I write obituaries for the gods

Li Zhanyi took the latte, took a sip, and gently exhaled.

"What are those ruins over there, Section Chief?" Her tone finally became lively again.

“Mingzhu Beach Milk Tea Shop,” Lin Chen laughed, “The ruins are a very chaotic neighborhood. The core is a milk tea shop. Everyone who passes by must buy milk tea, otherwise they will be hunted down by an entity called ‘The Cleaner.’ And if you buy milk tea for less than 30 yuan, the Rain City Star TV Tower will fire lasers at you.”

"That's terrifying..." Li Zhanyi shrank back, "How did they manage to shoot it down?"

“The milk tea master’s obsession seems to be a dispute,” Lin Chen said. “Once, the shop was overwhelmed with orders, and a customer ordered a very cheap milk tea. He kept urging her and even insulted her. Then she broke down emotionally, and the Foundation took advantage of this moment to have that space eroded by the subspace.”

"Senior Lucy refused Section Chief Jiang's suggestion to launch a forced raid, and went into the milk tea shop herself to complete all the orders for the day for the milk tea chef. When it left, it bowed deeply to Senior Lucy."

“Senior Lucy is actually very gentle,” Li Zhanyi nodded repeatedly. “She’s just a bit arrogant and seems difficult to get along with, but she’s really a very nice person.”

"I also think she's a very nice person."

Lin Chen nodded quickly, then changed the subject:

"Oh, right, I was just joking earlier, that's not what I meant."

It took Li Zhanyi five seconds to realize what Lin Chen was saying. She lowered her head slightly and muttered softly:

"Whatever you want..."

“I was afraid you might find this offensive,” Lin Chen rubbed his neck, “but it really is…”

Before he could finish speaking, he saw Li Zhanyi raise his head and puff out his cheeks slightly:

Why do you think I would feel offended?

"Ah...no, I mean..."

“I wasn’t offended,” Li Zhanyi stood up angrily. “You idiot!”

After saying that, she walked towards the dimensional stability anchor in the distance to check the situation.

Looking at Li Zhanyi's retreating figure, Lin Chen racked his brains but couldn't figure out what he had said wrong again.

Hmm... she didn't feel offended...

Why did she ignore me then?

Girls' logic is so complicated...

Lin Chen sighed softly, stood up, and pressed his earpiece:

"Louis, what's the overall situation now?"

“We deployed 36 teams, and 17 of them have completed their missions so far. Some of the remaining teams have encountered difficulties, and some have lost contact.”

"Are there any teams nearby that are having trouble?" Lin Chen looked around.

"There are a few, actually I was just about to tell you, we might need to go and provide support, let's start with the squad that lost contact."

"Got it, then let's go and help them solve their problems."

After confirming that the anchor point was secure and leaving a few "police officers" to guard it, Lin Chen led the armed forces team toward the surrounding area.

The first area we arrived at was the "Gallery of Artists' Joy".

The previous team, unable to comprehend the painter's work, was trapped inside the painting, facing an eternal prison.

For the first time, Lin Chen felt the joy of having his profession matched. He analyzed the artist's work thoroughly, and the artist bowed deeply to him in the small gallery before turning and walking into a painting.

"Don't study art in your next life! AI is already going crazy!" Lin Chen waved at the physical figure's back. "Look at you, your obsession with not being able to find a job has turned you into this... This is practically another version of me from another timeline..."

The next block is "The Fisherman's Dream".

This is a boundless lake. On an island in the lake, a fisherman can be vaguely seen. Piranhas leap around in the lake, and any one of them is almost twice the size of Lin Chen.

“We can’t cross the river…” The wounded armed officers pointed to the island in the lake in the distance, “That fisherman… his head is moving at high speed in one place, the sniper can’t take him down.”

Lin Chen picked up his binoculars and took a look: the neck of the angling creature was a meter long, and it was constantly swaying up, down, left, right, front, and back...

Judging from his lip movements, Lin Chen roughly read his lips: How did you know? How did you know? How...

"Zhanyi." Lin Chen put down his binoculars and looked at Li Zhanyi beside him, noticing that she had already set up her sniper rifle.

"Wait a minute, students from the Rapid Response Division!" an operator rushed over. "If the sniping fails, those fish will fly ashore—"

"Boom——"

The bullet pierced through the misty lake and struck the fisherman's rapidly moving head.

Li Zhanyi predicted the trajectory of its head and killed it with a single blow.

“Gah——————”

The lake dried up, and the angler fell into the dried-up lakebed, lying on a thick mass of piranhas.

"May it rest in peace." Li Zhanyi stood up, and amidst the surprised gazes of the crowd, slung the sniper rifle back onto his back. "Let's go, next one."

After bypassing the great lake, the next area is called "Armed Maze".

This used to be a live-action CS (Counter-Strike) field, but now it's filled with real soldiers who will fire on anyone they see.

“There’s no special mechanism, they’re very accurate…” An operator, while receiving bandages, gave Lin Chen a wry smile. “Be careful.”

"Leave it to us." Lin Chen patted his shoulder.

He and Li Zhanyi exchanged a glance, grabbed their guns, and rushed into the maze.

Half an hour later, they emerged from the maze, holding several dark blue crystals in their hands.

"Solved," Lin Chen patted the operator on the shoulder, "Deploy the dimensional stabilizing anchor, shall we?"

"That's... all done?" The operative stared blankly at the four-thousand-yuan bills in Lin Chen's hand.

"It's all done." Lin Chen nodded.

"How did you do that...?"

"They can't beat us."

Lin Chen boarded the Armed Forces Department's jeep and waved to the operatives who were still in a daze.

"next."

"..."

During the journey, Li Zhanyi picked up his phone, glanced at it, and finally spoke:

"The section chief and the others are in the area ahead. They're calling us to come and meet them."

"Okay," Lin Chen nodded, "Are you still angry?"

Li Zhanyi glared at Lin Chen again, then turned her head away:

"I'm not angry anymore."

"That's good." Lin Chen breathed a sigh of relief.

Li Zhanyi turned around, stared at Lin Chen with hopeless eyes for a while, and then sighed helplessly.

“We’ve conquered 35 blocks, and there’s only one left, which is almost finished,” Li Zhanyi said, looking at his phone. “Ideal Country has hundreds of blocks; how long will this take?”

“There’s no need to test hundreds,” Professor Jürgen’s voice came through the headset. “Thirty-six blocks are enough to deduce the center location.”

"We are very close to our goal."

......

Chapter 102 Scorched Earth Warfare (Fourth Update)

The jeep was parked in the center of the dilapidated basketball court.

After getting off the bus, the first thing Lin Chen saw was Jiang Zhengge's swaying black trench coat, squatting in the corner of the basketball court.

He walked over and found Section Chief Jiang examining a skeleton dressed in a basketball uniform.

“The name of the ruins is ‘The Basketball Court Under the Never-Setting Sun’,” Jiang Zhengge said in a low voice. “The sun never sets here, and all the players are playing a never-ending game.”

He turned his head and pointed to the basket behind him. Lin Chen saw a gaping maw with sharp teeth at the mouth of the basket.

"However, their ball is the other's head."

"But in the end, this ruin was just caused by a dispute on the court. They probably had a fight. It was certainly emotional, but it shouldn't have caused the warp to erode."

“The foundation killed them,” Lin Chen sighed softly.

Jiang Zhengge stood up, patted Lin Chen on the shoulder, and said:

"Was it successful?"

"It went fairly smoothly."

Lin Chen turned his head and glanced at Li Zhanyi, only to see the girl chatting happily with Lucy not far away.

"But it seems I've angered Zhanyi."

"Young people need to work harder," Jiang Zhengge smiled. "Once you miss this opportunity, you'll never have another chance."

"Such a heavy comfort..." Lin Chen said helplessly.

"Alright, let's get down to business," Jiang Zhengge clapped his hands. "Everyone! Come on over for the meeting!"

Two minutes later, everyone gathered in the center of the basketball court, around the makeshift conference table.

There were four squads attending the meeting: three from the Armed Forces Section and one from the Rapid Response Section.

“Let me start with the good news,” Jiang Zhengge said, unfolding a map of the ideal world. “As our conquest progresses, Professor Jürgen has obtained enough data to roughly analyze the route to the ‘center’.”

"The center of the ideal country is not too far from here. Since our record is so good, we will be the vanguard from now on."

"And what's the bad news?" Li Zhanyi asked.

“The bad news is that the Orca can’t come here to pick us up,” Jiang Zhengge shrugged. “They encountered a strong subspace convection three minutes ago and were forced to leave the airspace. Unfortunately, the convection was right above us.”

"To reach the rendezvous point, we have to cross a large block, and this block is not easy to deal with."

Jiang Zhengge reached out his hand, and Lucy handed him the tablet.

He placed the tablet on the table, and everyone's attention focused on it:

"The name of the ruins, Scorched Earth Operation, is based on a small-scale regional conflict. This ruin has already been investigated, and our data is relatively complete."

"An endless war is raging inside the ruins, and the entities are divided into two factions."

One faction is the "Iron Torrent," and the other is the "Guerrilla Force."

"They fought and reborn constantly, the steel torrents sweeping flames across every corner of the battlefield, while the guerrillas kept trying to blow up those steel behemoths."

"Has Yudu ever had a war like this before?" Lin Chen asked, somewhat surprised.

“Don’t forget, Rain City was originally called Rain Town,” Jiang Zhengge said, looking at Lin Chen. “There is a faction among the native inhabitants of Rain Town who doesn’t like the Foundation and has been making things difficult for them during the development process. Their conflict has left behind many of these subspace ruins.”

"We are not in a hurry to conquer this ruin. After all, our primary task is to reach the center of the ideal state, so our next actions will focus on avoiding battle."

"The way to avoid war is simple: just join one of these entities, and they won't attack us. Then, while they're fighting, we can just pass through."

"Join one of the factions?" Li Zhanyi was taken aback, then became excited. "Does this mean..."

"Yes." Jiang Zhengge's lips curled up slightly.

Ten minutes later, infantry fighting vehicles were airdropped onto the open ground.

Some of the infantry fighting vehicles were destroyed when they passed through the strong subspace convection, but fortunately, the airdrop was saturation-type, so the losses were taken into account.

The funds approved by Director Hua Molan have been put to use.

Lin Chen and Li Zhanyi boarded an armored vehicle together, and as soon as they got inside, they found Louis already sitting inside.

"Why did you come down?" Lin Chen sat down next to Louis.

“The Scorched Earth operation is heavily jammed inside, making communication impossible. I have to come down and give you directions,” Louis sighed. “Besides, it’s really stuffy up here.”

"I thought you wanted to drive an infantry fighting vehicle," Lin Chen said.

“I don’t need to do it. This series of infantry fighting vehicles is managed by artificial intelligence, whether it’s the driver or the gunner,” Louis smiled. “I just need to give them instructions.”

Artillerymen are being powered by AI... that should make them more accurate than humans, right?

AI smart lock.

"..."

As the infantry fighting vehicles advanced over the ruins, Lin Chen felt a powerful thrust as they passed through the cracks at the edge of the block.

He looked out through the electronic display screen and saw that the bottom of the infantry fighting vehicle was spitting fire and flying around.