The convoy moved along the He-Chao-Wu Expressway. Great Vajra led, occupying two full lanes, the V-blade lowered to the road surface, clearing everything in its path for the twelve vehicles following behind.
The twelve vehicles behind it were not built for speed. Each one trailed a string of wooden cargo trailers, forming a long caterpillar of a convoy. The sight carried a faint echo of how the world used to move — something almost prosperous about it, in a ruined kind of way.
Shen Cong drove with one eye on the rear camera feeds, studying the Motor Battalion’s vehicles: their weapons loadouts, their drive systems. Iron people’s bonded vehicles were perhaps the strangest evolutionary phenomenon he’d encountered — he didn’t understand what caused the bond, and neither did the Research Institute.
The vehicles represented in the garrison’s iron person roster skewed heavily toward automobiles of various kinds. Beyond that: one motorcycle, bonded to “Plastic Rabbit” — currently the only known iron beast rather than iron person. One transformer substation unit, its iron person a former substation maintenance worker named Bian Fukang, now responsible for the camp’s electrical output. One reverse circulation drilling rig, bonded to Xiong Yuliang, a former rural contract driller.
There had also been an iron person bonded to a rice-milling machine — the one who’d died in a siphon event. Bad luck from the beginning.
Looking for common threads, the Research Institute had found two consistent factors: iron people had been unconscious while physically present with their bonded vehicles, and they’d had frequent, habitual contact with those vehicles beforehand. Xiong Yuliang had used his drilling rig daily for work. Bian Fukang had routinely maintained his substation. The drivers were all experienced operators.
Shen Cong was no exception. He’d built Vajra himself over six years, spending more time inside it than anywhere else. When the bond formed, he’d been unconscious in the cab.
A possible research direction. But without more sophisticated tools, the Research Institute could only document the surface pattern without reaching the underlying mechanism.
The in-car speakers played music.
He stopped thinking about iron people — an enjoyable puzzle with no current solution — and let himself drift into the song instead.
They say we are what we are,
But we don’t have to be.
I’m bad behavior but I do it in the best way…
“Oooooh, I try to picture me without you but I can’t—” His voice was flat and off-key and entirely unconcerned with either of those things. He was singing for himself. That was sufficient.
“Breaker Breaker, Wind-Cutter to Great Vajra, Wind-Cutter to Great Vajra.” The vehicle radio interrupted him.
He opened the channel.
Wind-Cutter was the callsign for Liu Qihang’s Dongfeng commercial van. The radio system ran on callsigns — the Research Institute’s communication module had an effective range of about 300 meters, the same standard that Liu Changming had achieved back at the Fenghuang Mountain camp. Whether that reflected Liu Changming’s particular talent or simply the current limit of achievable range was unclear. The Research Institute was already exploring pulse signal transmission from the radar systems as a pathway to longer-range communication.
“What is it?” Shen Cong skipped the callsign protocol.
“Can Great Vajra increase speed? The wooden trailers are holding up better than projected — the convoy can push to 60 kilometers per hour without issue.”
“Fine.” He put the mic down, shifted up. Great Vajra climbed to 60 without effort.
He’d driven this road before.
Between Jianshan and Fuchashan, he could still see the sections he’d graded on the previous journey — not done carefully, not done thoroughly, just enough for the original Vajra to pass. He lowered the V-blade to ground level and pushed through at speed.
By the time the convoy followed, the surface was clean. The trailing vehicles passed without difficulty.
“Hey hey, Mouse cutting in — Colonel Hu, Great Vajra is something else. That section was the one we blew up back in the day, and you just… fixed it.” Mouse was the callsign for a small panel van, its driver a man whose nickname had preceded his callsign assignment.
The road-blowing comment. Shen Cong already knew the history.
The early expedition to bring evolved people back from Juchao District — a genuine disaster from start to finish. Ambushed at the Giant Stag nest, three vehicles of ordinary survivors lost. Then a Deathclaw attack on this exact stretch, further devastating the column. Of the Juchao area survivors they’d been trying to rescue, almost none had actually reached Hefei. One in ten, if that.
Mouse had said it without thinking. The radio went quiet.
Bringing evolved people out of Juchao was not a proud memory for anyone who’d been on that operation, and it had failed completely on top of the casualties. Several people in this convoy had been there.
“May Guanyin Bodhisattva protect us and see us safely through.” Somewhere in the column, one of the iron people offered a quiet invocation.
Liu Qihang’s voice cut through immediately. “Lin Xinyuan. No religious or superstitious expression — you know the camp’s regulations.”
The Mingfa Camp had banned all religious and superstitious content after a proselytizing incident that had escalated into a serious disturbance. In the apocalypse, religious ideas spread fast. Zhao Weiliang and Zhu Li had personally directed the suppression of that particular crisis, and the prohibition that followed was ironclad.
“I didn’t mean anything by it — it’s just a figure of speech.”
“A figure of speech is still a violation. Orders are orders. You’re a Party member — don’t forget what that means.”
Someone else jumped in to smooth it over. “Ah, Xiao Lin, no sense of the room — right now you should be complimenting Colonel Hu. With him along, who needs divine intervention?”
Shen Cong’s reputation had reached the point where it circulated as casual flattery between soldiers who’d never spoken to him directly. He registered it without any particular emotional response and had no interest in entering the conversation.
Then: movement on the road ahead.
A group of Deathclaws. Bantamweight-tier individually — weak, but prolific breeders and densely distributed throughout the Hefei area. In sufficient numbers they were dangerous to ordinary militia squads. Li Aiping’s former White Cat Squad had been wiped out by a concentrated Deathclaw assault.
These ones saw Great Vajra coming and, in the way Deathclaws had, decided the correct response was to challenge it rather than retreat.
Shen Cong tapped a short sequence on the touchscreen without slowing down. Great Vajra didn’t brake. The V-blade angled forward like a battering ram. Nothing biological had yet demonstrated the ability to stop Great Vajra’s full momentum.
The Deathclaws finally found their survival instinct when the gap closed to almost nothing — they leapt sideways, clearing the V-blade with very little margin.
That wasn’t what Shen Cong had set up.
As Great Vajra swept past them, six blades deployed from ports on either side of the chassis — built from the rear sections of the Spike King’s dorsal quills. The front pair extended half a meter. The middle pair, one meter. The rear pair, one and a half meters. A stepped formation, ensuring the forward Activity cores at each blade’s tip swept through the Deathclaws’ torsos as the vehicle passed.
Thud.
Thud.
Several Deathclaws fell in two pieces. Upper halves on the road. Lower halves still standing for a moment before they registered the situation.
The radio erupted.
“That was incredible.”
(End of Chapter 177)