On the plains roughly sixty kilometers from the royal capital.
After ordering his troops to infiltrate enemy territory in hundred-man units, Commander Spring personally led a century across several li of pitch-black wheat fields, finally reaching the nearest highway.
Three infantry squads immediately fanned out ahead, advancing along the highway and its flanks in an arrowhead formation as they searched.
"By the way, this wheat is fully ripe. Isn't anyone harvesting it?"
Walking in the lead, Rest in Peace reached out and plucked an ear of wheat, rolling it gently between his fingers. On closer inspection, tiny green sprouts were already budding from the grains.
As the old saying went, "Harvest at ninety percent ripe, and reap a full crop; wait till fully ripe, and lose a tenth." If wheat was harvested only after becoming completely ripe, yields would drop by at least forty to fifty kilograms per mu, and grain quality would deteriorate significantly.
If continuous rainy weather set in, causing the wheat to sprout or grow moldy, the losses would be even worse. Fortunately, rain was rare in the oasis; freshwater was supplied by the river embankments, seeping into the soil to be stored.
"...That's normal. The Falcon Kingdom's mobilization has reached its final stage. Productive activities across society have ground to a halt. Forget ripe wheat going unharvested—even if it made it into granaries, it wouldn't reach the tables of ordinary citizens."
Scanning the boundless wheat field beside them, Commander Spring clicked his tongue with regret.
What a waste of such fertile black soil.
If this land were handed over to the Alliance's lifestyle players to cultivate, the yield per mu would be at least a thousand jin.
With CNC vertical farming towers and high-grade seeds from the Biological Research Institute, two thousand jin wouldn't even be out of reach!
"Should we set fire to it?" I'm the Darkest asked eagerly.
"No point," Commander Spring replied succinctly. "Our objectives are industrial facilities and transport hubs. Destroying farmland doesn't accomplish anything."
To destroy farmland on a massive scale, one would need defoliants.
Setting fires would only burn a few plots, might interfere with their own troops maneuvering through the fields, and would waste time for negligible gain.
"Speaking of which, why didn't you wear the Blastoise suit?" Glancing at the miner exoskeleton on Commander Spring, I'm the Darkest teased.
He had wanted to ask ever since they disembarked from the airship.
Spring rolled his eyes.
"Do I look stupid to you?"
The Destroyer Type I had terrible mobility. With the shield backpack and a 120mm mortar equipped with an autoloader, the total worn weight approached nearly a ton; even at full power, it couldn't move very fast.
Besides, they weren't engaging regular forces of the Falcon Kingdom or the Legion; they were infiltrating behind enemy lines for sabotage. Hauling around such a massive iron coffin was utterly pointless.
If they really needed fire support, all they had to do was call in an artillery strike from the airship.
As they spoke, a thunderous roar rumbled from the sky behind them.
Commander Spring glanced back.
"The boys from the Burning Corps have probably landed by now."
I'm the Darkest grumbled with an aggrieved look,
"Damn it... Why do they get all the sweet gigs, while we get stuck doing sneaky, underhanded chores!"
Kakarot chuckled and teased,
"What 'sneaky chores'? This is called strategic sabotage and deep infiltration behind enemy lines!"
"Fair enough. Putting it like that instantly makes our sneaky chores sound grand and glorious."
"Hahaha!"
Seeing his teammates laughing and joking, Commander Spring cleared his throat.
"We're here on a sabotage mission, not a picnic... Take it a little more seriously, everyone."
"If we're here to wreak havoc, shouldn't we look fierce and menacing? Like this," I'm the Darkest said gleefully. He squeezed his facial muscles into a ferocious scowl and shook the rifle held at his waist. "Robbery! Empty your pockets, hand over the cash!"
Looking at his clownish antics, Kakarot couldn't help laughing out loud.
"Damn, you look like a bandit raiding a village!"
Commander Spring pressed a hand to his forehead.
This guy was hopeless.
"So where are we supposed to find factories?" Catching Ghosts at Graves sighed, looking helplessly at Brother Spring.
Seeing that someone finally cared about the mission, a gratified smile appeared on Spring's face.
"That's easy. We just follow the clues."
Highway transport was a vital pillar of industry; resources and labor from survivor settlements had to flow through road networks into industrial areas to sustain production.
The Falcon Kingdom was a classical militaristic state where wide highways were generally built exclusively to service military installations and defense manufacturing facilities.
Therefore, identifying high-value targets was simple.
All they needed to do was pick the widest highways near Falcon City and follow them toward the front lines.
They were bound to find supply depots along the way.
By simply hitting one of those logistical transit hubs and checking local freight records to see where supplies were originating, it wouldn't be difficult to pinpoint the location of industrial zones within the strategic depth of Oasis 2.
As luck would have it, after walking along the main road for a stretch, they ran into a broken-down tractor.
A bare-armed man crouched beside the tractor turning bolts with a wrench, while another middle-aged man in an undershirt sat in the driver's seat, jabbering away and urging him to hurry.
Spotting the group approaching in the distance, the man on the tractor didn't think much of it at first, assuming they were their own people. But as they drew closer, he realized their equipment was completely different from anything in the Falcon Kingdom's army.
Neither the exoskeletons with gleaming breastplates nor the assault rifles in their hands were things today's Falcon Kingdom could ever afford.
The man's face instantly went deathly pale. Panicking, he jumped off the tractor and tried to dash into the wheat field, but before he had taken two steps, a strong, powerful hand hauled him back.
"Where do you think you're running?" A'nie hauled him back like a chick, grinning menacingly at him. "Doing something you shouldn't be?"
Though a newbie, he was still a Strength-type newbie who had started the game with seven points of Strength.
Both his arm strength and grip were at least 140 percent of an ordinary adult male's, certainly not something an average person could break free from.
That hand clamped down like an iron vise, holding the man immobile. No matter how much he squirmed, the grip didn't budge an inch, and the pain where he was held only flared hotter.
"N-No... I wouldn't dare," the tractor driver said, finally giving up struggling when he saw he couldn't break the soldier's hold. Trembling, he looked at him. "May I ask, sir... wh-what unit are you from?"
"Storm Corps!" A'nie answered proudly.
"St-Storm Corps?" The driver looked utterly bewildered; he had never heard of such a designation.
"What are you jabbering for?" Having heard the commotion, I'm the Darkest walked up from behind with his squad, glaring fiercely at the pinned driver. "This is a robbery! Hand over everything valuable!"
"R-Robbery?" The driver looked even more dumbfounded, trapped between tears and laughter. "Sir, are you new here? If you want to rob someone, go find the nobles... How would poor bastards like us, who can't even afford a meal, have any money?"
"Hiss... That's true. If you can't even eat, where would you get money?"
I'm the Darkest nodded, a flicker of sympathy showing in his eyes. But he quickly remembered he was on a mission, so he put his ferocious scowl back on.
"Like hell I care if you have money! Hurry up, hand over anything valuable!"
Staring down the cold muzzle of the rifle, the driver was on the verge of tears.
As for the man repairing the tractor, he was already scared out of his wits, having dropped his wrench to crouch beside the tractor with his head in his hands, trembling and not daring to twitch.
Rolling his eyes at the back of his idiot comrade, Commander Spring walked up to the terrified driver and looked him straight in the eye.
"What's in the back?"
The driver answered nervously,
"...Iron."
Commander Spring pressed impatiently,
"I know it's iron. I'm asking what kind of iron, what it's used for, and where it's going."
Hearing this, the driver immediately understood.
"It's... ironware requisitioned from Rozland Town. Under the logistics officer's orders, we're supposed to deliver it to the William Industrial Zone."
William...
That seemed to be the same name as the Falcon Kingdom's prince and marshal.
Not that it was surprising.
To pursue industrialization in a feudal kingdom whose economic pillar was agriculture, only the royal family and high nobility likely possessed the capacity. Since the industrial zone was royal property, naming it after a member of the royal family was only natural.
I'm the Darkest walked over to the tractor, glanced inside, and saw it was full of pots, pans, and bowls. He muttered,
"What the heck is this good for?"
Ignoring his muttering, Commander Spring kept his eyes on the man and continued interrogating him:
"What's the name of the factory you're delivering to, and what does it produce?"
The tractor driver replied in an uncertain voice,
"It's called the First Royal Foundry... I th-think it makes steel pipes."
Steel pipes?!
Hearing that, everyone's eyes lit up.
Dropping the goods in the tractor, I'm the Darkest asked excitedly,
"Seamless steel pipes?"
The driver replied helplessly, "M-My lord, I'm just a delivery driver. I really don't know... You'll have to ask the plant director there."
Steel pipes were merely one of that factory's products.
It housed production lines for steel helmets, entrenching tools, bayonets, canteens, ammunition, and more—he just didn't dare say so.
These people gave him a very bad feeling.
"Good idea." A smile spread across Commander Spring's face. Patting the driver on the shoulder, he looked at the trembling man and continued, "Could you take us to meet your director?"
How could the man dare say no? Confronted with that warm, spring-breeze smile, he could only nod like a chicken pecking at grain.
Spring wasted no more words. Turning to his teammates behind him, he waved a hand.
"Let's go. Time to sweat them."
"What about this tractor?" I'm the Darkest looked at the freshly repaired tractor, feeling it would be a shame to leave it behind.
Spring considered it for a moment, an idea forming in his head.
"Dump the cargo into the wheat field. As for the tractor... bring it along for now."
Though he hadn't figured out what it could be used for, what if it came in handy?
Best to keep it around just in case.
...
Under cover of night, the Storm Corps continued to advance silently.
At the same time, tens of kilometers away in Falcon City, the night was boiling like raging fire.
Dense gunfire rose and fell, encircling the towering castle at the center of Falcon City like surging ocean waves.
The first two centuries thrown into the urban area were quickly routed.
The Alliance "pilots" seemed to carry the ammunition supply of an entire legion, their automatic chatter rattling on as if bullets cost nothing.
More than that, they had even stripped the machine guns straight off their aircraft.
Before 12mm heavy machine gun rounds, the masonry buildings and walls in the urban district were like paper; a single burst would often tear wall and occupant alike into pulverized debris.
Right up to his final breath, Ademu, who had pushed deep into the city to "hunt down enemy pilots," never received reinforcements from the rear.
Yet what he didn't know was that his superiors were neither blind nor deaf—they simply had no capacity to spare for him.
The Alliance pilots were clearly not satisfied with taking down a few minions. At the very moment they encircled him, a detachment had split off to storm the castle gates, engaging in fierce combat with the defenders there.
Predictably, pinned down by the suppressive fire of over a dozen aircraft machine guns, the Falcon Kingdom soldiers armed with only a few bolt-action rifles had no way to fight back.
Seeing muzzle flashes practically burning right in front of them, Midal acted decisively, dispatching two loyal royal guards with explosives to the castle's main gate, intending to blow up the gatehouse directly.
While it wouldn't prevent the Alliance from entering the castle, it would at least buy a little time before the city defense garrison arrived.
Yet just then, a gunshot cracked from the distant clock tower. The guard who had just reached the foot of the main gate had his head burst into a plume of blood mist.
Before the guard beside him could even determine where the shot had come from, another bullet drilled into his skull.
Without even hearing the report this time, the man collapsed silently to the ground.
"Two!"
Reporting his score over the comm channel, Ye Shi, lying prone atop the clock tower, kept his eye glued to the scope as he swept the edges of the castle.
With the aid of a thermal imaging scope, the dark night was as starkly clear as daylight, leaving no living creature any place to hide.
And his perception of killing intent allowed him to swiftly judge whether his position had been exposed and whether another sniper was zeroing in on him.
Controlling the rhythm of his breathing, he pulled the trigger once more.
With a sharp crack, another royal guard near the castle gate had his head blown open, crashing heavily to the ground.
Continuous casualties inflicted immense psychological pressure on the defenders near the main gate; even the most loyal soldiers couldn't help but feel terror creep into their hearts.
Compared to machine-gun suppression and the whining roar of diving aircraft, a sniper taking cold, clinical potshots was far more nerve-racking.
A chatter of machine-gun fire might not kill veterans accustomed to braving life and death on the battlefield, but with that sniper rifle lurking beyond their reach, almost every shot meant a death.
Experience was useless.
Everyone crouching behind cover had become meat on the chopping block.
No one knew who would be targeted next.
Facing the Alliance's ferocious, tightly coordinated assault, the defensive line at the castle's main entrance was collapsing inward...
"...Three!"
Calmly ejecting the spent casing from the chamber, Ye Shi took a deep breath and began searching for the next high-value target.
Meanwhile, the fighting in the urban district had virtually concluded.
Listening to the gunfire in the distance, Lao Bai yanked his glowing hot hatchet from a corpse and raised an index finger to press the side of his helmet.
"The city district is clear."
Kuang Feng's voice soon came over the comm channel:
"Well done. Keep advancing on the palace!"
"Copy that!"
Lao Bai grinned, hung the thermal fusion cutting axe back on his exoskeleton, and took up the rifle slung across his chest once more.
Playing support once in a while didn't feel bad at all.
Then again, the Falcon Kingdom did have a few experts.
For instance, the one he had just slain turned out to be an Awakened.
He had assumed all the kingdom's top fighters had died in prior battles.
Any game seemed unable to escape one universal issue: version updates could never keep up with players snowballing in power.
Especially in a game billed as completely realistic, the very existence of "players"—who not only couldn't die, but grew stronger with every battle—was absurd to the core.
He could clearly feel their opponents weakening with every fight. At first, a ten-man infantry squad could still be equipped with a light machine gun. Now, forget machine guns—the entire sprawling capital was left with barely thirty-odd anti-aircraft guns, and two centuries combined couldn't scrape together three machine guns.
Near-frenzied mobilization had drained the kingdom of its last breath of vitality.
If the Falcon Kingdom months ago had been a starving wolf armed to the teeth by the Legion, today it was nothing more than a dying old dog.
Rather than saying they were beaten to death, it was truer to say they had been bled dry.
Because players couldn't die, no matter how much the Alliance mobilized, so long as non-respawning NPCs weren't thrown en masse into the meat grinder, their manpower pool barely shifted. Instead, backed by Enterprise support, they had made a killing off the war.
Theoretically, against any "non-player faction," the Alliance could win using this completely unreasonable dynamic. As long as industrial production didn't stall, they could grind any opponent into the ground through sheer attrition.
Lao Bai couldn't help wondering how Ah Guang would deal with power creep in the late game.
Still, now was clearly not the time to ponder such things.
"...Time to give this rickety old shack its final kick."
Looking at the castle's fallen main gate in the distance, Lao Bai grinned and led his squad charging swiftly toward the castle.
...
By now, the castle was a sea of flames.
Frantic footfalls and overlapping shrieks echoed incessantly.
No one had anticipated that the flames of war would reach His Majesty the King's castle.
Most had assumed tonight would be merely an ordinary air raid—tough, perhaps, but not unbearable.
Yet now—
All those naive illusions had vanished like bubbles.
Never having stepped foot on a battlefield, never having even felt the touch of war, they were finally experiencing the terror of death.
The servants, normally meek and submissive, wore entirely different faces now, as fear of death tore away every veneer of deference.
Those who wanted to live hid and fled for their lives with reckless abandon, while those who had given up hope of survival turned into beasts in their final moments.
Some dove into fountains, some squeezed into kitchen hearths, and others brawled viciously over hiding spots in cabinets.
Fearing violation by Alliance soldiers, a noblewoman had chosen to hang herself. Yet before she could kick away the chair beneath her feet, an old servant rushed through the door, tearing her down along with her clothes.
"What are you doing?!"
"Stay still! Dammit, we're all going to die anyway, what the hell do you care?!"
Shedding all past humility and flattery, the aged servant glared fixedly at the pale flesh before him, his beady eyes ablaze with madness and greed.
Given what their soldiers had done on the front lines, their enemies would never show them mercy.
Rather than let outsiders have her, he might as well—
In desperation, the noblewoman grabbed a vase that had toppled to the floor and smashed it violently against the servant's head. As he wailed in pain, she wrenched herself free from beneath him.
Everyone in this castle had gone mad!
She ran outside as fast as she could, fleeing aimlessly with nowhere in mind, desperate only to put distance between herself and that place.
Yet the moment she reached the bottom of the stairs, she ran headlong into the assault force breaching the castle.
"Look, I'm not against ladies throwing themselves into my arms, but... read the room, would you? Wait till we're done fighting?"
Looking at the woman who had suddenly burst out, Ye Shi, who had just raised his rifle, awkwardly lowered the barrel and cracked a joke to lighten the mood.
If my gun went off, would that count as an accidental civilian casualty?
Probably not...
"Quit your bullshit."
Tearing down a section of curtain and tossing it across the woman's chest, Lao Bai looked into her terrified eyes and asked in the Human Alliance language,
"Where is your king?"
Clutching the curtain desperately to herself, the woman looked at him in terror and stammered,
"He... I saw him in the throne room. He's been sitting there since this morning and never came out."
Lao Bai pressed on,
"Where are the other members of the royal family?"
"I-I don't know... but people were saying they were going to hide in the dungeons." Out of an instinct for survival, she sold out everyone else.
Ye Shi quipped,
"Damn. They knew we were coming and locked themselves up."
Kuang Feng rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"Probably just to take shelter from the air raid."
The girl was wrapped in nothing more than a thin sheet of cloth; he genuinely didn't know where to look.
Lao Bai nodded and waved to the teammates behind him.
"To the throne room!"
The others reacted instantly and pressed forward.
Gunfire spread from the front courtyard all the way into the castle's keep.
Firefights erupted in the narrow stairwells as the Burning Corps fanned out through the castle, clearing armed resistance room by room.
Meanwhile, inside the castle's throne room, all was quiet. The clamor and gunfire outside barely penetrated here.
Seated upon his throne, Menggote gazed out the window at the quiet night sky and the slow flickers of fire beneath the darkness, remaining silent for a long time.
In truth, he knew everything.
As the master of this realm, how could he not know what was happening to it?
Not a shred of good news had come from the front line for a month; they had even stooped to boasting about the trivial exploits of a decurion for days on end.
That was clearly not a sign of impending victory.
Just then, the doors of the throne room opened.
Midal strode in, gesturing for the royal guards behind him to shut the doors.
Blood and grime caked his face, and he bore at least two bullet wounds, limping heavily as he walked—a testament to how brutal the fighting had become.
Dropping to one knee before the steps leading to the throne, he spoke in an earnest voice:
"Your Majesty, Alliance soldiers have breached the main gate! Please come with me to the subterranean passage in the rear courtyard immediately..."
Pulling his gaze back from the window, Menggote looked at him. Instead of rising, he spoke his name slowly:
"Midal."
"Your Majesty?"
"Tell me... do you think I was wrong?"
Midal froze.
Seeing Midal's silence, Menggote continued,
"I want to hear the truth... Swear in the name of the Spirit of the Sand Sea that every word you speak next comes straight from your heart."
"I... do not know, Your Majesty," Midal lowered his head, the urgency in his eyes abruptly swallowed by a hollow confusion. "My honest answer is that I do not know. I do not know where our future lies."
The river embankments of Oasis 2 were failing, and the oasis's area shrank with every passing year. In a few centuries, the Great Wasteland would swallow them whole—just as it had claimed Oasis 1.
The Spirit of the Sand Sea had not bestowed its blessings equally upon all its children. They possessed neither the vast lands of the Lion Kingdom nor the seaport of the Camel Hump Kingdom, and their natural conditions could not even match those of Honey Badger or Golden Lizard.
Apart from war, they had no alternatives.
Yet if they kept fighting...
He still could not see a future.
The Weilantes had never told them where the end lay, nor had they ever explained where other races would belong in a world ruled by the Weilantes...
Menggote closed his eyes. He made no comment on Midal's answer, simply sitting there unmoved, as if waiting for something.
Right then, the grand doors of the hall were violently blasted open. The five-meter-tall doors slammed hard against the floor with a resounding crash, throwing up billows of dust.
Seeing the soldiers appear in the doorway, Midal reflexively tightened his grip on the saber at his hip, but as he met those dark gun barrels, he froze.
There was no doubt about it.
Even as a twice-Awakened warrior, without automatic weapons, he could never defeat a pack of heavily armed, live-round-carrying Awakened.
The other side needed only to twitch their fingers to turn him and his saber into a bloody sieve.
Exchanging a glance with Lao Bai, Kuang Feng stepped forward and halted in the center of the hall, looking up at the old man upon the throne.
He looked like nothing more than a frail, ordinary old man, devoid of any regal majesty befitting a king—just like the exhausted, dying kingdom beneath his feet.
The Reaper's scythe was already resting upon his neck.
Kuang Feng looked at him and said,
"Surrender. You have already lost."
Menggote looked calmly at the man before him, his withered lips parting slowly.
"The royal house of Falcon does not surrender."
Not in the least surprised by his words, Kuang Feng looked at him impassively and continued:
"We are not here to ask for your permission.
"We have already taken this castle. What you say—even whether you live or die—matters nothing to us.
"We will announce to the world that you have surrendered, and the Alliance flag fluttering atop your castle will be proof enough. We can synthesize video footage of your face, broadcast through your channels, and order your soldiers to defect to the Alliance and open fire on the Weilantes... Even if most hesitate, I am certain some will obey.
"This war will not end. We will continue fighting on your soil. Triumph City will send its armies just as you wished and declare an endless crusade, while we have no reason to back down either. We will fight here to the last man, until this oasis is turned to desert, until your people have bled their very last drop of blood..."
Hearing this, Midal's limbs went cold, and he stared in shock at the young man.
Seated upon the throne, Menggote's pupils contracted slightly. As if suddenly realizing something, a bitter smile spread across his face.
"Is this an order from your Administrator...?"
"That doesn't matter."
Kuang Feng looked at him expressionlessly and continued, "The last right thing you can do for this country... for this desert... is to sign the unconditional instrument of surrender, then order your entire army to lay down their weapons and report to Biste Town to capitulate."
"And then we shall plunge into an irredeemable hell," Menggote said quietly. "Everyone will ride roughshod over our heads... I would rather die like an honorable warrior."
Kuang Feng replied unmoved,
"You will not. We are not like the Weilantes. We will not exterminate you; you will have the chance to start anew.
"Of course, if you reject this final chance, I guarantee your nightmare has only just begun."
Menggote stared unblinkingly at him.
His cloudy pupils remained still, as if weighing the costs and benefits, or perhaps judging whether the man before him could be trusted.
A heavy silence stretched between the two for a long time.
At last, as if coming to terms with everything, the old man slowly closed his eyes.
"Which side is truly hell must be left for posterity to judge... In any case, we have indeed lost."
Those words seemed to drain every ounce of strength from his body. His tense shoulders slumped, and he leaned slowly back against the cold throne.
"I surrender."
When that voice of release drifted from those withered lips, both Midal standing in the hall and the wounded soldiers clutching bullet wounds near the doorway breathed an involuntary sigh of relief.
It was finally over...
Midal suddenly realized, with a start, that somewhere along the way, what he prayed for was no longer victory, but merely an end.
No matter if it could be called decent or not...
Chapter 491