CHAPTER 354: CHAPTER 11: FEAR

When Lynch leads a convoy of three to four hundred survivors from other towns, sprinting like a long serpent along the road, the remaining survivors within Avoni Town also gather together.

A town is truly vast. Originally, two to three thousand residents were spread over an area of roughly seven to eight square kilometers.

Just with Zhou Qingfeng’s handful of personnel, it’s impossible to control the entire town; at most, they can clean up the area around the camp.

This time, with an external enemy attacking, the remaining survivors in the town received the news and were all eager to act, planning to provide support.

Scott thus serves as the liaison between inside and outside the town. According to the plan, once Lynch’s team arrives outside the town, he needs to take the lead in sabotaging the surveillance equipment and automatic weapon stations set up within the town.

"I hate high-tech!" Scott leads four to five people, crouching behind the fence wall of a villa.

Inside the wall is an abandoned desolate street, with a row of solar-powered streetlights mostly out of service. The road is strewn with dead trees, fallen leaves, and weeds.

The stray cats and dogs in the town have been hunted clean, but there are some unknown birds chirping on the dead trees, occasionally descending to peck at grass seeds on the ground.

At the top of a streetlight pole, the Holy Light crew installed infrared and optical dual monitoring devices, along with accompanying automatic weapon stations.

When personnel pass by or if the ground undergoes changes, the monitoring devices will identify and alarm. Once danger is confirmed, the automatic weapon station will fire.

"This thing is too inhumane."

If the Holy Light team has scavengers needing to enter, they can use a LAN built by wireless routers to preemptively shut down weapon stations in specific areas.

But in case of an emergency or during nighttime, these weapon stations are surely activated—anyone daring to show themselves faces the threat of death.

Scott doesn’t dare to recklessly expose himself, so he cautiously takes out a broken mirror piece, slowly extends it from the corner of the wall, trying to observe whether the weapon station approximately thirty meters away on the streetlight pole is aimed at them.

However, the mirror piece is really too small. He squints his eyes and looks for a long time, until sweat drips from his forehead, before gasping and muttering:

"Thank God, it looks like those yellow-skinned monkeys don’t have much heavy firepower; the weapon station only has a semi-automatic AR-15. The firepower isn’t strong, and the muzzle isn’t directly aimed at us."

Behind Scott, the tightly huddled survivors’ faces remain heavy; no one thinks this is good news, nor does anyone naively believe they can confront an automatic weapon station head-on.

"Don’t panic, I have a way." Scott quietly reassures, waving his hand, "After all, it’s just a machine, it’s not human, it isn’t intelligent." He gestures, "Push up the hay bales we prepared."

Since the town’s population drastically reduced, without maintenance, weeds have grown like wild horses breaking loose.

Four to five survivors jointly move several large hay bales to the edge of the fence wall, then carefully push them out.

Scott takes out his lighter, ’crack, crack’ ignites the kindling in his hand, then forcefully pushes the half-human high dry hay bale outward.

The dry hay is instantly swallowed by flames, rising into a roaring fire and billowing thick smoke.

The opposite infrared monitoring probe quickly reacts, the camera swiftly rotates, the weapon station’s muzzle also adjusts, aiming at the flames... and then, as if a crashed machine, it freezes.

"Move, change direction!" Before the first hay bale completely burns out, Scott again leads people to quickly shift to another direction, igniting the same hay bales.

Multiple fire points simultaneously appear, triggering the monitoring system’s alarm, but the automatic weapon stations clearly cannot shoot at the flames, only futilely turning their muzzles, completely losing sight of their target.

Scott reveals a mock smile, pokes his head out from a surveillance dead angle, raises his gun, aims at the streetlight pole twenty to thirty meters away, and pulls the trigger.

After a burst of short shots, the monitoring equipment along with its base is knocked down.

"See? It’s simple." Scott blows the muzzle, disdainfully saying, "Just use your brains, nothing can’t be handled."

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Abandoned wooden houses are everywhere in Avoni Town, perfect combustibles.

The survivors quickly tear down numerous planks, pile them up, and set them ablaze; the flames and smoke they produce are enough to interfere with, even disable, those high-tech surveillance devices.

The survivors following Scott are thrilled by this, as if they’ve found a weapon to counter the Holy Light crew. Several successful sabotage actions bring smiles to everyone’s faces.

Just as Scott is preparing to expand the victory and further cripple the town’s surveillance network, a sudden urgent and desperate cry for help comes through the radio... "Enemy attack! We’re under enemy assault! Urgent need for assistance!"

"Who are you? Which group are you?" Scott quickly presses the communication button on the walkie-talkie, urgently asking: "Clarify your specific location!"

"I’m Denzel from Group Two; we’re over by the convenience store!" The cry for help carries a noticeable tremble, "Wah is already dead! Drones and mechanical dogs are chasing us!"

Immediately afterward, the walkie-talkie emits several dull gunshots, followed by chilling screams and wails, as if some monster is hunting.

Scott’s heart wells with annoyance; he really loathes this situation. Those damned yellow-skinned monkeys may lack other things, but their technological equipment is strangely advanced.