The dazzling light obscured the sunset's afterglow, and it seemed as if there were two suns in the fiery red dusk.

One hung on the horizon, the other right above the head.

Especially the one above, dazzling like a headlight in a tunnel.

Everyone at the Enlightenment Society's position couldn't help but raise their heads and look toward that dazzling light.

And just in that instant, their pupils simultaneously seeped with blood and lost all sight.

"Don't look up! Don't look above!"

The commander's intermittent roar echoed in the communication channel, and the combat personnel on the field hurriedly averted their gaze.

However—

It was already too late.

That scorching light took away not only their sight but everything from them.

It was tens or even hundreds, thousands of times the neutron radiation of solar flares!

The high-energy particles released at high speed formed a plume of light in the air like a waterfall!

That lethal beam pierced through the assets and atmospheric protection, indiscriminately descending upon the surface, spreading an unprecedented aurora over the equatorial sky!

The Enlightenment Society soldiers crouching in the open bunkers were the first to suffer.

Exposed to the high-energy neutron plume, they only felt a warmth, and then their entire cells seemed boiled instantaneously, pupils scattered light, and blood gushed uncontrollably from nostrils and mouths, embracing eternal death in a moment.

On hundreds of kilometers of the position, exoskeleton-wearing soldiers died in droves, mutants holding large-caliber rifles twisted on the ground, unable to stop their wailing against the invisible opponent.

Even gene modifiers wearing power armor couldn't help but kneel in pain, eventually vomiting blood and collapsing to the ground.

The continuous irradiation of the neutron plume differed from instantaneous nuclear explosions, it was annihilation in the true sense, akin to hundreds or even thousands of neutron torpedoes bombing continuously!

The strengthening of flesh did not help them evade the deadly damage, at most it delayed their demise.

Including those prosthetic body soldiers who underwent modification surgery.

The partial separation of flesh did not truly make them another species outside an organic body.

Like gene modifiers and mutants, those mechanical parts merely prolonged the agony of their death at most.

"That light... what is it?!"

"Itchy...something is...growing out of me..."

"Ah ah ah!"

The communication channel filled with noise, screams, and wails rising and falling, resembling purgatory on earth.

And shortly afterward, those screams and wails also vanished.

The continuous irradiation of the neutron plume sequentially destroyed the communication facilities deployed on the ground.

At the same time, tens of thousands of Enlightenment Society soldiers and mutant cannon fodder dissipated and withered like dust under that dazzling light, leaving only pure war machines.

Apart from the soldiers standing on the ground, the officers hiding in concrete fortifications endured the same torment of high-energy particle rays.

Tens of meters of concrete were not the alloy giant doors of a refuge, quickly riddled by the pervasive neutron rays, as if they didn't exist at all.

Blood spouted from mouth and nose, Mangge, wearing an exoskeleton, weakly collapsed to the ground, unable to move even a finger.

The lighting facilities were completely paralyzed.

Including the communication system, even the exoskeleton on his body had stalled.

He could only watch helplessly as blood filled the ground, drowning in resentment and regret in the blood pool, eventually silently passing away in the dark underground facilities.

It was all over...

That light descending from the sky wiped out the lifelong efforts and decades of accumulation of the Enlightenment Society directly from the ground, leaving only some backed-up data on the scrap metal.

Looking at the few officers who had suddenly died violently on the ground, a faint trace of incredulity appeared on Tianhong's face, then he raised his head to look at the ceiling above.

"That is..."

Thunderbolt?

He had heard about that weapon but hadn't expected the Alliance to use it here, nor the Lagrange Point space station to react without a sound.

Unless—

Just as the Alliance's ground forces launched an attack on the Enlightenment Society's stronghold, the space station at the Lagrange point also came under attack!

But how could this be possible?!

The Orion Missile Cruiser was clearly still parked in synchronous orbit, those crew members even touring the ground—

At this moment, Tianhong suddenly realized, the red glow in his electronic eye slightly constricted.

So that was it.

It was the Alliance's deception!

While their attention was entirely focused on the Orion Missile Cruiser, the Alliance's armed forces were already quietly advancing toward the Lagrange Point space station!

Angry currents surged over the intellectual module, he clenched his fists, restraining the overwhelming fury.

Incensed by radiation burning the speaker, he finally uttered a low curse.

"…We've been tricked."

...

The dazzling aurora filled the sky for hundreds of kilometers, its brilliant light even stealing the spotlight from the sunset.

On the desolate battlefield, blood flowed like rivers, with corpses strewn everywhere.

They wouldn't decay.

At least not for a while.

The scorching neutron plume not only claimed their lives, but also deactivated the bacteria on them, penetrating several kilometers beneath the soil!

None survived aside from the residents of the shelter!

As the punishing "Heavenly Thunder" continued to shine upon this sinful land, the ruins north of Lavanka Industrial Zone were teeming with people.

Pairs of eyes filled with uncertainty turned toward the distant horizon, watching the second sun rise from the aurora at some unknown time.

They were all Waste Land Wanderers living in this region, scavengers migrating with the sandstorms.

In the face of this unprecedented phenomenon, their reactions were no more insightful than those of the natives on Gaia planet.

Some stood bewildered, others hid in panic under the eaves, or prostrated on the ground praying devoutly to an unknown entity.

A matted-haired child raised a dirty face, curiously tugging on his father's sleeve as he gazed at the never-before-seen aurora.

"Dad... what's that?"

The scavenger with a face full of lines raised his head, his eyes under the cloak watching the increasingly bright light, with a hint of surprise in his murky pupils.

Over there—

Is that the center of the Great Desert?

He didn't know what the dazzling light signified, only feeling a vague sense of sanctity and majesty emanating from that part of the sky.

For a long time, it had been deemed the center of chaos and the forbidden zone of life by countless Waste Land Wanderers.

It was filled with oddly-shaped Variants, Mutants who harmed without blinking, mysterious armed forces capturing survivors, and machines attacking living beings indiscriminately.

So even though it was once the center of a prosperous world in the old times, few scavengers dared to approach.

Unexpectedly, from the very depths of hell, the sun rose one day.

Perhaps, as the Waste Land Wanderers in this area widely rumored, the Wasteland Era is about to end…

...

At the western outpost of the Great Desert, the on-duty Eastern Empire soldier slung his rifle, staring dazedly in the direction of the second sun rising.

Not far from the sentry post on the sand dunes, two Ten Thousand Leaders with high ranks stood side by side.

To see more clearly, Semmes readjusted his officer's hat, then simply took it off.

Gazing at the boiling sky, he muttered after a long silence.

"Is that the power of the 'SOG' system…"

General McCullen standing beside him nodded, speaking with a complex expression.

"Yes."

That weapon had originally been in the hands of Giant Stone City, and nearly fell into his hands at one point.

The Emperor of the Eastern Empire had long been plagued by sleepless nights due to that weapon hanging over his head.

And now, as the Alliance finally brandished this mighty sword, His Majesty and the ministers were all the more sleepless…

Semmes wiped the sweat from his forehead, speaking with a touch of relief.

"No doubt a weapon from the Prosperity Epoch, even the aftershock of its attack is astonishing... luckily this thing is disposable, and the Alliance only has one."

General McCullen glanced at his colleague beside him, then suddenly spoke after a moment of thought.

"General Semmes, if you were the commander of the Alliance, how would you use this weapon?"

Semmes replied without hesitation.

"Use it? I wouldn't use it at all; letting it stay on the launcher is the best use."

"I feel the same way."

Adjusting the officer's hat on his head, General McCullen squinted, gazing at the distant aurora reminiscent of dawn.

"The deterrence of strategic weapons diminishes to zero the moment they are used... especially when it's a weapon with only one shot."

Somehow, what he said seemed rather deep.

General Semmes frowned, suddenly realizing something, his pupils contracting slightly.

"You mean... the Alliance already has a new means of deterrence?"

McCullen didn't answer the question, only squinting at the burning sky and giving an ambiguous answer.

"Perhaps more than that."

At least from his perspective, what might be truly alarming is not that the Alliance has a new means of deterrence, but that they no longer need strategic deterrence to maintain their influence.

Unlike those survivor forces still entrapped in the shadow of the Prosperity Epoch, they have stepped out from under it.

And brought others along as well…

...

The dazzling light lingered in the sky for just a quarter of an hour.

However, for the Enlightenment Society scorched by this light, that brief quarter of an hour felt as long as a century.

Having lost their targets to follow, the tactical drones floundered helplessly like headless flies on the ground.

The three-meter-tall humanoid combat armor reinitiated its system, attempting to take over the trench now filled only with corpses.

Yet, the cumbersome metal casing, standing in the infantry's trench, either had its left leg stuck or its waist wedged, looking awkward no matter how you viewed it.

And that's not all.

Without the agile infantry filling the lines, the previously strong defensive line became riddled with holes.

Though these combat armors have more ample firepower and mobility beyond infantry capabilities, firepower and mobility are not everything in war.

No matter how fierce these big-headed firepowers are, there are always blind spots they can't cover.

After all, war has never been just a simple calculation of combat power values; it's a clash of systems versus systems.

The neutron plume from the sky eradicated not merely tens of thousands of soldiers and cannon fodder, but directly erased the ecological niches originally occupied by infantry.

These vacant positions couldn't be immediately replaced by intelligent weapons.

Though the strategic conception of completely replacing infantry with intelligent weaponry isn't impossible, it must be accompanied by suitable tactics.

Otherwise, no matter how many intelligent machines are filled in, they are merely acting as slightly tougher cannon fodder.

As the strategic strike concluded, the aurora in the sky faded along with the departing sunset, and the entire land gradually draped itself in the veils of night.

At the same time, incendiary bombs rose into the sky, replacing the blood-red sunset, illuminating the battlefield littered with corpses.

The scalding dust boiled at the edge of the earth, raised by tank tracks and armored vehicle wheels like a sandstorm engulfing the sun and moon.

Observing the anomaly in the distance, the humanoid combat armor deployed at the first defensive line promptly raised the 20mm heavy machine guns mounted on its sides, spewing tongues of fire forward with a "tat-tat-tat".

The long tracers scraped dazzling sparks off the front armor and turret of the latest Model 4 Alliance tanks, but didn't leave even a thumb-sized dent.

The only real threat to these armored units were those missiles with tracking capabilities.

However, the Alliance was prepared for this, as the Cloud Dragonfly flapping machines flanking the armored units carried infrared illumination and radio-guided weapon jamming devices.

And that's not all!

The Thunder fighter planes roaring overhead dropped two EMP missiles, delivering a round of electromagnetic pulses to the entire area.

The missiles burst open like headless flies, some heading skyward, others burying themselves in the sand, proving less menacing than the unguided recoilless guns!

Within just a few breaths, the Alliance's steel tide had already advanced to the edge of the combat zone.

Seeing the rows of iron clunkers like sitting ducks in their "radish pits", Brother Mole sitting in the Chimera armored car grabbed his communicator, shouting excitedly.

"Fire——!"

The Chimera armored car formation was the first to launch an attack!

The 37mm armor-piercing incendiary bullets, like rows of burning feathers under the night sky, instantly blasted the humanoid combat armors trying to reclaim the trenches into scrap!

Simultaneously, the Cloud Dragonfly flapping machines on both sides leapt up with a "whoosh!" Adjusting their flight height swiftly, they poured tons of rocket fire onto the front lines barely seized from the Enlightenment Society by the Celestial Beings!

As for the steel spearhead formed by tanks, it continued to charge towards the Celestial Beings' defensive lines with unabated momentum!

Explosive flashes merged across the Celestial Beings' positions, and the symphony played by metal clashing with gunpowder had barely begun for over ten minutes before only the burning steel remained amid the swirling yellow sands!

However——

These clunkers did not sit idly by.

They lacked any concept of morale, unaware of death and destruction.

Realizing that the collapse of the first defensive line was inevitable, Tianhong immediately halted reinforcements to the first line, withdrawing the remaining humanoid combat armors and ground firepower trucks back to the second line, leaving behind numerous unmanned drone hives and anti-aircraft fire points dispersed in the depth between the two defensive lines.

This was an area littered with reinforced concrete debris, some remnants of pre-war houses, others belonging to the space station.

The Enlightenment Society usually orchestrated mutants to recover alloy materials from these ruins to craft their war machines, and now these inexhaustible ruins became their natural cover!

Once the Alliance's armored units and aircraft entered this area, they would face self-destructive drones attacking from all directions!

Yet, the Celestial Beings ultimately underestimated the mental pressure they exerted on the survivor forces in the wasteland and the Alliance's resolve to completely eradicate them from the land.

Just as the Alliance's armored units were about to breach the first defensive line, two dazzling flames slashed across the night sky, exploding into a searing plasma in the air!

They were cruise missiles launched from the South Sea Federation missile cruiser deployed in the western sea!

A colossal electromagnetic pulse, several times larger than before, instantly blanketed the entire area, and tens of thousands of self-destruct drones barely took off before plummeting to the ground like raindrops.

Impacted were not only the small drones; those humanoid combat armors withdrawing from the battlefield also suffered varying degrees of disruption, transforming the orderly retreat into chaos.

At this moment, the Alliance's armored spearhead had pierced through the first defensive line of the Celestial Beings. The Model 4 tanks, now steadied atop slopes, raised their onboard railgun barrels, precisely eliminating the retreating humanoid combat armors and self-propelled guns!

In the face of this naval gun-caliber kinetic energy, even the ceramic steel dismantled from the space station was as brittle as papier-mâché.

Surveying the thoroughly collapsing battle line, Tianhong, standing in the command center, wore a stunned expression.

These guys...

Are they really just Waste Land Wanderers?!

Even with the assistance of the Residents of the refuge, their exhibited combat prowess was too extraordinary.

Prior to the Apocalypse, Tianqi was affiliated with the Torch Church; though not adept at commanding battles, he was at least a quasi-active-duty officer of the United Human Regular Army!

These scavenging beggars——

The bandits fooling around with the Prosperity Epoch's legacy—

How could they possibly be a match for someone like him who participated in a three-year war!

The anger surged through his cognitive plugins, and the originally expressionless Tianhong could no longer contain the fury in his heart, as the flexible components of his face twisted along with the distorted intelligent program.

Just as he was enraged, a group of cavalry riding Claw of death had already broken through his second line of defense.

"Prepare for battle!!!"

Edge Shoveling shouted loudly, leading his pet beneath him, charging at the forefront and firing a portable rocket towards the nearest humanoid armor!

In front of the high-tech humanoid mechs, this group of players carrying rocket launchers and riding on Lizards looked like a joke no matter how you saw it.

And across the entire desert, probably only those who had experienced their prowess like the Vellante people couldn't laugh.

The 20mm machine cannon found it hard to adapt to close-range shooting.

And with obstacles in the way, those humanoid mechs, even if driving all their computing power, found it difficult to follow the Claw of death's tail darting around like a ghost.

What a shame.

On this chaotic battlefield, there wasn't a central processor capable of overseeing all the information to support these devices with computing power, and the only personnel capable of substituting for the central processor to guide them had already been wiped out in previous strategic strikes.

In contrast to their opponents, each Claw of death wearing an exoskeleton moved as fast as lightning.

Driven by the instinct of life and the desire for slaughter, these beasts born for killing exploded with strong combat power and adaptability to the battlefield, almost merging with the masters on their backs, madly harvesting one after another war machine unable to attend to both its head and tail!

Soon, the third line of defense deployed by the celestial beings at the entrance of No. 13 Shelter also began to falter, and the tightly closed Alloy Giant Door seemed dead, unable to open and respond.

Perhaps that door wouldn't open anymore.

Or maybe that fortress had already fallen from within, with no reason to continue holding the ground.

Tianhong, who had taken over command from Morton, had completely gone mad.

Facing an irreparable defeat, he issued the order to "fight to the last moment," and then, along with Morton's Personal Body Guard, he headed to the battlefield, placing the final chips on this already decided gamble!

Actually, it wouldn't make a difference even if he didn't place them.

The Alliance had neither reason nor a millionth of a chance to show mercy to them.

After all, those guys had taken the initiative to eliminate all live humans on the entire battlefield first.

And those remaining, in the eyes of those Waste Land Wanderers, didn't even count as human.

Merely resembling humans.

"You're seeking your doom! We won't let you off! When the day we descend comes, we will slaughter you all! Including you Blue Ground Squirrels!"

As he fought on the front lines, Tianhong fired at the advancing Death Legion while using the remaining few broadcasts to roar at the tide of troops surging in.

Perhaps the cognitive plugins had burned out, and he even used the nickname given by the Vellante people to the Residents of the refuge.

However, he didn't expect his roar not only failed to dent the morale of these organics but instead made the players charging forward even more excited.

"Brothers! Put in more effort!!!"

"Boss fight!!!"

"Awoo awoo awoo!!!"

"Mine!! All mine!!!"

Those players previously exhausted from charging were now all fired up as if they had been injected with adrenaline.

Feeling the ever-swirling offensive, Tianhong had a bewildered expression on his face, completely bemused.

But that bewilderment didn't last long.

A piercing armor-piercing incendiary bullet struck through his shoulder, tearing his right arm from his body.

Sparks flew wildly, and with a roar, he intended to stretch out his left hand to pick up the gun fallen to the ground, but a flying axe came and removed his other arm.

Looking at the person standing before him, he ceased the superfluous struggle and coldly threw down two sentences.

"... Heh, don't get too happy too soon, the Enlightenment Society... is nothing more than a pawn."

"We... will come back."

Upon hearing this last remark, the originally uninterested Talan's eyes lit up immediately. He grabbed the axe on the ground, with a clang, chopped the head of this bionic man, afraid someone might get ahead of him!

Wow!

Thought it was just an ordinary elite monster, didn't expect it to have two lines of dialogue!

Must be a big catch!

Holding the hunk of metal in his hand, Talan immediately opened the communication channel, eager to share this moment of joy with his good brothers in the Desert Army.

"Boss!!! I got it!"

No surprises at all—

The communication channel echoed with the friendly blessings of brothers.

Desert Falcon: "Damn! My boss!!!"

Emichiru Junichiro: "Damn it! How did you bastard snatch it!"

Talan: "?????"

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