War Truck in the Apocalypse

Chapter 3: The Living Titan

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation

Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

The sky was a little dark, and the sun could not be seen. 

After a month’s worth of living in his truck, Shen Cong finally stepped foot on the ground again. But now, the large amount of living creatures that previously inhabited the earth were replaced by yellow sand, shattered stones, and dust that filled his entire vision. There was no hint of green. 

It was as if he had arrived at a boundless desert. 

“My home… Wuwei… Hefei should be gone as well…”

Shen Cong scowled. He began searching around to find even a single trace of life. The great and disastrous storm had destroyed all signs of life, so the only thing that proved that Shen Cong was still on Earth and not some alternate universe where the steel pillars that were part of the warehouse not far away. 

One of them was bent at a perfect ninety degree angle. 

Shen Cong suppressed the gloomy emotions churning in him and walked to the spot where the warehouse originally was. He observed it for a while and used his hands to try and push away the sand and stones on the ground, only to find that it was too difficult to do so. He ran back to Titan and brought out an entrenching tool. Then, he returned to his previous spot and continued digging through the yellow sand. 

At that moment, Shen Cong was stronger than a bull. He lifted the entrenching tool and began digging at lightning speed. 

In just a moment, he had already dug out a huge pit. 

“Activity can indeed strengthen the body. Before, if I dug such a large pit, I’d have ended up gasping for breath. Now, I don’t feel tired at all.”

Activity was the name Shen Cong gave to the strange ability. It was the reason why he was able to form the mysterious connection with Titan. 

When Shen Cong regained consciousness after the meteor hit, he found that he had actually formed a sensory connection with Titan. In the month since then, he fumbled about, trying to figure out those senses. After multiple investigations, tests, and various hypotheses, he came to a general understanding as to how the ability was formed and how he could use it. 

During that destructive meteor shower, one of the meteors crashed into the warehouse. However, even though the impact created by the power of the meteor was enough to destroy everything in the vicinity, it did not. In fact, aside from the warehouse being obliterated, not even a single pit was left behind. Shen Cong had no idea what the meteor was made of for it to be like that. 

But judging from what he saw now, it contained some sort of mysterious force, because it allowed the metal encasing Titan to come “alive”. Shen Cong did not know whether this meant that Titan was alive now, but it did possess some form of sentience, and it could slowly repair its damaged parts. 

Shen Cong named the activation of this sentience Activity. 

Most of Titan’s armor had melted away, and a lot of the circuits inside were burnt. 

But when Shen Cong calmed down and communicated with Titan, he was able to guide Activity and have it slowly absorb the wandering Activity around it to repair itself. In fact, it could even transform its shape based on Shen Cong’s will. 

In boredom, Shen Cong gave Activity another ability, and he called it Extension. 

There were two other abilities that Activity possessed. One of them was the ability to assimilate with other things, and Shen Cong called it Alloying. Originally, the metal frame around Titan was given the Activity ability by the meteor, but as Shen Cong guided it around, it was now able to absorb various components on the metal frame, and when these components were given the Activity ability as well, they could form a complete unit. 

On the other hand, if a component was stripped off Titan, it took it only a moment to lose the Activity ability. 

The last ability was a response Activity ability gave to Shen Cong, who served as the person who guided it around Titan. It gave him the Exchange ability. 

While Shen Cong guided Titan’s Activity around, he could use his mind to strengthen various parts of Titan. Shen Cong could rely on his brainwaves to gain complete control over Titan, and its Activity was sent as feedback to him, which would in turn strengthen his own body. 

This meant that metals with Activity had three characteristics—Extension, Alloying, and Exchange. 

This was the result of Shen Cong’s one month long research. 

Of course, there might be other abilities he had not figured out, and there were still plenty of things that remained a mystery to him. For example, he did not know just what sort of connection he had with Titan. Logically speaking, once Titan was given Activity, it would either turn into a real-life Transformer or a giant-sized puppy that would constantly follow him around. 

Shen Cong did not expect that it would form a bizarre connection with him as if they had become one. At that moment, Titan was just another one of Shen Cong’s limbs. 

‘But this is great. With an even stronger Titan, my chances of surviving the apocalypse will be even greater.’

He had managed to dig to the very bottom, and there, he found a steel board. 

It was a secret door leading to an underground basement of the warehouse. Shen Cong was someone with a persecution complex, so he always felt that his defenses were not tight enough and that he was not safe enough. 

Hence, he stored most of the important items in the underground basement and used a steel board to block the entrance. The steel board had done its duty perfectly and protected the underground basement for Shen Cong. 

*****

The shelves and maintenance desk were piled up against each other. The 150 square meters basement was a mess. Clearly, the impact from the meteor hitting the ground had affected it. But fortunately, most of the items could still be used. 

So, for the next three days, Shen Cong went back and forth between Titan and the basement. He was not in a hurry to leave. 

Titan was badly damaged, and while it had absorbed the wandering Activity to repair itself, this sort of repair was slow and it could not drastically change the components of substances either. Some of the damage to certain components were so severe that Shen Cong could only get new components. Then, with Alloying, he assimilated them with Titan. 

In the three days, Shen Cong also tried to contact the outside world using the radio during his free time. 

But all he received from various channels was just meaningless white noise. 

Shen Cong occasionally climbed up on Titan and looked into the distance. He saw yellow sand stretching out in the horizon without an end to it. The entire world was silent, and he was alone in the huge desert. He could not even hear the sound of dogs barking or insects buzzing. 

Another week went by. 

By then, Shen Cong had already finished repairing Titan, and all the necessary equipment were turned into parts of Titan through Alloying. 

Titan still required gasoline to move, but Shen Cong had the battery provide some electricity as part of its power source. Shen Cong also placed two solar power electricity generators in the truck to keep Titan moving when he no longer had enough gasoline. 

Once out of gasoline, Titan would suffer from a severe lack of mobility. The voltage of the battery was quite low, so it could only allow one motor to work at a low speed, which meant that Titan would be moving at the speed of a person jogging. And after every two hours, Shen Cong would have to use the solar power electricity generators to supply more electricity. 

But there was no choice in this matter. Gasoline took up too much space, and Shen Cong could not bring a lot of it. 

‘I’ve finished repairing Titan. It’s time for me to leave this place.’

The mechanical watch showed that the date was the 28th of June. Shen Cong placed the steel board at the entrance to the underground basement and filled the pit with yellow sand. He had a longwave transmitter placed in the underground basement, and he was the only one who knew its frequency. When he wanted to come back, he just needed to search for the frequency, and he could find the basement once more.

Right then, the world was a desert of yellow sand and shattered stones, so he could only use this method to determine locations. 

The destroyed warehouse was Shen Cong’s base. He did not want to lose it. 

He picked up his electric welding tool and welded a line of words on one of the only steel pillars. 

[Frequency: FM 90.8. Survivor: Shen Cong. I left.]

Once he did that, he cast a final glance at the steel pillars before he jumped into Titan. 

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He had the armor slide shut, elevated the radar, and stepped on the accelerator. 

The engines roared, and an exhaust pipe extended out of the top of the truck to pump out light plums of smoke. The steel war truck, whose Activity ability had been guided by Shen Cong to modify it into a streamlined war truck with steel armor and a taller undercarriage along with a widened special tyres, started moving north while leaving behind thick tyre tracks on yellow sand and crushed stones. 

That direction was where Wuwei was. 

In a moment, a gust of wind blew over, and yellow sand rose into the air. When the wind died down, no tyre tracks could be seen anymore. 

If it were not for the support pillars which remained standing tall in the area, the place would have looked like a desert which had existed since ancient times.