Chapter 11

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation  Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

As the saying went, good things never happened, but bad things always happened.

1The enraged monster only remained calm for a short moment, and soon, it began ramming against the truck again. Shen Cong no longer had any strength to curse the monster. He could only grip the handrail tightly and stick close to Titan’s wall so that he could reduce his area of impact.

This situation lasted for a full ten minutes.

It was what the mechanical watch showed.

But Shen Cong felt like half a century had already gone by, and he was incredibly worried for himself as well as Titan. If the monster continued, Titan would fall apart sooner or later, and even if it did not, it would be reduced to scraps. Shen Cong simply could not focus his mind to guide Titan into absorbing Activity to resist the damage.

He was in danger too, and he could only rely on himself for protection instead of Titan.

But if even the apocalypse had come to an end, this disaster, too, would come to an end.

Ten minutes later, the tumbling Titan finally lay at the bottom of the ocean with its wheels pointed at the sky. The monster stopped ramming against it, but Titan still continued swaying slightly. The sound of something sharp scratching against Titan reached Shen Cong’s ears. It was an incredibly piercing sound.

When Shen Cong heard it, his heart began to race even faster than before.

‘What is the monster doing?! It’s biting Titan!’

Shen Cong took in a big gulp of oxygen.

He felt that he could no longer just sit around doing nothing, so he quickly forced himself to calm down and became unprecedentedly focused. His mind turned into a sharp arrow that was projected on Titan.

‘A large area of the external armor is damaged, and a small area of the internal circuits is damaged as well. Cracks have appeared on the frame, and they are in need of urgent repair… Activity is completely depleted. A number of parts of the truck are already showing signs of regressing from the state of possessing Activity.’

This information appeared in Shen Cong’s mind after Titan gave it to him.

Titan was damaged to the point that it was on the brink of being reduced to junk. 85% of its body had been assimilated with Activity before, it had shrunk to the point that only 25% was left. Only the basic frame of the truck still possessed Activity.

1It was in a truly wretched situation.

But Shen Cong could not pay any attention to giving Titan a detailed examination. The monster outside was still biting down on the truck, and the damage on the armor was still spreading.

Yet even under pressure, Shen Cong was able to remain astonishingly calm. He quickly gathered the remaining Activity and mobilized it in the external armor instead of the frame. Once he sensed the part that the monster was biting, he immediately led the Activity to rush over to resist it.

At the same time, he split up some of his attention to swallow up the Activity that was wandering in the water, and he did it so quickly that it was as if he were a whale swallowing water.

Creak, creak.

The armor was not tough to the monster in the beginning, but at that moment, it suddenly became tough, and its teeth nearly became numb because of how hard it bit down on the toughened armor. The monster possessed low intellect, so it hadn’t noticed that someone had controlled Activity, which had led to a change.

Since the creature could not bite through the armor, it went to bite a tyre.

Before Shen Cong could mobilize the Activity into the tyre, the special tyre that possessed a 1.5 m diameter was bitten through and exploded.

Bang!

When the tyre exploded in the water, it not only scared the monster, but also Shen Cong.

Then, the angered monster began ramming against the truck again. Shen Cong did not manage to make it in time to the handrail, and his head rammed against a metal cupboard.

2His vision went dark, and he nearly fainted.

He endured the dizziness and grabbed a steel pole in the truck compartment. He refused to let go no matter what and just let Titan tumble around in an erratic rhythm.

His head was bleeding, and his energy was slowly draining away along with the blood.

He had no idea how much time had passed, but just when he thought that he was about to not be able to last, Titan regained peace once more. This time, the peace that arrived was a true one. There were no scratching sounds and no swaying. The only sound was the flowing of water.

The monster that resembled a prehistoric crocodile had finally chosen to give up on attacking the steel lump that was incredibly difficult to bite through.

Shen Cong finally obtained the chance to catch his breath, and he gritted his teeth to focus. He mobilized Activity to stop his own bleeding. Then, he connected his mind with Titan once more.

Titan was in an even worse state than before. It possessed less than 10% Activity, and that amount was still reducing slowly. This was unlike how radiation diffused Activity to the world around it. Titan was truly losing Activity.

If Titan were a real, living creature, it would be on the brink of death.

Losing Activity was the same as losing blood.

Shen Cong could not spare any time to continue treating himself. He focused his entire mind on guiding Titan to absorb the Activity outside to mend itself.

Titan was still the best tool Shen Cong had to ensure his survival in the post-apocalyptic world. Nothing could happen to it.

*****

Shen Cong did not rest for an entire day and night. He went all out in repairing Titan with every bit of time he had.

When the first rays of light shone into Titan through its cracked armor, Shen Cong finally announced an end to his repair work. He had managed to restore Titan’s Activity to 15%—the threshold. Activity no longer poured out like blood.

When an object’s overall Activity was lower than 15%, it would slowly continue to lose its Activity. Only when it was above that threshold that the Activity would stay inside and the creature, or a truck in this case, could absorb it from the world around it.

15% was the balance point.

Shen Cong had managed to preserve Titan’s “life”.

It allowed him to break from this repair work that had exhausted him and check his surroundings.

Titan was lying on its side, but the water level had already decreased. It was only at thigh level, but it was still visibly lowering. Shen Cong reckoned that in less than half an hour, the water would completely disappear.

Once the water was gone, the mutated monster which resembled a prehistoric crocodile would also leave.

The huge threat was about to be gone, and the gloomy feeling that had been pressing down on Shen Cong’s heart was finally gone. He had never encountered such a large mutated monster on dry land before. Hence, Titan once again turned into a safety net for Shen Cong with its status as a steel war truck.

However, the current Titan was at the edge of being called scrap metal.

Cracks could be seen on the main structure of the truck, and practically all its functions had been damaged. If Shen Cong considered the speed at which Activity could repair Titan along with him using his own tools, he would have to spend half a month on Titan before he could fully repair it.

This meant that he would have to stay around for at least ten days before he could travel again.

‘Now, my first task is to flip Titan over and have its wheels touch the ground. Just in case, I’ll do this after all the water is gone.’

Shen Cong sketched out his plan.

Then, he found some fanged wolf meat and ate it raw, because he could not spare any time for roasting it.

1Once fanged wolf meat was soaked in water, it would rot very quickly, and Shen Cong could not store it for long. He was also severely lacking in Activity, so he could just eat more to restore it.

The taste of raw meat was a little disgusting.

The fanged wolf had died more than a week ago, and the flesh had lost most of the Activity. However, since it was ingested raw, its remaining Activity was not damaged during a roasting process. In conclusion, Shen Cong could obtain Activity from it, and it was at the same amount as a few days ago. He just had to fight down the nausea and force the large slice of fanged wolf meat into his stomach.

A few minutes later, heat spread out from Shen Cong’s stomach, and a wave of Activity that was dozens of times thicker than the wandering Activity outside gathered in his limbs. It treated the bruises he sustained from all the rolling around and the wound on his head.

He did not know whether this was because his body and Titan had both been damaged previously, which allowed Shen Cong to gain even more proficiency in using Activity, but he noticed that his control over Activity had reached new heights, and he was using it as if he were controlling his own limbs. The fusion between his body and Activity had reached a rather high degree. Last time, he possessed the strength of a bull, and now, he felt as if he possessed the strength of one and a half well fed bulls.

2His mental connection with Titan had become closer than before, and the exchange of Activity between them became more frequent than before as well.

‘Is this considered a blessing in disguise?’ Shen Cong cast a glance at the messy truck compartment, and he could not quite decide what sort of emotion he should have right then.

Fortunately, he had lived through the storm.

The disasters of the post-apocalyptic world did not destroy his conviction to survive.