University Town Base, Gymnasium Supreme Command Center.
Heavy explosion-proof curtains shielded the dim yellow sky outside, and the entire room was bathed in the eerie blue glow of the massive holographic tactical sand table in the center. The low hum of the air purifier intertwined with the occasional data pings from the tactical terminals, creating a suffocating sense of precision.
Lin Xuan sat in the Commander's chair, his gaze deep as he watched the 3D miniature of Qingyun Town floating before him.
On the map, blue light dots representing the troops were like a sharp scalpel, precisely and coldly cutting through the red patches representing the infected areas. Every advance of a blue dot was accompanied by the large-scale recession of a red area—the result of hundreds or thousands of zombies being physically erased by heavy firepower.
"The advancement speed is perfect, and the battle-loss ratio is almost negligible." He took a small sip of plain water, but his eyes gradually became solemn, "But... it's not enough."
His fingers tapped lightly on the armrest as his brain worked rapidly.
Taking Qingyun Town was only a matter of time; there was no doubt about that. Under the crushing force of a modern mechanized unit, those mindless beings of flesh and blood posed no threat at all. But as a Commander with a god's-eye view, he looked further ahead.
"It's easy to take, but hard to hold," Lin Xuan murmured to himself.
Clearing operations and occupation/garrisoning followed two completely different logics. The reason the current five hundred men were invincible was that they were clenched together like a fist, concentrating their firepower density to the extreme. But once Qingyun Town was taken, it meant they would need to split their forces to guard granaries, defensive lines, water sources, and key transportation routes—and even spare hands to manage the growing number of survivors.
Once the troops were dispersed, the firepower density would drop exponentially. At that time, even a small-scale counterattack by a zombie tide or a sneak attack by a few mutants could cause the defensive line to collapse.
"These few hundred men... aren't enough to spread across Qingyun Town."
Lin Xuan stood up and walked to the huge floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the empty playground below. Although the system's logistics module solved the most headache-inducing problems of ammunition and rations—the daily refreshing supply crates were enough for the army to use bullets like water—"manpower" itself remained the biggest gap.
You need more boots on the ground, more muzzles pointing at every corner.
"System," Lin Xuan called out in his mind, summoning that cold and powerful interface.
A pale blue light screen unfolded on his retina, and he directly clicked the [Summon List] option. Looking at the line of bright red numbers in the upper right corner—[Biomass: 1765]—these were the chips the frontline soldiers had exchanged for him with the flesh and blood of countless zombies.
"Since resources are sufficient, there's no need to be stingy."
Lin Xuan's finger hovered over the icon with the Marine Corps emblem, a flash of frantic decisiveness in his eyes.
"Exchange: Marine Corps Reinforced Infantry Battalion. Quantity: 500 men. Configuration: Full set of individual combat equipment, heavy weapons support group, tactical communication module."
"Confirm summon."
[Ding—Command confirmed.]
[Biomass consumed: 500. Remaining Biomass: 1265.]
[Units generating...]
[Transport vehicles dispatched. Estimated time of arrival: 30 seconds.]
As the system's cold prompt ended, a low and dense roar of engines suddenly came from the road outside the base, which was perpetually shrouded in mist.
The sound was light at first, like muffled thunder rolling across the horizon, but in an instant, it turned into the roar of truck engines.
The newly arrived survivors working on the campus couldn't help but stop their work, looking up toward the school gate one after another.
"What is tha—Oh my god!"
"Holy crap! The troops are back so soon?"
The mist was violently torn apart. One heavy troop transport truck after another, painted in matte military green without any markings, rushed out from the void like ghosts. They formed an endless steel dragon, tires grinding against the broken road surface, making a heart-pounding friction sound.
One, two, ten... a total of twenty-five heavy trucks roared into the campus, the dust they kicked up blotting out the sky.
The convoy braked with extreme precision on the playground, making a piercing screech.
"Clang!"
The tailgates of all the trucks dropped simultaneously, the loud noise sounding like the beating of war drums.
"Quick, quick, quick!"
Accompanied by the rough roar of the battalion Commander, countless figures in camouflage uniforms filed out of the truck beds. They wore ballistic helmets with goggles and gas masks, carrying assault rifles or general-purpose machine guns.
The movements of these five hundred new recruits were uniform, without a single redundant action. They quickly lined up on the playground.
"Attention!"
A burly battalion Commander walked to the front of the formation and snapped a standard military salute toward the command center—specifically, the window where Lin Xuan was standing.
Immediately after, Lin Xuan reached out without hesitation and pressed the button on the communicator on his desk, his voice steady and firm: "Chu Wenhai, please respond."
A moment later, a clear and powerful response came from the communicator: "Reporting to the Commander, what are your instructions?"
Lin Xuan took a deep breath and then calmly issued his orders: "The latest batch of reinforcements has arrived. Now, incorporate them into the second echelon immediately and set off for Qingyun Town at once to perform support missions. Remember, ensure the operation is safe and efficient; there must be no mistakes!"
"Understood!" Chu Wenhai replied crisply.
Looking at the soldiers on the playground, Lin Xuan turned back to his seat and refocused his gaze on the map. Now that he had enough pieces, it was time to play a bigger game.
On the outskirts of Qingyun Town, the top floor of a forcibly requisitioned three-story Postal Building.
In the center of the room, a simple electronic sand table was laid out on a large solid wood office desk. The blue light pulsed in the dim room, reflecting the cold, stone-like face of the Commander, Viper.
On the screen in front of him, the holographic map of Qingyun Town was crudely cut into five regular geometric blocks.
"Sir, Commander Chu Wenhai has sent a top-priority communication."
An adjutant walked in quickly and pushed an encrypted data terminal in front of Viper. "The headquarters' five-hundred-man Marine Corps reinforced battalion has set out for the front line fully armed. It is estimated that the first batch of troop transport trucks will reach our outer blockade line in fifteen minutes."
Viper's emotionless eyes lit up slightly, as if a calculator had captured a key variable. His slender finger tapped lightly on the map, and three originally dark blocks instantly lit up with a deep blue.
"Of the five zones in Qingyun Town, three are already Blue Zones." Viper's voice was low and magnetic, but it sounded particularly eerie in this environment. "The western residential area, the southern industrial zone, and the central commercial street. Although our troops have cleared the surface-level infected, that's just 'pruning the branches.' Those rats hiding in basements, pipes, and even ceiling crawl spaces are still consuming our sensory resources."
He looked up at the adjutant, Ghost, his eyes reflecting a morbid rationality.
"These five hundred 'fresh blood' arrived just in time. Adjutant, how do you think we should 'digest' this force?"
The adjutant walked to the other side of the sand table, his finger pointing to the remaining two blood-Red Zones—the northern government office area and high-density low-rent housing, and the eastern central granary and comprehensive hospital.
"Sir, clearing operations and garrisoning are two different things," the adjutant analyzed. "The current troops have shown obvious 'force dilution.' To maintain absolute security in the Blue Zones, we need to set up machine gun sentry towers at every intersection, deploy sniper teams in every high-rise building, and even spare people to handle those survivors. If we continue to use this exhausted vanguard to storm the Red Zones, the clearing efficiency will drop by 35%, and the battle-loss ratio will surge due to sneak attacks by mutants."
Viper nodded, his lips curling into a cruel arc.
"Therefore, we need a 'rotation'."
He dragged the five hundred blue units representing the new reinforcements directly into the three occupied Blue Zones.
"Pass down my orders. The newly arrived reinforced battalion will not participate in the first-line offensive. They will be split into fifty squads, with each squad responsible for one sub-sector of the Blue Zones. I want them to perform a 'comb-style sweep.' Every door, every well, every corpse must be double-tapped. I want the Blue Zones to become true'sterile rooms.' Any unmarked moving object is to be treated as an infected and killed on the spot."
"Understood." The adjutant recorded rapidly on the tactical tablet. "This way, the original clearing troops can be freed from the tedious garrison tasks. We can regroup the tanks and armored vehicles originally scattered everywhere to form a heavy assault fist."
Viper's finger rested on the red block representing the "granary," his eyes becoming greedy.
"Exactly. Pull back those soldiers who have seen red. After reorganization, launch a full-scale assault on Red Zone 4 and Red Zone 5. I want to see our men standing on top of the Qingyun Town administrative building before sunset."
"Sir, regarding the logic of the garrison forces, I have one concern." The adjutant lowered his voice. "The building density in Qingyun Town is extremely high. Even with five hundred more men, if we adopt traditional 'point-array garrisoning,' the forces will still be stretched thin. Once mutants from the Red Zones break through, or if a large-scale zombie tide from outside the town is attracted by the sound of explosions, the Blue Zone's defensive line could easily be pierced."
Viper let out a cold laugh, taking a coin from his pocket and playing with it at his fingertips.
"Adjutant, you still lack some judgment. Every soldier's rations, water, and ammunition will refresh after 24 hours. We must use these advantages to establish 'death traps' in the Blue Zones. Order the engineer group to blow up all the first-floor stairs at the junction of the Blue and Red Zones, and fill the streets with Claymore mines and white phosphorus incendiary traps. We will turn Qingyun Town into a massive slaughterhouse composed of countless isolated islands."
He paused, a frantic light flashing in his eyes.
"Also, those survivors... they are the best 'biological alarms.' Lock them in simple work sheds on the edge of the Blue Zones, give them the minimum amount of food, and let them monitor every shadow for us in fear. If mutants rush in, they will be the first to be eaten, and our soldiers will have enough time to set up guns and cannons on the sentry towers."
"Brilliant, sir. This not only solves the problem of insufficient manpower but also maximizes the'surplus value' of the survivors." The adjutant praised sincerely. "Then, regarding the assault on the eastern granary, how do you plan to allocate the heavy firepower group of the reinforced battalion?"
Viper turned around and looked out the window. On the distant horizon, the dust clouds kicked up by the long convoy of trucks could already be seen. Those five hundred soldiers in camouflage combat uniforms were rolling in, carrying the scent of death.
"Tell that new battalion Commander that his task isn't just to be a doorkeeper. I want him to set up 120mm mortar positions on the high ground of the Blue Zones. When I order the attack on the granary, I don't ask for precision; I want him to level all non-reinforced buildings in the Red Zone. I want those monsters hiding inside to understand that before us, there is no such thing as 'cover'."
He crushed the coin firmly.
"Occupation is not the goal; control is the core. I want these people to become the 'nerve endings' of Qingyun Town; I want to know about any vibration occurring in any corner within three seconds. Go, welcome our new toys. This hunt has only just reached its climax."
"Yes! Sir!"
The adjutant puffed out his chest, gave a standard military salute, and turned to leave.
Viper remained alone in the empty room, watching the gradually expanding blue shadow on the sand table.