Meng Chao cast a glance at the clock hanging above Gao Ye’s head.
Time was on his side.
“I’m beginning to understand you less. What does all these trifling matters from the past have to do with the future of Dragon City?”
“History is like a mirror we can shine on our future.” The light in Gao Ye’s single eye became even brighter, but his expression became calmer. “As the scale and intensity of the colonization war continues, a large amount of resources and profit will be sent to the superhumans, especially the high-grade ones. It will be in order to help them reach higher realms and gain even more power.
“Those superhumans will naturally grow even stronger and only with even more resources offered to them will they respond to the needs of the colonization war.
“And as the territory we control continues expanding and the supply line becomes longer, the normal soldiers of the Red Dragon Army will become weaker. In time, they will no longer be able to bring out the power of the ‘steel army’.
“The ‘steel army’ that should be able to sweep through all forces and win all battles will need a smooth communication line and a lot of supplies to bring its fighting strength.
“We’ll need hardened road surfaces, railroads, airports, heavy transportation vehicles, and sea routes with aircrafts protecting them. Our heavy industry will have to be stable, reliable, and not easily destroyed by the enemy. It’s only when we have all this that the ‘steel army’ will bring to fruition what it has said it’s able to do.
“Unfortunately, there is just no way the Other World’s civilization will have a lot of hardened roads and railroads, and that is if they even have a civilization.
“Even though Dragon City has developed a lot of automatized and highly efficient construction equipment, it is still impossible for us to spread a tight communication network all over the Other World and protect it from all the creatures on this planet.
“This means that in this vast Other World, the Red Dragon Army will have a very difficult time fighting with the strategies from Earth and only a large number of soldiers at its disposal. Even if it works, the necessary capital will be ten times or even a hundred times higher than on Earth. The military expenditure will be astronomical and will collapse our entire financial system.
“Dragon City can only choose to pour most of the resources into the superhumans. They must use the agile superhumans who do not face any need for supplies and can substitute an entire well-trained army.
“Once the superhumans become the protagonists, the Red Dragon Army and equipped normal soldiers will gradually turn into side characters and subordinates, because they won’t be able to get any resources. It will turn into a vicious cycle. They will no longer be able to take down cities and will only be used as public security in our own territories.
“Meng Chao, do you think I’m making sense?”
Meng Chao opened his mouth, but he didn’t say what was on his mind: Yeah, you’re making too much friggin’ sense.
Gao Ye was not just making sense, but talking about the reality that Meng Chao remembered from his previous life.
In a world that possessed supernatural powers, normal soldiers were just too weak and faced too many limitations that made them unable to bring out their full power.
And the most crucial point was resources.
When the Red Dragon Army wanted to fortify Dragon City because their families were there, they had shocking fighting strength. Regardless of whether they were facing Apocalyptic Beasts, other supernatural creatures, or the strongest magicians, they stood firmly in their stations and faced death with a smile. They fought until there were no soldiers left.
The heavy industry that was right at their doorstep could provide them with an endless supply of tanks, aircrafts, or at the very least, ammo. With these, they could form a steel army that tore their enemies’ physical bodies to shreds.
However, once the Red Dragon Army left the area controlled by Earthlings and went on an expedition, the mountain ranges, rivers, forests, swamps, and the complicated, ever-changing, as well as extreme weather of the Other World would make them suffer.
And the targets they needed to conquer were not the savages found on Earth.
They were magicians who controlled incredibly powerful supernatural abilities; elusive elves who controlled entire patches of forests; barbarians and beast folk who were fearless and could enter a berserk state in an instant; and even dwarves who could destroy the ground in just a few short days and damage the railways built by the Red Dragon Army, which were hundreds of kilometers long.
The accursed locals had a million ways to destroy the supply lines of the Red Dragon Army.
When a modern army did not have any supplies, it was no different from an ancient army that had run out of supplies.
The worst thing was that the large fighting machines of the Red Dragon City used crystals as their source of energy.
Compared to the gasoline and gunpowder on Earth, crystals were an incredibly unstable and highly dangerous source of power.
It was not rare for a situation to be clearly beneficial to Earth’s army, but the locals, driven forward by their fervent beliefs, would sacrifice a few of their powerful fighters’ lives to accurately locate the spot where Earth’s army had stored their ammunition and explode all the crystals.
Such a tragedy had happened multiple times.
And because of it, the higher-ups and normal citizens in Dragon City were forced to admit that relying solely on their “steel army” to sweep through the lands and conquer all of the Other World was a fool’s dream.
Hence, Gao Ye was completely right. Before Meng Chao returned to the past, the tactical resources had indeed been given solely to the superhumans, and everyone relied on them to fight against the powerful fighters of the Other World’s locals.
The Red Dragon Army had been gradually split into three parts.
The first part was an incredibly small but elite group. They were a rapid response force, and at their largest, they were still no bigger than a brigade.
The Ghost Tribe that Meng Chao joined in his previous life might not have been a real fighting brigade, but it was a core fighting force that was commonly seen in Dragon City.
The second was a group of combat engineers. They specialized in following behind the powerful fighters to reinforce them with firepower, to repair roads and bridges, and to build all sorts of trenches and fortresses.
The third was the security force. After the powerful fighters from Earth killed the elites of the Other World and the combat engineers built the fortresses, they were stationed in the fortresses to intimidate the locals.
Among the three, the security force was the largest.
No matter what sort of glorious history, what powerful equipment, and what high morale an army had, once it was reduced to being a security force, it would no longer be the same. It could only fight the elusive guerilla squads, so their strength went downhill and their core collapsed.
The Red Dragon Army did not wish to turn into a side character in the colonization war and become a security force that could only run around dealing with the elves’ curses and the dwarves’ warhammers.
The higher ups did everything they could to research Heroic Spirit Technology and gathered together the brainwaves of thousands of soldiers to create the Battle Soul Technology, which had great fighting power. It was their best try to regain their position in the war.
But this technology did not completely close the distance between normal soldiers and high-grade superhumans.
The Red Dragon Army was destined to never be able to reach the status of the homeland security forces on Earth.
“Based on your expression, I can tell that you agree with me,” Gao Ye said happily. “I didn’t expect that we would be able to communicate so smoothly. Usually, university students at your age are all rash, fanatic, and have blind faith. They believe that victory is within their grasp, and they seldom think about their future calmly, like you do.
“In any case, in the decades of war in the future, the superhumans’ power, wealth, and authority will continue rising, and the distance between them and normal people will continue increasing.
“And as their cultivation bases go up, Dragon City will use biochemical modification technology, runic symbol machines technology, and the most advanced superbrain technology to develop pseudo-human AI and automatized technology. The end result will be all sorts of fighting machines that don’t need to be produced or controlled by normal humans. They might be drones and thinking machines or biochemical fighting beasts that will further replace the positions of normal soldiers.
“To a matchless elite, instead of a squad of normal humans, it would be better to bring numerous drones, thinking machines, and biochemical beasts to take down a place where Other World’s locals stay. Some of them may not even bring anything. They would just lurk at the spot where their enemies stay and assassinate the core members of the enemy forces.
“Drones have no fear, thinking machines will not break down, and even if biochemical beasts die, you will not need to pay a single cent to their family members as compensation. If things don’t go well, there won’t be any need for them to save their comrades trapped and surrounded by locals.
“Sooner or later, normal people won’t even have the value as cannon fodder.
“If a superhuman has a large supply of drones, thinking machines, and biochemical beasts or their very own mega corporation which can produce countless machines and they conquer a few cities far away from Dragon City and force a large number of locals to submit to them, you will see how much loyalty they will have toward Dragon City.”
Meng Chao frowned a little. “What do you mean?”
“It’s very simple. Think about it. If you’re a matchless elite who is above Deity Realm, your fighting strength is equivalent to that of an army, and you have an incredibly advanced brain… Your calculative and deductive abilities are equivalent to those of a superbrain and you can control thousands of automated fighting machines at the same time, while you’re also the boss of some mega corporation…
“With such power, once you’ve conquered several cities in the Other World or even a whole kingdom, would you still be completely loyal to Dragon City and the normal citizens who are far beneath you? Will you still place their interests above yours?
“Dragon City is not a normal country. The Survival Committee is not a government that is highly prestigious and can control all superhumans. Even the seemingly powerful Supernatural Tower has to continuously compromise before the high-grade superhumans and search for the greatest common divisor.
“If the colonization war drags on, it will only make the high-grade superhumans and the mega corporations they control continue growing. They will turn into monsters that can no longer be defeated. In the end, it’ll be the superhumans who will control Dragon City and not Dragon City who controls superhumans.
“And these superhumans who have all sorts of resources and benefits in the depths of the vast Other World, and maybe even their own kingdoms, will only have one connection left with the normal people in Dragon City—they all came from Earth.
“Dragon City transmigrated only half a century ago, so many of the old timers are from Earth and they ensured that the new generation born in the Other World did not forget its roots. For now, they help the superhumans maintain a close relationship with the normal people and force them to work together.
“But I wonder, if another half a century passes and all the old timers born on Earth die and the new generation becomes part of the Other World, how many of them will remember that all of us came from Earth?”