Siege

In the conference room, Director Yingwei's voice seemed to echo, while below him, no one spoke for a moment, as if they had not yet recovered from the shocking images on the screen. Director Yingwei waited a moment, then pushed himself up with his cane. Looking around at everyone, he said in a heavy voice, "Gentlemen, the Center City government has dispatched armed forces to surround us. They clearly intend to wipe out Ferris Wheel Company. But we cannot back down; we must make the Center City government understand our resolve to fight at any cost!" He raised his voice. "I propose activating the active conscious entity Wu Qi. If they want to destroy us, then they must be prepared to pay the price of having the entire Yinglu District devastated along with us!" The director presiding over the meeting frowned at him. "Director Yingwei, you are being too extreme." Director Yingwei snapped, "At a time like this, do we have a better alternative?" The presiding director shook his head. "Matters haven't reached that point yet." He looked around at all the assembled directors and said in a low, somber voice, "Gentlemen, the Center City armed forces are in such a hurry to attack us, even going so far as to strike right before the Fumu split—they must have bypassed the Municipal Council. We can find a way to use a secure line to contact the council and have them halt the Center City forces' advance." The directors present had still been reeling from the news of the fleet's defeat, only to suddenly witness the arrival of government troops; they had been incapable of coherent, rational thought. Reminded of this now, they gradually regained their composure. After thinking it over, everyone felt this was a sound response. Even though the Center City Council would surely take advantage of the situation to extort greater benefits from them, compared to the company's survival, that was nothing. As long as they preserved the company, they still had a chance. If they could spend a decade building this up, they could spend another decade doing it again. Director Yingwei shook his head. "Perhaps that would have worked before, but it's too late now. Gentlemen, government troops are already at our doorstep, and the airspace overhead is blockaded by airships. They will surely jam every informational field and seal off all routes in and out. They won't allow us to transmit a single message." One director couldn't help countering, "How do we know without trying?" Director Yingwei did not insist. "Then try it. But while we wait, we cannot let the government forces crush us first. We must arm all company personnel and hold out until the message gets through." No one objected to this. The board immediately reached a consensus and issued orders to Guan Shangjing, granting him broad security clearances while simultaneously attempting to bypass the information blackout and contact figures in the Municipal Council. Upon receiving instructions from the company leadership, Guan Shangjing immediately mobilized and organized personnel. However, in order to seize the split sub-body earlier, they had dispatched a security force of around a thousand men, which had virtually drained Ferris Wheel Company of its primary combat strength. Now, fewer than two hundred regular armed security personnel remained. Even arming the other employees on duty would not produce sufficient numbers. As a result, many of the company's perimeter fortifications and firing points could neither be manned nor activated; they could only defend key positions. Just as he was redeploying and making arrangements, the enemy's assault had already begun. First came the airships hovering high above. Reaching the airspace over the perimeter of the company headquarters, their underbelly bomb bay doors swung open, dropping high-explosive bombs one after another. Although long-range machine guns were mounted atop the Ferris Wheel Company building, they posed little threat to the high-flying airships; the defenders could only watch helplessly. As violent explosions thundered, perimeter fortifications, firing points, outer walls, and even the electrified barrier nets suspended overhead were swiftly cleared away. This round of bombing lasted over half an hour. When the airships finally pulled back, only billowing plumes of thick smoke remained. Xu Chan stood on a rooftop, observed for a moment, and issued his second order to the units below. A moment later, dense swarms of bio-combat weapons began charging toward the Ferris Wheel building from their positions, flying and leaping forward. To handle this Fumu split, the Municipal Administration had specially procured a large batch of combat mantises from Compound Eye Company, which had proven remarkably effective. However, not only were such combat weapons expensive in their own right, but their dedicated high-energy nutrient solutions were equally costly. Consequently, the vast majority of the attacking force consisted of Great Shun's domestically developed modified combat organisms. Gunfire immediately erupted from the Ferris Wheel Company building. Even hidden firing points were forced to open fire, for these creatures were small, fast, highly lethal, ubiquitous, and seemingly endless in number. Once they infiltrated inside, ordinary combat personnel were virtually helpless against them. The combat mantises in particular were blindingly fast and devastatingly destructive; unless one was a fighter, it was simply impossible to stop them. Ferris Wheel Company unleashed its remaining bio-weapons in response. The two sides clashed continuously in midair and on the ground, tumbling together in savage slaughter. While fierce combat raged at the front, bubbles churned noisily across the surface of the sea behind Ferris Wheel Company. Creatures resembling a hybrid of lizard and fish—bearing four legs and a caudal fin—surfaced from the depths. They swiftly scrambled up the sloping seawall, traversed the rear areas previously covered by electrified nets and firing points, disregarded the complex terrain and obstacles, and scaled the building's exterior walls, burrowing inward the moment they found a gap or entrance. These were amphibious combat organisms developed by Canglong Company, designed during naval engagements to climb from the water onto ships and attack combatants. The joint fleet had brought them along for the recent sea battle, but because Ferris Wheel Company's fleet collapsed so quickly, they had never been deployed. Now, however, they had the opportunity to prove their worth. With the advent of bio-weapons and implant-augmented troops, modern warfare had completely transformed; conventional forces below a certain scale were largely useless. Nevertheless, fighters still occupied a pivotal position on the battlefield. Even an ostensibly archaic military model like that of the former imperial house retained formidable combat capability thanks to the participation of sufficient numbers of fighters. Xu Chan stood at the rear, observing the battle. Though a fighter himself, he did not rush forward right away, instead adhering to standard tactical procedure. Airship bombardment, neutralization of firing points, advancing modified organisms—if repelled, another round of bombardment and demolition to further clear defensive positions, followed by sending in more modified organisms. In short, using overwhelming force to roll steadily forward. If enemy fighters appeared, they had fighter-tier snipers standing ready. Such individuals might be rare elsewhere, but the Defense Department could mobilize plenty of them. Under this threat, fighters within Ferris Wheel Company dared not show their heads outside at all. Under such an assault, the outer wall defenses of Ferris Wheel Company were breached in less than an hour, and large waves of modified organisms began infiltrating the building's interior. Before Xu Chan sat a biological device that projected a fan of light upward from below, displaying real-time tactical conditions inside Ferris Wheel Company. Among the modified organisms, besides those dedicated strictly to combat, some served to transmit field data, allowing commanders to view interior conditions at all times and adapt tactics to the evolving situation. There was no need to worry about recouping these expenditures; once Ferris Wheel Company fell, the assets across various islands seized by the Great Shun government and state-owned enterprises would be more than enough to offset the cost. Meanwhile, beneath the Ferris Wheel building, most of the company directors had already relocated to a submarine, watching the feeds transmitted back to them. If things went south, they would find a way to evacuate from there ahead of time. Yet they still had misgivings about this. Canglong Company had long anticipated their moves and would certainly have deployed underwater modified organisms throughout the offshore waters. Leaving just like that, even if their submarine wasn't sunk, they could still be tracked and entangled, meaning they wouldn't get very far. However, the situation was not yet completely hopeless. They had already dispatched an underwater squad to swim along the coastline. As long as the squad skirted past the jammer's informational field range and entered the city to make contact with the Municipal Council, they could put an end to all of this. Inside the building, Guan Shangjing was leading a detachment of company armed personnel to fend off the combat organisms constantly flooding in around them. Fortunately, he still had the company's final batch of internal security guards at his disposal. These troops had been built up at tremendous expense, equipped with state-of-the-art implants and clad in heavy armor. Each was proficient in firearms and melee weaponry, enabling them to handle the near-endless tide of combat organisms with composure. Yet after holding them off for only a short while, the situation shifted. The modified organisms entering behind the vanguard carried explosives, detonating violently upon closing in. This inflicted severe casualties on the elite defenders. Guan Shangjing was forced to fall back toward the underground entrance. Even now, he had not seen a single enemy soldier breach the perimeter—the entire assault was carried out by modified organisms. Clearly, the opposing commander was exceptionally methodical. While such tactics incurred massive material consumption and expense, personnel losses were virtually nil, giving the defenders no opportunity whatsoever to counterattack or exploit weaknesses. Judging that they could not hold out much longer at this rate, he called over a security captain to take over command, then hurried to a spacious training hall in the rear. There, he bowed deeply to a burly, imposing figure whose back was turned to him. "Tie Cheng, the situation is dire; we can only place our hopes in you now. I trust you will honor your promise!" Merely sitting there, that person was over two meters tall. Massive and rotund, he resembled a small hill. At that moment, he was stuffing nutritional paste into his mouth without pause; hearing Guan's words, his movements paused. Just then, a shockwave seemed to radiate through the Ferris Wheel building. Every combat organism fighting inside shuddered as if struck by a massive hammer—first stiffening, then collapsing in unison. Nor was it limited to the interior; combat organisms within dozens of meters outside the building were affected as well. Every creature in the vicinity either collapsed to the ground or plummeted from the sky and the building walls. In an instant, the perimeter encircling the building became an open expanse.