself out."
"I'm alright, big brother—"
'
"I'm not asking you. Come down."
Ohm obediently lowered his level.
Even so, the repair shop, operating at 1.5x speed, was still processing alloys with astonishing efficiency.
Every few tens of seconds, several brand-new mechs would emerge from the end of the production line, their pale blue eye sockets lighting up, and join the standby sequence outside the factory.