Chapter 592: Chapter 344: Plague Marks
“`
Standing in the command bridge, Gu Hang gazed at the Korolya III outside the window, speechless for a long time.
It was a withered yellow planet.
Less than one tenth of the planet’s surface was covered by water bodies, and from orbit, they looked a sickly yellow-green, far from anything salubrious—and indeed that was the case; the water on Korolya III was undrinkable, filled with industrial wastewater and poisonous substances that seeped out of the overly exploited crust.
Even after multiple filtrations and purifications, it was still not recommended for use, failing to meet safety standards.
What’s more, on this broken land of Korolya, the purification process could not be completely guaranteed.
But no one cared; nearly all the Korolya people used this water.
What else if not this water? Could the water needed for a population of forty billion be imported through interstellar trade?
Aside from the small proportion of water bodies, the rest of the planet was parched yellow.
There was no vegetation, just desert as far as the eye could see. The ground was yellow, the atmospheric clouds were yellow, even the air in some places was yellow.
Within this vast expanse of desolation, there were a few dozen large, grey-black ‘spots’, which when combined, covered a substantial area visible from orbit.
These spots were the regions of Nest Capital.
Each Nest Capital on Korolya was home to a population ranging from a few hundred million to several billion.
And now, one of these Nest Capitals was particularly conspicuous.
It was not particularly large, being quite average, but behind it trailed a long tail that stretched for over a thousand kilometers.
Gu Hang knew it was moving, although it was not immediately apparent; its forward speed of about two kilometers per hour was virtually imperceptible from orbit, and Gu Hang could not possibly stay here and stare at it for a long time.
But he knew it was moving.
This was Fino City, and over the past month of its creeping progression, it had created a trench several hundred meters deep and tens of kilometers wide, known as the ‘Trace of Plague’.
The Star Realm Army was powerless against it, and the Tianma Fleet, with its main force absent, was also unable to do anything.
Yet this crawling Nest Capital continued with an attitude that seemed slow but was in fact resolute, advancing towards its target.
A week earlier, it had reached its destination: another Nest Capital.
This Nest Capital was relatively small, but it still housed over three hundred million people.
After realizing that Fino City’s target was this Nest Capital, people all over the planet had already been doing their utmost to come up with solutions.
On one hand, the Nest Capital was frantically evacuating its inhabitants, but the process was not going smoothly. Unrest had broken out in the Bottom Nest District of this Nest Capital, and the Plague Cult had a certain level of infiltration there. Brainwashed cult followers, chanting slogans about ‘becoming one with the fatherly figure’, did their best to destroy and obstruct evacuation efforts.
Apart from the interference from cult followers, evacuating three hundred million people was in itself, a massive and impossible task. The internal transportation of the Nest Capital was fairly developed, but ‘intercity transportation’, which was originally designed for the flow of materials, commercial trade, and a small number of high-ranking personnel, had never considered having to deal with the movement of several hundred million people all at once.
Traffic jams within the Nest Capital were almost unavoidable.
On the other hand, in addition to the efforts of the Nest Capital itself, the Star Realm Army and the Planetary Defense Force had finally assembled and launched an Army Group-grade operation against Fino City.
A million-strong force bravely stood in front of Fino City. Heavy artillery bombarded every living building, armoured vehicles, tanks, and courageous soldiers stepped onto the carpet of flesh and blood, using flamethrowers and bombs to inflict as much damage as possible on the city.
But their actions ultimately failed.
The number of Plague Demons inside Fino City was far greater than that of the brave human warriors. They were fiercely counterattacked by the Plague Demons and the grotesquely mutated cult followers. They couldn’t even make it close to the core of the city, being blocked at the outer perimeter.
Moreover, this was no longer human territory; the fleshed environment harboured immense malice towards humans. Structures built for cover could be animated and turn back to swallow the soldiers hiding behind; a cleared area of flesh carpet, the trenches and foxholes dug out, where soldiers still fought valiantly, would after a short while begin oozing pus from underneath, corroding the soldiers’ uniforms, armor, and then their skin; entering a building for combat, the structure itself might collapse the next moment…
In contrast, their enemies could utilize the entire animated city to swiftly and stealthily appear anywhere…
Fino City had become a hell of flesh and blood for humans. And battling those Plague Demons within this hell was simply an impossible task.
The million-strong force collapsed after suffering over two hundred thousand casualties.
Even if they hadn’t collapsed, they genuinely lacked the capability to fight any longer.
There were significant additional losses during the retreat.
And after so high a cost, they had only managed to delay Fino City’s advance by about five days before it set off once again.
When Fino City made contact with the other Nest Capital, at least a hundred million people had not managed to evacuate in time.
Then, those on the outside bore witness to a ‘fusion of cities’.
“`