Whatever Li Xicheng's smooth words had been worth, every indicator pointed the same direction: alive, he was a significant threat. So Shen Cong had killed him.

Evidence disposed of. Li Xicheng's armored vehicle raw metal stripped and loaded. Then Shen Cong swept the area around the low hills and found the other two armored vehicles he'd identified earlier.

Command armored vehicles were standard iron-person equipment — each one larger than a passenger bus, carrying at full complement a platoon-sized unit: one iron person, over twenty jin people, a dozen or more ordinary soldiers.

Both vehicles were at full complement.

They were holding formation, fending off large spider attacks. The fog was too thick to exit the vehicles safely, so they were firing through the shooting ports and enduring.

Shen Cong attached winch cables and hauled both armored vehicles out of the low hills and back to the Shaolou Service Area.

"Stay here. The only serious threat in the fog is the large spiders — their combat capability is limited. Careful defensive positioning will hold them. Don't push out."

"Yes, Camp Hu."

He didn't linger. He turned Great Vajra north and followed the Great Iron Bear's tracks.

Open plain in every direction. Great Vajra's off-road capability came into its own. It quickly became apparent that the Great Iron Bear had been navigating by disoriented instinct like everyone else. Its tracks wandered without pattern — direction reversing, arcing in circles, doubling back to points it had already passed.

Confirmed. The Great Iron Bear's intelligence hasn't reached Third Eye capability.

Along the way, Shen Cong passed armored vehicles, medical units, and missile carriers, all shut down and sheltering in the treelines — engines off, hatches sealed, waiting for rescue. And scattered among them, wrecked vehicles and human remains. The 31st Group Army had taken severe losses across this entire corridor.

He left the sheltering units alone for now. The Great Iron Bear was the priority.

He followed the bear's track north to Provincial Highway 323, running parallel to the highway roughly ten kilometers out. The Great Iron Bear still wasn't in range.

Great…