Apocalypse: My Items Can Upgrade Infinitely

[Level 19 Grenade Cannon Replica, Red Quality]

[Damage: 190, Effective Range: 5km, Remaining Shells: 5,000]

[Basic Attributes: Bullet Recovery 1/s, Spatial Magazine with 5,000 reserve ammo]

[Note: Effective within a 1km radius of the original. One-tenth of the profit from kills is returned to the holder. Cannot harm the holder of the original weapon. All Basic Attributes are activated based on killing targets.]

After reading the Replica’s Attributes, Lin Feng secretly breathed a sigh of relief...

As long as the automatic Bullet Recovery and Spatial Magazine Attributes were retained, the Replica was still immensely valuable.

As for Extra Attributes like Eye of the Death God and Firepower Coverage, as long as there were enough Replicas, they could achieve the same effect through concentrated fire.

With 5,000 rounds of reserve ammo, plus a recovery rate of 3,600 rounds per hour, it could completely withstand the Swarm’s assault.

Four Level 19 Grenade Cannon Replicas could easily intercept and annihilate tens of thousands of Black Spine Zergs.

With them, Lin Feng’s burden would be lightened considerably.

He then took out two large "Steam Hammers" and handed them to Li Ran and Shen Jie behind him, explaining as he did so:

"This is a weapon as powerful as my old Hand Cannon. A single shot is comparable to a 155mm grenade cannon. There are four in total right now. Take them and defend the other four protruding blockhouses. Prevent the Tiger Spine Zergs from destroying the outpost’s walls."

The Fortress had five protruding blockhouses in total, which allowed for overlapping fields of fire and increased damage output.

Hearing Lin Feng’s introduction, Li Ran and Shen Jie accepted the large-caliber Steam Hammer Shotguns. Feeling their heavy weight, they grew incredibly excited and wanted to immediately take them to the outpost to test them out personally.

Li Ran, who had already witnessed the infinite-ammo Heavy Machine Gun, was the most excited. Having this Steam Hammer Shotgun was like having another Superpower Bullet Awakener.

A few more of these, and their firepower would be comparable to an entire artillery company.

Clutching the powerful weapon, Li Ran couldn’t put it down. He said:

"A shotgun? This is practically a handheld cannon."

Lin Feng nodded.

"The Steam Hammer Shotgun. Not bad. We’ll call it that from now on."

He then took out the remaining two and warned them:

"It’s very powerful, and the recoil is just as strong."

"It weighs a hundred kilograms. Between that and the powerful kick from continuous fire, anyone less than a Tier One Late Stage Awakener won’t be able to hold it for long."

Li Ran and Shen Jie were both commanders who fought on the front lines. After last night’s great battle using the Machine Cannons, they had successfully advanced to the Tier One Late Stage.

Li Ran was Level 17, while Shen Jie was already Level 18, just one step away from Tier One Perfection.

They were more than capable of handling the powerful Steam Hammer Shotguns.

Among the outpost’s defenders, there were several others who had also reached the Tier One Late Stage, so finding people to wield them wouldn’t be a problem.

Watching the two leave excitedly, Lin Feng returned to the front of the outpost. He watched the sun set in the distance as deep night prepared to descend upon the land...

Countless members of the Zerg Race began to poke their heads out from the cave entrances.

A new round of battle was about to begin.

On the main battlefield, the Fortress defenders, who had spent the entire day on edge without proper rest, could only rely on substances like coffee to maintain their Spirit and stay alert.

The Zerg Race’s shock-and-awe tactics and strategies of attrition were already taking effect.

Having gone nearly forty hours without proper rest, the defenders’ mental states were exceptionally fatigued!

This was especially true since they had spent half that time in arduous defensive battles. Even an Awakener would find it hard to endure, let alone the many new recruits who were only at the level of Enhanced People...

With exhausted bodies and numb minds, their combat effectiveness plummeted. Whether it was aiming and firing in the darkness or resupplying ammunition later on, nothing was as smooth as it had been the previous night.

Many veterans saw this and knew it was an unavoidable situation for anyone.

They had been the same at the beginning, confidently believing these low-level bugs from an Alien Star would be instantly annihilated under a barrage of artillery fire.

But as wave after wave of the endless Swarm army came to assault the defense line...

Even with ample ammunition and logistical support, human beings of flesh and blood would eventually fail to hold on, their State deteriorating.

Especially tonight, there might be attacks from Tiger Spine Zergs. If they couldn’t launch anti-tank missiles and large-caliber Mortars in time to intercept them, the fortress gates in the defense line would surely suffer heavy damage.

And once the Zerg Race got close enough to cause casualties among the defenders, even if they ultimately succeeded in holding the line, things would only get harder and harder as time went on.

Fortunately, the front-line Commanders weren’t fools. They immediately rotated the companies within the Fortresses along the North-South defense line.

Personnel from more than ten Fortresses in the North who had not participated in last night’s battle were swapped in to garrison the South.

As long as the Zerg Race wasn’t stupid, they would definitely focus their fierce assault on one part of the line—especially the South, where an entrance gate had already been breached. With just a little more effort, they could annihilate several Fortresses.

Breaching one section would allow the entire Zerg Race army to pour through and launch an all-out offensive.

On the human side, this North-South rotation along the defense line could mitigate the decline in combat strength.

But what the humans were doing was clearly not limited to just that.

During the day, as the Tiger Spine Zerg squads constantly approached, revealing themselves to intimidate the defenders, a few secretive teams hidden within the Fortress launched a feigned sniper attack against them.

Three Superpower Bullet Awakened took out special bullets sent from the Research Institute.

Inside the bullets was an injection of a composite glue with an extremely strong adhesion to the Tiger Spine Zerg’s Outer Armor.

The original plan, which was to have the warheads embed themselves in the creature’s Shell, was directly rejected after Ding Chenghai analyzed samples of a Tier Two Tiger Spine Zerg’s Giant Mandibles.

This was because the Mohs hardness of the Tiger Spine Zerg’s Giant Mandibles was a terrifying 10-plus—harder than diamond, the hardest stable natural substance known to man!

A normal steel bullet head only has a Mohs hardness of 4.5. Even tungsten alloy, used in armor-piercing rounds, only reaches a hardness of 9.5. It was fundamentally impossible to pierce the sixty to seventy-millimeter-thick bio-Alloy Armor of a Tiger Spine Zerg.

So, the Research Institute had to change its approach. By attaching signal transmitters to the Tiger Spine Zergs’ bodies with adhesive, they could still serve as Beacons to locate the Zerg Race Mother Empress’s hiding place.

Several of these special Beacon bullets, equipped with adhesive capabilities, were fired by three Superpower Bullet Awakened from the Thirteenth Division. Using their Awakening Energy as propellant and employing electro-optical surface scopes, they accurately hit Tiger Spine Zergs from two kilometers away.

In total, they fired thirty bullets, marking the eighteen Tiger Spine Zergs that had appeared on the battlefield.

The ping-pong-ball-sized Beacons would transmit a signal every two minutes, making it possible to locate where the Tiger Spine Zerg Swarm was gathering...

Whether or not the first line of defense could hold was no longer the primary concern of the division headquarters or the Federation’s high command...

Confirming the Mother Empress’s location, dispatching strategic bombers to launch deep-penetration Cloud Burst Bombs, destroying the Zerg Race’s brain, and completing the "decapitation strike"—that was the top priority!

And as the Beacon locators sent back the positions of the Tiger Spine Zerg Swarm one by one...

Watching the movement trajectories connect on the screen...

The data analysts and mapping engineers at the Research Institute quickly pinpointed three locations where the Mother Empress was most likely to be.

One of them was just outside the outpost—the former highway toll station—to the South of Wu City!