Sky-cracking Rider

Chen Fei took Tanya back to his homeland by the most convenient method — taking an international public flight where you could just sleep through and arrive at your destination.

If they traveled by land, even if the Mobile Base Vehicle traveled day and night, it would take at least a week to reach the border, and it would roughly take the same amount of time by train.

However, Adrian hoped that when Chen Fei and Tanya left, they could employ a strategy of drawing attention away from the main action, facilitating the rest of Team 04 to infiltrate and find ways to penetrate into the key industries of Yarsk City, the capital of Tunguska Region.

Indeed, leaving the Mobile Base Vehicle behind was of no use; lacking Chen Fei, the major humanoid battery and the remote control of artificial intelligence AI "Adam," it could only be used as a fixed fortress with very limited endurance, and charging it was not convenient either.

Not long after the Mobile Base Vehicle left with Chen Fei and Tanya, Adrian checked the surveillance camera angles in the monitoring room located in the first stronghold within the city.

Team 04 was slightly short-staffed, but thankfully, they had technological support from professionals like Habulav, such as security layout design at the stronghold and other professional recommendations, and they even specifically left a buffer zone.

Like before, incidents of gunmen driving by and strafing were unlikely to occur again, at least they had to enter the buffer zone without triggering the security facilities to successfully infiltrate.

An A-level Metal Ability User skilled with knives, Kiterley, successfully joined the largest meat union factory in the Tunguska Region and became a butcher in the swine slaughtering assembly line, and was promoted to a team leader three days later. In a job purely reliant on skill, competence naturally brought about the opportunity for promotion, which was entirely justifiable.

Apu and Bassan, two big guys with great strength, dragged two Tiger vehicles to the largest wholesale market in Yarsk City. After a few fights with the local laborers originally working there, they earned their work qualifications and became the acknowledged leaders among the laborers.

Mouri Misono found a job as a cleaner at a commercial management center; looking cute, sweet-talking, and hardworking, she gained the appreciation of a leader on the very same day and was given a temporary employee arrangement.

Susanna was busy studying, preparing for the public examination for a permanent position in the tax office. To pass the time, she also took a job as a waitress in a bar, which was a mixed bag but not a bad source of information. It was uncertain which job would become her mainstay; if she couldn't become an official, she would probably just continue being a bar waitress.

Joshua smoothly became a truck driver at a transport company, driving a large truck all day long, and even his way of talking became rough, blending completely with the group of coarse men and women drivers who shouted and blustered like vehicle horns; his adaptability to the environment was truly as smooth as silk.

Earth Mage Ruan Tiankai, after helping Adrian modify four strongholds, was pulled into work by Holy Knight Walter Sam, who had secured a position in the road services department, to assist the official traffic police in managing traffic. His main tasks were still snow removal, applying de-icing agents, and towing — indispensable work in the winter of Yarsk City.

The Wind Beast Mini, unable to act together with the Holy Knight, was as conspicuous as Lulu'an, another Magical Beast, and thus both had to stay at the stronghold with Adrian, doing whatever work they could.

Yuan Lulu'an could at least do some useful work, such as planting edible, medicinal, or trap plants, and organizing herbal compounds. The tasks available to Green Scale Colt Mini were considerably limited, merely helping move things around in the yard, doing small jobs not even draught horses would deign to do on the battlefield — a total waste of great resources.

But there was no choice; the time for it to show its capabilities had not yet come.

-

Having left Yarsk City, the Mobile Base Vehicle raced eastward across the vast steppe, traveling for three days and nights, completely leaving the Tunguska Region and entering another region.

If not for satellite positioning and navigation, the monotonous, identical scenery would almost make one believe the vehicle hadn't moved at all.

With heavy snow covering the road, the vehicle couldn't drive too fast, for if it did, the consequence of a sudden brake would indeed result in actual highway drifting.

This had nothing to do with the vehicle's weight; once its speed picked up, it was hard to immediately bring it to a stop.

Buzzing, buzzing, buzzing...

A small drone descended from the sky and landed steadily on the roof of the Mobile Base Vehicle, matching its speed.

Such a landing maneuver could only be performed by an experienced veteran, but for the artificial intelligence AI "Adam," it was as simple as breathing.

Sorry, it doesn't breathe!

After digital quantification, there was really no difficulty at all.

Tanya, in charge of monitoring the drone's reconnaissance data, said, "The four vehicles behind us still haven't left!"

Two hours ago, four large trucks had started following the Mobile Base Vehicle. They had been trailing for over a hundred kilometers, maintaining a distance of about two kilometers, neither closing in nor falling back.

The drone's last check confirmed that within a twenty-kilometer radius, apart from the Mobile Base Vehicle and these four large trucks, there were no other vehicles.

Chen Fei asked, "Could they be people from 'Sacred Advent'?"

The boundless snowy plains were covered in thick snow, making roads scarcely visible and vehicular traffic extremely rare, to the point where one might not see another vehicle all day.

The Mobile Base Vehicle deliberately slowed down and sped up, even stopping, but the four large trucks behind did the same—accelerating, slowing, and stopping. The distance between them didn't change much, which was highly suspicious.

"I, I don't know!"

Tanya was completely baffled. She didn't have the nerve to contact anyone from the "Sacred Advent" organization again, so she had no way to tell.

Besides, her direct superior, the former police chief of the Tunguska Region Capital, Akim Vasily Ulyanov, had left behind a corpse with superb combat capabilities, and no one knew where he was hiding. It was possible he was somewhere out in the snowy plains, looking at her with a sneer.

"Let's wait and see,"

Chen Fei simply had the Mobile Base Vehicle stop.

The four large trucks also halted, likely observing the massive Mobile Base Vehicle.

Such occurrences were common in remote areas; a lone Mobile Base Vehicle was particularly conspicuous. Being targeted in a place far from the emperor's reach was only normal; the other party probably attempted to seize the Mobile Base Vehicle for themselves. However, they were still hesitant due to uncertainty about the vehicle's origin.

Tanya wasn't worried at all. If the other party had a special ability user, they would have charged over by now. Since there was no ability user, the Railgun of the Mobile Base Vehicle wasn't for show either. If one shot couldn't solve the problem, then two would—she had seen first-hand the power of a 152 Demolition Bomb. One shot could turn the frozen ground into a pond.

Half an hour later, Chen Fei's pizza was ready, wafting with the rich aroma of mushrooms, bacon, sausage, tomatoes, and cheese.

The four large trucks watching from the rear were still without any movement, their intentions unclear. A faint blue smoke was rising from the gaps in the tarps covering their cargo areas, probably from a stove or something similar for warming up.

The mobile base vehicle had food, drinks, heating, a toilet, and a shower, so neither Chen Fei nor Tanya was in a rush. Outside the vehicle, the snowy wilderness was frigid, and it was quickly getting dark.

A 12-inch deep-dish pizza was divided into two portions, Chen Fei took three-quarters for himself, leaving one-quarter for Tanya.

The meals for the two of them were all personally prepared by Chen Fei, certainly not trusted to Mao Mei with her criminal record. If she were to poison them, it'd cost them their lives.

After eating, Tanya was responsible for cleaning up.

The sky had truly darkened outside.

"Ha, those guys are coming over."

Without any aid from devices and purely with his eye skills, Chen Fei saw that the four large trucks could no longer hold back and were driving toward the mobile base vehicle's location.

He rummaged through the compartment for an automatic rifle and several magazines, tossing them to Tanya.

"Hold on to these, use them for self-defense."

Tanya, aware that a shootout might break out soon, unhesitatingly took the gun and magazines, skillfully loaded it, and with the gun barrel slightly pointed towards the compartment floor, she looked at Chen Fei and said, "Aren't you afraid I might take this chance to shoot you?"

"Ha? You can shoot now, go ahead, if you can manage to kill me, then I deserve it, I won't blame you."

Chen Fei burst into laughter.

A mere light weapon was supposed to kill him, a Level-B Metal Ability User? Was that a joke?

Of course, Chen Fei wasn't foolish enough to hand over a weapon capable of posing a lethal threat to himself to someone he couldn't trust.

"Humph!"

Tanya picked up the implied meaning – that her automatic weapon was most likely unable to threaten her opponent.

Even if she did manage to kill Chen Fei, how far could she get driving the Mobile Base Vehicle?

In this remote snowy wilderness, no one would feel confident about their chances.

Two kilometers is a momentary distance for a mechanical vehicle.

Three minutes later, the four large trucks finally caught up. Two of them overtook the mobile base vehicle, blocking it from the front before stopping, forming an enclosing formation with two trucks at each end.

People continuously jumped down from the trucks' beds, clad in overcoats, covered with cloaks, and armed with automatic weapons, menacingly surrounding the mobile base vehicle.

"We are local militia, road inspection, hands on your heads, get out of the vehicle!"

Someone was shouting through a megaphone.

With the basic professionalism of a police officer, Tanya only needed one glance at these men and didn't hesitate to say, "They are not militia!"
Experience tales at My Virtual Library Empire

The militia of the Tunguska Region would not have this strong bandit vibe, equipped at least with wheeled infantry armored vehicles and high-low capacity machine guns. However, this group before them lacked even snow camouflage, their weapons were not uniform, and they lacked basic tactical movements – they were simply a band of dispersed mercenaries, or to put it bluntly, an armed gang.

Chen Fei spoke directly, "Understood! 'Adam', connect me to the microphone amplifier."

The compartment was already equipped with an omnidirectional microphone.

The subtitles in front of him flashed and slowly disappeared.

Adam: Microphone activated!

To Tanya, Chen Fei contacting the artificial intelligence AI "Adam" seemed like talking to himself, but the equipment within the mobile base vehicle still responded.

"You are not militia, you are gangsters!"

Chen Fei was an honest man, spoke nothing but the truth, and bluntly exposed the real identity of the group surrounding the mobile base vehicle.

The response he received was the crackling of gunfire and the sound of bullets haphazardly striking the vehicle body and windows.

Then "ahhh..." screams arose from outside.

Tanya was right, these unprofessional fools didn't even understand the danger of ricocheting bullets; they stood too close...

As a result, Chen Fei hadn't even taken action, and the opponents had already knocked several of their people down. What a needless tragedy!