Upon hearing the artificial intelligence’s attack command, Li Wei knew he couldn’t just sit and wait to die.

He knew they had to act immediately, or they would face a merciless assault from the robots.

"Attack now! Take out their weapon systems first."

Li Wei shouted as his body reacted instantly. He raised his assault rifle and opened fire on the tracked robot at the very front.

The Mercenaries also snapped into combat readiness. They quickly found nearby cover, raised their weapons, and took aim at the robots ahead.

The battle erupted before the AI’s alarm had even finished sounding.

Li Wei’s assault rifle spat a torrent of fire. Aided by his exoskeleton and helmet-mounted sight, he could hit every shot within a hundred meters, let alone in such a confined space.

His bullets found their mark on the defense robot. Sparks flew from the camera and weapon platform of the lead robot.

Not to be outdone, the other Mercenaries aimed at their own targets and opened fire.

The sounds of gunfire and whirring machinery mingled, echoing down the entire corridor.

Having received their attack orders, the tracked robots’ weapon platforms began spitting fire, unleashing a hail of bullets on the Mercenaries.

However, using the available cover, the Mercenaries effectively evaded the volley and began to return fire.

The moment the gunfire erupted, the other team, which had already reached the second floor, was met with an identical assault.

Li Wei’s assault rifle spat fire as his bullets precisely struck and destroyed one robot’s weapon system.

In the brief pauses between bursts, he also targeted and shattered the overhead cameras.

One after another, the defense robots were eliminated. From time to time, a muffled grunt or a cry of alarm could be heard from the Mercenary ranks.

The fight didn’t last long. After all, it was twenty against eight.

And among those twenty was Li Wei, a fighter whose combat power was in a league of its own.

The battle lasted for several minutes. In the end, all the tracked robots were successfully destroyed.

Li Wei watched the last tracked robot fall and quietly breathed a sigh of relief.

He looked over at the Mercenaries, and his brow instantly furrowed.

The casualties were worse than he had expected.

Although they had ended the fight quickly, the Mercenaries were a motley crew, hired on a temporary basis.

Some hadn’t reacted quickly enough to the sudden attack and had suffered injuries of varying severity.

Li Wei quickly assessed the surrounding Mercenaries.

He saw three people on the ground, their status unknown, while the rest were all wounded to some degree.

"Zhang Qiang, Kate, check on your people. Give me a casualty report."

He had just given the order to count the casualties when Deng Yu’s voice crackled in his headset.

"The condition of this shelter is better than we thought."

"I’ve got two dead, three with light injuries, and two with heavy injuries. How are things on your end?"

Li Wei exhaled slowly.

"We’re counting now. But I think our situation might be even worse than yours."

Deng Yu fell silent for a moment before replying in a low voice:

"The defensive capabilities of this shelter are stronger than we anticipated. Be careful."

Li Wei replied,

"I know. You be careful too."

After the call ended, Zhang Qiang and Kate reported their squads’ casualties.

Zhang Qiang’s voice was heavy. "We have two dead, three with minor injuries, and one with a serious injury."

Kate’s voice was tinged with anxiety. "It’s about the same over here. One dead, two with minor injuries."

’Three dead, five lightly wounded, and one heavily wounded.’

Hearing the report, Li Wei’s expression grew darker.

’This group is even more useless than I thought.’

’The enemy was just eight of the most common tracked robots with conventional weapons. How could they take this much damage when they had cover???’

’I’m starting to wonder how these people even managed to survive this long.’

’A 15% mortality rate and a 30% injury rate... completely unacceptable.’

’I thought that even if their skills were uneven, they would at least have some combat experience from scraping by in the Wasteland World.’

’But now it’s clear their actual combat skills are far below my expectations.’

’Honestly, if I hadn’t been fighting alongside them, I have a feeling these eight robots could have wiped out at least half the team.’

He let out a slow breath and pressed a button on his left thigh. Several dark-green injectors popped out from the side of his leg armor.

He pulled out five of the injectors and handed them to Zhang Qiang and Kate.

"Here are five healing injectors. They’ll speed up wound recovery."

Zhang Qiang looked at the three injectors in his hand and quickly spoke up.

"Sir, we have four wounded here."

Li Wei shot Zhang Qiang an icy glare and spoke, his words deliberate and cold.

"These are just basic healing injectors. They’re useless for serious injuries. Understand?"

Zhang Qiang felt a chill run up his spine as Li Wei’s gaze swept over him.

’I get what he’s saying,’ he thought. ’The injectors only work on minor injuries. That means the seriously wounded man is just being left to die.’

He nodded quickly, not daring to object further.

Kate, looking just as tense, took her injectors and quickly turned to treat the wounded.

Li Wei scanned his surroundings, thinking to himself.

’We won this fight, but the cost was too high.’

’We may still have a decent number of combat-ready personnel, but this is a temporary squad. If we take too many more casualties, no amount of pay or threats will be enough to make them continue the mission.’

’I need to reassess this team’s combat effectiveness, as well as the enemy we’re up against.’

He knew all too well that in this dangerous Wasteland World, any mistake could be fatal.

He took a deep breath and issued a new command:

"Everyone, sort out your gear! Check your weapons and ammo.

We can’t stay here long. We need to move out of this area ASAP."

The Mercenaries moved quickly, checking their equipment and weapons.

「Meanwhile.」

Deng Yu watched as the last of the lightly wounded finished their treatment, then immediately gave an order to his team.

"Pick up the pace! We’re about fifty meters from the archives."

"Let’s push through in one go before the other defense robots have a chance to react!"

Although the team led by Deng Yu had also been attacked, their situation was clearly much better than Li Wei’s.

After resting for just a few minutes, Deng Yu led his Mercenaries onward, leaving the two heavily wounded men behind.

While the others were getting their gear ready, Xisuo quietly leaned toward his younger brother’s ear and whispered something only the two of them could hear.

"Something’s not right. Use the Ruiyi 01."

"We need to be extra vigilant."

"If things go south, activate your ability and get out of here immediately."

Simon immediately objected.

"No! If I leave, what about you?"

Xisuo glared at his younger brother, frustrated by his naivete.

"You leave first, and then I’ll find a chance to get away. Do you want both of us to die in here?"

"Listen to me. You run first. I’ll be fine."