Along the southern coastline of Wilante Province, wooden rafts and small boats lay stranded on the shore.
Scattered among this motley assortment of watercraft were rough logs with branches not even properly trimmed and waterlogged crates, presenting a scene of utter wreckage that looked just like a shipwreck.
And in truth, that was exactly what it was.
Most of the Wilante huddled on the beach still wore shaken expressions. Some hugged their wet shoulders and shivered; others had hung their soaked clothes out on tree branches to dry, sneezing as they sat before bonfires.
Not far from them, people still hauled themselves out of the sea every so often, struggling up onto the shore with the help of their compatriots.
Sailors deployed from the Triumph City Coastal Defense Fleet were doing everything they could to assist, using inflatable rafts and ropes to rescue the poor wretches swept up by the waves and bring them ashore.
Though the Wilante huddled on the beach had suffered different ordeals in Batoya Province, their present condition was largely the same: all soaked through by seawater like drowned rats.
Due to Triumph City's border closure policy, most ferries departing Batoya Province for Wilante Province had been detained at Wilante Province's docks.
Determined to evacuate the population at all costs, the Southern Legion had no choice but to commandeer every available craft imaginable—even fishing boats, and even bathtubs stolen straight from residential homes.
The vast majority of the Wilante had joined this march in the name of "mission" completely unprepared.
Those able to board proper ferries were one-in-a-million lucky ones, or else the dependents of myriarchs.
Many were simply tricked into going to the docks on the north side of Batoya Province and shoved aboard hovercraft used by landing forces.
The fuel tanks on these hovercraft were generally small, and the Southern Legion certainly had not provided any spare jerrycans of fuel for them.
Many of the hovercraft ran out of fuel two-thirds of the way across, leaving the passengers with no choice but to row the rest of the way with manual oars.
Other unfortunates had it even worse.
They were not even allocated hovercraft. Instead, they were violently herded onto rafts by gun-toting alien soldiers, after which several rafts were lashed together and towed toward the opposite shore by a speedboat.
Some rafts simply broke apart mid-crossing, leaving the Wilante aboard desperately clinging to pieced-together logs as they waited for rescue by the Coastal Defense Fleet from the opposite shore.
What made the sailors of the Coastal Defense Fleet tremble with rage even more was that the Wilante forced into this death march were mostly the elderly, women, and children.
Nearly all the young men of the Southern Legion had been sent to the front lines, and those who had not were serving in the military.
The few men among them were either wounded soldiers rotated back from the front, or citizens who held respectable jobs in the city as engineers, technicians, and other professions.
On the deck of a Coastal Defense Fleet destroyer.
Looking at an old man hauled aboard by the sailors, Captain Malok could not help saying, "Have you people lost your minds? Triumph City has closed its borders! Even if you land in Wilante Province, you won't be able to get there!"
"Cl-closed the borders?" Wrapped in a blanket, the old man stared blankly. He sneezed, trembling as he said, "We never heard about that... The guardsmen told us there'd be ships waiting for us at the shore, but when we got there, the big ships were already gone! There were only dinghies that a single wave could capsize!"
As he spoke, the old man grew agitated, his lips quivering with fury. "That dog Tyr... there was nothing waiting for us at the shore! He lied to all of us!"
Just as he finished, another blanket-wrapped middle-aged man muttered, "Guardsmen? You must be from Avent City. The ones who drove us out were the 117th Myriad, and those bastards didn't mince words. They came right out and said the Alliance had invented some 'Death Agent' and that a plague was coming to wipe out every last Wilante. They didn't even mention Marshal Julius's funeral, let alone ships waiting for us—they just herded us straight onto trucks."
Hearing the two converse, a gaunt woman chimed in.
"Hah... they actually wasted breath talking to you? We lived in a small town in northern Batoya Province. We thought even if war broke out, it wouldn't reach us. But before the Alliance even got close, we were getting beaten by our own people."
The old man's eyes widened, as if he had heard something unbelievable. "They dared hit you?"
The middle-aged woman curled her lip and whispered, "The auxiliary troops don't care about any of that. They dragged and shoved us into trucks... Only after we were aboard did they toss out a line saying they were sending us to Triumph City. To hell with them!"
The blanket-wrapped man clenched his fists and cursed under his breath, "Dammit..."
A chorus of clamor filled the deck as people shared their ordeals, venting their bitter grievances to anyone within earshot.
Chaos.
Rage.
And disbelief.
That was all Malok gathered from their words—and that was what was currently unfolding across Batoya Province.
Listening to the babel of voices, he gritted his teeth so hard he nearly pulverized his molars.
"That monster..." he spat out through clenched teeth. Malok wished nothing more than to order an advance south and blast the scoundrels driving the Wilante into the sea to smithereens.
Recognizing the hatred and fury in his eyes, his adjutant stepped beside him and whispered, "Calm down... our top priority right now is saving lives."
"Saving lives..." The corner of Malok's mouth twitched into a grim sneer as he stared south with murder in his eyes. "No matter how many lives we save, it won't keep up with them driving people into the sea!"
The adjutant lowered his voice further and urged, "You only have one destroyer, Sir. We can hardly drive a destroyer onto dry land... Besides, if war breaks out now, it plays right into their hands!"
Malok's eyes narrowed slightly as realization suddenly dawned on him.
The Southern Legion's objective in driving the population north was plain to see: they were defying the Praetorians and Triumph City's border blockade, attempting to pierce the quarantine zones established along the coastal border through human-wave tactics.
He did not know why Tyr was doing this, but judging by appearances, everything they did was aimed at spreading the Death Agent hidden among the refugees to Wilante Province across the sea.
And the only reason the situation remained within Triumph City's control was that they had nearly five hundred thousand troops at their disposal.
Those five hundred thousand troops were the very foundation enabling Triumph City to maintain border stability and establish nearly twenty quarantine zones!
If war broke out between the two sides, at least half of those five hundred thousand troops would have to be deployed to fight in Batoya Province!
At that point, Triumph City would have no bandwidth to manage the refugees at the border, leaving no choice but to let them infiltrate across the border into Triumph City proper.
Setting aside that the Southern Legion still possessed over a dozen ironclad airships—meaning a clash might not end quickly—the moment both sides plunged into open warfare, the Death Agent would immediately sweep through all of Wilante Province without hindrance, subjecting civilians on both sides to the torment of both war and pestilence.
If they took the initiative to strike, it would effectively help the other side accomplish their most difficult war mobilization and hand them a casus belli on a silver platter!
But why?
Malok's face was twisted in incomprehension, his bloodshot eyes staring hard.
He could not understand what the Southern Legion's leadership was trying to achieve.
Could driving the Wilante to extinction offer any conceivable benefit to the Southern Legion?
He would rather believe that the Alliance had stolen the Wilante genetic source code, and that the Alliance had engineered the Death Agent targeted against the Wilante.
At least that would bring him some measure of comfort, sparing him from falling into self-doubt and bewilderment.
Otherwise, he could not help suspecting that it was the Southern Legion who had stolen the Wilante genetic source code.
After all, they were the only ones in a position to pull it off.
Furthermore, considering how they were stopping at nothing to spread the virus into Triumph City, their suspicion was unquestionably the highest.
Why else would those bastards, when the Praetorians announced that the genetic source code had been stolen, pretend nothing was amiss, herd their own civilians out of Avent City, and use the flimsy pretense of attending Marshal Julius's funeral...?
Yet the question returned to square one.
They were Wilante themselves—why on earth would they do this?
Looking toward Avent City and the splintered planks scattered by the waves, Captain Malok let out a muffled growl.
"So what do we do now? Just stand by and watch?"
"Let's focus on rescuing people first. Strategic matters aren't for us to decide," the adjutant sighed deeply, gazing out across the vast sea. "I heard researchers from the Academy have already arrived... Hopefully they can find a solution."
***
Meanwhile, on a stretch of coastline about a dozen kilometers from the destroyer.
Led by their commander, a squad of Wilante soldiers in hazmat suits arrived at the beach by truck and began preparations to set up a quarantine zone and refugee relief station.
At the same time, a silver, shuttle-shaped craft flew in from the east, coming to a steady landing on a rocky beach roughly two hundred meters away.
Its sleek, high-tech contours and the Academy insignia looked entirely out of place amidst the surrounding devastation.
The hatch opened slowly, and a group of people walked down the ramp from the research vessel.
Standing beside the ramp, Ye Shi looked at the refugees on the beach with a complicated expression and clicked his tongue. "Holy crap... how many people even is this?"
Staring at the holographic display projecting from her wristwatch, Jiang Xuezhou said solemnly, "Triumph City estimates that over five million survivors will pour in from the Whirlpool Sea, at a rate of around forty to fifty thousand a day... and it hasn't even peaked yet."
Ye Shi shook his head. "Incomprehensible... What do they stand to gain from this? Stabbing themselves? Has that Tyr gone mad?"
Jiang Xuezhou said with a grave look, "Whether he's crazy or not, I don't know... but they clearly don't give a damn about the lives of their fellow Wilante anymore."
Thanks to her outstanding performance in Brahma Province, she had recently been promoted to Grade-C researcher, no longer the lowly Grade-D who followed behind her mentor all day.
Upon reaching Grade C, she had not only gained the authority to promote researchers, but also her own laboratory and a research ship assigned by the Department of Research.
Responding to Triumph City's plea for aid and collaborating with researchers dispatched by the Alliance Biological Research Institute to resolve the virus known as the Death Agent was her very first assignment as a Grade-C researcher.
Strictly speaking, sending a Grade-C researcher on a mission of this magnitude was somewhat unorthodox. However, because her mentor held considerable sway in external affairs and intended to groom her, the task had fallen into her lap.
To be completely honest, with so many lives at stake, Jiang Xuezhou would have much preferred her mentor send someone more dependable.
Or at least someone whose specialization actually matched the field!
Still, the deployment order had been issued; panicking as she was, she had no choice but to bite the bullet and carry on.
Fortunately, the Alliance's biotechnology was not much inferior to the Academy's, so slacking off just a bit shouldn't cause any major issues.
"To win, you have to be crueler to yourself than to anyone else... That's probably Tyr's mindset. According to intelligence from our... the Alliance's side, the Death Agent is an indiscriminate weapon. Forget ordinary Wilante—even Awakened could potentially be infected; it's just a matter of probability."
Walking up behind Jiang Xuezhou, Chen Yutong brushed aside the strands of hair falling over her shoulder and continued in a crisp, brisk tone, "Rather than analyzing how our enemies intend to startle us, I suggest we get to work right away... for example, screening out the infected from the crowd to prevent the virus from spreading further."
As she spoke, her gaze shifted to the soldiers not far away.
Although those soldiers were in protective suits, expecting them to identify infected patients was plainly unrealistic.
Fortunately, the Alliance had been tracking leads on the Death Agent all along. They had set their sights on it as early as when its experimental strain first emerged in Brahma Province, and had already developed the test reagents needed to screen patients.
If this unseen war were likened to a race, they had already seized the early lead.
Nevertheless, a faint trace of worry lingered on Jiang Xuezhou's face as she murmured, "...The problem is that we only have ten thousand test kits on hand. Yet this single quarantine point alone has over ten thousand people, and nearly fifty thousand new refugees are arriving every day."
Before her voice had even fully faded, Ye Shi chimed in without hesitation.
"That's easy. First, sort the refugees by arrival batch, then group and number them into thousand-person cohorts, hundred-person teams, and ten-person squads, keeping families together as much as possible. Next, run batch screening at the thousand-person level to identify which cohorts carry the virus, then test the infected cohorts at the hundred-person level, then at the ten-person level, and finally pinpoint the individuals.
"Theoretically, in at most four rounds of testing, you can screen all the Death Agent carriers out of the crowd."
The Death Agent required a transmission medium, and on a macro level, the movement trajectories of carriers were largely convergent. Consequently, cases would probabilistically cluster together—densely distributed across a few limited sample brackets based on landing time and location.
With this pooling method, ten thousand refugees might not even consume two hundred test kits; the ten thousand kits they brought along would be more than enough.
As for subsequent influxes of refugees, they could just ship more batches from the Alliance.
Ye Shi suddenly felt the uncanny illusion of playing Plague Inc.
Hearing his proposal, Jiang Xuezhou froze for a few seconds before her eyes gradually lit up. "That's brilliant..."
Hearing this extravagant praise, Ye Shi nearly choked on his own saliva. He coughed dryly and said, "Come on... it's just pooled testing. It's not rocket science. You definitely would have thought of it if you took a minute."
He had heard this method was fairly common in STEM labs. He refused to believe she didn't know it; at most, it just hadn't crossed her mind right away.
He actually had even crazier ideas, but there was no need for that here.
Jiang Xuezhou's face flushed involuntarily as she said sheepishly, "I... that's not my field. I do robotics and AI."
Ye Shi couldn't help facepalming. "...Then why the hell did the Academy send you?"
Jiang Xuezhou's brow twitched slightly. "H-how should I know? It's not like I volunteered!"
Watching the two bicker, Chen Yutong teased, "All right, keep your flirting for the right time and place. Now isn't the time to fool around. Let's do as little brother Ye Shi said and use pooled testing... Time to get to work."
Flirting? What part of this was flirting?!
Jiang Xuezhou's face flushed crimson instantly, and she flailed her arms, eager to explain, only for Ye Shi to beat her to complaining.
"What do you mean, 'little brother'? Bah, I'm plenty big, okay! I've been an adult for ages!"
As everyone knew, Wasteland OL was an R-18 game; minors couldn't even touch a neural helmet.
"Is that so?" Chen Yutong gave him a smiling glance, then glanced at Xuezhou, whose face was red as a lantern, and dropped a loaded retort: "If you say so."
***
While Ye Shi was busy trying to prove to a certain lady that he was not small, far away in Triumph City's Court of Honor, old Battlefield Guy was locked in a battle of wits with a centenarian.
To tell the truth, when Raizer said the words "Please declare war on the Southern Legion," Battlefield Guy had come within a hair's breadth of blurting out "Okay" without thinking.
In fact, had it been his former self, he would have chosen that option without a second thought.
After all, he was the Pangolin.
Wasn't stirring up trouble exactly what Pangolin did?
Yet in the space of a single heartbeat, he snapped completely awake.
Mobilizing the Wilante to head to Triumph City for Marshal Julius's funeral, knowing full well that Triumph City had closed its borders—the leadership of the Southern Legion could not possibly have failed to foresee the consequences.
They had long prepared for a rupture with Triumph City, and were practically begging for Triumph City to initiate the conflict!
This wasn't difficult to understand. The relationship between the Southern Legion and Triumph City was thicker than water, a bond of blood and spirit even stronger than that between the Federation of the New World and the Empire of the Far East.
So much so that even when Triumph City discarded the title of "Legion," Avent City still refused to let it go, continuing to fly the banner of the Southern Legion.
And precisely because of this bond tying the two sides together, there existed a severe rift between the Southern Legion's upper echelons and rank-and-file troops regarding Triumph City.
If the leadership of the Southern Legion took the initiative to declare war on Triumph City, the outcome was beyond question: more than half the soldiers would mutiny, and the remaining half wouldn't have the heart to pull the trigger.
The reverse, however, was another matter entirely.
If the "traitor" was Triumph City, the Southern Legion's leadership would have ample justification to mobilize their troops, twisting their bewilderment into hatred and marching on Triumph City under the banner of setting things right.
Once the war machine started churning, so long as Triumph City's forces were pinned down, the Death Agent would inevitably breach Triumph City's walls, thereby propelling the Southern Legion's scheme forward.
Escalating all the way to war might not have been the Southern Legion's preferred plan, but they had clearly anticipated that Triumph City might react this way, and deemed such an outcome acceptable.
After all, once the virus displayed its potency, this fratricidal war would naturally grind to a halt. Then, as the "plague targeting the Wilante" continued to spread, public sentiment on both sides would tip into total, rabid xenophobia...
In just a few minutes, Battlefield Atmosphere Group had untangled the threads of logic.
He casually glanced at Raizer, who had crushed the armrest of his chair, and cursed inwardly: *Son of a bitch.*
*He's putting on quite an act.*
The old man definitely knew that declaring war right now was a terrible idea.
Come to think of it, the old guy had lived for 172 years—what storm hadn't he weathered?
He had literally been carried out of a lab piled high with corpses by Marshal Julius.
A man like that didn't succumb to blind fury; if he were capable of it, he wouldn't have waited until now.
There was only one possibility—
This old fossil was testing him!
Taking a deep breath, Battlefield Atmosphere Group said in a low voice, "It is not yet time to declare war... The top priority is saving lives. Rescuing people comes first."
"Merely saving lives?" Raizer furrowed his brows, his voice grave. "Pardon my bluntness, but your mercy will only be seen as weakness. The beast has already sunk its teeth into our flesh. Only by severing its head with a sword can we make it stop tearing at us."
"This is not weakness, but composure," Battlefield Atmosphere Group replied, looking intently at the old man as he spoke in a steady tone. "Legion Commander Raizer, do you currently possess a sword that can sever that beast's head?"
Raizer did not answer, merely staring at him unblinkingly.
"I'll take that as a no," Battlefield Atmosphere Group continued. "Precisely because the beast's fangs are already sunk into our arm, we must keep our heads all the more. Without that sword, lashing out rashly will only squander our strength for nothing, allowing the beast to widen our wound in the struggle and gain the upper hand."
"Then what do you propose we do?" Raizer sank back into his chair, his expression dark as still water as he awaited his answer.
Battlefield Atmosphere Group drew a deep breath and continued calmly, "The beast is already at the end of its rope. It has staked its last ounces of strength on this single remaining tooth. If it were me, I would grip that lone fang tight and let it exhaust its remaining strength in its own thrashing... When that happens, it will be the beast lying helpless on the butcher's block."
A sharp glint flashed in Raizer's eyes. "Be specific."
"Meet all change with constancy; triumph through formlessness," Battlefield Atmosphere Group met his gaze. "No matter how many people they send, we take them all. Not only will we accept every single one, but we'll also rally every force we can muster to actively help transport them! We'll even mobilize the strength of the New Federation, the Eastern Empire, and the Northern Empire to rescue our suffering compatriots in Batoya Province."
And through this process of siphoning away their population, they would naturally complete the dismemberment of the Southern Legion!
Looking at the old man's piercing gaze, Battlefield Atmosphere Group clenched his fist and declared resolutely, "Since the Southern Legion wants to treat the Wilante as their impenetrable iron wall, then we'll tear down every last one of their bricks!"
Chapter 937