Chapter 573: Oil Fusion, The Troublesome Oil Giant, Black Tornadoes

【Loyalty: Sir, Victor has stabilized the Burning Knights' emotions. The crisis is resolved…】

Yu Yuan read the message Hans had sent.

"Victor is under control. There shouldn't be any more issues with crude oil resources now. Plus, his ability to sense earth veins will come in handy at Dead Mine. We need to speed up the uranium ore survey too."

A message from Alpha came through.

【Alpha: King, the Dawn Consortium's nuclear test site has been located. We've also started reconnaissance on the Twin Towers in Merry City. The enemy's strength is mostly figured out.

To take down the Dawn Consortium, the most effective approach is full-scale electronic jamming. If we can cripple all their electronic equipment, the Dawn Consortium's biggest threat is eliminated. The rest will be easy.

Also, the supplies from Reyes Town have been mostly transported. We should be able to withdraw everything within two days at the latest.】

Yu Yuan read it twice carefully before closing the Virtual Light Screen.

"Hmm… once this matter is settled, it'll be time to take down the Dawn Consortium."

As he spoke, Mie Mie had already carried him to the location of Fuel Town.

Mie Mie came to a stop.

Below them, what should have been a snow-covered area was now completely submerged in black crude oil.

But what should have solidified in this extreme cold was now flowing slowly, seemingly unaffected by the frigid environment.

According to Victor.

The oil beneath Fuel Town was light crude.

The pour point (the lowest temperature at which oil can still flow; below this point, it can't be poured out) of light crude is usually above -20°C.

Given the current temperatures of negative sixty or seventy degrees Celsius, it should have long since frozen into waxy chunks.

This fact alone was enough to show how unusual this place was.

Not to mention the oil creatures crawling and moving within the oil.

Yes.

The entire Fuel Town was now overrun by oil creatures. In fact, anywhere the oil flowed was their domain.

On the Combat Detector, dozens of red dots had already lit up.

But based on their size and brightness, all these oil creatures were only at the Low-to-Mid Bronze level.

They posed no threat to Yu Yuan whatsoever.

"Mie Mie, let's go check out the back."

Mie Mie flew directly toward the core oil area, behind Fuel Town.

This was a section enclosed by barbed-wire fences.

These wire fences were not only covered in various barbs and blades but also connected to high-voltage currents.

In Fuel Town, fuel oil was the least scarce resource, so there was no need to conserve it.

But right now, all of this was useless.

Yu Yuan was looking at the core area, where he could see over a dozen oil geysers.

Black oil shot up from underground, bursting twenty or thirty meters into the air before crashing back down.

At the very center of these geysers was one that towered over thirty meters high.

A crystalline fragment shimmering with a black-gold light rose and fell with the geyser.

Yu Yuan's breath caught in his throat.

He could see clearly—wasn't that fragment a civilization shard?

"It really is a civilization shard! This is…"

"Mie Mie, get down there!"

As Mie Mie descended, Yu Yuan manipulated shadows into a shadowy hand, reaching for the civilization shard.

But just as the shadow hand was about to touch it—

The civilization shard, floating above the geyser, seemed to sense something.

With a whoosh, it dove straight into the oil geyser.

Barely brushing past the shadow hand.

The next moment.

All the oil geysers vanished. The ground began to tremble.

The oil creatures swimming in the oil lake all raised their heads, staring at Mie Mie hovering in the air, and at Yu Yuan on its back.

Haah—

The oil creatures opened their mouths, making a sound.

Then, they all rushed toward the core oil geyser.

As they ran, they began to merge, two by two.

By the time they reached the core area, they had fused into a massive oil giant, over fifty meters tall.

And at the center of the giant's forehead, the civilization shard was embedded.

"This…" Yu Yuan was already stunned by the shard's earlier reaction.

Now, seeing this, he was even more astonished.

This was completely beyond his understanding.

But no matter what, now that he'd finally encountered a civilization shard, there was no way he was letting it slip away.

On the Combat Detector, the oil giant's level had already jumped to Silver-tier.

To get that shard, it seemed he had no other choice.

"If that's the case…"

His mechanical gloves transformed, becoming the Rail Pulse Kinetic Sniper Rifle. As Mie Mie gained altitude, Yu Yuan pressed his eye against the scope.

He locked the head of the newly fused oil giant into his crosshairs.

He pulled the trigger.

Vwoom—thud.

A tungsten alloy round tore through the air in an instant, reaching the oil giant's head.

The plasma surrounding the round, carrying searing heat, blew the oil giant's head apart. Powerful electricity danced across the giant's body.

The civilization shard embedded in its forehead flew through the air, seemingly about to escape—

But a stream of oil wrapped around it and pulled it back. The moment the shard returned to the oil giant's body, the head Yu Yuan had blown off had already regenerated.

And the oil giant's original form, which had been somewhat crude, was completely transformed by this attack.

Its oil-shale-like skin was now covered in cracked patterns. From these cracks, viscous black liquid oozed out, slowly trickling down. The joints of its limbs had turned into a white, wax-like substance, but with obvious crystallization.

"Hah—"

The oil giant opened its mouth wide at Yu Yuan, and a gas shot out from it toward him.

Yu Yuan had no intention of coming into contact with that gas. Without needing a command, Mie Mie dodged.

The moment Yu Yuan evaded, the gas appeared right where he'd been and ignited on its own.

Roaring flames lit up the surroundings.

Even Yu Yuan was startled.

Was this thing really going all out right from the start?

But this was only the beginning.

As Yu Yuan dodged the gas, the oil giant raised both hands.

Around it, hundreds or even thousands of black oil spheres rose into the air. Under the giant's control, they all shot toward Yu Yuan.

Mie Mie carried Yu Yuan in a full-speed evasive maneuver, quickly gaining altitude to avoid the attacks.

But the oil giant wasn't fazed. It launched a second, third, and fourth volley.

In an instant, the entire sky was filled with these oil spheres.

By now, Mie Mie was at over 700 meters altitude.

Just as Yu Yuan was thinking of a countermeasure—

The oil spheres suspended in the air below began to merge, spinning in the air.

Like a black tornado, they rotated at high speed, rapidly gaining height.

They even pulled the surrounding air currents along with them.

Then came a second black tornado, a third black tornado…

Watching the ever-increasing number and height of the black tornadoes, a sense of unease grew in Yu Yuan's heart.