116: Chapter 116 Reaction

Lin Li sat in his chair, watching the screens linked to surveillance cameras at various camps. He saw tens of thousands of players, fully armed and howling as if they had been injected with chicken blood, rushing out.

Satisfied, he picked up his coffee cup and couldn't help but let out a laugh as sinister as a villain's.

"See? That's what you call intrinsic motivation! Now they have work to do, don't they?"

Lin Li leaned back in his chair, feeling excellent.

In truth, for the current Fire Seed Shelter, the players weren't the only armed force at his disposal.

At the very least, if Lin Li were truly pushed to his wit's end,

he could have Stone Man Hong quickly clone a massive army of mutant monsters with formidable combat power in the B3 level Gene Lab;

he could even have Iron Man 73 run the production lines regardless of cost, churning out a tireless, emotionless legion of Men of Iron.

But Lin Li knew very well that both of these trump cards carried unpredictable consequences.

If mutants went out of control, they would turn on their master;

and mass-producing intelligent Men of Iron without self-restraints risked repeating the omnicidal human-machine crisis of the Golden Age.

Unless it was a true moment of life or death, it was best not to touch the contents of those Pandora's boxes.

Only the players—this The Fourth Calamity, strictly limited by the system's underlying logic and obsessed with nothing but farming points for gear—were the most controllable and perfect war machines.

And when this war machine of tens of thousands fully mobilized, the commotion it caused was impossible to hide.

The entire western region and all the native settlements in Shahe Town noticed the Shelter's large-scale troop movement.

A massive number of roaring tracked vehicles and fully armed soldiers marched majestically along the newly built concrete roads.

Almost all native leaders keenly realized:

The Shelter was about to launch a massive military operation against Coastal City!

...

Surface Camp.

Governor Jia Mei, the leader of Shahe Town, arrived at the Shelter covered in dust, riding a captured, battered desert motorcycle.

The moment he touched the ground, before he even had time to brush the sand off his clothes,

on the west side of the camp, a mutant warhorse with coarse fur neighed and came to a halt. Talos, the leader of the Nomads, also dismounted and hurried over.

The two had met before at the Spark Alliance trade exchange meeting and knew they were allies. After nodding to each other, they walked toward the entrance side-by-side.

Lin Li received the report and took the underground elevator to the surface.

Upon meeting, Governor Jia Mei couldn't help but speak up, his tone carrying a hint of dissatisfaction:

"Lord! Your soldiers are conducting an unprecedented large-scale mobilization! Yet we, as allies, knew nothing about it!"

Talos also stepped forward, pressing his right hand to his chest, and said in a deep voice:

"My Lord, since we have signed a sacred covenant, we are a community with a shared destiny! Even if the strength of us Nomads and Shahe Town is small, we should still do our part in the face of such a great war!"

Clearly, both allies felt Lin Li was keeping them at arm's length, somewhat blaming him for not treating them as his own.

This was something Lin Li truly hadn't expected.

After all, he had been used to working only with players from the start. With two such conscientious allies suddenly appearing, he hadn't yet adjusted to the role of leading a coalition.

"Hahaha! My fault, my fault. I didn't consider things thoroughly!"

Lin Li laughed and patted their shoulders.

"Come, let's go to my reception room and talk it over slowly!"

The three of them sat down in a simple tea room.

Lin Li personally brewed a pot of coarse tea for them.

"Here's the situation."

Lin Li put away his smile and spoke seriously.

"The Orks on the Northern Radiation Wasteland have started migrating eastward in swarms for some reason. Currently, it's conservatively estimated that tens of millions of Orks are heading south from the north, fiercely attacking Coastal City."

"The number of Orks is massive, and a large amount of heavy war equipment has appeared. I estimate that Coastal City's defensive line won't hold. So, to relieve their pressure and prevent the Orks from spreading toward us after the city falls, I decided to send reinforcements."

Lin Li paused, cleverly packaging his reason for not notifying them to join the fight:

"Furthermore, I know you have all suffered from the cruel exploitation of the Coastal City trade nobles in the past. There's bad blood between you. If I forcibly conscripted your people to die for Coastal City, I feared the rank and file would be resentful. So..."

Hearing this explanation, the two leaders exchanged glances, and the dissatisfaction on their faces dissipated significantly.

Talos picked up his teacup and sighed:

"Lord, while we Nomads indeed had bloody conflicts with the Coastal City nobles in the past, we understand the concept of 'if the lips are gone, the teeth will be cold.'"

Governor Jia Mei also nodded, echoing with deep feeling:

"Exactly. Those who oppressed us in Shahe Town were only those greedy noble bureaucrats. The two hundred million commoners in Coastal City have nothing to do with those vampires; like us, they are just poor souls. We cannot leave them to die."

Lin Li thought about it; this was indeed a simple truth.

But he still didn't plan on letting these people go to the front lines as cannon fodder.

In a meat grinder of tens of millions of Orks, mortals with crude equipment who couldn't respawn would just be sending themselves to their deaths.

"How about this."

Lin Li offered a compromise.

"You don't need to participate in the front-line melee. War should be left to us professional soldiers and warriors."

Just as the two were about to argue their case, Lin Li raised a hand to stop them:

"If you truly want to help, then stay in the rear! Shahe Town should run the refinery at full capacity to produce enough cesium fuel; the Nomad camp should speed up the breeding of Brave Cow. As long as you transport sufficient logistics to the front, that will be the greatest support for this campaign!"

With things put this way, the two no longer insisted and solemnly took their leave.

After seeing off the two leaders, Lin Li returned to the underground main control room.

For this campaign, just the players involved numbered over twenty thousand. They faced a sea of tens of millions of Orks and hundreds of thousands of struggling Defense Force soldiers.

This was absolutely a super-battle of unprecedented scale.

A winner wouldn't be decided in a short time; they had to be prepared for a long-term war of attrition.

However, the Shelter's production system had now completely stabilized.

The large-scale constructor production lines controlled by Iron Man 73 were responsible for producing weapons and ammunition twenty-four hours a day without interruption;

the NPC allies in the rear were responsible for food and fuel logistics; and the players only needed to let loose and focus on fighting to their hearts' content on the front lines!

...

The perspective shifted to Coastal City, a remote position on the westernmost side of the northern defense line.

"Damn it!"

Hunger Tycoon lay in the muddy trench, checking his laser rifle while cursing loudly.

"This was supposed to be just a regular support mission for our Hand of God legion. How did it suddenly turn into a server-wide major expansion pack while we were fighting?!"

The legion commander, Black Tiger A-Fu, sat on an ammo crate nearby. Instead of comforting his subordinate, he also had a face full of regret and frustration at the loss:

"That's not the important part! The most important thing is those 'Stimulants' and 'Psionic Repellents' Boss Li Ming mentioned in the announcement that can significantly boost combat power. We've been at the front and haven't gone back, so we haven't snagged a single one! This is a huge loss!"

The Hand of God legion was the first group of players to receive the regional mission issued by Lin Li and come to the Coastal City front to provide support.

They had been stationed at this remote position as conscripts for the Defense Force.

"Forget it, forget it."

A Fu comforted himself.

"Look on the bright side, we've been holding this spot for nearly a month. We've already built up a massive base of points, and our levels are much higher than those newbies who just logged on."

Just then,

a player wearing a thick, tattered overcoat and a gas mask tightly fastened to his face—wrapped up so thoroughly he was unrecognizable—approached them, his voice muffled.

"At least you guys are just taking a slight hit. I'm the one who's truly getting screwed over here, okay?!"

The gas-masked player complained, sounding like he was on the verge of tears.

"I finally waited in line and got a slot in the game, only to wake up and find my race is an Ork! Where's the justice in that?!"

A Fu looked at this Ork mole hiding in the human trenches and couldn't help but burst out laughing:

"What's so bad about that? As an Ork, you can live without eating or drinking. Plus, you're born with insane muscle strength and recovery; your base stats are way higher than a human's!"

"It's ugly!"

The masked player protested in grief and indignation.

"This crappy game doesn't even let you customize your face! And now I'm behind enemy lines; I have to wear this coat and mask every day. I don't even dare take it off to take a crap, for fear the NPC Defense Force next to me will recognize me and blow my head off!"

Hunger Tycoon looked at the player's ID and patted his shoulder while suppressing a laugh:

"Brother, I think this has a lot to do with the ID you picked. Look at what you're called: [I Think The Emperor Can Stand Up]!"

"Most likely Gork and Mork in the Warp saw your ID from above, thought you were a born traitor, and specifically picked you out just to mess with you!"

"..." The masked player was speechless.

While this group of players was busy with their daily banter,

a woman wearing worn, grey leather clothes came running from the other end of the trench.

It was Bailey, the female gang member from Shahe Town.

Since A Fu had told her a few days ago that her cousin Governor Jia Mei had led a revolt to overthrow the noble rule in Shahe Town,

Bailey felt as if she had been reborn, her entire spirit renewed.

Moreover, because A Fu often shared his portion of nutrient paste with her, her originally gaunt cheeks finally had a hint of healthy color.

"A Fu."

Bailey ran over, panting for breath.

"Some high-ranking officers from the rear headquarters have arrived. They asked for you by name."

A Fu stood up and slapped the mud off his rear. "Lead the way."

The group walked toward the rear along the winding communication trenches.

After a short while, they saw several officers in crisp military uniforms waiting behind a relatively safe bunker.

Standing at the front was a Defense Force general responsible for commanding this section of the line;

standing next to him was the cold Political Commissar who had once personally promoted A Fu.

The general was somewhat stout. Although he wore a uniform, his face was clean and fair, showing little sign of the elements.

Clearly, he was another figurehead who had risen through connections at the Governors Mansion and spent his years in the rear command posts.

However, as the Governor's hand in controlling the army, he did know a bit about command and coordination.

A Fu walked up, snapped to attention, and gave the officers a textbook salute:

"Greetings, sirs!"

The fat general sucked in his protruding belly, looked A Fu up and down, and squeezed out a trace of a kindly smile.

"Sergeant Major, I have heard of your deeds these past few days and have personally reviewed your kill record. You are a very fine young man."

As he spoke, the fat general even condescended to step forward and reach out to brush the mud off A Fu's shoulder.

Then, he glanced sideways out of the corner of his eye at the expressionless Political Commissar, seemingly showing off his methods of winning people's hearts.

"Furthermore, your performance these past few days has become more and more outstanding. You and your fellow townsmen have proven your valor to everyone through your actions!"

The fat general pulled a new rank insignia from his pocket and handed it to A Fu.

"Now, on behalf of the Governors Mansion, I officially grant you the rank of Second Lieutenant! Keep up the hard work, son!"

A Fu acted flattered on the surface, but his mind was as clear as a mirror.

"This fat general and the Political Commissar clearly aren't on the same side. The Political Commissar represents the iron-blooded commissariat of the Astra Militarum, while this general represents the interest groups of the Governors Mansion. He's poaching from the Political Commissar's territory right to his face, trying to win over capable junior officers."

But since the fat general was the boss here in the current military structure,

A Fu immediately responded loudly: "Yes, General! For the God-Emperor!"

Just as this hypocritical promotion farce concluded,

"Aaaaagh—WAAAAAGH!!!"

From the wilderness far beyond the defense line, that hair-raising Ork war cry rang out once again.

And this time, the roars were denser and more frenzied than ever before!

Immediately following, on the positions behind the line, the Defense Force's heavy artillery batteries erupted in a deafening, synchronized roar!

"Enemy attack! To the command post!"

The officers' faces changed instantly. They didn't even have time for pleasantries as they hurried away under the cover of guards, running toward the safe underground command post in the rear.

The Political Commissar in the black coat nodded to A Fu before leaving.

A Fu turned around and sprinted back to the trench.

He snatched up the standard-issue Defense Force laser rifle resting on the sandbags and roared into the legion channel:

"Brothers! We've got work! Lock and load! It's probably those Orks coming to fill the lines and give us points again!"

The Ork attacks followed no tactical patterns; they usually just charged in a disorganized swarm.

For the veterans of Hand of God who had been dealing with Orks on the line for nearly a month, this scene was nothing new, and dealing with it was relatively simple.

The usual routine was:

Wait for the Orks to get close, then A Fu, as the highest combat power, would charge out with his axe to find the lead Orc Boss for a duel.

Once A Fu cracked the Nob's skull and the Orks lost their command, the remaining players would use the cover to focus fire and clean up the leaderless Orc Boyz.

Since this position was on higher ground, it wasn't the focus of the struggle for the line.

Therefore, aside from the occasional scrap Killa Kans piloted by Gretchin, large-scale heavy armor rarely visited this area.

However, as the distant smoke cleared and the main Ork force approached the position,

A Fu raised his binoculars, and his eyes instantly widened like copper bells.

"Holy shit!"

A Fu couldn't help but swear.

In this attack, even this remote peripheral position was facing a massive amount of heavy armored units!

In addition to swarms of Killa Kans,

in the distance, several wild-looking Mekboy Heavy Artillery Wagons, welded with spikes, were roaring forward through the mud!

And behind these heavy artillery wagons,

a massive iron monster, four stories tall and making the earth shake with every step, was spewing billowing black smoke as it slowly but steadily ground its way toward the defense line!