He Called It the "Arrow Cart"

"Fight our way back?" Zhou Mo did not understand what those words meant at first. His legs were still trembling uncontrollably. Glancing toward the darkening sky outside the walls, there was barely a little more than half a shichen before Eternal Night descended. Time was running out. What was more... He knew the stationmaster was an architect of immense potential, but an architect's capabilities lay primarily in fortifying an outpost camp. Outside the camp, their combat strength was practically zero. How could they possibly fight their way out? "How far is that pack of pseudo-humans from the camp?" "Not far. Just behind that hillside, near Wang Kui's old outpost." "Let's go." ... "..." Chen Fan walked down from the wall, arrived at the perimeter of the camp, and looked at the wooden tricycle parked out on the wasteland. He immediately constructed an arrow tower and installed it onto the cart bed. Then he upgraded it repeatedly, raising it all the way to Level 4 in a single go. When reaching Level 3, the upgrade path he chose was— [Crossbow bolts will be imbued with lightning element, effectively paralyzing enemies and dealing a degree of chain damage to up to three creatures near the struck target.] He knew that ghost creatures like pseudo-humans had weak defenses. Their danger lay mainly in their ability to deceive. This effect would work exceptionally well against them. And upon reaching Level 4, he chose to increase its firing rate. Soon— The arrow tower transformed into an "arrow fort." Its size shrank several times over, embedding itself onto the wooden tricycle. This was a combination of an arrow tower and a tricycle. He called it the "Arrow Cart." "Get on. You're in charge of operating the power lever." Chen Fan leaped onto the cart first. Standing before the control lever, he glanced at the dazed Zhou Mo beside him. "Time is short. Stop daydreaming." "Right!" Zhou Mo hesitated no further and hopped onto the flatbed cart at once. Witnessing his companion's death firsthand had left his eyes bloodshot, veins bulging along his arms. Gripping the power lever tightly, once the stationmaster adjusted their heading, he threw all his strength into pumping the lever. Driven forward by this propulsion, the arrow cart rolled steadily out of the camp, vanishing into the gloomy rain. ... "Young Master..." Chen Fan had departed so swiftly that he had barely spoken to them, leaving only the few of them behind in the camp. Yet... "What a stroke of genius." Quehou gazed in the direction their young master had gone, muttering in a daze, "That's right... combining an arrow tower with a cart makes a mobile arrow tower! Why hasn't anyone used it like this before?" "Actually, some have, but it never caught on, and for various reasons," Wang Kui answered with a conflicted expression. "For instance... arrow towers cannot attack creatures outside a camp." "Oh, true... Wait, then how is the young master's arrow cart going to attack creatures outside the camp?" "I don't know, but I believe the stationmaster must have thought of that." "What if he didn't?" Quehou paced anxiously in place. The young master had left too quickly, not even telling them the coordinates of those pseudo-humans. Even if he wanted to pursue and back him up, he wouldn't know where to look. ... Jiangbei Chen Family Outpost No. 37 was not particularly far from Wang Kui's former outpost. After cresting a hill, the pack of pseudo-humans came into view. They were currently gathered within Wang Kui's former outpost. Over twenty pseudo-humans could be clearly seen mating indiscriminately in the gloomy rain, their facial expressions bizarre—a frenzy that bordered on sheer madness. "..." Chen Fan stood at the front of the tricycle, silently observing the scene before him with an expressionless face. In truth, he felt a surge of anger. Stranded on the rainy-season wasteland, every single human resource was immensely precious— an absolute non-renewable resource. To him, the value of a single person far exceeded one hundred ghost stones. With one person dead, it meant he would have to reassign someone performing other tasks in the camp to serve as Zhou Mo's assistant. Originally there were ten people in the camp, but now only nine remained. Right at that moment— The pack of pseudo-humans noticed them as well. Accompanied by a piercing shriek, the pseudo-humans hidden inside the wooden cabin burst out as well, howling alongside those outside as they charged straight toward Chen Fan and Zhou Mo! Their speed was slightly faster than a middle-aged man sprinting at full tilt. Unlike the mother and daughter he had encountered before, these showed no pretense or disguise whatsoever, shrieking with madness gleaming in their eyes as they rushed forward. A hundred meters. Eighty meters. Fifty meters. In the blink of an eye, they were less than thirty meters away. Yet the arrow fort embedded on the tricycle showed no reaction. Outside of an outpost, the arrow fort could not activate at all. Chen Fan waited no longer. As he crushed three ghost stones in his palm, a phantom ghost fire composed of white lines gradually converged and solidified on the cart bed. By then, the pseudo-humans had already charged within range of the camp zone. The arrow fort, which had remained dormant all this while, suddenly flashed with a white light from within its pitch-black aperture. The next instant— *Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh!!* Crossbow bolts enveloped in lightning shot out like javelins hurled by the God of Thunder, flying at blistering speed toward the ghost creatures bearing down on the tricycle. The first pseudo-human struck froze in place almost instantly, its entire body charred black. It stumbled forward a few paces before collapsing to the ground. At the same time, an arc of lightning erupted from inside its body, shooting toward the three nearest pseudo-humans. In the blink of an eye, those three pseudo-humans caught in the blast were also instantly reduced to cinders. This was the Level 3 upgrade path of the arrow fort: upon striking a target, it dealt a degree of chain damage and paralysis to up to three nearby creatures. Its primary effect was paralysis, with relatively low damage. However, because pseudo-humans had such poor defense, even relatively low damage could instantly kill them. Each crossbow bolt effortlessly claimed the lives of three pseudo-humans. Yet... "..." Chen Fan's eyes narrowed slightly as he gazed through the distant gloomy rain at the new pseudo-humans rushing out from the wooden cabin. There were far more than thirty pseudo-humans here. There were even more, and this batch rushing out from the wooden cabin was noticeably younger. If the pseudo-humans outside at the beginning were all middle-aged, then those pouring out from inside were youths. "I see." Looking at one of the middle-aged female pseudo-humans, he thoughtfully turned the vehicle around. While continuously pulling away from the pack, he ensured they remained within the attack range of his arrow tower, continuously cutting down the pseudo-humans sprinting at the very front. Once all the middle-aged pseudo-humans that had charged out initially were slain, the arrow tower ceased firing. He did not continue attacking. Instead, he began crafting multiple bear traps, deploying them along the path the pseudo-humans took to chase the tricycle. He wanted to capture them alive. Pseudo-humans possessed a certain degree of intelligence, but it was not high. One after another, as they chased the tricycle in circles, they stepped into the bear traps, trapped in place and howling helplessly. ... After about the time it took to drink a cup of tea, the tricycle came to a stop. Not a single pseudo-human remained standing. The older pseudo-humans were all dead, while the younger ones were all pinned by bear traps, eyes flashing with savagery and madness as they struggled ceaselessly. "..." Standing on the tricycle, Chen Fan looked toward the wooden cabin of Wang Kui's outpost not far away. He had already circled the cabin several times, and no more pseudo-humans had rushed out. Turning to Zhou Mo behind him, he said softly: "There should be some pseudo-human younglings inside the cabin. Go check the situation." "I'll cover you from outside."