Chapter 232 Even if it costs my life, I must embark on the path to immortality.

"Change to this."

In the adjacent machine maintenance room, a quartermaster tossed Old Ding a set of specially made black undergarments. The undergarments had a very obvious metal zipper on the back, obviously to facilitate the physical connection between the exoskeleton's psionic probes and the pseudo-spiritual root in the spine.

Old Ding silently put on his undershirt. The clothes, which had been loose due to malnutrition, were now stretched taut by his newly developed muscles.

"S-7-0992, proceed to maintenance station number three."

As the mechanical synthesized sound rang out overhead, Old Ding, dragging his soon-to-be-destroyed mechanical prosthetic leg, walked to a massive steel machine.

This is his "warhorse"—the first generation of mass-produced rune exoskeleton.

It was even rougher than what Lao Ding had seen in the holographic projection. The array patterns that should have been precise and smooth on the surface were crudely engraved onto the alloy plate by a laser tool, giving it the cheap feel of an assembly line product. But it was this cheap machine that was about to grant him the power to slay demonic beasts.

"Turn around and stand on it," the mechanic commanded coldly.

Old Ding took a deep breath, turned around, and retreated into the half-open cockpit of the exoskeleton.

"Click! Click!"

The robotic arm quickly retracted, firmly securing his limbs inside the armor. Old Ding's damaged prosthetic leg was roughly removed and replaced directly with the mechanical left leg from the exoskeleton.

Followed by.

"laugh--"

Twelve cold metal probes emerged from the back of the seat, precisely piercing the newly stitched blood-red scar on Old Ding's spine, completing an extremely brutal physical connection with the "blood-red centipede."

"Ugh!" Old Ding groaned, his eyes instantly turning bloodshot from the intense pain.

"Psionic loop established! Synchronization rate 85%, good."

"Mask closed."

With a loud "bang," the heavy armored mask fell down, completely obscuring Old Ding's face in a ghostly blue light.

At this moment, he was no longer a disabled miner who was at the mercy of others because he had no spiritual roots, but a killing machine named the "God-Making Legion".

"Listen up, new recruits!"

On the large central screen in the maintenance room, the colonel's cold face appeared.

"The iron suits you're wearing right now cost 1,200 spirit crystals to make. Your lives aren't even worth a fraction of that!"

"The 'pseudo-spiritual root' within you can probably only sustain you for a few high-intensity battles. If you want to survive, if you want your families to have a better life, then go fight your way in the wilderness!"

"Kill demonic beasts! Dig out their cores! Extract their essence and blood!"

The officer's voice was like a series of sharp knives, cruelly dissecting the bloodiest survival rules of this era: "As long as you can continuously nourish and upgrade the pseudo-spiritual roots within your bodies with the essence of demonic beasts, you can break through your cultivation realm and replenish your lost lifespan!"

"Now, board! Head to the outer perimeter of the Jianghuai defense line! Go clean up the mess for the Alliance!"

……

After half an hour.

Old Ding and another hundred "pseudo-spiritual root warriors" who had just completed the transfer were crammed into a huge military transport plane like sardines.

The cabin was filled with the strong smell of engine oil and an undisguised sense of panic.

Old Ding turned his head and saw a young man sitting next to him who looked only eighteen or nineteen years old. Although the young man was wearing a heavy exoskeleton, his body was trembling uncontrollably.

"M-Uncle," the young man said in a trembling voice, speaking to Old Ding through the communication channel on his mask, "I...I'm called Little Stone. I used to repair pipes in the lower city. I...I'm afraid of dying."

"If you're afraid of death, why did you come?" Old Ding's voice was very calm, as calm as a stagnant pool.

"Because...because my sister needs medicine."

Little Stone's voice trembled with tears, "She's seriously ill, and only the Alliance's medical pods can save her. I signed a life-or-death pact, and they... they've already taken my sister to the inner city hospital."

Old Ding fell silent.

In this damned era, how many people are like this little stone, throwing themselves into this meat grinder called "God-Making" like moths to a flame, just so their families can live one more day?

"Don't be afraid." Old Ding stretched out his armored steel right hand and patted Little Stone's shoulder very stiffly. "After we get off the spaceship, stick close to me. As long as you can survive the first battle, you won't be a pipe repairman anymore."

"Boom!"

The transport plane began to shake violently, and piercing alarms echoed throughout the cabin.

"Target area: Gap 17 in the Jianghuai defense line! A large-scale horde of Tier 1 monsters has been detected attacking the defense line!"

"Everyone, prepare for the airdrop!"

……

The 17th gap in the Jianghuai defense line.

This is a five-kilometer-long blind spot in the city wall's defenses. At this moment, tens of thousands of mutated Ironmane Wolves, Bloodthirsty Mad Rats, and even massive Tier 1 mutated wild boars mixed in are frantically attacking the alliance's makeshift firepower network like a black tide.

The garrison on the defensive line had suffered heavy casualties, and the barrels of the heavy machine guns were red-hot and deformed, yet they still could not stop the advance of the monster horde.

Just as the defense line was about to collapse.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

One hundred black airdrop pods crashed into the center of the monster horde like meteors, the enormous impact instantly clearing out a large area.

The hatch sprang open, and a hundred steel monsters, radiating a violent spiritual pressure, descended upon the battlefield like demons crawling out of the abyss of hell!

"Brothers!"

Old Ding's voice boomed through the exoskeleton's megaphone across the blood-soaked battlefield, "These are the beasts who stole our lives! Kill them all!"

"kill!!!"

One hundred ordinary people, driven to the brink of despair, unleashed a roar as fierce as wild beasts!

There was no formation, no tactics, only the most primitive and brutal venting!

Old Ding raised his right arm, and the spiritual root at his spine frantically drew in the surrounding spiritual energy. He didn't try to control the flow of spiritual power at all, but instead let the violent energy flow along the external demonic beast tendons and violently pour into the energy-gathering array in his palm.

"boom!"

A beam of dark blue psionic energy shot out, instantly blasting a mutated wild boar weighing several tons in front of it in half!

Blood and bits of flesh rained down.

Old Ding didn't stop. An extremely wide, high-frequency vibrating battle blade popped out from the armor on his left arm, and with a backhand slash, he directly cleaved an Ironmane Wolf that pounced on him in two from head to tail.

"Die! Die!"

Driven by adrenaline, Old Ding's eyes turned completely blood red. He became like a tireless meat grinder, hacking and slashing wildly through the horde of monsters.

He felt no fatigue, nor even physical pain. While the pseudo-spiritual root was burning through his lifespan, it also granted him a berserk power far exceeding that of ordinary people.

It wasn't just him.

The young man named Little Stone also unleashed astonishing potential in the face of adversity. Although his movements were clumsy, he still desperately pulled the trigger of the psionic cannon, burning the approaching monsters to ashes.

"Aaaaaah!" A new recruit was tackled to the ground by several monsters due to a mistake in his operation, and they frantically tore at his armor.

"Fuck your ancestors!"

In despair, the recruit pressed the self-destruct button!

"Buzz—Boom!!!"

A pale white light exploded instantly, and the recruit, along with the several demonic beasts clinging to him, was transformed into a dazzling firework of flesh and blood!

Blow up!

This extremely brutal, even mutually destructive, fighting style instantly shocked those low-level demonic beasts who were already bullying the weak and fearing the strong.

"They're scared! Don't let them get away!"

Old Ding roared and led the remaining exoskeleton warriors, like a pack of bloodthirsty wolves, in a charge against the horde of monsters.

This was a massacre devoid of any aesthetic appeal whatsoever.

The flesh and blood and lifespan of mortals clashed violently with the claws and talents of demonic beasts in this desolate wasteland.

An hour later.

When the Alliance's reinforcements arrived at Gap 17, everyone was stunned by what they saw.

The mountains and fields were covered with the mutilated corpses of monsters, and dark red blood had gathered into small rivers.

And in the center of that mountain of corpses and sea of ​​blood.

Less than fifty rune exoskeletons, covered in blood, with severely damaged armor, and even emitting black smoke, remained standing silently.

Old Ding leaned on his chipped sword, panting heavily. Blood kept spilling from the corner of his mouth, but his eyes, hidden behind his mask, shone with a terrifying light, as if a fire was burning within them.

He won.

Even if the road ahead is a bottomless abyss, even if the price is being shattered to pieces, these mortals trampled into the dust still managed to tear open a bloody rift leading to the path of immortality in the most tragic way in this completely overturned world.