Canyon 18

As Rosen piloted the time machine toward the launch silo, he explained, "These monsters in the valley are controlled. They have a mother body, a spherical, bizarre creature, and all the hollow people are under its unified control. I just detonated a bomb next to it; I don't know if it hurt it, but it definitely had an effect, otherwise these monsters wouldn't have retreated so quickly."

Derasa's eyes were filled with disbelief: "The Hollow Men actually have a Mother?! They're actually organized? Monsters that can be controlled in a unified way?"

"That's most likely the case." Rosenfei controlled the drone to fly towards the launch silo. "When I was at the bottom of the valley during the day, I observed that the drones I launched were under control."

Derasa's curiosity was immediately piqued. "So that's how it is. I'll have to see what the mother body looks like later."

A moment later, the drone returned to the secondary launch silo area, and the footage from inside the launch silo was transmitted again.

This time, however, a thin layer of orange-yellow mist filled the air inside the well, which was likely spores or something similar released by the mother organism.

The camera showed the traces of the pumpkin bomb explosion: the hard concrete well wall was left with only a shallow black burn mark, essentially undamaged. Beneath the mother structure, a large patch of vines that had once enveloped it lay scattered.

However, at this moment, the fleshy spheres on the surface of the mother's body were slowly wriggling, and the surface of her body was constantly secreting a viscous, transparent mucus that slowly enveloped the entire body.

Beneath the transparent mucus, the wounds caused by the branches and shrapnel seemed to be repairing rapidly, as if accelerated.

Rosen watched with envy. This speed was almost comparable to Deadpool's recovery speed. If this recovery power were applied to a person and they were given a bulletproof vest, it would be truly monstrous.

He maneuvered the drone to a spot not far from the mother structure, keeping only the high-definition camera operational, temporarily setting it up as a surveillance device to record its every move.

Derasa leaned over and stared at the screen for a long time, her face full of disbelief. "Isn't this just a giant blob of slime? This thing can control a hollow man? Does it transmit commands via radio or brainwaves?"

Rosen shook his head slightly. "Who knows? Maybe it's a special pheromone. The newborn hollow beings I've seen before all differentiated directly from the mother. You've seen the Zerg in sci-fi movies and games, right? I think it's a bit like that."

Derasa looked surprised. "Impossible..."

While Derasa was taking a shower that night, Rosen went down to the armory on the first floor.

He looked at the boxes filled with all kinds of military equipment and began to rummage through them. He quickly found a complete set of spare parts for the Phalanx CIWS, as well as a batch of magnetic levitation mines.

He collected the samples into the capsule space, scanned them with the universal platform, and archived all the equipment data that he did not have.

Looking at the blueprints for this Phalanx CIWS, Rosen realized that this was probably not the version used on warships.

This is a scaled-down and weakened version of the six-barreled M61A1 20mm Vulcan Gatling gun.

Although it retains the fully automatic continuous firing function and the fire support frame is relatively complete, there are probably quite a few things that have been cut.

The most obvious example is its air defense radar, which is quite weak and can only scan at a distance of less than 1000 meters.

Moreover, small aircraft flying at low speeds and mountain turbulence clutter are automatically filtered out by the radar system, resulting in a significant drop in recognition accuracy.

However, their modification wasn't without reason; such a large scanning range isn't needed here.

But no matter how much it's been nerfed, its core function is still a weapon used to intercept missiles, and its power is definitely still there.

With a stable rate of fire of 3000 to 4500 rounds per minute, and equipped with 20mm special shells that have both high explosive and fragmentation effects, its destructive power is quite impressive.

Its power was second only to his former favorite – the ZU-23 twin-mounted anti-aircraft gun.

In Rosen's eyes, this thing was ridiculously cute.

Don't let its bulky size and massive size fool you; its ammunition consumption is like a money-devouring beast, something most people simply can't handle or afford. But it's different!

He is fully capable of withstanding the consumption of this powerful weapon. Most importantly, the weapon station on the top of his Paramount Marauder armored vehicle is perfectly compatible with this machine gun, and it can be directly installed on the vehicle with a little modification!

What pleased him even more was this cannon, whose working principle and performance were completely different from ordinary single-barreled machine guns.

The six-barrel rotating air-cooled design, coupled with an external power drive, allows the six barrels to fire in turn and take turns dissipating heat, with each barrel only sharing one-sixth of the firing pressure.

As long as the supply of ammunition, hydraulic power, and electricity is uninterrupted, it can theoretically fire nearly 10,000 shells continuously, unlike ordinary single-barreled cannons which overheat, jam, or even explode after firing for a while.

A night of carefree bliss passed in the blink of an eye.

The next morning, just as dawn was breaking, the thick fog in the canyon began to dissipate somewhat.

De LaSa finished her routine patrol early and watched as the black guard on the other side of the canyon finished his shift and left the canyon with his large backpack.

De Lasa followed the direction the man had gone; she needed to see if the black man was really going to be silenced.

Once Derasa's figure had completely disappeared into the snow-covered forest, Rosen once again descended to the perilous valley floor.

His all-terrain vehicle, parked at the bottom of the valley, was intact, clearly having escaped the notice of those hollow men. However, all the Claymore mines he had buried in the ground had been used up.

Somewhat strangely, the valley floor was completely clean, and there wasn't even a hollow human corpse to be seen.

Last night, so many hollow people were shot down. It seems those monsters have a habit of collecting corpses. I wonder what they're doing with the bodies they take away.

Rosen didn't dwell on that. He released the large drone, which carried him into the air and flew towards the distant missile silo.

He quite likes this way of traveling now. Although it can't compare to the smoothness and comfort of a helicopter, it's more flexible and faster, and it's more than twice as fast as a bumpy all-terrain vehicle.

Just as he was maneuvering the drone toward the launch silo, a muffled roar of rotors suddenly came from above the canyon, and a classic UH-1 Huey helicopter broke through the thin fog and slowly flew toward the canyon.

The moment the helicopter approached the canyon, the defense systems on both sides of the canyon were activated, the M61A1 Vulcan cannon barrels quickly rose, the muzzles were aimed at the sky, and the weapon system entered a fully automatic standby state.

Once the helicopter reaches a 300-meter warning range over the canyon, these machine guns will begin strafing.