Chapter 294: The Eve of Losing Control

These vehicles and aircraft serve as both transport tools and can transform into combat vehicles at any moment.

The materials used to manufacture them cover a wide range, from rare to common categories.

They maximize the conversion of resources into finished products.

With a plan in place, Su Wu acted decisively.

He first allocated the resources stored in the warehouse, which were originally reserved for future technological breakthroughs.

Aside from retaining what was necessary for the continued modification of the base vehicle and the construction of the unfinished Doomsday-Class Land Cruiser, he invested everything else into the Super Factory.

The nature of this action was akin to abandoning food reserves in a resource-limited situation, opting instead to create weapons.

The results were quite evident.

This allowed Su Wu to manufacture approximately 30 Icebound-Class Land Battleships and nearly 4,000 snow transport vehicles.

He could also produce around 50 sixth-generation fighter jets.

As for the Azure Sky-Class Transport Drones, Su Wu gritted his teeth.

Combined with the ordinary resources scavenged from Steel City, he could even double their scale, ultimately reaching a total of 20,000 units.

At this scale, even if each Azure Sky-Class Transport Drone had a payload of only 600 kilograms, they could transport 12,000 tons of supplies in one go.

This is equivalent to a flying merchant convoy.

What does this mean?

It's important to note that the speed of a merchant convoy on the ice plains typically tops out at only 40 kilometers per hour.

Moreover, long-distance travel inevitably encounters blizzards and various extremely complex environments, along with occasional earthquakes and avalanches.

Maintaining an average speed of 20 kilometers per hour would be considered quite good.

In contrast, the flight speed of the Azure Sky-Class Transport Drones can reach 165 kilometers per hour.

Converted, 20,000 Azure Sky-Class Transport Drones could achieve the transport efficiency equivalent to 8 to 9 merchant convoys.

Additionally, this does not account for the hidden advantage that air transport is safer and more stable than ground transport over longer distances.

The downside, however, is that with an increased number, scheduling may become slightly more complicated.

But with Artificial Intelligence in place, such data-related issues would not pose any problems.

With this newly added aerial transport capability, Su Wu would no longer need to worry about the rare resources scavenged from anywhere in the Eastern Continent being delayed due to long distances, as they could be promptly transported back to the Farmhouse Shelter.

The speed at which Su Wu could acquire resources and convert them would see unprecedented improvement.

After exhausting the existing resource reserves, Su Wu also began large-scale demolition and construction in Steel City, located 400 kilometers away.

He demolished all unused factories and equipment.

Parts that could be used elsewhere were put back into service, while unusable items were melted down to become raw materials again.

The remaining industrial equipment that still had maintenance and utility value was relocated to various underground shelters within the urban area of Steel City, transforming them into production lines with certain processing capabilities.

Su Wu planned for Steel City, which had an industrial base, to take on part of the manufacturing tasks, responsible for producing frames for snow transport vehicles, Azure Sky-Class Transport Drones, ordinary Spider Robots, Machine Dogs, Exoskeleton Armor, and individual weapons and ammunition, among others.

This way, he could source materials locally, alleviating some of the pressure of transporting goods.

It would also enhance industrial capacity.

Given Steel City's scale, at the very least, the production of the much-needed snow transport vehicles could be doubled, increasing to a daily output of 1,000 units.

"There are simply too many recyclable factories and equipment in Steel City."

"Even after going through rounds of plundering and relocation."

"The remaining parts still have immense recycling potential and can contribute a large amount of basic resources."

"Moreover."

"The large mines surrounding Steel City, which radiate across half a province, along with various official and unofficial shelters."

"Can also provide substantial resources."

"All of this is more than enough to support Steel City in becoming a second manufacturing center."

Having decided to intensify resource plundering efforts, Su Wu set his sights on the numerous small and large shelters within a radius of two to three hundred kilometers around Steel City, as well as those on both sides of the transport line between it and Jianghe City.

These shelters, excluding the over 20 million population of Steel City itself, still accounted for over 40 million people.

If he could swallow them all, the total population under Su Wu's control would surpass 100 million.

Correspondingly, the resources within those shelters would be sufficient for Su Wu to complete another round of frenzied military expansion.

More critically, the difficulty of conquering them was relatively low.

Unlike other regions where shelters were more or less connected to nearby Super Shelters, the shelters around Steel City had no such concerns.

They could only rely on their own strength or, at most, form alliances with a few nearby shelters.

"And then, trade and plundering in other areas cannot cease."

"However, unlike the direct occupation around Steel City."

"In other places, we cannot act under the banner of Jianghe City; we need to disguise ourselves as roving bandits as much as possible."

This was Su Wu's greatest respect for the capital of the Eastern Continent and the Federation.

Of course, this somewhat ear-covering approach would not escape the notice of the observant.

Which bandit could, in such extreme weather, silently relocate a medium-sized shelter with at least hundreds or thousands of people, along with its population and resources, in a short time?

This level of operational capability was the best proof of identity.

In the entire Eastern Continent, aside from the capital, only Su Wu's Jianghe City could achieve this.

Other forces, even super cities, would find it challenging.

Without a small-scale mobilization, they could not act so decisively and efficiently.

However, even if they were aware of the truth, as long as it did not directly affect them, those in the know would likely keep the information confidential.

After all, in a situation where the overall order was nearly collapsing, reporting to higher authorities might not yield any consequences for Su Wu.

But it could very well provoke his anger and retaliation, bringing disaster to their own shelters.

On March 2nd, the second day of the month, Su Wu's Farmhouse Shelter officially completed the construction of the underground eighth level.

Due to the eighth level's height of 36 meters, its space was roughly equivalent to three standard floors, effectively expanding the underground portion of the shelter by nearly half its volume.

In such a vast space, Su Wu did not make significant changes to its functional structure.

He maintained the original layout and proportionally expanded the areas occupied by the Super Factory, amusement park, large park, and warehouse.

This decision allowed Su Wu's overall industrial strength to officially surpass that of the Eastern Continent's capital, making it the strongest in the entire region.

The recreational area and material storage warehouse could sufficiently support the needs of nearly 200 million people.

With such a solid foundation, Su Wu returned to the design path focused on residential areas and plantations for the ninth underground level, which was also being constructed to a height of 36 meters.

The only difference this time was that the collective dormitories occupied only half of the space, while the other half was primarily made up of small units for families and single-person apartments.

"Collective dormitories should have been completely eliminated."

"But the surface is becoming increasingly dangerous."

"We must transfer as many people from the outside to the Farmhouse Shelter as possible before the Amethyst Crystals go out of control."

"So, we can only sacrifice some quality of life to ensure that everyone who is relocated has at least a place to stay."

Su Wu spoke as if it were a difficult decision.

In reality, with the large park and numerous inns on the eighth underground level, although many couples could not truly form families for the time being and still needed to stay in their respective collective dormitories, at least there was a place to occasionally gather.

By the time children were born, which would be at least eight or nine months later, given the current excavation speed of the engineering team, there would likely be no shortage of housing.

The overall negative impact would be minimal.

At 3:20 PM, 30 kilometers east of the main urban area of Chongzhou City, a formation of 10 sixth-generation fighter jets emerged from the clouds.

They began to drop dozens of heavy ground-penetrating bombs onto the ground.

The violent explosions instantly tore apart a section of road meticulously maintained by Chongzhou City.

The subsequent tremors even reached the distant main urban area of Chongzhou City, triggering a small-scale earthquake alert.

Then, 10 minutes later, at the underground control center of the Farmhouse Shelter, Su Wu received an inquiry call from Chongzhou City.

"Yes, the bombing just now was at my behest."

"As for the reason."

"I have some recent reconnaissance intelligence that you can take a look at."

Su Wu had a good impression of Xu Wei, the director of Chongzhou City.

He was the most friendly and responsible among all the powerful figures Su Wu had encountered in super cities when it came to ordinary civilians.

Thus, Su Wu patiently explained the reasons to him.

He transmitted the relevant documents through the network.

On the other end, Xu Wei quickly skimmed through the documents in just over half a minute.

His tone then became extremely serious.

"Is the situation this severe?"

"It's only going to get worse than what you see."

"The battle situation between us and the Amethyst Crystals has actually been publicly available online."

"However."

"It seems no one has truly paid attention."

Su Wu's tone was calm, devoid of any dissatisfaction or anger.

He had fulfilled his basic duty as a human being.

How others responded was not his concern.

If they suffered heavy losses due to neglecting his warnings, that was their own issue.

"It might be because you've protected them too well."

"Until now."

"No one outside has died because of the Amethyst Crystals."

"So, including myself, we've all become somewhat complacent."

Xu Wei said with a bitter smile, his voice somewhat strained.

The apocalypse was not a peaceful era.

It forced countless people to huddle in cramped underground shelters, while simultaneously ensuring everyone's basic needs for food and clothing amidst various disasters.

This was incredibly taxing on the managers' energy.

If the situation had not truly reached a critical point, most managers' first instinct would be to temporarily set things aside and deal with them later.

"The current reality is."

"I'm almost at my limit."

"Since the Amethyst Crystals opened a second outbreak point, only a few days have passed."

"They have already increased by 17 new exits."

"The most recent one."

"I only discovered it when their main force was less than 20 meters from the surface."

"I estimate that in another day or two, you will need to participate in the war against the Amethyst Crystals."

Su Wu's gaze fell on the holographic projection map beside him.

It marked 17 deep red danger icons within the 300-kilometer area between Jianghe City and Chongzhou City.

These were the newly excavated exits of the Amethyst Crystals.

The good news was that these exits were not too far from Jianghe City, and Su Wu could still suppress them for now.

The bad news was that their numbers were increasing and getting closer to the urban area of Chongzhou City.

Once they reached that point, it would no longer be an area Su Wu could bomb at will.

Humans outside would soon experience the threat of the Amethyst Crystals firsthand.

"Can we cooperate?"

"If possible, we hope to purchase some Crystal Detectors."

Xu Wei remained silent for over ten seconds.

After recognizing the reality, he seriously prepared to adjust the focus of his upcoming work.

"No problem."

"The manufacturing cost of ordinary Crystal Detectors is not high; we can provide as many as you need."

Su Wu replied confidently.

This confidence stemmed from possessing the strongest industrial capability in the Eastern Continent.

After ending the communication with Chongzhou City, Su Wu stood up and approached the metal platform.

He switched the holographic projection map to a thumbnail of the entire Eastern Continent.

On this map, the area around Yu'an City was basically deserted.

In the Wide River Basin, aside from the official shelters of a dozen cities, the populations of the remaining shelters had largely completed their relocation.

Those who had been transferred to the Farmhouse Shelter might constitute the last foundation of humanity in the Eastern Continent.

"That's about it."

"We have forcibly delayed for over a month."

"Achieved sufficient development."

"Now, since we can no longer suppress it."

"Let's stop holding back."

"Prepare for a full-scale offensive and strategic defense."

"In the future, the defense priorities will be the Farmhouse Shelter, Steel City, communication signal towers, mines, and other subsidiary shelters."

"And the merchant convoy along the way."

"As for other places, we will selectively eliminate as many as we can."

"If it really comes to it, we can also abandon them."

(End of Chapter)