Chapter 607: Unmarked Boxes (1/2)

“I wouldn’t say the Tower of Eternity was all fun and games,” Zac muttered as his eyes turned back to the box in front of him. “Do complex machines like mechas and drones grow in this place?”

“I am not sure, but I don’t think so?” Kenzie said. “I have been keeping watch on my drones, and they are exactly the same as before. I think it’s because they have an active energy source and a steady current, and the energy is dense enough to inhibit whatever the Dimensional Seed is doing to this place.”

“So the Core Sector might actually be normal-sized?” Thea ventured. “I imagine that the Core if any place would have a lot of this Base Power running through the walls.”

“Perhaps,” Kenzie said. “But it’s also possible that the spatial energies of the Dimensional Seed would just overpower everything around it in such close proximity. I guess we’ll find out as we get closer.”

“So, can we open these things?” Ogras asked with gleaming eyes. “Or is there a reason the beastmen left them behind?”

“I- Don’t think there’s a problem?” Kenzie said, but she didn’t seem sure as she looked down at her tablet. “I can’t see anything out of the norm. It’s just a storage box with some environmental maintenance protocols. Is it really worth looting this place now though? We have time, but...”

“Treasures are meant to be taken, girl. Your brother is a walking opportunity-magnet, we need to make use of it. Knowing his luck these boxes might contain exactly what we need to deal with the insect bastards,” Ogras said as he turned to Zac. “Go ahead. Conjure something useful.”

”I'm not some magician,” Zac snorted, but he was tempted.

It felt like a waste to leave these boxes behind. Who knew what would happen in the future? The whole base might start falling apart after the Dimensional Seed was taken away considering how integrated it seemed to be with the base. Anything left behind might be lost forever. Zac had over ten empty top-quality Cosmos Sacks on him, meant to be stuffed with everything from raw materials to spaceships, and now was as good a time as any to start looting.

So Zac jumped up to press the only button on the box, a small smile spreading across his face.

“Wait stop!” Kenzie shouted with urgency, prompting Zac to immediately push away from the box without opening it, and he landed right behind the group.

”What? What’s going on?” Zac asked.

“There’s something weird going on. Everything is fine according to the readings, but I sensed some sort of energies in the air. I think-“ she muttered, but she didn’t get any further as a series of previously hidden vents suddenly appeared on the closest boxes.

A dense cloud of some unknown gas blasted out the next moment, forcing the group to scramble out of the way. They quickly realized that it was just normal steam released to depressurize the containers, but the fact they suddenly woke up without Zac touching them clearly wasn’t good news.

“Some luck. Forgot you're a trouble magnet as well,” Ogras muttered as shadows swallowed their group, and they reappeared half across the vast storeroom a second later.

Zac could only roll his eyes in response as they rushed for the only door in the warehouse, an exit on the opposite side where they came from. A barrier had already appeared to block their escape and Zac frowned when he saw how thick it was. It looked like a beefed-up version of the ones they had encountered before, or perhaps it was simply being fed a lot more Base Power compared to the shields in the Outer Ring.

Worse yet, more and more boxes were releasing steam, and the whole room echoed with clanking sounds as they opened by the hundreds.

The ground cracked beneath Zac’s feet as he shot toward the red barrier while a halo appeared behind his back. Inside it was the avatar of the axe-man’s axe, and it caused Zac’s aura to grow deeper as he slammed [Verun's Bite] into the shield.

Popping sounds echoed out across the area as the air exploded from the force generated by [Conformation of Supremacy]. A series of crashes quickly followed as both Ogras and Thea appeared to his left and right, each of them releasing an all-out strike at the barrier. But the shield was beyond sturdy. It didn’t even shudder even though the air itself had been ripped apart, forming a series of chaotic spatial tears that were quickly swallowed by the barrier itself.

“Watch out!” Kenzie screamed, but Zac was already moving by that point as his Danger Sense had warned him of an impending attack.

Two bronze blades stabbed into the ground where he just stood a moment ago, both of them attached to thin mechanical arms that stretched over fifty meters into the haze. Zac looked toward the source, spotting a spherical object that was slowly emerging from the steam. It was about three meters across, making the massive container it came out of look almost comically oversized.

Zac's first guess was that Kenzie was right. The boxes had grown while the contents had not. That by itself felt like a huge lucky break as the force contained in that stab just now had been a bit troubling, powerful enough to leave marks on the sturdy Memorysteel floor. But Kenzie's theory was quickly proven imperfect at best as more spherical objects came rolling out of the nearby crates, each of them of a different size.

The smallest ones were just about Zac's height, with the largest ones being tower monstrosities reaching almost fifteen meters in the air. The steam quickly dissipated as well, giving the group a better look at what they were dealing with. Zac wasn't surprised to see that they were all some sort of landbound drones that looked like enormous brass balls.

The bladed weapons from before were actually a part of the ball’s surface, like hidden mantis scythes that were normally protected inside the ball itself. A dozen smaller such appendages suddenly split out from the bottom of the ball as well, creating a series of nimble appendages that allowed the closest machines to rush toward them.

“Can you control it? Or them?” Zac said as he looked across the warehouse with trepidation.

Did all these containers contain a killing machine like this?

The question quickly became apparent as more and more machines scurried out, quickly forming an army inside the warehouse. Thankfully it looked like less than a third of the boxes actually conjured a spider ball. The rest still housed similar machines, but they failed to activate for some reason or another.

There were also quite a few machines that seemed to move about like they were drunk, perhaps lacking some integral parts due to lack of service over the past millennia. Zac quickly realized what was going on. The smaller machines seemed to work flawlessly as they arranged themselves before moving toward his group. The mid-sized ones had various problems affecting their mobility, and the largest balls didn't even seem able to activate.

The Spatial Expansion had worked on these machines, but to varying degrees. The more they had expanded the worse condition they were left in. That wasn't surprising considering they no doubt contained extremely precise technology, like all kinds of chipsets that might have broken down from being forcibly expanded by the Dao of Space.