"The Amethyst Crystal Entity has been detected approaching the second defense line."
"The automatic sentry towers are beginning to activate."
On both sides of the exit above the Magma Canyon, 17 sentry towers, constructed with rapid-setting cement and aligned in a row, entered a self-check state before activation.
The Thunder-class electro-optical cannons on top slowly rotated, directing their terrifying multi-barrel muzzles toward the direction of the Magma Canyon.
A few seconds later, insect-shaped flying Amethyst Crystal Entities began to swarm out of the canyon in large numbers.
The Spider Robots guarding around the sentry towers were the first to open fire.
However, as more and more flying Amethyst Crystal Entities appeared, the firepower from the Spider Robots alone became insufficient.
Only then did the electro-optical cannons on the sentry towers truly come to life.
With a faint hum, 32mm diameter shells were fired from the sentry tower cannons at a rate of 200 rounds per second, transforming into a storm of despair that tore through all obstacles in their path.
In an instant, a large portion of the canyon exit was cleared.
Five seconds later, the cannons ceased firing, leaving the Spider Robots to deal with the remaining flying Amethyst Crystal Entities.
Although the Thunder-class electro-optical cannons on the sentry towers were powerful, their ammunition consumption at full operation was terrifying.
Even though the ammunition used was cheap solid metal shells, the overall cost was still significant.
Therefore, to maintain long-term combat capability and reduce logistical pressure, the cannons would only activate to suppress the Amethyst Crystal Entities when their numbers reached a certain level, making the strike worthwhile.
Under normal circumstances, the more economical Spider Robots would use electromagnetic rifles for precise shots.
Under this intense firepower blockade, the flying Amethyst Crystal Entities launched several waves of attacks, leaving tens of thousands of corpses, but they never truly broke free from the Magma Canyon.
It wasn't until the seventh minute of the battle that a massive explosion suddenly occurred beneath the foundation of one of the sentry towers, shaking the entire structure.
Only then did the one-sided slaughter begin to change.
Su Wu, far away in the control center, discovered through battle logs and on-site analysis that this explosion was caused by a variant of the Amethyst Crystal Entity.
This variant could briefly evade the Crystal Detector's scans and rapidly dash underground for a short distance before self-destructing at its destination.
The explosion's power was equivalent to a 122mm howitzer shell filled with military-grade explosives.
"This is troublesome," Su Wu thought with a headache.
The sentry towers were not far from the Magma Canyon's fissure exit, and unlike land battleships, they couldn't move freely.
This meant they couldn't detect the self-destructing Amethyst Crystal Entities, nor could they change their positions to maintain a safe distance from these dangerous variants.
They could only endure the attacks passively.
Boom!
Just as Su Wu was investigating the source of the explosion beneath the sentry tower's foundation, more self-destructing Amethyst Crystal Entities began appearing around the sentry towers.
In no time, they had partially destroyed the foundation of one sentry tower, causing it to tilt.
Su Wu pondered for a moment and decided to take the initiative.
He dispatched Spider Robots and a Combat Drone Swarm to approach the fissure, suppressing the flying Amethyst Crystal Entities near the surface of the Magma Canyon.
This prevented the self-destructing variants hidden among them from easily passing through the upper rock walls of the canyon and approaching the sentry towers from underground via the shortest route.
This wasn't a perfect solution.
It essentially meant re-establishing the first defense line.
However, Spider Robots and Combat Drones were not professional Automated Fire Platforms embedded in the canyon's rock walls.
Their firing angles and ammunition reserves were limited, and their defenses were weaker.
On the battlefield, with the support of the heavy artillery cluster at the foot of the Qinling Mountains, they managed to drive the flying Amethyst Crystal Entities back to the surface of the Magma Canyon.
But the moment the heavy artillery paused for cooling, the flying Amethyst Crystal Entities would regroup and fiercely engage with the Spider Robots near the fissure.
Amidst this intense entanglement, the self-destructing Amethyst Crystal Entities, disguised as their insect counterparts, still occasionally found opportunities to burrow into the rock walls, continuing to inflict damage on the sentry towers from time to time.
"It seems the sentry towers are beyond saving," Su Wu thought as he observed the battlefield.
He realized that the breach of the second defense line was almost inevitable; it was only a matter of time.
But before the sentry towers were completely destroyed, Su Wu needed them to fulfill one final task: to act as bait and capture a complete or mostly intact self-destructing Amethyst Crystal Entity as a sample to study how they evaded the Crystal Detector's scans.
"Deploy high-precision seismic detectors."
"Establish a predictive model."
"Dispatch 10 Sky-Net 6th Generation Fighters armed with Bunker Buster Missiles to support the Qinling Mountains."
After transmitting the latest orders on the control panel, the Super Factory on the eighth underground level of the shelter immediately began clearing a production line to manufacture and assemble over a dozen seismic detectors.
These devices, custom-designed by Su Wu based on the self-destructing Amethyst Crystal Entities, could detect subtle changes underground within a range of several dozen meters.
This allowed for the indirect tracking of the self-destructing variants' movements.
Of course, since there were no samples yet, this detection was a basic, indiscriminate observation.
Any anomaly detected, whether useful or not, would be reported back, inevitably leading to a high number of false positives.
But that didn't matter.
As long as they hit once, their mission would be accomplished.
Meanwhile, in one corner of the metal platform's holographic projection, a map of the area around the sentry towers began to emerge, outlined in silver-white lines.
Once the custom equipment and the 10 Sky-Net 6th Generation Fighters were in position, the Artificial Intelligence would pour significant computational resources into guiding the fighters to launch ground attacks based on the detection results.
The goal was to intercept and kill the self-destructing Amethyst Crystal Entities in advance.
This was the only possible way to obtain a sample of the self-destructing variants.
Otherwise, once they self-destructed, Su Wu would have nothing left to study.
Over a dozen minutes later, on the ground level of a rural courtyard, four vertical takeoff platforms saw two Twin-Winged Helicopters, equipped with the newly produced seismic detectors, take off first.
Then, 10 sixth-generation fighters, each loaded with over a dozen Bunker Buster Missiles, taxied out of the hangar in sequence, accompanied by flashing green indicator lights, and entered the freezing outside world.
They hovered, ignited their engines, and roared off toward the Qinling Mountains.
Everything was proceeding in an orderly fashion.
Above the Magma Canyon in the Qinling Mountains, near the fissure, the scene was now drastically different compared to over a dozen minutes earlier.
With five or six sentry towers successively destroyed by the self-destructing Amethyst Crystal Entities, a large, firepower-weak area had been torn open in the second defense line.
New third and fourth forms of Amethyst Crystal Entities, assisted by the flying variants, began to spread out from the ground.
One of these was a scorpion-like creature, the size of a calf, covered in gray-white, rock-like armor.
The specially designed electromagnetic rifles mounted on the Spider Robots, effective against the original Amethyst Crystal Entities, left only shallow marks on this variant.
Only rocket-propelled grenades or electromagnetic sniper rifles could slightly hinder its progress.
To kill it, multiple concentrated attacks were needed to penetrate its rock-like armor and shatter the core brain located at the center of its body.
In terms of difficulty, it was harder to deal with than the current lightweight tanks in service with the Federation.
The other variant was a lobster-like evolution, glowing red all over, with a size comparable to a family car.
Named the Magma Roarer, this Amethyst Crystal Entity was mostly filled with high-temperature gas and magma.
It could compress the magma in its body into cannonballs and launch them from its tail.
The destructive power was equivalent to a 32mm shell.
While this might not seem exaggerated, it was actually one of the most advanced heavy weapons a modern military's light infantry units could be equipped with.
And when their numbers began to accumulate, the power they unleashed became terrifying.
They forcefully tore open a massive gap in the line formed by the Spider Robots.
Any ordinary Spider Robot in their path was either violently crushed by the Rock Scorpions or annihilated by concentrated fire from several Magma Roarers.
None survived more than 10 seconds.
The Heavy Main Battle Spider Robots fared slightly better.
With faster movement, thicker armor, arc defense arrays, and more powerful main cannons, they could more easily maintain distance from the main Amethyst Crystal Entity forces.
While maneuvering, they used their main cannons to efficiently eliminate the most threatening Magma Roarers.
But the outstanding performance of individuals couldn't reverse the overall situation.
The Heavy Main Battle Spider Robots were too expensive and too few in number.
They could roam the edges, chipping away at the Amethyst Crystal Entities, but they couldn't stop the main forces from crossing the defense line and rushing further outward.
By the time the Twin-Winged Helicopters carrying the equipment arrived at the battlefield, the leading Rock Scorpions had already begun probing the firepower of the third defense line.
"Robot army, retreat."
"Heavy artillery cluster, begin 10 rounds of long-range bombardment."
"Cover the following areas—"
The Artificial Intelligence, unaffected by tension or panic, immediately called for heavy fire support as the second defense line was on the verge of being completely breached.
The sheer firepower remained effective here.
As over 100 heavy artillery shells carrying devastating force crashed onto the battlefield, the Amethyst Crystal Entities' offensive slowed.
Whether it was the Magma Roarers, whose bodies were mostly covered in magma, or the tank-like Rock Scorpions, none could withstand the massive shockwaves from the heavy artillery.
They were either blown apart or flipped over.
Seizing this opportunity, the two Twin-Winged Helicopters, surrounded and protected by the Combat Drone Swarm, landed near the two remaining sentry towers that hadn't been destroyed.
Several Spider Robots, already waiting on the ground, were tasked with transporting a high-precision seismic detector from the helicopters into the sentry towers.
The helicopters then took off again, heading to other sentry towers.
This process was repeated several times.
Just as one Twin-Winged Helicopter was preparing to land near the last remaining sentry tower, a series of violent explosions suddenly erupted inside the tower.
The powerful shockwaves instantly tore apart the rapid-setting cement structure of the sentry tower.
Streams of intense flames shot out from the cracks, turning into waves of heat that forced the approaching Twin-Winged Helicopter, which hadn't fully landed yet, to be pushed back several meters.
"Only nine sentry towers left," Su Wu stood by the metal platform, watching the holographic projection of the Qinling Mountain battlefield.
He could almost feel the resolute will of the intelligent being behind these Amethyst Crystal Entities, determined to break free from its cage.
After some thought, he intervened in the Artificial Intelligence's command.
He ordered part of the Spider Robots stationed on the third defense line to continue retreating, leaving only the Combat Drone Swarm and the land force primarily composed of Heavy Main Battle Spider Robots.
Since it had been proven that the electromagnetic weapons carried by ordinary Spider Robots were no longer effective against the land-based Amethyst Crystal Entity variants, there was no need to keep them on the battlefield to die in vain.
Keeping the complete Combat Drone Swarm was to deal with the flying Amethyst Crystal Entities, which were now flying higher and higher in the sky.
Although a single flying Amethyst Crystal Entity didn't pose much threat, once they gathered in sufficient numbers, their more agile movement patterns compared to Combat Drones could become a force capable of altering the entire battlefield's situation.
Therefore, even if close-quarters combat between Combat Drones and flying Amethyst Crystal Entities resulted in an alarmingly high casualty rate, they couldn't be allowed to retreat.
On the ground, with the large-scale withdrawal of ordinary Spider Robots, the heavy artillery cluster, now unhindered, began a full-speed bombardment mode lasting 15 minutes.
The sky was filled with artillery shells raining down on the entire Magma Canyon and most of the area where the second defense line had been, sparing only the surroundings of the nine remaining sentry towers.
During this period, a large number of Amethyst Crystal Entity variants continued to emerge from the magma lake in the Magma Canyon.
They used the flying variants or climbed the thousands of meters high rock walls themselves, attempting to charge toward the third defense line.
However, these assaults were completely futile.
Even if they didn't fall to the heavy artillery shells along the way, as they approached the third defense line, the Thunder-class electro-optical cannons stationed there would easily tear them to shreds.
Just as the Amethyst Crystal Entities in large numbers could overwhelm ordinary Spider Robots, they, too, were crushed when facing the electro-optical cannons.
Once they appeared within the cannons' firing range, survival was almost impossible.
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