Chapter 501 The place where civilization first collapsed
The Great Desert is located in the west of Luoxia Province.
Although it is named after a desert, it is actually not as "desolate" as most wastelanders imagine.
The concrete buildings that collapsed or were submerged by yellow sand, as well as the rusty warehouses and factories, all indicate the prosperity of this place in the past. Even though the rolling yellow sand has been blowing for two centuries, it still has not destroyed this place.
Man-made wonders spanning thousands of kilometers were completely submerged.
Not only that, because the underground ocean current transportation pipelines intersect here, a large amount of desalinated seawater seeps into the underground rock formations due to pipeline rupture, forming a rich underground water reservoir.
Therefore, even though this area is filled with many meteorological disasters such as earthquakes, sandstorms, radioactive dust, and thunderstorms, the species active in this area are actually more prosperous than those in the Luoxia Province next door. The blessings left to Luoxia Province from that era
There are only a few oases, but the situation here is completely opposite. There are so many blessings left that it has overflowed with "Damn... what the hell is that?"
A giant snake as thick as an oil drum slowly swam between the two collapsed high-rise buildings. Its chapped skin was like dry yellow earth, lurking in the soft quicksand like a fallen giant tree.
Looking at the tens of meters long giant snake squirming forward in the quicksand, the soldier wearing the exoskeleton took two steps back with his scalp numb.
His name is Su Ming, and his position is a precision shooter. The number 26 printed on his chest plate and arms is his and his brothers' numbers, and it is also the logo of the "Enterprise Commando Team 26".
As one of the few companies that participated in the battle of Luoxia Province, the ground department
Teams, they mainly perform forward, guerrilla and sabotage missions behind enemy lines in war.
Although most residents of Ideal City attribute all the credit for the victory of the war to their allies, they actually participated in many battles. It just doesn't sound so good when written in a press release.
Walking next to Su Ming, Yun Song stared at the giant snake twice. The box in the tactical eyepiece locked it in the center, and the progress bar walked around the edge of the box.
"There is no record of it in the database... You discovered it first, how about you give it a name?" Su Ming touched the back of his head. "Sandworm"
Before Yun Song could say anything, Gu Wei, who was wearing power armor, laughed and joked. "It's too rustic, and there is already one in the desert next door. It's completely different from this guy." "Then...earth dragon? Big earthworm?"
Diggers?" "Just diggers... don't waste time."
Interrupting the conversation between the two, Yunsong stretched out his index finger and tapped twice in the air, operated the holographic window to save the image data, and then switched to the tactical map. "The target is about one kilometer ahead... Everyone should be more vigilant.
, we will be able to take our employees home soon." "Oh," Su Ming shouted feebly. They have been on duty for almost a full year.
Spanning thousands of kilometers of wasteland, he even got involved in the war in Luoxia Province. He kept thinking that he could make a movie about his experiences along the way. Under Yunsong's order,
The 26th Assault Team continued the operation. Led by the android soldiers and drones, the group advanced along the dilapidated concrete road for a while, carefully avoiding large expanses of quicksand and several areas with abnormal life signals.
At this time, there was new news from the communications corps. Yun Song raised his right fist and signaled the team to stop at the entrance of an abandoned factory.
At this point, they were only the last three hundred meters away from the mutant tribe. On the abandoned building in the distance, they could even see a camouflage bunker filled with garbage, as well as a mutant whistler standing guard with a telescope.
"!!! The mission status update is good news. The alliance has decided to send airships to support our operations before withdrawing its troops." After hearing this, many people breathed a sigh of relief.
They did not take everyone with them on this mission. More than 30 logistics personnel and more than 20 soldiers stayed at the camp site.
With ten units of power armor, thirty sets of exoskeletons, and less than thirty bionic soldiers, it is still difficult to kill a mutant tribe that is more than ten times their size without heavy fire support.
Even if they win, they will suffer a lot of casualties. The mutants in the desert don't just use iron barrel rifles. These beasts have mastered semi-automatic or even fully-automatic weapons through transactions with the Legion and the Falcon Kingdom.
Not to mention that they carry scraps and junk from the pre-war era, as well as DIY weapons. Those things may seem unreliable, but if you underestimate them, you will suffer big losses.
For example, a mutant they had seen before, armed with a melt ray gun made from the head and spine of the "Pioneer" robot, even killed one of their powered armors with a sneak attack.
These unexpected attack methods make it difficult for people to guard against. When he heard that the alliance's support was on the way, Su Ming said excitedly, "That 400mm heavy artillery." Yun Song nodded.
"Yes... including ground troops and those unreliable gliders, but we need to confirm that there are no of us in the camp before we can decide whether to use an ax or a scalpel." As he said that, he looked at the station. The drone operator at the back of the team. “I’ll leave the reconnaissance to you.” “Copy that.”
A man with a steady expression made a gesture, tapped his fist on his shoulder, and the drone backpack on his back opened the hatch. A four-rotor drone flew out like a crossbow, with a burst of 'Woo.' The whistling sound rose into the sky. The picture was connected to the helmet's tactical eyepiece.
Although the signal was very poor, it could barely be used. Under the control of the drone operator, the quadcopter drone carefully avoided the mutant sentry's sight, moved to the side of the building, and passed through rows of rows. Twisted steel and concrete debris flew over the mutant tribe. The entire tribe was located in an abandoned factory.
The shacks made of rubbish merged with the half-collapsed factory buildings. Large iron sheds and dried animal skins blocked the twisted alleys. However, through the gaps in the coverings, one could still see coal-like bodies. , with their bloodthirsty fangs and knotted muscles, they are just like orcs in fantasy movies.
What is chilling is that these animals that feed on fur and drink blood actually imitated humans and developed cities, and even clarified the division of labor in society...
There are residential areas that reek of feces, gladiatorial arenas where violence is unleashed and fun for mutants, blacksmith departments and tool workshops filled with the sound of forging, plantations where unknown fruits are grown, and incarcerated people.
Pasture for various livestock
Looking down at this huge tribe through the drone's lens, the drone operator only felt his scalp numb.
Especially when he found the same kind imprisoned in a cage in the garbage dump-like ending, anger rushed to his forehead. "Damn!!!" "What's wrong?" Hear him
With a low curse, Yun Song cast a questioning look at him.
The drone operator did not speak, but stretched out his index finger and swiped in the air, transferring the picture he saw to his teammates who were looking at him. The drone's lens zoomed in.
Inside the iron baskets made of rows of steel bars, there were bodies covered with scars and missing parts.
Most people with full bellies are considered "lucky". Mutants usually don't eat them, but those who fail to give birth to children are miserable. Many of them have been tortured, and not only have their arms and legs removed.
The legs and wounds were rotten and infested with maggots.
Mutants themselves have extremely strong recovery power and do not need bandages or anti-inflammatory drugs at all. Naturally, they will not bandage animals that have not eaten. Many people sit on the ground with their eyes blank, and they do not even have the strength to drive them away.
Surrounded by mosquitoes and flies, there were still people who were motionless, wondering if they were dead. Not far away, on the chopping board, a mutant priest with bare arms was using a primitive and rude method to deliver a baby to a human handcuffed to the chopping board.
They don't care if those people die in the process
Followers of Chaos are never picky eaters, their stomachs are as strong as their muscles and bones.
Those slaves who were kept as livestock may come from the Falcon Kingdom, or from the Honeybush or the Lion, or even were sent from further away by slave traders... Few people will pay attention to those who disappeared in the war.
Where did all the people go in the end.
Even though he had seen many hellish scenes during the march in the wasteland, Su Ming's face could not help but turn slightly pale. This was much crueler than those predators who had followed suit. The soldiers not far from him
, couldn't help but retched. "These beasts!" Gu Wei tightened his grip on the heavy machine gun in his hand, wishing he could rush in and shoot them all. "They are beasts to begin with, when did you think they weren't?
Already."
Yunsong expressionlessly operated on the holographic window, selected some areas of the camp, and marked the places where there might be living people. After doing all this, he signaled the signal soldiers to set up a signal enhancement device, roughly
Aimed in the direction of the Heart of Steel.
"This is the 26th Commando. We have confirmed the location of the Blackstone mutant tribe. The number of mutants is around two thousand, which is the same as the intelligence." "Survivors were found in the tribe... We can't get closer, we're not sure.
Are there any of our people inside? I hope not." After a burst of electric white noise, the answering voice came from the other end of the communication channel.
"Build an industrial center in the middle of the mainland"
For him coming from another world, this sounds a bit counterintuitive.
After all, in his hometown, most of the industrial areas are concentrated in the east, especially in the coastal areas. There are fewer industrial centers in the inland west and the distribution is relatively sparse. However, it seems to be a completely different story here. Wu Changnian nodded and continued.
.
"Yes, there are stable climate conditions here, far away from the junction of continental plates, there are no active earthquakes and volcanic activities, and unlike the sea or coast, typhoons blow from time to time... There is no place more suitable for building a space elevator base than here.
It’s a place.”
As he spoke, his tone couldn't help but have a hint of emotion. "At first it was just an elevator, and then the dense transportation network began to extend to low-Earth orbit, and gradually turned into a tower, a mountain, and even a bigger mountain.
Endless and rich resources poured from space to the surface of the earth, and their abundance was astonishing... The prosperity of that era was difficult to imagine in this era, and even the ideal city only restored the tip of the iceberg.'
Wu Changnian had also heard that in the original plan, the People's Federation planned to use the space elevator as the center to radiate the city cluster to all corners of the Central Continent in another two centuries. Using the energy and alloys obtained from space mining,
Turn the entire planet into a world
Uto City.
That blueprint is a collection of everyone's dreams throughout the prosperous era. Personal ideals, ambitions and imaginations will extend infinitely on this infinitely prosperous planet, and use it as a starting point to spread to more distant galaxies.
But it is a pity that a war that lasted only three years made all his dreams come to nothing. While Wu Changnian was thinking about the past, Chu Guang, who was standing next to him, had not yet learned from that huge blueprint.
Come back to your senses.
Although something that can be seen with the naked eye is not bragging, he still can't figure out how this huge industrial center was placed in the middle of the continent. "Where does the industrial water come from?"
Wu Changnian was stunned for a moment. He didn't expect that his focus would be here, and then he laughed and said. "Isn't there an underground ocean current pipeline? What do you think the Great Rift Valley was used to do before?" Chu Guang suddenly came back to his senses.
He seemed to have heard vaguely before that the existence of the Great Rift Valley was to store the surplus energy generated by the controllable fusion power station, and the specific way to achieve this was to electrolyze seawater. As for the surplus chlorine, sodium and various kinds of water precipitated from seawater
Metal elements and other by-products will be packaged and sent to industrial areas for processing. It turns out that the underground ocean current pipeline was not just built for the Great Rift Valley, but also for the purpose of transporting industrial water to the center of the continent. The great power of that era was actually
It was more terrifying than he imagined!!! Chu Guang was shocked and his scalp was numb.
Especially when I think of those fakes I pretended to be at the beginning, and those "cakes" I drew for Yin Fang, Heya, Vanus and other survivors... How the hell can we return to the greatness of the Prosperity Era? Mobilize Seventy
One billion players are not enough!
What's more, it is obvious that the morphological formation field cannot hold so many people... Otherwise, there is no reason why the first-generation administrator would set up many rules and "issue activation codes" to him in a planned way. I don't know what Chu Guang was thinking at this moment, Wu Changnian laughed.
Laughed and continued.
"Of course, the solid hydrogen underground in the Great Rift Valley is a strategic reserve and will not be used normally. The main supply of industrial water is the southern industrial zone. It is not only an energy hub, but also responsible for seawater desalination and sewage recycling... too
I don’t know much about it as a professional. I just took a rough look at it from the database. If you want to have a deeper understanding of how the entire system works, you have to ask experts in this field.
"In short, the four major industrial zones account for more than 60% of the People's Federation's GDP, and the peak is said to have reached 70%." "So remember, no one knows what will be in Vault 0. Our last
Be careful and arrange the candidates carefully." Listening to the cautious tone, Chu Guang also nodded seriously. "I will arrange for a shelter resident with outstanding sensory abilities. Wu Changnian nodded approvingly. "This is the best."
He had heard about the number of awakened people per capita in Vault 404.
Although he believes more in al and machines than in unstable biological factors such as awakening, in previous wars, the Alliance has proven that humans are not inferior to machines under certain circumstances, and can even create miracles that machines cannot achieve.
Bringing two more reliable experts is never a bad thing.
And this is why he was able to convince the enterprise and the legion to help the alliance, which had "no experience in excavation of ruins," win two places. There was only one access card.
According to the description of the employee named Luo Hua, the elevator they found leading to Vault 0 was not very big, and the number of people who could go down at one time was limited...
At this moment, the bridge door opened.
Vanus came in from the outside, gave a military salute, and said neatly.
"News came from the 26th Commando of the Enterprise. They have confirmed the coordinates of the Blackstone Mutant Tribe, but they are not sure whether there are employees of the Enterprise among the slaves imprisoned by the mutants. "If you can't be sure whether it exists, then it will exist by default," he turned around and looked
To Vanus, Chu Guang said seriously, "Do you have a new battle plan?" Vanus nodded.
"The battle plan is a frontal attack. We have informed the 26th Commando that fire support will arrive in half an hour. They intend to launch an attack in half an hour and lure enemy units to their recommended artillery coordinates."
"Very good, let's go with this plan," Chu Guang nodded, and after a moment of pause, he continued to order, "Let the airship's artillery positions prepare for firepower, and at the same time have the Burning Corps on standby below the deck, ready to support our allies."
"Yes!" After giving a neat military salute, Vanus turned and walked out of the bridge. Looking away from his back, Wu Changnian looked at Chu Guang with a grateful look. "Thank you for your kindness to me.
Employees Fang’s attention.” Chu Guang said with a faint smile.
"You're welcome, the crew of the Pioneer are not only our friends, they are also kind to us."
Without that epoch-making machine tool, subsequent industrialization would not have progressed so smoothly. No matter how big the imaginations of young players are, they still have to have something to turn their ideas into reality.
Although it was a deal where each took what he needed, he knew very well that the other party actually took good care of them, otherwise he would not have acquiesced in allowing them so much wool. When he parted with Captain Lu Yang, he said that he would remember this favor.
Now is the time to repay this favor... But then again, is that person from Weiland?" Wu Changnian suddenly said as if he thought of something. "Well, yes."
Seeing Chu Guang's reaction was so bland, Wu Changnian couldn't help but ask, "Is it really okay?"
He had just reminded the young leader to be careful with every Weiland person. Looking at the slightly concerned look, Chu Guang said nonchalantly, "He stayed here voluntarily."
Before going to Luoxia Province, Chu Guang had discussed this issue with Vanus. If he felt embarrassed to fight with the Legion, he could stay in Qingquan City. He would not force anyone to participate in a war that he did not want to participate in.
Objectively speaking, Vanus's training of officers for the Alliance and his contribution to the Alliance's establishment of a command system in the early days of its business are enough to repay his "debt". After the war, he can be exchanged for prisoners of war like other prisoners.
Back in his hometown, no one would know he ever played for the league.
However, after hearing his proposal, Vanus not only decisively rejected this only opportunity to go home, but even stood magnanimously in front of Finold and McClun, the two prisoners who were destined to be exchanged back, as a sign of gratitude.
own loyalty to the alliance.
The reason he gave made Chu Guang silent for a long time.
"!!!! I spent a year thinking about the meaning of this war, but we seemed to get nothing except hatred and death. My troops were meaninglessly wiped out in the south. My commanders and
His men were wiped out in the north. At the moment of failure, I didn't have any regrets, but felt a little relieved."
"I don't think His Majesty the Marshal is wrong, nor do I think General Klass is stupid. Maybe if we continue to follow their path, we can really lead to a better future, but we don't understand it at the moment."
"As General Klass often said, we are extremely vicious criminals. All of us will be nailed to the pillar of shame by future generations for reflection, but they will thank us for leaving them a vast and boundless world.
In that world, there are only Weiland people, and the Weiland people will not hate the Weiland people, and the tragedies that happened before... whether it was two hundred years ago or in the more distant past, will never happen again."
"But with you, I see another possibility that we have never imagined. Maybe there is a unity in this world that transcends blood... Just like Yu said, we are all survivors, whether we are in the shelter
Residents, or outsiders from the wasteland. It’s not one of us that should be eliminated, but the barbarism raging in the wasteland.”
"War is a job for me, and unfortunately it's the only thing I can do. But if it can have even the slightest meaning with you, please let me be by your side.
Keep going."
At the same time, on the lower deck, the flashing signal lights had already conveyed the battle order.
An eager player has already put on his exoskeleton, picked up the most elite equipment, and brought plenty of ammunition. This time he is going to pick up an old friend and go home.
Moreover, it was an open military operation under the joint gaze of the three forces: the legion, the enterprise, and the academy.
Everyone is ready to show off in front of those old guys and show the new Governor of the Valelands whether they lost unjustly or not. "Brothers! This time the opponent is a mutant.
! Back on 76th Street, our friends from the East Coast took advantage of us. It’s our turn to take advantage of them this time. "We walked up to a group of good brothers.
Lao Bai, who was wearing dragoon power armor, glanced around at the imposing brothers and said loudly with a loud voice. "There is only one purpose of the operation -" "Leave no one behind."
Deafening shouts came from the cabin door leading to the deck, and even the gold floor shook violently under the burning fighting spirit. "Oh oh oh" "Kill all those beasts"