The War Machine Grinds into Gear!

In the heart of Jinchuan Province, right beside a lush red forest, lay a settlement called Groom Town, roughly a hundred and fifty kilometers from Singularity City. Though it was merely an inconspicuous little town, the population living here was by no means small. At least compared to the surrounding no-man's-land, it could already be considered a thriving settlement where cooking smoke curled high into the air. A century ago, the local survivors had made a living breeding horses, and the modest settlement had housed only two to three hundred people. Around Year 100 of the Wasteland Era, farms and estates began springing up across Jinchuan Province. With the estate economy driven by slaveholders flourishing, the local survivors shifted to herding cattle and sheep and providing food and lodging to traveling merchants passing north and south. Over time, the town steadily grew to two or three thousand households, numbering seven or eight thousand people. As for the present, the Alliance's railway had reached them, bringing the locals fresh lines of work: guarding the tracks and hawking grilled sausages, melon seeds, and the like near the train station. All they had to do was ride their horses along the tracks each day, keeping a nearly hundred-and-fifty-kilometer stretch of railway safe and ensuring the Alliance's trains didn't run into trouble here, and an insurance company from the Alliance would pay them a sum of money. As to why it was an insurance company rather than the company operating the railway that cut the checks, they didn't really understand, nor did they care—so long as the money kept coming. And ever since the railway was completed, the smoking trains would occasionally bring along interesting little novelties on their way through. Tables and chairs, newspapers and books, clothes and trousers, furniture and home appliances, and puffed snacks and canned goods no one had ever seen before—as long as you shelled out silver coins, you could take them home. To earn more silver coins, the idle young men in town boarded the trains in droves, intending to make their fortunes—or rather, work odd jobs—in Alliance territory. In the past, people would have worried about straying too far from home with little hope of returning, even if they thought there might be money to be made. But now, a train ride to Dawn City took less than a day, and many climbed aboard just to give it a shot. Although most in town didn't consider themselves Alliance citizens, seeing the Alliance as little different from ordinary traveling merchants—just doing business on a much grander scale—their lifestyles and habits were nonetheless influenced by Dawn City to varying degrees, just as the slaveholders' estate economy had once shaped their livelihoods. Whether the young men working in Dawn City brought back savory pancakes and ramen, tales of the Great Horned Deer God and the Great Horned Rat, copies of *Awakened Bol*, or Singularity City's treatise on "Man and Automation," these were things the small town had never known before. In recent days especially, it wasn't just the young men boarding the trains; even the town's elderly mayor had headed to Dawn City to attend that so-called Anti-Slime Mold Community conference. According to the letters the old man sent back, he had met quite a few big shots there—not just big-nosed fellows from Triumph City, but also representatives from Ideal City and the Academy. Those grand figures had sat together and agreed that eradicating the mutant slime mold was their foremost objective. But before that, they had to take care of a pack of fanatics known as the Torch. Those madmen planned to use technology from the Era of Prosperity to spread something called Na fruit across the ocean. The townsfolk didn't really grasp what any of that meant. Most of them had never seen mutant slime mold in their entire lives, nor had they ever laid eyes on the sea; at most, they occasionally spotted an odd zealot or two preaching on the roads. But the old mayor, who had broadened his horizons, told them that this was an absolute goldmine of an opportunity! A massive opportunity! Although there were no slime mold broodmothers around Groom Town, Jinchuan Province had no shortage of them. Solving the slime mold crisis didn't matter much to them directly, much like the railway built by the Alliance. But by helping those big shots solve their problems, their own lives would noticeably improve! In the words of the Alliance's Administrator: there was no shame in making an honest buck. If they could live well, help people lead lives fit for human beings, and shake off poverty and ignorance, they would already be making a tremendous contribution toward ending the Wasteland Era. He wouldn't demand that they hold the torch high like the Alliance did. Just like before, the old mayor attending the conference in Dawn City had probably heard another rousing, blood-pumping speech. With the sun nearly setting, he sent an urgent telegram to the town hall. The mayor's secretary at the town hall yawned, pinned the telegram to the bulletin board in the square, drove a few nails into it, and promptly called it a day to head to the tavern for cards. The townsfolk in the square gathered around with curiosity, and after some jostling, they finally pushed forward a literate cobbler to read the mayor's telegram aloud. "'The Anti-Slime Mold Community Conference voted to pass Resolution No. 1, with all conference members declaring war on the Church of the Torch and its vassals...'" Reading his summarized gist in a low voice, the man's expression shifted slightly. In utter disbelief, he muttered, "Are we going to war?" At those words, murmurs immediately rippled through the crowd. The young men whose families ran farms and timber mills wore eager expressions, itching for action. But others looked worried, quickly recalling that they, too, were members of that community. Their mayor was over there attending the meeting, and had likely even cast a vote. The folk of Groom Town were hardy and tough; they weren't afraid of a few proselytizing lunatics. But the thought of going to war with a crowd of strangers left most of them hesitant, even if they knew the Torch was nothing good. A farmer from the town looked at the cobbler reading the notice, frowning as he asked, "Do they need us on the battlefield?" In the past, whenever Groom Town fought outsiders, those with horses brought horses, those with guns brought guns, and those with nothing put their lives on the line. Who knew what the rules were now? Ever since the Alliance ran the railway through here, the marauder camps and mutant nests in their vicinity had seemed to vanish. While small bandit bands or stray mutants still drifted through on occasion, large-scale brawls had been absent for a long time. "...No need for that. Our job is logistics: providing lodging, food, fresh water, and daily necessities for the fighters." The cobbler scanned to the bottom of the telegram, paused, and added: "Right, the mayor also told us to put any unused warehouses, cattle sheds, stables, and even our attics to use—turn them into inns, taverns, homestays, or whatever... A lot of people are expected to come over from Dawn City in the coming days." He didn't know what a homestay was either, but assumed it had to be similar to an inn or tavern. The townsfolk exchanged looks, hesitation written across their faces. Just then, a stout, broad-waisted housewife stepped forward and asked skeptically, "Do they pay?" The cobbler froze for a second, then countered, "Why wouldn't they?" In his memory, not a single person who had arrived on that train had ever skipped out on paying. If anything, those folks seemed practically eager to stuff silver coins into their pockets—even if they'd find all sorts of ways to earn that money right back soon afterward. Hearing this, the crowd felt it made a lot of sense. Aside from a few eager young men who looked crestfallen at missing their chance on the battlefield, the eyes of most of the hesitant crowd lit up. Realizing what a massive business opportunity the old mayor had brought them, the townsfolk around the bulletin board dispersed in a swarm, hurrying home to tidy up empty rooms. The wasteland lacked many things, but land was never one of them. Groom Town and its surrounding region were sparsely populated to begin with, surrounded by vast stretches of uninhabited wilderness. Many residents lived in two-story wooden cabins with exterior stairs; converting an empty first or second floor into guest rooms was entirely feasible. It so happened that many youths had recently left for Dawn City, leaving plenty of houses and rooms vacant. Besides those rushing home, someone shouted in the square: "Right, I just remembered... In my old storehouse, there's a big hunk of iron with tracks underneath. Looks like something from the Era of Prosperity that my granddad dragged back from an urban ruins over a hundred kilometers away." The speaker wore a straw hat on his back and a sweat towel slung over his shoulder, looking like a farmer. Someone turned to him curiously and asked, "What is it?" The farmer shook his head. "No idea... Looks like something from a battlefield. We tried converting it into a tractor once, but we couldn't tear it open at all, so we just tossed it in the warehouse." Soon, someone clapped him on the shoulder, laughing. "Next time the train comes, haul it over to Dawn City and ask around. There are plenty of archeology nuts there; they should offer you a good price." Another person chimed in, "If you sell it, buy us drinks!" The farmer scratched the back of his head with a laugh. "Haha, deal!" If only it could really fetch good money... While the residents of Groom Town bustled in preparation for the coming war, settlements linked by the railway and the tributaries of the Tianshui River were doing the same, springing into action as telegram after telegram and urgent dispatches flew across the land. A unified front was slowly taking shape. Each settlement was like a cog in a colossal machine. Lying on the ground, they were unremarkable, hardly noticed by the giants of the wasteland. Yet once linked by a single drive chain, the energy they unleashed was not to be underestimated. Even the person who had strung them together might not have known every single item linked along that chain. After all, whose ancestors hadn't come from the Era of Prosperity? These wastelanders were not truly primitive savages; their forebears had once lived in a glorious age, an era that had simply faded away alongside those who came before them. Who knew what devastating weapon left over from the Era of Prosperity might be hidden away in some settlement, gathering dust only because they hadn't found a use for it yet? As those rusted gears began turning toward a common purpose, Dawn City, sitting right at the center of this machine, was engulfed in a flurry of bustling activity. A military train arriving from Daybreak City blew its whistle, pulling steadily to a halt beside the platform of the Dawn City train station. The cars trailing behind the locomotive were packed with ammunition and supplies, alongside flatcars laden with crated artillery. All of this was materiel bound for the front lines. Some had been purchased out of the Alliance's own pocket, while other supplies were funded or shipped directly by various members of the Anti-Slime Mold Community. For instance, two 902mm heavy siege mortars were among the war machines sponsored by Triumph City. Their stubby, cast-steel barrels resembled upturned pig snouts, with muzzles so massive that two grown men could climb inside. The Wilante called them the "Wild Boar." Though retro in appearance, their destructive power was nothing to scoff at, exceeding even some tactical nuclear weapons. That was especially true when dealing with hardened targets like reinforced concrete bunkers. The only drawback was that they were monstrously heavy. The bare gun alone weighed 150 tons—far outstripping the Alliance's Type 2 tank—and its shells weighed an appalling five tons each! It was practically a postmodern, supercharged Karl-Gerät! In comparison, the main gun of the *Heart of Steel* seemed downright petite and adorable. It was said that these two heavy siege guns were produced by factories under the Southern Legion, shipped across the sea from the port of Triumph City, unloaded at Silver Moon Bay, and transported to Dawn City by rail. Though no one knew what fanatical fixation had led the Wilante of the southern Western Continent to design such a grotesque extreme of a weapon, the Alliance had no reason to turn down free gifts and happily accepted them. Currently, however, the Alliance possessed no vehicle capable of towing these heavy guns, and building custom vehicles for two imported pieces was impractical, so they simply welded them directly onto railcars. By contrast, the No. 60 Railgun gifted by the Enterprise showed far more sincerity and possessed much broader utility. While the Alliance was already capable of producing them independently, its production capacity naturally couldn't compare to Ideal City's. As for the Academy, they had shipped a batch of autonomous combat drones and swarm missiles to Dawn City that could be linked with neural connection devices. The Intelligence-type players had new toys to play with. Waiting at the train station alongside the weapons heading to the front were the players about to deploy. At that moment, five hundred Death Corps players clad in exoskeletons were mounted on the backs of Deathclaws similarly outfitted with exoskeleton armor, bidding an affectionate, reluctant farewell to the shelter brethren seeing them off— At least, that was how it appeared to the wastelanders who couldn't understand Mandarin. "Hahaha! Suckers! We're the first wave!" "Brother Edge is a beast!!!" "Brothers! Spam 666 for our commander! This guy's finally useful for once!" "6666!" The players gathered before the platform watched these lucky bastards with sheer envy, cursing that it wasn't them boarding the train. Seeing how smug they looked, Mole couldn't take it anymore and grumbled, "Damn it all! My Chimeras are way more badass than this bunch of cannon fodder!" During the battle for Jinhe City, his Skeleton Corps had spearheaded the assault. He had thought this campaign would be an open-and-shut case as well, only to have the vanguard role snatched away by the Death Corps. Beside him, Beta Driving a Toy Car chimed in, "Exactly! Why the hell aren't we leading the charge?!" Shuke Flying a Helicopter added, "There's gotta be some shady backroom deal behind this." Watching these whining losers, the honest Brother Edge nearly died of laughter atop his Deathclaw and hollered back at Mole: "Give it a rest! I've got five hundred armored Deathclaws under my command that can scale mountains, traverse cross-country, pierce dense woods, and ford rivers. If not us, who? Can your precious Chimeras even cross a tiny ditch?" Midnight Umbrella No Knife shouted, "Damn right! Can your turrets even turn as fast as I charge?" Mole barked, "Damn you! Come test it out! I'll see you in the Camp 101 arena!" "Go play by yourself," Brother Edge chuckled, sliding the visor of his helmet shut while his right hand held back the restless Deathclaw beneath him. "Daddy's off to the front lines to farm kills." In Debt God grinned impishly and added, "Mole, take my advice—you can't handle this. Go back to developing your game! Brawling is for pros like us!" His hundred-plus sub-bodies were practically useless yet ate like pigs; every single one had grown fat and bloated, pushing him to the brink of bankruptcy. Now that the war had finally kicked off, those sub-bodies would finally be put to good use. Even if they couldn't hold the line, hauling supplies or planting themselves as reconnaissance wards on the front was fantastic. Mole snapped, "Piss off! Since when is your profession brawling?!" Construction Site Boy and Bricks laughed, "Hahahaha!" Watching the rowdy crowd, Commander Spring crossed his arms, shook his head with a sigh, and said helplessly, "I spent all night wondering why our Storm Corps wasn't chosen to spearhead the offensive." Battlefield Atmosphere Group sighed in agreement: "Indeed... Picking the corps with the highest casualty rate for the opening battle is totally absurd." Standing on the platform, Silver Dad immediately took offense, glaring at him with righteous indignation. "Have you considered the feelings of our Silver Corps?" Battlefield Atmosphere Group paused, took a moment to remember that this guy's corps didn't have a low casualty rate either, and chuckled sheepishly. "Sorry... slipped my mind." Silver Dad cursed, "@#$%@!" In this harmonious atmosphere, Brother Edge led his men aboard the train bound for Jinchuan Province. They would travel by rail to central Jinchuan Province, rendezvous with the Construction Corps that had arrived earlier in the year, and launch an offensive from the north of the Church of the Torch's controlled territory, pushing the frontline to the border between Jinchuan and Haiya Provinces. There, reinforcements from the Legion, Enterprise, and even the Academy would link up with them. The Administrator had only one demand: fight with the same momentum they had displayed in Sunset Province! Don't let our allies look down on us! ... The train station was not the only busy place; the Alliance's airfield was equally so. A mammoth transport plane sat ready at the end of the runway. Its imposing fuselage spread wide like the wings of a mythical Kunpeng, with four colossal engines welded firmly onto the wings like feathers. This was the Alliance's first "independently designed and manufactured" heavy aircraft! Designated the H-10 and codenamed "Overlord," it had been jointly designed by Factory 81 and the design institute under the Scientific Expedition! Actually, the players at Factory 81 had initially planned to codename it "Kunpeng," since the craft was truly immense. However, out of consideration for certain kids who constantly confused virtual reality with real life, they had deliberated repeatedly before settling on a real-world weapon designation that hadn't yet been taken. The plane's power storage relied entirely on solid-state hydrogen, and its propulsion system featured plasma engines similar to those on the "Orca" transport plane. Its maximum range reached two thousand kilometers—slightly inferior to the Orca's three thousand-plus kilometers—but its maximum payload surpassed the latter, reaching 150 tons! After all, it was outfitted with four full engines—a true triumph of brute-force engineering. In truth, claiming it was similar to the Orca was somewhat modest. Aside from differences in fuselage and engine aesthetics, as well as its inability to swivel its wings freely for high-difficulty maneuvers or switch between fixed-wing and VTOL modes, it was practically a knockoff "Fat Orca" or "Lean Whale." Naturally, to make up for the lack of VTOL capability, Goblin Tech had partnered with the Scientific Expedition's research institute to design a smaller aircraft capable of toggling between fixed-wing and VTOL modes. That craft was named the "Thunderbolt," though it was not deployed here at the moment. As an enhanced iteration of the "Lingyun" fighter, it also utilized electrically propelled plasma engines like the "Overlord." However, its power source was not solid-state hydrogen, but rather higher-energy-density, costlier nuclear fusion batteries similar to those used in power armor. The greatest advantage of plasma engines was neither thrust nor fuel economy, but rather the stable output of the plasma plume; their handling and stability far outclassed the chemical engines of conventional jets. It was precisely for this reason that players enjoyed far greater leeway to unleash their creativity, bringing wild ideas that were impossible or prohibitively expensive in reality right into the game. As for its actual combat performance, only the battlefield would tell. At that moment, ground service vehicles shuttled back and forth between the runway and warehouses, loading crates and bundles of materiel into the cargo bay at the rear of the Overlord transport. Once the hold was filled and the cargo door slid shut, Brother Pigman, chewing gum, skillfully pushed the throttle forward, steering the plane onto the runway. Four streaks of ghostly blue light traced an arc across the sky as the aircraft climbed toward the horizon. Though his flight path led south in the same general direction as the military train, his destination was not Jinchuan Province, but Baiyue Province, located southwest of Haiya Province. Near the military base northwest of French Fries Port lay a two-kilometer runway. Although maintaining a runway in Baiyue Province was exorbitant, Chu Guang had ultimately footed the bill out of strategic necessity, having local players pave the airstrip. After all, there was only one *Heart of Steel*, and relying on inflatable airships to haul cargo at critical moments was simply too sluggish. In this war, the Alliance would launch simultaneous pincers against the territory held by the Church of the Torch from both the north and south, making a military buildup around French Fries Port vital. Beside the runway, two Enterprise pilots watched the direction where the Overlord had vanished, exchanging strange glances. The more candid of the two voiced his confusion directly: "...Is it just me, or does that thing look an awful lot like our engines?" The man beside him parted his lips and offered an ambiguous reply: "Maybe... it's just your imagination." Best to treat it as an illusion. It wasn't as if patents existed on the wasteland anyway. Their own engines had been copied from plasma thrusters aboard starships of the Era of Prosperity; with so many shelter residents in the Alliance, copying parts from starships as well hardly seemed unreasonable. In any case, now was not the time to bicker over patents, and the Alliance was their ally. Even if there were disputes, they would have to wait until this war was won... ... North of Dawn City, inside the lobby of an inn near the Legion diplomatic mission's quarters, the atmosphere was similarly electric. The focal point of everyone's heated discussion was naturally the latest issue of the *Survivor Daily*. Today's paper unprecedentedly featured two major headlines. One was the Anti-Slime Mold Community declaring war on the Torch, and the other was the newly established Southern Sea Alliance. Although the Alliance rarely exported its values proactively, the wasteland never lacked believers willing to embrace the Dawn on their own accord. It was rumored that the territorial reach of the Southern Sea Alliance was even larger than that of the Alliance! However, their actual land area was so tiny that Dawn City's residents were less interested in what was happening out there than in wondering how people could possibly be crammed onto islands no bigger than the palm of a hand. Yet astonishment was just astonishment. Discussions about the Southern Sea were not particularly intense in Dawn City—at least nowhere near the monumental weight of "The Anti-Slime Mold Community Declares War on the Church of the Torch!" After all, over the past four months, nothing had sparked more discussion than the ongoing Anti-Slime Mold Community conference. And as for the atrocities of the Church of the Torch and its devotees, the survivors in Dawn City remembered them all too vividly. Most of them were survivors of the Bone Chewer Rebellion or refugees who had fled Jinchuan Province; nearly every single one hated those madmen to the marrow of their bones. Now, upon hearing that all members of the Anti-Slime Mold Community had declared war on the Church of the Torch, virtually everyone cheered. "High time we settled scores with those sons of bitches!" A tipsy mercenary slammed his right fist onto the table, bellowing drunkenly. A merchant sitting beside him added in a heavy voice, "I remember seeing their shadows behind the Bone Chewer tribe! Those animals, subhuman bastards..." "Still, who would've thought the Wilante would stand with us? Those bastards have done plenty of sickening things themselves." "And that lot from Bugala—I never liked the look of 'em." "Like the Administrator said: they might not be good people, but disputes with them can wait. We've got to take care of the bigger problem first." Clamor filled the inn's lobby. Nobody paid attention to the man sitting in the corner. That was none other than the ambassador of the Xilan Empire, Duke Galava, who had only recently been discharged from the hospital. Though the doctor had instructed him to drink less and read fewer newspapers, he clearly hadn't taken the medical advice to heart. At this moment, he stubbornly clutched a copy of the *Survivor Daily* that his servant had purchased. Staring at the headline, a sickly flush tinged Duke Galava's cheeks as he mumbled under his breath in excitement: "They're going to war!" War at last! Once the Alliance's war machine started up, it would have no time to bother with affairs in Brahma Province. Their empire would not only gain a breathing room, but might even seize the opportunity to reverse its decline in one stroke and restore its former glory! However— The Legion seemed to be participating in this war against the Torch as well, and it was said they had even deployed units directly subordinate to the Eastern Legion. As the Legion's greatest ally and one of the principal signatories of the Anti-Slime Mold Community, Duke Galava figured they ought to make a gesture of some sort. At least to let the Legion recognize their worth. Besides, it was an entirely risk-free venture. Having provoked three behemoths all at once, the Torch wouldn't just be counting its days; its ashes were bound to be scattered to the winds. When that time came, they might even scavenge some spoils of war. Stroking his chin, Duke Galava pondered: "...It'd be best to have His Majesty send a token contingent over."