Bring Death to the Enemies of the Alliance

Just as Duke Galava was pondering whether to send a few men to the front lines to snatch some spoils of war, the military train dispatched from Dawn City had already crossed the border between the River Valley and Jinchuan Province in high spirits. Accompanied by a thundering roar, it rolled over the steel trestle bridge spanning the rushing torrent in the mountains. Near the rebuilt Dust Town, people laboring in the outskirts caught sight of the white plume of smoke in the distance. One after another, they put down their work and turned to gaze in the direction of the train. Flatcars rolled past carrying menacing cannons that gleamed with cold light, alongside military-green transport trucks. As for the fully enclosed boxcars, though the locals could not see what was packed inside, the grim, lethal aura emanating from them could be felt clearly from several kilometers away. Yet no one panicked at that murderous chill. Across the Jinhe City region, the Alliance banner was a symbol of order. The thundering clatter of steel brought them a profound sense of security rather than fear or death. It was these very people who had driven out the marauders, slaveholders, and mutants from their land! They had even helped them rebuild their homes! Every pair of eyes gazing at the train shone with warmth and eager expectation. "That train..." "It's the Alliance's military train!" "Our Alliance brothers are back!" "So many cannons! Where are they going off to fight this time?" "Great Horned Deer God above! And venerable Great Horned Rat... may they return safe and sound." At the entrance of Dust Town, Mayor Qin Botian rushed over, his face flushed with excitement. His hand trembled as he leaned on his cane, staring at the train while muttering under his breath. "The Great Horned Deer God and the Great Horned Rat have returned!" Ever since the reconstruction of Dust Town was completed, the three deities enshrined in their ancestral hall had departed without saying goodbye, leaving behind only a slip of paper. The note said that in order to save this dying world, they had to journey to distant lands to spread their faith. If the townsfolk ever ran into troubles they could not resolve on their own, they could go to Dawn City and seek out the folks in blue coats, who were just as warmhearted as they were. The note also read: [...Someday we will return. There is no need to miss us. Continue walking down the illuminated path, and you are us.] Not until the train vanished into the distant horizon did Mayor Qin stop looking, yet the familiar figures never appeared. A flicker of disappointment showed in his eyes, but it was only momentary, soon overshadowed by heartfelt blessings. Perhaps the time had not yet come... They would remember the teachings of those three esteemed lords and continue marching down that sunlit path. *** Singularity City. A thundering rumble drifted from afar. The people laboring in the fields looked up one by one toward the railway station, only to see that the train did not pull up to the platform. Instead, it barreled straight south without shedding a shred of speed. Toiling in the soil, Kong Lingkai raised his head. Cold sweat dripped down his face, which was hollowed out from a lifetime of indulgence and debauchery. His dry lips were faintly purplish, and he looked halfway into the grave. It was not that anyone was forcing him to work; it was simply the ironclad rules of Singularity City. Living standards were directly tied to quota completion. Production quotas were handed down tier by tier—from district to brigade to work group—and assessed just as rigorously from top to bottom. If one wanted a comfortable life, one had to put their back into the dirt. Only the top-performing production brigade had access to the district's most advanced tools, only the top-performing work group received the lion's share of brigade resources, and to become a group leader, one had to be the most outstanding worker in the group. Of course, one could slack off. Slacking would not earn you lashes like in the old farms of the past, but by dragging down the quotas of your teammates and neighboring groups, you were guaranteed petty reprisals from the brigade captain, along with an unending diet of green wheat boiled in tap water. To truly live comfortably, one had to climb the ladder to group leader, brigade captain, or even district chief. Unfortunately, no matter how hard Kong Lingkai toiled, he could never outperform those who had once been serfs. In fact, his former servant had already risen to group leader and was now ordering him around, while he was still stuck swinging a hoe. Yet this grueling ordeal was not without its perks. Even if busting his gut failed to win him a cushy leadership post, his physical condition was vastly better than it had been a year ago. At the very least, his fatty liver and athlete's foot had been cured. Occasionally, the thought crossed his mind to simply pack up and leave the farm. After all, the farm master named Frost never forbade anyone from departing; a brigade captain had even left previously. But the realization that leaving meant no coming back, and that surviving on the wasteland was unlikely to be any better than here, filled him with dread. In the end, he gritted his teeth and chose to endure. Beside him, Ma Hechang felt the exact same way. He had initially pinned his hopes on the Alliance's policy of promoting based on merit, thinking that as a former town mayor, his prestige would at least earn him a captaincy in Singularity City. He had never imagined he would be forced to compete in manual labor alongside a bunch of dirt farmers. He felt utterly swindled. These people did not respect talent the way they claimed! As someone who had once governed an entire town, wasn't he far more of an elite than that Liu Youxiong, who could barely string a sentence together and knew only how to hunt?! Yet that brute had become a group leader. That AI's processors had to be fried. If not for the fact that walking away would render all his recent suffering pointless and erase the credit he earned by leading Hope Town's residents to defect, he would have packed his bags long ago and headed to Dawn City to work as a day laborer! "Where does that railroad even lead anyway?" Kong Lingkai muttered, watching the train shrink into the distance. Glancing in the direction the train had vanished, Ma Hechang grumbled bitterly, "Who the hell knows... They've been laying those damn tracks since last year. At the rate they're going, they've probably reached the border of Jinchuan Province." "You mean Fuzhuang?" Kong Lingkai asked in surprise, turning to look at him. The edge of Jinchuan Province—wasn't that the Weifu Plain? He had heard of that place. The former Weifu Plain was originally Weifu City, but that city had been wiped out even more thoroughly than Jinhe City, leaving behind nothing but boundless wasteland and heaps of rubble. There was a settlement called Fuzhuang built along the Wei River next to the ruins of Weifu City, located over a hundred kilometers south of Groom Town. Its scale had been even larger than Pinecone Wood Farm, reportedly housing nearly a hundred thousand people, though whether that was an exaggeration remained unclear. Starting a year or two ago, it had fallen under the control of the Church of the Torch, cultivating Na fruit even earlier than Boss Zhao's Pinecone Wood Farm. After that, news from that area vanished for a long time. Rumor had it that a dense fog rolled in, and once the wind blew the fog away, the entire settlement was gone. He had only heard from passing merchants and wasteland wanderers in Hope Town that the lord of Fuzhuang and his family had converted to the faith of the Torch. Following in the bishop's footsteps, he had led his family, servants, retainers, and serfs on a migration to Haiya Province to build the New Era's 'Kingdom of Heaven'. Yet everyone knew that the farther south one ventured, the closer one came to the mutant territories. It was hard to say whether those people were still alive, and even if they were, how many remained... "Most likely... Aren't they sworn enemies with the mutants? They're probably heading down to wipe out those beasts." Ma Hechang clicked his tongue, ignoring the receding train, and buried his head back into the soil to keep digging. *Drop dead, all of you.* *It would be best if both bunches of monsters perished out there.* Only when the self-righteous and the hideous destroyed each other would a new era truly arrive for people like him! Ma Hechang cursed inwardly, venting his venom through the hoe in his hands and the dirt beneath his feet. He did not deny that those Alliance people were noble, but nobility did not make someone likable. Those were two entirely different things! By contrast, the Wilante people he had heard about in rumors sounded far more appealing... At the same time, atop the rooftop terrace of the manor at Pinecone Wood Farm, Yinyin gazed into the distance toward the military train. Without realizing it, more than half a year had passed. Ever since her flesh had died and she had been transferred into an android body, she found that she had lost her sensitivity to time. A brief lapse in concentration could mean a vast stretch of time had swept by in the outside world, yet once she came back to her senses, she could effortlessly recall everything that had transpired during that interval. The sensation was like sitting in an auditorium watching an endless movie. Even though she had stepped out of that 'Sanctuary', the entire world still felt separated from her by a pane of glass. She could perceive every minute detail within her field of vision, yet she could never truly step closer to it. Perhaps that elderly man named Luo Qian had looked down upon the world from this very perspective... Humans seemed no longer human, but merely chess pieces to be manipulated to achieve a goal. A hazy mist seemed to cloud her pupils as she watched the wisp of white smoke dissolve in the distance. Her soft lips parted faintly. "Lord Manager... that gentleman's people are back." "Mhm!" Standing beside Yinyin, Frost—clad in a maid outfit—wore a charming, confident smile, though the words spilling from its lips were anything but gentle. "Looks like those scumbags who are worse than cockroaches are in for a world of trouble!" To Frost, humans were like its children. In the eyes of this mechanical mother, what else could those bone-chewing abominations be but scumbags? It was a pity its personal combat capabilities were unremarkable, useful only in coordinated system warfare. Otherwise, it truly would have liked to march out in person and snap the necks of those spoiled organic pests. Eclipse looked over impassively, speaking in a flat, monotone voice. "We need to assemble supplies and ship a batch down as soon as possible. The front lines will need them shortly." Last year, when Singularity City was newly rebuilt, the Manager had shared his plans for this year with them. Although the war had arrived half a year ahead of schedule, they were not caught unprepared. In fact, ever since the Tide in Qingquan City ended at the start of the year and the Southern Construction Corps was dispatched to Jinchuan Province to prepare for war, this settlement had been getting ready for this inevitable conflict. This included building materials for fortifications, supplies needed by frontline troops, quarantine zones to house Na fruit victims, and much more. They intended not only to annihilate the Torch, but also to purge the plague the Torch had inflicted upon that land, and to utterly smash that 'Kingdom of Heaven' soaking in a mountain of corpses and a sea of bones. "Understood!" Frost nodded emphatically, a brilliant smile lighting up its face. "I've already received the Manager's requisition list. The warehouses are packed with supplies. Let's send it all to them!" Eclipse paused. "Not all... The people here still need to eat." Frost snapped its fingers, its smile unwavering. "That's what I meant! Eclipse, you need to learn to be flexible. Don't be so rigid!" Eclipse: "..." *** Covering a total journey of fifteen hundred kilometers, the military train from Dawn City traversed plains and forests, winding left and right until it finally reached the borderlands of Jinhe Province. Layer upon layer of mountain ridges emerged in the distance. Beyond those mountains, a turn to the right led to Haiya, where death lingered thick in the air, while a turn to the left led to the vibrant Baiyue Jungle. By cutting through the sprawling jungle and mountains, one could even travel all the way to picturesque Port French Fries and gaze upon those thighs—no, that ocean—teeming with the vitality of life. *I really envy the boys in the Burning Corps...* Holding a grilled sausage bought in Groom Town and peering out the window, In Debt God could not help yawning, feeling that this AFK travel time was far too long. "How much longer till we get there?" "Soon," Construction Site Boy and Bricks replied, glancing at his map and then out the window while stroking his chin. "Past the Wei River lies Ten Peaks Mountain, eighty li of Bone Path. Behind that is the Church of the Torch's old nest." Rumor had it that the eighty-li mountain trail was originally called Snow Peak Road. Only after a horde of ravenous mutants migrated there and pitched camp did the survivors begin calling the snow-capped summits the Blood Peaks, and the snow covering the trails the piles of bleached bones. In short, Ten Peaks Mountain hid numerous mutant lairs. True to form, the Church of the Torch had almost certainly colluded with the mutants, arming them with technology from the Era of Prosperity. For example, assisting them with breeding and delivering offspring, producing cybernetics that mutants could utilize, crafting biological power armor, and more. No matter how much they looked down upon the enemy strategically, they had to grant these brutes sufficient respect tactically. Otherwise, it would be easy to suffer a terrible defeat. In Debt God let out a sigh. "My little ones are crying out from hunger. If we don't feed them soon, they're going to revolt." Seated in the next seat, Umbrella at Midnight Without a Knife leaned in and chuckled. "Aren't they your wives?" In Debt God rolled his eyes, waving his skewer like he was swatting a fly. "Piss off, piss off, piss off." Past Groom Town, the path south led through an uninhabited wasteland. Only upon reaching the deepest stretches of the wilderness did the members of the Death Corps finally spot a wisp of smoke signaling human activity. That was the encampment of the Southern Construction Corps, and the true southernmost terminus of the railway line. The composition of this force was quite complex, consisting of volunteer survivors, members of the Iron Tower organization, and convicts undergoing labor reform. Earlier this year, the Alliance had carried out a fierce crackdown on the shantytowns outside Boulder City, deploying troops to thoroughly purge the gang elements sheltering there. Those captured were sent to the vicinity of the Qingshi County mines for training and reform through labor, before being organized into a penal battalion and thrust to the frontline of the Tide defense. In the struggle against the Tide, their valiant performance earned the respect of the Boulder City Militia. Once the Tide subsided, the Manager incorporated the survivors into the Southern Construction Corps, dispatching them alongside other convicts undergoing reform to Jinchuan Province to build roads and bridges in preparation for the impending 'War in Heaven'. After a full half-year of preparation, this construction corps of nearly four thousand men had not only completed the railway through the wilderness, but also erected a massive military base capable of housing a hundred thousand troops on the north bank of the Wei River, digging extensive trenches, machine gun bunkers, and other defensive fortifications across the sector. Naturally, the enemies to the south would not sit idly by while the Alliance dug trenches and built roads. Every few days, they rallied mutant forces to cross the Wei River and launch raids against the Southern Construction Corps' positions. Two months ago, a mutant force a thousand strong had even charged across! Those greenskins swinging clubs and rifles looked like a disorganized rabble, but when the fighting started, their prowess was formidable. Even the frailest mutant possessed physical strength far superior to that of an ordinary survivor. Even with their hearts pierced, they could fight on by sheer killing instinct, relying on their immense regenerative capabilities to heal fatal wounds. To kill them definitively, one had to shatter their heads, smearing their brains across the dirt, or blow away the entire left side of their chests with a 19mm bolt gun so that the mangled flesh had no time to regenerate before they bled dry. Relying solely on a construction corps of under four thousand men, defeating the mutants was an impossible task; even with sturdy shelters and heavy fixed firepower, it would have been a grueling bloodbath. Fortunately, the Alliance had not truly abandoned them in the wilderness. When the raid occurred, nearly all three hundred-odd players active in the region accepted the quest and rushed to the scene. Employing a ferocity that outstripped even the mutants' disregard for death, those three hundred players ultimately routed the mutants crossing the river at the cost of nearly a total team wipe, coordinating seamlessly with friendly forces. It was that very battle that hammered the mountain tribes so hard they did not launch another large-scale raid for two months, limiting themselves to small-scale harassment. Evidently, those mutants were not truly fearless. Faced with adversaries crazier and fiercer than themselves, they too hesitated, felt dread, and shrank back. However— Another possibility could not be ruled out. They had not been frightened; they had simply realized this bone was too tough to chew, and were quietly gathering their strength in the shadows, waiting for the critical moment to unleash something massive... Just as the crest of Ten Peaks Mountain came into the players' view, the military train trailing white smoke entered the sight of the greenskins perched atop the heights. Eyes as wide as bronze bells instantly flared with bloodlust and cruelty. With a piercing howl, green heads began poking out from caves and crevices. A towering mutant brute, standing over three meters tall, strode out before his underlings. His visage was hideous and savage. A tattered banner hung from his back, a club-like shotgun rested in his grip, and steel plating as tough as armor hung below his heavily muscled shoulders. Most striking of all were his legs. From the knees down, both shins and feet had been replaced by mechanized beast talons, tipped with outward-curving razor claws like daggers. His name was Gray, a centurion of the Stone Horn Tribe. Anyone with an actual name on Ten Peaks Mountain was either a cunning fox or a first-rate killer. "Train! Alliance!" An ecstatic roar ripped from Gray's throat as he hoisted the shotgun above his head. "Stuffed full of big, nasty, kick-ass toys! The Torch told us to smash it! Burn it! Slay them all! Loot everything!" Hearing that booming roar, the bare-chested underlings erupted in wild excitement. "Roaaar!" War cries rolled across the mountaintop like beating war drums, swiftly assembling a ragged force of roughly a thousand warriors. Alongside the burly greenskins, swarms of runts standing only as high as a mutant's knee scurried beside the brutes. They too were mutants, sharing nearly identical DNA with the greenskins. However, their hunched, diminutive frames bordered on deformity. Just looking at them, no one would associate them with mutants. Because the mutants' reproductive rate was not fast enough, the Church of the Torch had utilized biological technology to redesign the gene expression sequence of certain mutants, developing this hunched 'new model' at the cost of a shortened lifespan. Unlike purebred mutants, these dwarfish creatures bred and matured at an astonishing rate, capable of reproduction in five to six months and typically birthing three or four per litter. Although they lacked the terrifying regenerative powers and immense physical strength of true mutants, aged rapidly, and involved a bloody birthing process, they could generate substantial combat mass through natural breeding in a very short time. Players active in southern Jinchuan Province called them goblins, distinguishing them from the 'classic skin' greenskins. The operators of Wasteland Online had adopted this term and updated it in the lore compendium. In fact, let alone outsiders, even the mutants themselves refused to acknowledge these weaklings as fellow mutants, usually calling them 'stumpies' or 'ugly runts'. Due to incomplete brain development, they were often even stupider than mutants, their habits closer to beasts—much like hounds kept by the mutants. On the flip side, their diminutive stature made them well-suited for darting through mountain terrain, and their slender fingers could handle errands or even pull lanyard cords on artillery, making them arguably just as useful as the cloned cannon fodder engineered by the Wilante. The only reason the mutants of Ten Peaks Mountain tolerated these runts in their lairs was that they could perform chores, and had barely any meat on their bones. As the swarms of greenskin mutants poured down the slopes, none noticed a fat, grey rat crouching behind a boulder, watching them with a VM strapped around its belly like a belt. Days ago, before the brothers of the Death Corps had even set off, he had already staked out these bastards. "Hey, hey, hey, this is Qiangren Suonan. The mutants on Ten Peaks Mountain are heading down. They spotted you from a mile away and are almost certainly gunning for you!" "Haha, then they picked the wrong fight!" A boisterous voice replied over the comm channel—Brother Edge, commander of the Death Corps. Judging by the tone coming through the speaker, he was already champing at the bit. Offering half a second of silent prayer for the descending mutants, Qiangren Suonan continued, "Old buddy Scavenger is already waiting at the foot of the mountain, ready to link up with you anytime... That guy said he plans to show off a trick for you, though it doesn't look like you're hurting for an extra hand." Brother Edge laughed. "Why wouldn't we want him? We welcome him to the show! But do me a favor and tell Brother Scavenger not to jump in just yet. Have him stand back a bit." Qiangren Suonan blinked. "What for?" Brother Edge gave a low chuckle. "We managed to snag two massive pieces of hardware from the Wilante, and the Manager handed them right over to us! Their caliber is even bigger than the ones on the Heart of Steel. My boys haven't seen much of the world, and they've all been clamoring to fire a round. Might as well test them out on those unlucky bastards coming down the mountain." "Holy crap, that 902 giant cannon?!" Qiangren Suonan clicked his tongue in awe. "You brought that out for your first battle?!" "What else? Were we supposed to keep it in the coop until it laid an egg?" "Hahaha, fair enough. I'll let Scavenger know not to charge in too soon..." Cutting the transmission, Qiangren Suonan tapped his sharp claws against the VM screen, trying to hail Scavenger, but received no response after several attempts. "Strange." Scratching his head, Qiangren Suonan grumbled and peered down the mountain, yet could not spot any sign of the guy. *Where the hell did that mongrel run off to?* Just as he was wondering where Scavenger had gone, a massive lizard was lying flat in a patch of reeds along the southern bank of the Wei River. Amber pupils locked unblinkingly onto the greenskins wading across the river, its broad nostrils blowing subtle ripples across the surface of the water. As for bothersome gear like an arm-mounted computer, he had long tossed it onto the riverbank. Though the Wei River was a hundred meters wide, it was not particularly deep. The deepest section in the channel's center was only three or four meters, while the reed-choked shallows near both banks were barely a meter or two, with a gentle current. Crossing without a bridge was no difficult feat. For greenskins standing two to three meters tall, holding their weapons overhead was all it took to wade across. Only the dwarfish goblins presented a frantic sight, either paddling across on wooden rafts or begging the hulking brutes to haul them over. Seeing that the greenskins were about to reach the opposite bank, just as Scavenger was preparing to lunge and catch them off guard, a deafening roar suddenly erupted in the distance. The sound was like a clap of thunder on dry land. Though it originated several kilometers away, the shockwave rattled the placid river surface. Scavenger froze, looking just as bewildered as the mutants wading in the river as he glanced toward the source of the sound. "...What in the world?" Scavenger muttered under his breath, an ominous premonition creeping into his heart. At that very moment, the military train had ground to a halt midway down the tracks, and the propellant smoke drifting above the 902mm colossal cannon billowed lazily to the side. Mounted atop a Deathclaw, Brother Edge leapt out of the boxcar at the head of the charge, hoisting his 20mm lance and roaring at his fully prepared comrades beside him. "Brothers—!" "Charge with me!" "Bring glory back to Dawn City! Bring death to our enemies!" A thunderous, morale-shattering roar erupted around the military train. Both the players mounted on Deathclaws and the beasts beneath them bellowed in unison as the cannon fire echoed through the valley. "For the Alliance!" "Long live the Manager!" "Crush them!" "Roaaaar!"