Desolation

If Avent City was the heart of the Southern Legion's 910,000-square-kilometer core territory, then the Lavinka Industrial Zone was the heart of its 2.7-million-square-kilometer colonies. Though the latter's manufacturing industry was not as densely concentrated as the former's, it compensated with abundant raw materials and labor. Aside from lagging behind in high-end production capacity, its lower-end output was not in the least inferior. Most importantly, two crisscrossing railway lines linked the vast majority of the mines and factories across those 2.7 million square kilometers. Having conquered this treasure trove, the Alliance's troops only needed to ride along the railways to scoop up all the production facilities and strategic assets flanking the tracks. For the Southern Legion, this was unquestionably a fatal blow! For now, Tyr evidently had no intention of waiting around for death. Multiple three-digit Myriads were advancing toward the Lavinka Industrial Zone, accompanied by tens of thousands of clone cannon fodder. At present, the Enterprise's 100th Division and the recently landed 101st Division had already moved out to intercept them. Meanwhile, the Goblin Corps and the Ideal City Air Fleet redeployed to the Lavinka Industrial Zone would secure the airspace and provide close air support for the ground troops. In contrast, the tasks of taking over the Legion's "scrap metal" and resettling the survivors affected by the war fell to several Alliance forces, including the Skeleton Corps. Although the arrogant Council looked down on the Legion's "junk," the Alliance was quite interested in those things. While the steel produced by these facilities would never be used for the skyscrapers of Ideal City, and the goods manufactured here wouldn't stimulate Ideal City's economic growth, an industrial base capable of integrating the resources of 2.7 million square kilometers was vital to the reconstruction efforts across the wasteland. Recognizing the value behind this industrial zone, Chu Guang specifically posted quests on the official forum's task system to several top players on the front lines, instructing them to carry out relief work for the local survivors and avoid damage to production facilities as much as possible. In addition, through Shelter 404's collectively owned enterprises like Cattle and Horse Group, he initiated bidding with Ideal Group—one of Ideal City's Big Five conglomerates—and its subsidiaries, researching a "capacity transition" plan for the Lavinka Industrial Zone. Although the war wasn't over yet, the suspense over victory or defeat had virtually vanished for the Alliance and its allies. They could already spare the manpower to pursue things far more meaningful than the war itself. For instance, upgrading outdated production capacity and shifting most military industrial facilities toward civilian and infrastructure sectors. After all, the Alliance had no use for the Conqueror 10; they might as well strip the armor steel off its chassis and convert them into tractors and excavators. *** At the freight airfield of the Lavinka Industrial Zone. Clad in power armor, Fang Chang and Lao Bai stepped off a freshly halted transport plane, bumping straight into Brother Edge, who had arrived not long before. "Yo, Brother Edge, long time no see!" "Fang Chang? Lao Bai? Haha, you guys came too!" Catching sight of Fang Chang and Lao Bai, Brother Edge's eyes lit up. After greeting them, he laughed and cursed, "Damn it! Before coming here, I heard there was major action, so I rushed over in a frenzy. But by the time I landed, everything was already over!" Lao Bai chuckled. "Hahaha! I'm not like you. I never expected that guy to leave us any scraps at all." Brother Edge glanced toward the exit of the airfield. "Speaking of which, where's Mole? Why didn't he come to pick us up?" Fang Chang smiled. "I just saw him post on the forum. He said a situation cropped up over at the industrial zone." Hearing that something was happening, Brother Edge instantly looked eager to jump into the fray. "What situation?" Seeing him rubbing his palms together, Fang Chang chuckled. "If you're hoping for a good fight, you can save your breath. It's not what you think." Pausing briefly, he continued, "A minor issue arose at the factory. When the native laborers heard the Wilantes lost the battle, they cornered the factory bosses, engineers, managers, and all their families inside the workshop. Fortunately, Mole got there in time and deployed a dozen armored vehicles to hold down the fort. Both sides are still in a standoff right now." Some of them were probably venting pent-up rage, but there was no ruling out opportunists looking to fish in troubled waters. Even though the Wilantes had brought this upon themselves, the Alliance couldn't just stand by and ignore it. After all, there were Wilantes serving in the Alliance's military as well. Moreover, if they allowed people to settle scores with raw emotion instead of the rule of law, it would inevitably devolve into one group massacring another. Mole had no experience dealing with this kind of affair. Bragging a bit on the forum was fine, but when it came to practical execution, he was completely at a loss. Still, the guy was self-aware. Once he had the situation contained, he refrained from making any further moves, simply waiting for someone experienced to arrive. As for that experienced person, it was naturally Fang Chang himself. Not that Fang Chang was conceited—there really was no one in the entire server better suited for this sort of thing than him. After all, the precedent of Golden Gallon Port was right there. From landing at the harbor to smashing the existing chains of vested interests, to fostering an emerging class, separating judicial, legislative, and executive powers, establishing a more equitable distribution system, selecting industry representatives to form a representative council, and appointing technocrats to build a municipal civil service system... the entire series of measures was practically a textbook transformation. He didn't even need to brag; the residents of Golden Gallon Port basically treated him like their godfather. To the extent that the Workers' Association struggled to make headway in that region, it was largely because his Baiyue Company had done such a brilliant job and shone so brightly that the people of Golden Gallon Port, busy raking in money, had zero interest in studying the Boulder City model. Otherwise, Eugene and the other comrades wouldn't have been pushed all the way to West Sail Port or even Snake State to recruit members. While Fang Chang admitted that luck played a role in Golden Gallon Port's success—and luck couldn't be replicated—the methodology for solving the problem could certainly be applied. For example, first raise the big stick of violent state apparatus to deter opportunists fishing in troubled waters, then dangle the carrot of economic growth, and establish a fairer distribution mechanism so that both the local natives and the Wilantes could get a bite of that carrot. The latter point was especially crucial. The vast majority of failed cases—regardless of whether the trigger was religion, tradition, hatred, or the most primal relations between men and women—boiled down to unequal distribution. When an intense social need to "reshuffle the deck" arose, people would rather suffer a lose-lose outcome than watch a tiny clique take all the chips. As for the carrot itself, whether it was big or small didn't matter as long as it existed; the difference was merely one of speed. And conjuring up a carrot was hardly difficult for the Alliance. The ten settlements along the Death Coast, the space elevator project in the Southern Sea, the ports along the Baiyue Strait... all of these were tangible demands. The pie drawn by their respected manager alone was enough to keep the heavy industry plants here booked solid with orders until next year, to say nothing of the future. As long as there were enough orders, the Lavinka Industrial Zone could continually convert the Great Desert's mineral resources and stored production capacity into cash. Meanwhile, the mature light-industry lines of Golden Gallon Port and the Alliance's various subsidiary allies would allow the locals to spend their earned money, thereby elevating everyone's living standards. Lured by profit, the local factories would proactively transform their capacity, willingly shaping themselves to fit the Alliance's supply chain. Economic prosperity could gloss over certain social tensions and buy a window of time for gradual reforms and the resolution of historical grudges. The legacy left behind by the Southern Legion was enough for the locals to rebuild their homes according to their own wishes. And the Wilantes living in this region would have ample time to forge new relations of mutual trust with the locals. With a clear strategy already formed in his mind, Fang Chang said, "All right, let's not waste time here. Let's go bail Mole out first." Looking at the confident Fang Chang, Lao Bai teased with a chuckle, "Looks like you've already figured out what to do." "Naturally," Fang Chang replied with a faint smile and absolute confidence. "Who do you think I am?" Brother Edge couldn't resist retorting, "Holy crap, this guy's flexing so hard he's forgotten who he even is." *** After the pleasantries, the group didn't linger in the plaza and walked toward the industrial zone. Sure enough, a dense, dark crowd had gathered there. Agitated people wielded spades and shovels, looking as though they couldn't wait to tear the factory to the ground. Had the Alliance's armored vehicles not been parked right there, they likely would have already attacked. Their hatred was understandable. After all, those iron monstrosities had brought nothing positive to their lives, only endless hardship. Before the Legion set foot on this land, their lives might have been impoverished, but at least they had been leisurely. However, once the Southern Legion arrived, they seized control of their water sources first, then robbed them of their pastures and farmlands by hook and by crook, forcing them into factories to work. Then, with those meager wages, they were made to buy nutrient paste reeking of stainless steel from the Legion's hands. Real nutrition never needed to brag about being nutritious, and nutrient paste was something worse than junk food—anyone on the wasteland who had tasted it knew that. When General Lubis was still alive, they naturally dared not complain. But now that he had been slaughtered by the Alliance, they wanted nothing more than to violate and butcher every big-nosed bastard in sight. Yet understanding their feelings did not mean letting them run wild. Clad in power armor, Fang Chang stepped in front of the crowd. He cast a "leave it to me" glance at Mole, who finally breathed a sigh of relief, then switched on his loudspeaker and shouted at the dense gathering: "Everyone! Please calm down—" Just as Fang Chang was pondering how to frame his opening remarks, a dark-skinned old man suddenly shoved his way forward. The old man was slight of stature, his face deeply lined as if etched by immense suffering. His eyes were bloodshot, making the whites appear starkly pale, strikingly reminiscent of the wild beasts Fang Chang had encountered on the battlefield. "Why are you protecting the Wilantes?! Are you in cahoots with them?!" Fang Chang stared at him, refusing to yield an inch. "We are not favoring anyone. Our goal is to liberate all suffering survivors across the wasteland... But I would like to turn the question on you: What were you doing before we got here? When we needed your resistance the most, why didn't you resist?" The old man froze, as did the few young men beside him. Clearly, none of them had anticipated that this newcomer would turn the spearhead straight back on them. Showing them no gentleness whatsoever, Fang Chang pressed on: "The Wilantes had machine guns, artillery, and aircraft... But none of those are excuses. What you've seen, we've faced too; the terror you've endured, we've witnessed no less. Yet when we banded together, what did you do? Swarmed into the Southern Legion's factories to scramble for jobs? Even if you didn't dare fight them to the death, couldn't you have organized to refuse cooperation or slack off on the job? "I'm not mocking you, nor am I talking down from a high horse. The plain fact is that you did nothing, and now you turn around to question why we won't indulge your revenge. That is what you've shown us." Chaos erupted across the scene, and a cacophony of voices rose to a deafening roar. Though he had tried to express the Alliance's dissatisfaction as tactfully and mildly as possible, many still could not stomach the reprimand, growing even more furious. Honestly, Fang Chang was somewhat taken aback. He had assumed Brahma Province was the very bottom of the wasteland, never imagining that beneath the floorboards lay a basement. These people couldn't understand what he was saying at all; they merely howled like wild beasts. Fang Chang's heart sank slightly. This was diverging from his expectations. *Looks like a shift in strategy is needed...* As Fang Chang lowered his expectations, the soldiers standing by the armored vehicles tensed, their index fingers resting against their weapon safeties. As for the Wilante civilians huddled inside the workshop, their faces were pale with despair. Just then, a burly young man stepped out from the crowd, glaring furiously at Fang Chang. "We did nothing? How could we have done nothing?! The Wilantes killed our people! We just want a life for a life—why are you stopping us?!" Fang Chang stared at that wheat-toned face. "What is your name?" The young man held his head high. "Bokassa!" "Who killed your children? What was his name?" Fang Chang probed. Bokassa's expression stiffened slightly. Flailing his arms, he blustered evasively, "All of them! More or less all of them!" Sitting inside the tank turret, Mole grew somewhat impatient and called out, "Then how do you want to settle this?" Bokassa snapped back without the slightest shame: "Simple! Give us their mothers, their wives, their daughters! However many of our people died, they must bear that many children for us!" Hearing those words, Fang Chang was so thoroughly dumbfounded that he nearly choked on his own spit. He rarely suffered setbacks, but today he had swallowed a full year's worth in one go. The gathered crowd, however, felt no shame at the young man's words. Instead, they cheered excitedly, shouting "Well said!" "Don't let the men off either!" "Make them watch from the side! Haha!" "Ooo-ooo-ooo!!" People whistled and clapped with hands raised above their heads, as though he had voiced their innermost desires. At that moment, he became the undisputed king of all the tribes. A gloating smirk spread across Bokassa's face, and he threw a provocative look at Fang Chang. His expression seemed to say: *See? We are united too.* Brother Edge cast a peculiar glance at Lao Bai and lowered his voice. "Why are these guys acting like mutants..." The Great Desert was once the center of the Era of Prosperity, after all. Even if the people living here had forgotten the past entirely, they shouldn't have degraded to such a state... Lao Bai wasn't surprised at all; he merely narrowed his eyes slightly. "Probably spent too much time around mutants." When one thought about it, it made sense. They had noticed several game patches ago that gray mutants learned quite a bit from humans, and learning was always a two-way street. While the gray mutants learned from the tribesmen of the Great Desert, these tribesmen were also learning from the powerful mutant clans—including their cruelty and barbarism. Those traits eroded what little civility they had left. In fact, it was very likely that the meager traces of civilization in their veins had been picked up from the Wilantes instead. From that perspective alone, the Southern Legion's colonization might not have been entirely detrimental to them—a fact that did not negate the evil nature of colonization itself. At least the non-Wilante folk of Black Water Alley in Evernight Port appeared closer to civilized humans. Lao Bai couldn't think of any better way to handle them. If these folks were allowed to sneak into the Alliance, it would undoubtedly spell disaster. An endogenous disaster... Lao Bai couldn't help feeling fortunate that the traditionalists of the State of Brahma had slapped the Alliance's radical faction hard in the face, allowing the conservatives to rise, raise the threshold for obtaining ID cards, and establish the Immigration Bureau. Now it seemed that threshold needed to be raised even higher! Obviously on the same wavelength as Lao Bai, Brother Edge shook his head. "This is going to be tough to wrap up... Brother Fang Chang is still trying to reason with them, but I don't think they're listening at all." Lao Bai grinned. "Not to sound uncharitable, but watching him take a beating once in a while is actually pretty entertaining." Perhaps things had gone a bit too smoothly for them in Brahma Province, so the trash dev had dialed up the difficulty. Still, he felt taking an occasional loss wasn't a bad thing. His good buddy had gotten a bit too cocky lately. At this moment, Fang Chang was still arguing with that youth named Bokassa like a chicken talking to a duck, the topic having drifted from "methods of struggle" to the very concept of "unity." Yet engrossed in splitting hairs, he failed to realize that the moment he was dragged down into the mud to wallow, he had already lost. "Unity? You say we're not united?" Bokassa glared at him, then turned back toward the supporters behind him, yelling at the top of his lungs, "Tell them—are we united?!" "United!!" the mob roared with raised fists, chanting an uncoordinated yet unified slogan. Fang Chang scoffed coldly. "Unity? Don't fucking think that just standing in a crowd makes you united! Do you have a shared manifesto? Do you know what you are doing and what you need to do? What kind of life do you hope to live in the future, and what do the people beside you think?... If you actually knew any of that, you wouldn't be standing here in a chaotic mob clamoring to us for candy. You would have elected someone capable of speaking for you to hold a dialogue with us!" Bokassa bulged his bell-sized eyes and retorted rudely: "Candy? Who the fuck wants candy! We want the Wilantes! Their money! Their houses! Their women! Every single one of us thinks so! Don't believe me? Ask them! I am their representative!" No sooner had his voice fallen than his followers' cheers erupted once more. "That's right!" "He's right!" "He is us!" Fang Chang's brow twitched violently. He pressed a forefinger between his eyebrows, once again downgrading his expectations of these people. Wait—no. He suddenly had an epiphany. This kid might actually be right. The one who had misjudged the situation was Fang Chang himself. He had been trying to open the cage door, forgetting to check whether the creatures locked inside were animals or men. Just as he was about to speak, the crowd directly opposite suddenly parted. A burly man with a hulking frame strode out of the throng with heavy steps. His body was composed of two distinct halves: one of knotted muscle, the other of grim steel. And right now, clinging to that chiseled steel were gruesome scraps of flesh and gore. With that fierce, savage demeanor, he looked like a fiend incarnate descended upon the world! The blood covering him was clearly that of enemies. And judging by the severed heads dangling from his hand, it was the blood of mutant champions! Striding over to the tank Mole was perched on, Midnight Chicken Slaughter tossed the heads with protruding tusks onto the ground and laughed heartily. "Taken care of!" Silence fell across the open ground before the factory; the air seemed to freeze solid. The once-agitated crowd fell silent in unison, and the raucous scene turned dead quiet in a heartbeat. Never in his wildest dreams did Fang Chang imagine that an issue he couldn't solve even after shouting himself hoarse would be settled by Brother Chicken in three words. And what made him want to cough up blood even more was that this guy wasn't even speaking the Human Alliance language! He was speaking Mandarin, which the NPCs couldn't understand at all! Since he was merely reporting combat results, there was no need for NPCs to understand anyway. Midnight Chicken Slaughter casually shook the blood and gore off his chainsaw and continued nonchalantly: "...There were quite a few of those Sorrowwind Clan folks, around two thousand hulking brutes! But they're no good—can't compare to the greenskins on Ten Peaks Mountain. Terrible aim with guns, cowards in hand-to-hand combat. Before half their numbers even went down, they were trying to surrender. When I refused, they bolted... *Tsk*, running them down took quite a bit of effort." At this point, he gave an honest, sheepish grin. "Oh right, the living folks in their lair have all been rescued—about five or six hundred of them. They didn't look in good shape mentally, so I didn't make them do a roll call. From what the mutants said, some were sold to them by the Southern Legion, others by nearby tribes and slavers... In short, we'd better get them settled first, and preferably assign a few doctors." Speaking with a clean conscience, he believed his smile was quite sunny. However, others clearly didn't share that opinion. Looking at this blood-soaked, grinning demon, the surrounding survivors were scared out of their wits—especially since this demon was speaking a tongue they couldn't comprehend in the slightest. Including that young man named Bokassa. One second prior, he had been shouting with righteous indignation; now, he was deflated like a punctured balloon, his wheat-colored face drained so pale it looked dusted with powder, stammering without being able to utter a single word. Staring at the gore-caked chainsaw and the severed heads of mighty warriors strewn on the ground, he instinctively took a step back. His wavering pupils were filled with terror, yet beneath that terror lurked a faint glimmer of adoration... or perhaps envy. That was awe toward raw power! And also the earliest, most primitive form of worship in the animal kingdom! Not just him—the cheering survivors around him felt the exact same way. In that very instant, they had chosen the new king of the tribes! Perched atop the turret, Mole clutched his forehead in exasperation, unsure whether to laugh or cry. Midnight Chicken Slaughter scratched the back of his head, glanced at Brother Fang Chang whose expression was intensely complicated, and said a bit awkwardly: "Did I come at a bad time?" Fang Chang shook his head. "No, you came just in time... From now on, whatever needs to be said, you're doing the talking." Midnight Chicken Slaughter: "...?"