Mountain City, at the entrance of the tunnel.

Chen Jian gripped the explosive gun, fully geared up and ready.

Just now, he received a message from Fu Xi.

The entire virtual city has fallen into complete collapse, its operational framework severely malfunctioning, with power cut in the core area of Mountain City, and the core computational units are on the verge of crisis.

The meme virus has taken effect.

And it has taken effect in a swift, resolute, and unstoppable manner.

Now, the computational power of this city has been entirely exhausted by infinitely looping and iterating programs, and the entire underground structure is in an unguarded state.

However, this does not mean that Fu Xi can smoothly take over Mountain City.

Just like a city destroyed by war, Mountain City is now completely out of control.

Whether it's the former rulers or the new occupiers, neither can quell the chaos in a short time.

The only method is:

A full reboot.

But, due to the special nature of Mountain City, it cannot be rebooted through internal program commands.

The only way is to enter Mountain City, go underground, and directly cut off the power modules to shut down the entire city.

It's like facing a system crash, where if you can't even bring up the task manager, the only thing you can do is hold the power button for five seconds to force the computer to asphyxiate and die.

Chen Jian did a final check on his weapons, ensuring nothing was missing, and decisively gave the order to He Shuo beside him:

"Let's move out when ready."

"We don't have much time to waste."

"The issue with Mountain City must be resolved today!"

"Understood!"

He Shuo nodded solemnly, then turned to the expeditionary force already prepared behind him, waved his hand, and everyone immediately gripped their weapons tightly.

"Move out!"

The squad turned back, with an elite team led by Guo Xu at the forefront, heading down the tunnel they had already traversed.

Chen Jian ran a few steps ahead, alongside He Shuo, moving to the front of the team, constantly using the active fire control module on the Nezha exoskeleton helmet to scan the environment ahead, while deploying drones to provide signal relay services to other combat units within the deep tunnel.

Chaotic footsteps echoed continuously within the tunnel.

But aside from the sound of footsteps, there was no other sound in the tunnel.

The lights were out, the alarm system was paralyzed, and occasionally failing unmanned combat units could be seen in the tunnel—which were supposed to rely on local computational units to continue executing defense commands and actively attack unidentified intruders.

However, when the framework built by Lingxi completely collapsed, the entire defense system was continuously rolling back and rebooting.

The chaotic commands caused the security system to completely collapse at the execution level; they didn't even have the chance to cut the network connection with Mountain City.

The reason is simple: to prevent invasion using the security system, Lingxi had already set the command transmission method to one-way after the first invasion of the Huaxia Army.

This was originally a decisive, even clever emergency strategy, but ultimately, it became the prelude to completely burying this virtual city.

"Keep moving forward."

Chen Jian ordered, and the expeditionary force behind him continued to march swiftly towards the depths of the tunnel.

Guo Xu wore a complex expression on his face, tightly clutching the 191 rifle in his hand, his gaze on Chen Jian's back continuously flickering.

For him, all of this happened too fast.

From entering Mountain City, clearing the first-level monsters, opening the passage to the outside, making the first contact with the so-called "Mountain City People," to "invading" Mountain City core in a completely incomprehensible way, completely paralyzing what should have been a "fortress" city.

This series of actions took less than a month.

One month.

What concept is this?

Mountain City has existed on the wasteland for at least 300 years, and it has been the so-called "Holy City" for at least over two hundred years.

In all these hundreds of years, no one has ever been able to step into Mountain City.

But in front of the Huaxia Army, this seemed to be just a "slightly more troublesome" obstacle.

Guo Xu took a deep breath, his pace quickened a bit more.

He had no idea how these people in front of him managed it.

Was it because of the "underground construction"?

No.

In fact, a century ago, there were quite a few forces that opened the "treasuries."

Even the Mechanical God Sect had once opened several varying-sized underground constructions.

However, no one could truly utilize those constructions or the "Mechanical Souls" within them.

Many resources were wasted, and the true effectiveness might have been less than one percent of those constructions' actual potential.

So what really caused this disparity?

Guo Xu couldn't figure it out.

And at this point, they had reached the end of the tunnel.

"Fu Xi, signal check."

Chen Jian glanced around the hall he had seen before, and after a moment, Fu Xi's voice came through the earpiece.

"Received, signal is stable and good."

"Security systems have failed, isolation doors unlocked, can be opened physically."

"Understood!"

Chen Jian exhaled slightly in relief.

He had thought the isolation doors in the underground part of Mountain City would automatically lock due to the system crash, which would mean that even after destroying the computational modules, they'd have to spend more time digging or even blowing them open.

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