Resurrection Empire

Chapter 783 294: Surrender and Die

Ren Zhong lay quietly in the cabin of the armed airship.

It was 4 AM on the 152nd day of the Ren Zhong Era. He was traveling by private airship to Nangao Town, preparing to join the large troops there.

He wasn't sleeping but instead was reviewing information and understanding the frontline situation in a state of pretend rest.

Around 11 PM last night, the Yangsheng Army reached Nangao Town and settled in quickly within just over ten minutes, with the assistance of the three mayors, staying on-site.

Tomorrow morning, the 60,000-strong Yangsheng Army and the 30,000-strong Starfire Army will complete their reorganization and aim directly at Beihai Town.

As for the additional 20,000 warriors of the Starfire Army, they have long been dispersed by Shi Xuan into well-equipped six-man units of various professions, spreading out in advance towards other towns, including the four towns in West Lake County, converging like rivers flowing into the sea towards Xifeng Town to gather intelligence.

Although every town is currently maintaining cordons and prohibiting outsiders from entering, the majority of the Starfire Army are originally outlanders, and now, having obtained the distribution maps of many original outlander tribes in Yangsheng City from their comrades, along with sophisticated automated equipment, these infiltration units aren't lacking places to stay overnight.

In just a few days, although the infiltration units have never approached the towns, they have utilized their superb hunting skills and powerful equipment to sweep the resources surrounding the towns at a very rapid pace.

Now, after integrating Ren Zhong's various cunning techniques and blending them with the skills taught by the Tanggu Group experts, the scavengers of Starfire Town have developed a hunting style that is not unique but is distinctive within Yangsheng City's area.

The six-man teams from Starfire Town routinely complete cross-level hunting tasks with ease.

A team composed of Third Level professionals dares to attack Level Four Ruined Beasts and often wins more than it loses. Even if they can't win, they can safely withdraw.

Even the infiltration units mainly take the crystal chips, discarding the carcasses, but often in just a day or two, they fill their crystal chip boxes, then head straight to Nangao Town to complete transactions there and set out again.

Ren Zhong had already secured Nangao Town, providing great convenience for resource turnover there.

He offered the highest discount price of 50% off to the resource owners in Nangao for this very purpose.

The resource recovery companies in the other six towns are suffering, but there's nothing they can do.

The companies can still manage, but many semi-professional scavengers in the small towns are mostly living day by day, spending whatever they earn, and after two or three days without income, their economy is on the brink of collapse.

Logically, in such a situation, resource recovery companies should somewhat reduce prices to help out the scavengers and win the people's hearts.

However, the enterprise owners are unsure themselves.

They fear that even if they help the scavengers, they wouldn't withstand Ren Zhong's fierce attack, and defeat is only a matter of time.

Now attempting to win hearts seems like preparing a wedding dress for others. They might as well keep the money, saving whenever possible.

As a result, these semi-professional scavengers are in dire straits.

From the day before yesterday, scavengers began forcefully fleeing the small towns to secretly scavenge leftovers for their needs.

Some people got lucky, finding carcasses not yet devoured by low-level Ruined Beasts and returned smoothly without incident.

But most found themselves unfortunate, caught by the infiltration units.

There was almost no gunfire, as these lower-tier scavengers often chose to surrender directly.

They initially thought they would be robbed clean, but the opponents merely engaged them in conversation, talking about the greatness of Starfire Town, Ren Zhong's benevolence and generosity, and showed off their new equipment, even asking if they were envious.

That wasn't all. These people were also taken out hunting by the infiltration units, only asked to collect the carcasses that would have gone to waste otherwise.

If these lower-tier scavengers were too weak, the infiltration unit from Starfire Town would even escort them to a location near the town, ensuring their safe return before waving them goodbye and slipping away.

In less than two days, there was unrest among the townspeople.

The town outlanders, stripped of their wristwatches, gathered in small groups, discussing how the Starfire Town outlanders, whom they had viewed as low-ranking just months ago, were now so impressive, and marveling at the mysterious Ren Zhong.

The resource recovery companies' enterprise owners naturally noticed these changes and felt anxious.

Ren Zhong is wealthy and has a powerful army, we can't compete.

They could no longer let people out.

As the Yangsheng Army began marching west yesterday, the towns successively sealed their gates, completely prohibiting entry or exit.

Some slightly conscientious enterprise owners began subsidizing the scavengers out of their pockets with an average daily allowance of 0.5 to 1 point to stabilize morale.

Others adopted a high-pressure policy, confining everyone to communal sleeping pods, leaving them to sustain themselves with the wage from temporary wristwatches for food and drink.

If a household had no children, then fine.

But if there were children unable to use temporary wristwatches, it became troublesome with one or more mouths to feed. Someone would have to go hungry.

Hunger leads to wandering thoughts, and wandering thoughts mean loss of control.

Loss of control often results in suppression and death.

Perhaps initially these were rare occurrences, but inevitably there is restlessness.

No one knows when the Starfire Town army will arrive, how long these days of hardship will last, or whether they and their families will hold out until the "royal army" comes to the rescue.

In such towns, the atmosphere is already nearing the most desperate times Starfire Town experienced when Ren Zhong could not resolve the Cold-blooded Butcher incident.

Of course, a real world-stage chaos hadn't erupted.

Back then, Starfire Town had Lin Wang, and now these towns also have their "Lin Wang."

Undeniably, Ren Zhong and his army have imposed a massive pressure on other small towns.

Victory is within reach.

But at this moment, Ren Zhong was not fantasizing about the scene after victory; he was merely playing with his sidearm.

It might seem unbelievable, but General Ren, who is worth nearly a trillion, was actually contemplating suicide.

He sighed deeply, thinking to himself that Ying Hao had wronged him.

If only he had smoothly taken Tianyuan Military Industry back then, at least half of his worries would be gone now.

Sun Ai had posed three demands to Ren Zhong.

First, she discovered that the microorganisms in the alien ore could amplify the information streams she released. She had been unaware of this until Ren Zhong involved her in the battle to seize Zhaoshan Town. Encased in a Red Blade Armor mixed with a large amount of alien ore, with other elite warriors wielding weapons containing alien ore alloy, she perceived this while infiltrating the city defense cannon and hacking the central system via cable links.

Second, she needed to use the Ghost Particle Communicator to broadcast her signal, not just one, but many. She was unsure of the exact number but knew it would be significant.

Third, she needed this signal to scan Source Star and the entire Source Star System to locate the "Net's" physical position. Sun Ai believed that although the "Net" was ubiquitous and perhaps intangible, it couldn't exist purely within information streams and must have an operational center. Upon locating this center, she would use the Ghost Particle Communicator array to dispatch her consciousness there, launching a destructive infiltration against the Net. Ideally, she could achieve mutual destruction.

Ren Zhong had solutions for all three of Sun Ai's demands.

As for alien ore, he currently had over seven tons.

If he restarted and monopolized all the alien ore accumulated by the Wang Family, the total would exceed twenty tons.

Uncertain if it would work, but it's worth trying.

Ghost Particle Communicators are regulated items, expensive too, but Purple Crystal Mining holds a large stock of communicators. Ren Zhong believed he could obtain them through Purple Crystal Mining.

As for the third point, uncovering the physical location of the "Net," Ren Zhong also had a breakthrough idea, which was based on a new positioning technology under development by Tianyuan Military Industry.

If Ren Zhong had completed the act of the snake swallowing the elephant back then, he wouldn't need to restart now. He could first explore this technology, finding ways to deal with the alien ore slowly in the future.

Right now, though, he was stuck.

Ying Hao had shifted from being his support to his obstacle. Even if Ren Zhong offered an astronomical price, Ying Hao would never allow him to purchase Tianyuan Military Industry, never allow him to own a weapons factory.

Ren Zhong pondered for a long time and set a new date for himself, deciding to observe the situation for another half month. If there was no breakthrough by the 167th day, he would restart.

As for now, he first intended to seize all of Yangsheng City, observing the ensuing changes.

...

That noon, the combined forces of 110,000, including the Starfire Army, Yangsheng Army, and the 20,000 newly reorganized Nangao Army, arrived at Beihai Town.

No battles occurred; the army moved directly in.

Half an hour earlier, Ren Zhong had reached a deal with Beihai's resource owners to purchase at thirty percent price.

Thus, Wangdong Town, Zhaoshan Town, Nangao Town, Beihai Town were all secured.

Counting Starfire Town, Ren Zhong now monopolized half of the ten towns in Yangsheng City, with only Xifeng Town and the four towns within West Lake County struggling.

A comprehensive intelligence report on Xifeng Town was presented to Ren Zhong.

After a quick glance, Ren Zhong made a decision.

Launch a blitzkrieg immediately, striking directly at Xifeng Town.

The owner of Xifeng's resources must die, even if they surrender.