[Mad Rat Riot?! Dead domestic and stray cats litter the fields, and Tiandu is overrun with a plague of rats! Sava, the number two figure of the Family Association, convenes another meeting, calling on family members to unite once more and declare war on the rats of the Brahma Province region!
—Survivor Daily, Golden Gallon Port Edition]
[The cat ban shows initial results: people must eat their fill before feeding cats, and Tiandu survivors live in harmony, thanking Zayed for bestowing food and warmth upon us.
Under pressure from the Family Association, Mammoth State Commander Shawa has released five hundred undergraduate and preparatory student hostages. The children of Tiandu have all returned home safely and were granted an audience with Patriarch Zayed! Let us welcome the pillars of our future!
In contrast, the Southern Legion lackeys who fled to New West Sail Port lead miserable lives, weeping and wailing all day long—a fate they thoroughly deserve!
Furthermore, locust plagues have erupted across multiple areas in Baiyue Strait, the Southern Sea, and the Death Coast, bringing food shortages, rampant pestilence, and ravaging mutants... It is estimated that up to a million people may perish! A professor from Tiandu University analyzed that the root cause lies in the Alliance's unfriendliness toward the Family Association; the local wastelanders lack the guidance of Family and have no Family stepping in to help.
Let us observe three minutes of silence for the suffering survivors on the wasteland. Sooner or later, we will go and save them.
—Survivor Daily, Tiandu Edition]
[Port French Fries' First Beauty Pageant! Champion 'Drunken Smile for the Fair Lady' Turns Out to Be a Cross-Dressing Guy!?
Surging Influx of Immigrants! Representatives of the Baiyue Strait region are planning to establish a fourth settlement! Calling for public votes now!
This month's most popular delicacies: hot pot, crab roe paste, coconut jelly, and ice cream!
—Survivor Daily, Port French Fries Edition]
[The Free State's 'Corporate' War Continues to Escalate! Gunfights erupt in the streets between gang members and Hound special forces! At this morning's meeting, Salen twirled a pen with his right hand—could this hint that Alliance conservatives are also getting restless and secretly entering the fray?!
Brahma Province Killing Contest Enters Round Two! Gulion, who ordered the bombing of Lion City, only ranks third?!
(Illustration: Zayed and Shawa arm-wrestling; looking at the tomatoes crushed in their hands, a pale-faced Gulion stands in the corner in shock)
General MacLaren's view is that he refuses to comment.
—Survivor Daily, New West Sail Port Edition]
...
The Great Rift.
As guests from all directions returned home one after another, this sacred land, where the last sparks of human civilization were buried, returned once again to tranquility, and a certain disreputable old man finally became a bit more dignified.
In the vacant small conference room, the Chief, seated before the obsidian long table, flicked the holographic screen in front of him with his index finger. A gratified smile suddenly surfaced on his face.
"One survived—that's not bad after all."
Everyone had their own "mandate of heaven," or rather, "historic mission."
This mandate was not something any single individual could decide, but the result of the identical or divergent choices made by every person within the collective.
Although the Alliance's manager called this theory of his "fortune-telling," he actually preferred to call it "civilization studies."
Confronting their mandates, the problem Absaik faced was being unable to let go, whereas Mayor Audo's problem was being unable to pick it up.
Now, one had let go, and the other had picked it up; both of their futures were bright.
As for Shawa...
Though he had picked a relatively easy path for him, Shawa had stubbornly refused to follow his wishes, choosing instead the other solution buried in his riddle—
Namely, slay them all!
That was the most arduous path.
Not only did he have to inherit Rasi's legacy, but he also had to embark on a slaughter that Rasi had never dared to commit!
The Chief suddenly thought of Rezer, that young man who had always followed Julius's side.
They were actually cut from the same cloth—people who burned themselves for someone else's dream...
The Chief shook his head and flicked his index finger lightly, closing the holographic window floating before him.
"What a sin..."
...
Absaik had not been joking.
After leaving Golden Gallon Port, he really did go to Port French Fries to register a company called Abu Aerospace, with its core business focusing on the "aerospace-grade adaptation of aviation plasma engines."
Although the name sounded high-end, in practice it was not as complicated as it sounded.
To put it simply, it meant installing airplane engines onto spacecraft.
In the distant Old Era, plasma engines had originally been born in the aerospace sector before being exported back into aviation only after chemical engines were almost completely phased out.
What Abu Aerospace had to do was merely return advanced plasma technology to where it originally belonged.
From the perspective of following historical trends, there was nothing wrong with this business direction, and it was entirely possible that many large Alliance corporations were already doing so covertly.
However, to the people of Brahma, who were still busy with petty infighting, this undertaking was rather ahead of its time. After all, the impression most "River Valley people" had of them was still stuck on communal picnics on railroad tracks.
As for aerospace?
That felt more like something the survivors of Dawn City and Boulder City would pursue.
As the saying goes, shame stirs courage.
Though he had resigned himself to his fate, Absaik still harbored a lingering frustration deep down.
He wanted to prove to the other peoples of the wasteland that the people of Brahma were not just capable of internal strife—they could also do progressive things, and even stand at the forefront of the world!
Evidently, he was not the only one who felt this way.
Upon learning the news, Ashin, who had previously decided to stop funding the reform movement in Brahma Province, wrote a check for ten million silver coins on the spot and had his confidant deliver it to Absaik.
This Rat Clan lad was just as hotheaded as before, even though he had no clue what aerospace even was.
Not just Ashin—several Moon Clan people who had moved to Port French Fries earlier and made their fortunes also chipped in.
Reform was a lost cause now; rather than letting this money go down the drain, they might as well light a firecracker with it, which at least might leave their names etched in a few lines of this magnificent epic.
And so, with a registered capital of less than ten thousand silver coins and less than a month since its founding, this startup managed to amass nearly fifty million silver coins in funding within a mere fortnight, thanks to the backing of Ashin and a crowd of Moon Clan patrons!
Even Absaik had not expected that an ousted Grand Marshal like him would still possess such rallying power.
Grateful that so many had not given up on him, he resolved in his heart that he would definitely make a mark in the aerospace field!
Meanwhile, Absaik's right-hand man—Internal Affairs Commissioner Vadiya—followed a similar path after bringing his family from Wolf State in the State of Brahma to Golden Gallon Port.
Unlike Absaik, however, he did not wait around in Golden Gallon Port for the committee to dismiss him. Instead, he took the initiative to submit a resignation letter to the State of Brahma Embassy in Golden Gallon Port.
His war was over.
Having not yet decided what to do next, he mulled it over and ultimately bought a ferry ticket. After settling his family, he traveled alone to Port French Fries to seek out his old boss, who was embarking on his "second venture."
Absaik did not look down on this former intelligence officer for his lack of relevant expertise in aerospace. Instead, he welcomed him with open arms and appointed him head of the Supervision Department, putting him in charge of risk control for classified projects and background checks on employees handling confidential information.
These measures were all requirements set by the Alliance.
After all, expecting to buy out key Alliance technologies with just a few tens of millions of silver coins was rather wishful thinking.
Whether excavated from ruins or borrowed from allies, such technologies were the collective property of all Alliance citizens.
Anyone was permitted to use these technologies, improve upon them, and even register their own patents based on existing tech—provided they passed a background check.
This investigation covered multiple areas, including the founder's background, funding sources, and application scenarios. Furthermore, it was not conducted by economic departments, but handled directly by the Guards Corps.
In addition, the Alliance's intelligence departments maintained long-term cooperation with the supervision departments of classified private enterprises to jointly eliminate potential risks of technological leakage.
As the former head of the State of Brahma's intelligence department during wartime, Vadiya had dealt with many members of the Alliance's Guards Corps in the course of his duties, making liaison work second nature to him.
With such an illustrious resume, serving as the head of supervision for a startup was undoubtedly overkill, but Vadiya did not feel it was a waste at all. Instead, he was overjoyed to once again receive his old leader's regard and trust.
Though he had considered other lines of work, only by Absaik's side did he feel that sense of security, free from having to walk on thin ice surrounded by conniving minds.
Perhaps this was personal charisma.
Or rather, the ability to make talented people willingly risk their lives for him in peace...
...
Time slipped by day by day, and February soon arrived, with the northern hemisphere's spring blooming right around the corner.
On the west coast of the Great Desert, the battle situation remained deadlocked, though its intensity was far below what it had been late last year.
The military strength of the Southern Legion was at the end of its rope; both in manpower and materiel, they had reached the point of utter exhaustion.
In contrast, Enterprise grew increasingly spirited the more it fought. The reinforcements deployed to the front lines had grown from an initial two divisions to ten, with over a hundred thousand citizens from Ideal City directly participating in the ground war against the Southern Legion!
The last time Enterprise had conducted a large-scale military operation abroad had been a century and a half ago, when the mutants had just escaped from the laboratory...
Confronted by the mechanized forces of Enterprise and the rotating offensives of the Alliance's various corps, the troops the Southern Legion sent to the front were like dry kindling thrown into a bonfire, unable to put up any effective resistance as they were battered black and blue.
Defeat came not only on the front lines, but also on the public opinion battlefield.
Although the Southern Legion Victory Gazette still racked its brains concocting lies of impending victory, as lie after lie was unmasked, even the legion's own soldiers no longer believed what was written in the paper.
Not only that.
The Wilante units, which had once fought to the bitter end no matter how dire the situation, finally began surrendering in organized formations.
Most of these surrendering units were centuriae.
They had either been assigned impossible missions, lost contact with their commanding officers, or been handed a rifle and thrown directly onto the battlefield.
Of course, those reasons were probably secondary.
The most crucial factor was that the fanatical militarists had already burned themselves out in the previous battles.
Those who remained were either child soldiers, citizens thrown to the front after receiving only basic military training, or non-Wilante auxiliaries who had no desire to be buried alongside the legion.
Nearly three hundred thousand regular and auxiliary troops were encircled by Enterprise forces in the northwestern corner of the Great Desert, while the remaining hundred thousand or so had been compressed around the city of Avent, shrinking their defensive perimeter toward the urban core.
The southern part of Batoa Province had opened its gates to the Alliance. Truckloads of supplies were being transported along the railways and highways bordering the Great Desert toward the southern front of Batoa Province.
Among these were not only military supplies, but also construction machinery for clearing bunkers and minefields—such as oversized bulldozers, front loaders, and more.
Mopping up the remnants of the Southern Legion was only the first step; afterward, they would have to carry out postwar reconstruction in Batoa Province.
Simply slaughtering the beasts could not eradicate barbarism.
They also had to plant the seeds of civilization there, allowing a newborn order to supplant the old.
On the outskirts of Avent City.
The Death Corps, having rushed to the front line aboard transport trucks, was the first to arrive at their combat positions.
Watching In Debt God climb down from the truck with both hands laden with bags and parcels, the banter among the players came to an abrupt halt, and all eyes turned toward him in astonishment.
"What the hell?"
"Why do you have so much luggage?"
"Good grief, are you moving house or something?!"
In Debt God offered an embarrassed grin and tried to tuck the parcels behind his back.
"What are you talking about? It's just supplies—"
Before he could finish, Midnight Umbrella No Knife, who had slipped behind him, playfully unzipped one of the packages. To everyone's surprise, with a loud rustle, the contents burst out like an avalanche.
"Holy shit! What the fuck are you doing?!" Seeing items scattered all over the ground, In Debt God panicked, lunging forward to pick them up, but there was simply too much to gather all at once.
"Sorry, sorry, bro! I was just joking. Why didn't you wrap all this stuff up properly..." Midnight Umbrella No Knife quickly crouched down to help him clean up, but right then, Construction Site Boy and Bricks picked up a palm-sized box from the ground.
The packaging looked quite exquisite, tied with a bow that seemed thoughtfully arranged.
Construction Site Boy and Bricks gave the box a shake, looking at In Debt God in bewilderment.
"...Chocolate? What did you bring so much chocolate for?"
The other similar boxes likely contained chocolates or candies as well; a rough count showed around a hundred of them, which explained why the bags had been stuffed so full.
In Debt God's face instantly flushed red as a baboon's rear. Snatching the delicately wrapped chocolate gift box, he flusteredly began spouting nonsense.
"Ahem! Isn't Avent City suffering from a famine? I read in the papers that lots of people are starving, so I just wanted to see if anyone needed help... you know... just doing my part to help others. You guys get it."
Seeing the flimsy excuse he had concocted on the spot, his buddies immediately burst out laughing.
"Pfft! 'Help others,' my ass!"
"Tsk, that excuse... you might as well say you were worried your harem would go hungry."
"+1. If this guy's motives were that pure, I'd eat a pile of shit on the spot!"
"Holy shit! Can you guys not be so filthy-minded?! I'm pure and wholesome, okay?!" In Debt God argued desperately with a crimson face, but not a single person believed him.
Just then, Construction Site Boy and Bricks, still scavenging on the ground, raised his head again and shook the bag in his hand in confusion.
"Then what the fuck are you carrying sanitary pads for?"
Fa Wai Kuang Tu: "???"
Laplace: "Holy shit!"
Mrs. You Wouldn't Want That Either: "Bwahaha, fuck! I never knew you were that kind of guy, In Debt God!"
Looking at the group rolling on the ground with laughter, Drum Washing Machine pressed a hand to his forehead in exasperation.
"...You guys are acting like you've only just met him."
Isn't he just trying to help homeless young ladies? What's there to be afraid of saying it out loud! At worst, just surrender your helmet to someone in need.
Unable to watch any longer, Brother Edge walked over, cleared his throat, and said, "Even though the Southern Legion has been backed into a corner, don't underestimate our enemy. Every single one of them is a beast driven into a corner right now. Who knows what surprises are waiting for us in the city."
Hearing this, Laplace grinned.
"Wouldn't that be great! A free ticket back to Dawn City!"
Fa Wai Kuang Tu: "Bwahahaha!"
I'm Responsible for Dying First: "You're a fucking genius!"
They were players.
Immortal heroic spirits.
For ordinary people, the deadly "Death Agent" was fatal, but for them, it merely meant waiting three days at most.
They had fought all the way here from Akale County in Brahma Province, and not a single one had uttered a discouraging word. Now that victory in the war was within sight, they naturally had no reason to feel afraid.
Brother Edge laughed along with everyone, then turned his gaze toward the distant direction of Avent City.
That steel-forged fortress was like a hidden reef beneath raging waves.
Barring any surprises, this would be the final battle...
Chapter 963