Oh, rather than saying the Aberrant Beasts panicked, it’s more accurate to say that the puppeteers behind them tried to make a desperate last stand.
They clearly knew that if things continued this way, the eradication operation involving two hundred thousand soldiers and millions of civilians, would genuinely wipe out the jungles of the Beiqing Valley Region.
It didn’t mean that the vast jungles would be completely deforested, but at least they would be cut into fragments. In the areas where it was certain that there were no Aberrant Beast nests developing, they could be left alone after clearing the surroundings; and for the jungles where Aberrant Beasts existed, complete destruction awaited.
The fully-powered synthetic starch factories constructed one after another could digest the destroyed trees on the spot, transforming them into synthetic starch needed by refugees.
This greatly relieved the pressure on food supplies.
Furthermore, with the recent conclusion of the autumn harvest, the Alliance’s food reserves were still in a healthy state.
Unwilling to sit and wait for death, the Nature Salvation Society gathered nearly five hundred thousand monsters of various types from the jungles across the Beiqing Valley Region.
But even so, they still suffered defeat.
They knew that facing the enemy head-on, despite their vast numbers, they stood no chance. In war, quantity is clearly not the primary factor; firepower is.
While fully-evolved Aberrant Beasts had the Pus Spewers with a shooting range almost equal to firearms and there were bio-artillery; overall, the vast numbers were still made up of the ordinary Aberrant Beasts. Those ordinary ones could only fight in close combat, mere cannon fodder.
A head-on attack was like serving themselves on a platter, but they had no other choice.
A wave of Aberrant Beasts gathered and charged out of the jungle in vast numbers, attempting to draw the attention of the Central Group Army in this way. Immediately after, they launched multiple attacks from other areas of the woodland.
However, the final result was still a failure.
Almost all of the Aberrant Beasts that set out were wiped out in the end.
At first, Yan Fangxu did have his attention diverted when he detected the massive wave of Aberrant Beasts; his main force confronted them head-on. But after realizing that the enemy was moving on all fronts, launching multiple attacks, his response was swift.
Firstly, the forces at the front launched a fiercer attack, annihilating the enemy they faced;
Secondly, the reserve troops mobilized extensively along the entire front, quickly providing support to multiple points of enemy attack. These troops were essentially the 15th to 25th Garrison Divisions trained up in the past month. Their equipment wasn’t fully in place yet, but they were adequate for temporary use.
Thirdly, the various militiamen and armed civilian self-defense forces had become quite outstanding. They resisted on the spot, waiting for reinforcements to arrive.
And as a rule, the first reinforcement to arrive would be air force formations.
Currently, the Alliance’s air force had nearly forty Wind Falcons in an aviation squadron. Formed in teams of three, upon hearing the situation facing the Beiqing Valley region, they all set off. They circled above the Beiqing Valley, ready to move instantly wherever air support was needed.
With the assistance of these aviation soldiers, who acted very swiftly and had a broad combat radius, the attacks launched by the mutant creatures hardly achieved any significant results.
Of course, the air force was just the air force and couldn’t produce a decisive effect. But as long as they could successfully delay the monsters’ attack rhythm, that was enough.
Once the Central Group Army on the ground was freed up, the rapid response units from various places could provide support along their route.
The Green Valley Region is a massive peninsula-shaped area, with its widest span being over a thousand kilometers. It’s impossible to cover everything merely with the manpower at hand.
But there is no need to. With a population of only several million, it’s enough to establish a few larger settlements; there’s no need to stretch so far and create such a long defense line, unnecessarily increasing the difficulty of defense.
A few targeted counter-offensive annihilation battles, and these Aberrant Beasts were almost completely exterminated.
Subsequently, the Alliance Army, in accordance with the plan, divided part of the rapid deployment troops along the Green Valley Region’s own pathways to begin moving south.
They would set up evacuation points along the way to help the civilians still stranded in the South Green Valley Region migrate northward and flee.
This migration was semi-coercive.
Ordinary civilians were one thing, but the many plantation owners still in South Green Valley Region were the biggest obstacle.
Since the outbreak of the disaster, the plantations in South Green Valley that have managed to persevere to this point are either relatively isolated, having encountered little trouble so far; or have managed to hold on by sticking together; or are just so large that they are not easily breached.
But no matter the circumstance, convincing plantation owners to easily abandon their assets and head north along with a massive number of hired laborers is very difficult.
In this regard, the Alliance expressed respect, but then demanded that all civilians leave.
If the population migrates but leaves behind the plantation owners and their families, you’re free to do as you please. If you seek death on your own, the Alliance can hardly save you.
However, if anyone dares to incite the hired laborers to oppose the Alliance Army, preventing them from leaving, or spreads false rumors that disaster will strike if they move north… any such acts of resistance will be treated as hostile. The Alliance Army will strike with full force.
In any case, the migration of the southern population didn’t go smoothly, often resulting in bloodshed. Nonetheless, the army enforced Governor Gu Hang’s will with iron and fire. Despite any disturbances, the plantation owners had no chance of stopping the process.
On Rage Owl Star, Governor Gu Hang’s will was an irresistible force, the wheel of the era!
No one could resist!
During this month, at Researcher Hu Ke’s lab, which Gu Hang had been attending to, they achieved breakthroughs in deciphering the spoils recovered by the Special Forces of the 10th Brigade.
Hu Ke personally sought out Gu Hang to share the good news, stating that he had located the target site.
Indeed, just as they had anticipated, the Nature Salvation Society did possess a complete and undamaged Spiritualized Gas Field, a relic from the pre-war era.
Moreover, their primary current research was aimed at finding out what kind of disaster had befallen the Spiritualized Gas Fields on Rage Owl Star in the pre-war era, and how it had opened the chasms of the Abyss. They were trying to replicate this process.
They’d already made some progress, which involved a large number of lives and a massive scale sacrificial ritual.
The rapid breeding and loss of control of the Aberrant Beasts was related to their research.
The Spiritualized Gas Field discovered by the Nature Salvation Society wasn’t particularly large, but the energy density in any Spiritualized Gas Field was incredibly high.
Its location was at the southernmost tip of the Green Valley peninsula—or Green Valley Subcontinent—and about eighty kilometers southwest underwater.
The Nature Salvation Society had likely constructed a mining site and laboratory there.
Hu Ke asserted that if he wanted to understand what his student truly intended to do, he needed more time to study it.
To which Gu Hang was rather indifferent.
If Hu Ke wanted to research, then let him. As for solving the problem, Hu Ke need not concern himself too much.
When the time came, Gu Hang would dispatch a special task force to destroy everything there with orbital strikes, under the cover of the air force.
Destroying the Spiritualized Gas Field was out of the question, an unrealistic notion; however, he could obliterate all of the facilities and personnel that the Nature Salvation Society had set up there, severing their ability to continue exploiting the site.
Of course, not just yet.
The Alliance’s air forces were currently too occupied to spare the effort, as fighting was ongoing in the Beiqing Valley Region.
Moreover, the special operations brigade was somewhat short on manpower.
Let those cultists live a little longer; once he could spare the resources, Gu Hang would deal them a harsh blow.
And after this month passed, the monthly fixed income was distributed.
This time, it was 1432 points, an increase over the previous month.
After receiving the funds, Gu Hang did not hesitate to invest nearly all of it into the development of the Phoenix.
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Just in time before twelve o’clock…
Next, I’ll be writing tomorrow’s noon update…