Chapter 724: Issues

Chapter 724: Issues

Shane stepped into the Portal Hall’s Gate… In just a moment, the world around him started bending momentarily like ripples over a lake.

With a soft hum, the teleportation ended.

The New Genesis air felt a lot more refreshing than he thought… Perhaps it was due to the number of vehicles and fuel consumption in the Eclipse Domain; he felt that this place was a lot cleaner…

As he looked outside the Portal Hall, he realized that it was dark.

Not because it was late, but it seemed like there would be a lightning storm soon.

Anyway, Shane took a quick look at the Warden Units assigned to this place.

They flanked the portal’s exit and seemed to be inactive. However, he had no doubt that these Units would move the moment they detected any danger.

After some time, two human guards wearing reinforced composite armor arrived and saluted sharply.

“Welcome back, Commander!” one of them greeted. His nameplate read Odelin, and he was excited to see Shane.

Although he knew that the man didn’t know him for sure, he still felt glad that he was able to see the man in the many monuments or statues within the Shelter.

“Hello… How’s the shelter?” Shane casually asked as he approached the guards.

“Shelter’s secure, Commander. Perimeter reports zero incidents in the last 48 hours,” the second guard replied while handing Shane a brief report about the shelter’s situation.

“Good…” Shane replied, nodding. “Take me to the Mech Division.”

“Right this way, sir!”

He was quickly escorted down a wide walkway paved with shock-absorbent black tiles.

The walls of the Mech Division Building had been reinforced spirit alloy—built not just to stop bullets, but also to resist elemental blasts.

Unlike his other shelters, New Genesis had a different character. It wasn’t merely defensive—it was filled with innovation.

Along the way, he passed a squad of Warden Units in perfect formation. They looked quite different compared to others, as each of them was clad in angular armor that looked freshly forged. They paused only briefly, saluting as Shane strode past.

‘They don’t really have to do that…’ Shane mused as he didn’t mind if the Warden Units completely ignored him like the ones in the Portal Hall.

Anyway, after a short walk, they reached the Mech Division Building. It was a massive, hangar-like structure that occupied a huge part of the shelter’s inner sector.

There were also twin blast doors at the front that opened with a deep groan of metal… Soon, it revealed the huge interior meant to accommodate not just a dozen Mech Frames but a hundred of them.

Inside, technicians moved like ants beneath the towering skeletons of some half-assembled mech frames.

He could see that sparks flew from welding tools while robotic arms moved overhead.

There were also steel plating clanging onto hulls, and some technicians reporting the status of some parts and listing them out.

Then, there were also several workers in reinforced exosuits doing some labor work like carrying heavy parts. They would also run diagnostics and double-check power cores.

A small group near the central hangar noticed Shane and immediately straightened.

Among them was Chief Rhona, a stout, dark-skinned woman with black hair tied back in a braid. Her right arm looked like it was replaced by a magi-tech prosthetic, but it was just like a gauntlet for her as it could help her assess the parts of the Mech Frames a lot easier.

“Commander!” Rhona grinned as she wiped the sweat off her brow with a grease-stained cloth. “Was wondering when you’d drop by. You missed the test run of Vanguard’s new Lance. She dented a reinforced bunker wall—by accident.”

Shane knew about the new Lance that they were developing, it would enhance the Vanguard’s fighting capabilities… After all, the strength of the Zombie Lords had gotten a lot stronger. They needed new ways of competing against their opponents.

Shane smiled and nodded…. “I hope the bunker didn’t hit back.”

“Nah, but she scared the piss out of the engineers who thought it was inactive,” Rhona chuckled.

Shane walked beside her as they moved toward the AEGIS hangars, where the towering mech frames were docked like resting titans.

AEGIS-01 “Juggernaut” stood imposingly to their right. The mech’s plated arms were even crossed over its chest like a mechanical war god.

‘Did they really have to put him in that position?’ Shane chuckled as he looked at it…

Anyway, he could see some red lines pulsed across its frame, denoting active status.

Beside it was AEGIS-02 “Vanguard,” sleeker but no less deadly. At this time, the joints were already reinforced with a new alloy Shane hadn’t seen yet.

“What’s the status on our production queue?” he asked.

“We’re ahead of schedule on AEGIS-03’s changes…,” Rhona replied. “Your input on integrating the new power core made by elves really boosted efficiency. They even installed a cooling array based on that elemental feedback you shared.”

Shane studied the new design of AEGIS-03 Phantom and nodded.

“And the pilot candidates?”

“We’ve got eight more potentials. None of ’em perfect, but one stood out—kid from yesterday’s recruit, shows great synchronization with the mech components. We’re putting him through sim-runs next week.”

Shane nodded slowly. “Good. Now… Tell me about the problem you mentioned in your message.”

Rhona’s expression grew more serious as they walked toward a heavily sealed sub-bay within the Mech Division, where a pair of AEGIS prototypes were currently isolated under quarantine.

She tapped the side of her magi-tech prosthetic, bringing up a series of floating holograms—schematics, diagnostics, energy graphs, and timestamped logs.

Needless to say, it was an item that was brought from Anima Store with Cloud’s enhancement. The display hovered between them as they walked.

“It’s AEGIS-03 Phantom and AEGIS-05 Reaper, Commander…” she began. “They were stable last week. But two days ago, we noticed spike anomalies in their core reactors—specifically the new Mana-Channeling Interface you helped design with Cloud and the Elves.”

Shane frowned. “Spikes?”