Bang—!
His body was sent flying by a shockwave, crashing heavily into a wall.
The wall, which already seemed on the verge of collapse, naturally crumbled from the impact, half-burying him.
This happened because Ejie hadn't realized that the company commander had already fallen to corruption.
Though he wasn't possessed by a daemon, his mind had already been warped.
After Ejie revealed himself as an Untouchable, the man had burst into wild laughter, then started saying things Ejie couldn't understand.
Though unintelligible, Ejie immediately recognized it as religious in nature—this guy was likely a cultist.
Instantly sensing danger, with warning bells ringing in his mind, he used all his strength to kick the man away.
Why kick him away rather than kill him? He didn't know; his subconscious told him it was the right choice.
And indeed, events proved him correct.
After forcefully kicking him away, Ejie leapt backward toward the nearest cover. The moment he landed, accompanied by a massive explosion, flames and a shockwave destroyed his cover and sent him flying who knows how far.
As consciousness nearly slipped away, the stinging pain throughout his body brought him back.
His head was still buzzing—this must be what seeing stars feels like.
Pushing away the debris on top of him, he staggered to his feet, his vision blurry and chaotic.
Gunfire was everywhere; bullets and energy beams even grazed past his back, forcing him to quickly lower his body.
Focusing on his field of vision again, he saw that where he had kicked the man was now a huge crater, as if struck by heavy artillery, instantly claiming at least a dozen lives.
The man must have had some bomb hidden in his body that detonated.
However, this wasn't the only explosion.
As if triggering a chain reaction, the entire defense line was blooming with light and heat, melting and tearing apart one body after another.
Under this illumination of light and heat, the lower levels—almost swallowed by darkness—became bright.
Looking around, it was like a steel prison.
In fact, the bottom level of such a hive city wasn't much different from a steel prison.
This description was apt because hive cities were structured this way, composed of enormous buildings and factories, forming a kind of artificial steel mountain range.
These massive, towering cities were called hive cities, with their peaks or high towers generally referred to as the city's spires.
A closely linked group of hive cities was known as a hive cluster.
On a hive world, there typically existed thousands of hive cities.
Each hive consisted of many layers, stacked upon each other, intersecting and intertwining, built up even to the stratosphere.
The very bottom layer was called the underhive.
Therefore, a hive city itself was a world, and most people living there would die without ever leaving the hive, never seeing the outside world.
Especially those born in the underhive—many would never see the sky in their lifetime, making the concept of sky completely alien to them.
In the underhive lived the destitute and those who fled there for political or criminal reasons—a particularly terrible area filled with all sorts of characters.
Life had no guarantees there; food mainly consisted of corpse starch produced in factories.
Power outages were common, and some areas, with no one willing to perform maintenance, had been in darkness for hundreds of years.
Moreover, pollution was severe, with layer upon layer of contaminated air becoming toxic to upper-level inhabitants.
Except for those who had lived there for years and adapted, or those born in the underhive, people from upper levels would quickly be poisoned without gas masks.
Countless violent incidents occurred daily in this area, almost abandoned by the government.
Here, rule belonged to gangs of various sizes.
So indeed, it was a dark steel prison.
And now, most people in this prison were probably dead.
"Bang!"
A loud noise brought Ejie back to his senses.
Things were chaotic; this was no time to space out.
Amidst the confused barrage, he ran purposefully in one direction.
Bang bang—!
A deep roar—two .75 caliber bolt rounds fired from his bolt gun, the strong recoil making his arm shake violently.
For an ordinary person, such recoil would fracture their arm.
These rocket-propelled bullets loaded with high explosives, their tails tracing laser-like lines through the air, struck two building fragments that had been blasted toward him.
Upon contact, the bullets exploded within milliseconds, sending diamond-tipped fragments and explosive physical shockwaves into the metal pieces, creating a crater.
Though not destroying or deflecting them, the impacts slowed the debris enough for Ejie to slide forward and avoid collision.
After several more rolls and jumps, he reached his initial destination—where he had first come up.
Using all his strength to pull open the heavy metal plate, he jumped down.
A ten-meter drop landed him on a machine with a massive drill head—an Imperial tunneling device called a Termite excavator.
Quickly climbing inside, he efficiently donned the power armor secured there.
Opening the public channel, after a piercing sharp sound, various chaotic noises intertwined.
He hoped to gather more useful intelligence from this.
[Channel connected. Please choose a name for yourself in this channel]
"Display screen malfunctioning? Constantly flickering?—Need a name? Golden Toilet"
[Name confirmed: Golden Toilet]
[Would you like to further complete your personal information?]
The power armor's display screen showed a jumbled mess overlapping, with sounds from various channels chaotically mixing. Occasionally catching clear words or images, Ejie grew irritated and forcefully knocked on his helmet.
In fact, if he concentrated, he would notice the distinction.
One set of sounds and images came through the helmet's transmission, while another acted directly on his brain.
He tried to close the power helmet's communication, but found it malfunctioning as well.
"Roar—!"
Ignoring the sounds, he activated the Termite excavator with a roar, drilling directly upward.
Why not drill out of the hive city? Simply because there wasn't enough energy—they couldn't go far.
["A2" has sent you a world invitation. Do you accept?]
What invitation? Constantly flashing? Can't see clearly.