The bulldozer worked hard, clearing away the top layer of yellow sand and rubble from the surface, but it also consumed a lot of diesel, which made Brian Sullivan feel distressed. Diesel is used up bit by bit, and without finding a new energy source to replace it, it is an even more precious strategic resource than gold.

“After replenishing the water supply, I’ll head toward the provincial capital to see if I can find a gas station. If I can salvage some diesel or gasoline, the King Kong can keep moving forward. If not, I’ll just have to rely on solar charging and drift along slowly.”

The clearing operation lasted for an hour and a half.

Finally, the entrance to the underground warehouse was found.

After clearing a passable path to the entrance, Brian Sullivan didn’t rush in recklessly. The incident at the Carrefour supermarket had left him with a shadow.

So Brian Sullivan took out his high-tech equipment—a remote-controlled toy car equipped with a camera.

The toy car zipped into the underground warehouse, and the video feed started coming through. The warehouse was quite large, divided into separate compartments. The toy car found nothing in the first compartment except for some rubble and patches of black stains.

When it reached the second compartment, there was a closed door blocking the toy car from going further.

Brian Sullivan could only drive the toy car back and prepare to go down himself. Ordinary stab-proof clothing no longer offered much protection, so to increase his sense of security, he decided to make himself a suit of armor—an active combat suit.

This idea was also inspired by the way the fang dagger had split open the skull of the giant-toothed rat.

Since the fang dagger could be infused with activity, in theory, it should be possible to use active cores like fangs to forge an active combat suit. Currently, due to limited resources, there weren’t enough active cores available, so Brian Sullivan thought of the King Kong. The entire King Kong was active.

With active steel plate armor, the protection was greatly enhanced compared to ordinary steel plates.

So, could he use the King Kong’s active steel plates to make an active combat suit?

Although once the components were cut from the King Kong, they would quickly lose their activity, there was a half-hour window during which the activity wouldn’t disappear. Brian Sullivan could use this period to make an active combat suit that would last just half an hour.

Once the half hour was up, the suit would lose its activity.

He could then give the suit back to the King Kong to be assimilated with its alloy ability, infuse it with activity again, and when needed, cut it off for another half hour of active combat suit time.

A genius idea!

Brian Sullivan couldn’t help but feel a bit proud.

While making the active combat suit, he had another wild thought: if he embedded an active core into the suit and used his own activity as a guide, could he extend the duration of the suit’s activity?

Currently, Brian Sullivan had fourteen wolf fangs, a pair of burrower pincers, and a pair of giant-toothed rat incisors.

Enough to test his theory.

As a DIY expert with outstanding skills, it was very easy for Brian Sullivan to make a suit of armor, and now that he was as strong as an ox, he didn’t need to worry about the weight—he could carry it.

So.

Two days later, a rough suit of armor assembled from steel plates and embedded with two fangs—the Optimus Prime 1.0 Active Combat Suit—was born.

It looked hideous, even uglier than the original Iron Man suit.

But when Brian Sullivan put it on, he felt an overwhelming sense of security.

Even if he encountered that monster capable of biting through rebar, he might not win, but at least he’d have a chance to escape.

Interestingly, the activity of the suit seemed to have a strange reaction with the fangs, organically merging together, making Brian Sullivan feel that the rate at which the suit lost its activity was greatly reduced. The suit, which was expected to last half an hour, could now be used for at least three hours at this rate.

Clang, clang.

Brian Sullivan, wearing the active combat suit, holding a high-quality replica 64 pistol that had been infused with activity, with two fang daggers at his waist and a hand crossbow slung across his back, was armed to the teeth as he headed toward the warehouse.

The warehouse was empty, with only Brian Sullivan’s own footsteps echoing.

The infrared thermal imager over his left eye didn’t pick up any high-heat objects either.

Brian Sullivan first went to the first compartment. The toy car had previously found some black stains there, and Brian Sullivan was curious about what they were. When he got closer, he realized that these black stains looked a lot like blood marks.

“Blood stains?”

This discovery immediately made Brian Sullivan tense up, but he couldn’t tell whether these were bloodstains from two months ago or from after the apocalypse.

He could only be even more cautious.

He pushed open the door to the second compartment.

As soon as the door opened, a wave of putrid stench hit him. The warehouse, which should have been used to store bottled water, was now a chaotic pile of at least a dozen human corpses, along with the rotting remains of several unknown monsters.

“Ugh!”

Brian Sullivan had never seen such a disgusting scene with his own eyes before and almost retched.

After gagging for a while, he felt much better. He rationally accepted everything before him and didn’t leave. Although the corpses were disgusting, they were safe. Brian Sullivan instinctively wasn’t afraid of dead bodies.