The area was heavily guarded, with machine guns placed in large numbers all around the buildings.

Chen Shouyi withdrew his gaze and, accompanied by the others, entered the building in front.

Inside, soldiers were hurrying about, busy with activities.

Now that communication was cut off, information spread slowly, and all intelligence from the frontline required a vast amount of manpower for transmission and processing.

The two soon arrived at a large conference room on the third floor.

There were no fewer than a dozen people inside.

A middle-aged man with the rank of Vice Admiral, looking haggard, saw Chen Shouyi enter and came forward with others to greet him, "My name is Wang Jianfeng, welcome, welcome!"

The two shook hands.

Chen Shouyi, unwilling to make small talk, asked directly, "General Wang, I need more intelligence."

"Of course!" Wang Jianfeng said, indifferent to Chen Shouyi's attitude, "Let me introduce you, this is Advisor Xing, he will brief you on the frontline situation."

The young officer named Advisor Xing immediately stepped forward, "Hello, General Manager Chen, here's the situation: according to the intelligence we've gathered, the Barbarians' stronghold has basically been locked down in this area."

He pointed with a pointer to a section on the map, "There's a camp of puppet soldiers there, which was fortunately bombed by fighter jets five days ago. Besides that, Barbarians have frequently appeared in this area, and we preliminarily judge it to be their main base in Ningzhou."

Looking at the scale of the map, Chen Shouyi frowned. The area was too large, almost like a Safe Zone. He asked, "Do you have more precise intelligence?"

"We don't, so we need you to locate their stronghold. There are a large number of civilians living here, making large-scale bombing impossible.

...

After a few minutes, Chen Shouyi, accompanied by the officer who had come with him, left the command center and headed to the frontline.

He was playing with a black object in his hand that looked like an old-fashioned flashlight.

This was a specially designed laser device with batteries of up to fifteen hundred volts.

Without such high voltage, it would be impossible to generate electricity in the current environment.

Once the Barbarians' stronghold is discovered, the laser will guide fighter jets at night for bombing.

He examined it for a moment before putting it into his pocket.

A large group of refugees, looking numb, stumbled toward him under the soldiers' maintained order, many of them weeping softly.

"Tens of thousands of refugees are being rescued daily now!" the accompanying officer said. "As for those not yet rescued, the numbers are even larger, which is one of the reasons the front line hasn't advanced."

Chen Shouyi remained silent, knowing that while there were many misguided cultists in the city, even more people were coerced, threatened, and subjugated by the cultists. Their existence made the army hesitant to act recklessly.

If they really went all out, disregarding the casualties among civilians, this war probably wouldn't have been so difficult.

"How about Dongning?" Chen Shouyi asked after a pause.

Ningzhou had only recently fallen, but Dongning was, in a sense, the original stronghold, even the Barbarian God emerged from the spatial passage on the Dongning side.

"The army has already cut off Dongning from Ningzhou, with a blockade in place now!" the officer said.

Perhaps feeling there was nothing to hide from Chen Shouyi, he continued, "All nuclear strategy forces are stationed there, waiting for the Barbarian God's appearance. With the lesson learned last time, if It appears again, we will not let It escape."

Upon hearing this, Chen Shouyi sighed softly, his expression complex.

This time, they would clearly not just use low-yield nuclear bombs, but strike with overwhelming force, and even if dropped in uninhabited areas, Dongning would undoubtedly be affected.

This would be the best-case scenario.

Seeing a large-scale recapture movement in Ningzhou, they've obviously long prepared to protect Ningzhou and abandon Dongning.

After all, Ningzhou is a deputy provincial city with nearly ten million people, whereas Dongning, a county-level city, has only around a million—perhaps less than half that due to the mass exodus, likely down to 300,000, with a significant portion already cultists.

Once the Barbarian God appears, Dongning might become a complete wasteland.

The officer, observing his expression, carefully asked, "Do you have any relatives in Dongning?"

Chen Shouyi shook his head, "I'm just from Dongning!"

The officer was silent for a moment before speaking comfortingly, "There's no helping it; this is war!"

...

"Tatatata..."

Machine gun bullets continuously fired.

A few cultists holding rifles erupted in blood sprays and collapsed onto the ground.

Suddenly, a grenade flew in from the distance, landing in a sandbag-filled trench, causing a violent explosion that blew several soldiers away.

Meanwhile, a Barbarian with a tattoo on his chest shattered a building's glass and leaped down from the third floor. The soldiers at the back quickly turned their guns, but in their haste, couldn't hit the target.

As soon as he landed, he launched himself with a powerful kick, gusts of wind whistling, and sped towards the distant soldiers like a phantom.

Within just half a second, he rushed into the front trench, beginning a bloody massacre.

The Barbarian moved extremely quickly, making it impossible for distant snipers to lock on.

He tore the neck of the last soldier without pausing, swiftly escaping towards a nearby building.

These human warriors were both fragile and dangerous; many tribesmen had entered the Lord's embrace because they didn't heed the warnings of the human priests, becoming overconfident.

However, as he darted into the building, he suddenly felt a coolness on his throat, and the next moment, the surroundings spun rapidly.

Chen Shouyi sheathed his sword, his expression grave.

The frontline was more brutal than he imagined, like a meat grinder devouring lives, with soldiers dying almost every second.

He kicked the Barbarian's head away and quickly headed towards the stairs, reaching the rooftop of this eight-story office building.

Chen Shouyi glanced at the building in front, lightly sprinted forward, kicked hard with his feet, and leaped twenty to thirty meters into the air, breaking through the opposite window.

The dense city buildings were his best cover.

In less than half a minute, Chen Shouyi was already far from the jagged frontline, entering the territory controlled by the Barbarians.

...

Chen Shouyi stood by a window in a tall building, quietly observing the outside.

A squad of puppet soldiers, fully armed, was rushing to the frontline.

The failure of the last war evidently left a large number of arms and ammunition on the battlefield, which the Church had capitalized on.

Some wore soldiers' camouflage uniforms and helmets, while others were simply in short-sleeve T-shirts; some seemed to be fifty or sixty years old, and some were merely fourteen or fifteen-year-old inexperienced youths.

Chen Shouyi noticed that many faces showed fear and tension.

He didn't know how many were true believers and how many were forcibly coerced by other followers, but the moment they held guns against human troops, they became enemies.

Once the group had passed, he lightly leaped, swiftly landing on the opposite building's rooftop.

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