Chapter 403: Chapter 393: Escalating Situation

Yang Ming’s role was crucial. He was to take Yang Jie’s place in battle and serve as a role model for the soldiers.

An individual soldier was a single combat unit. With extensive training and weapons in hand, they were veritable reaping machines against the mindless, dazed Meat Dragons.

The armored vehicles, however, were on another level. With their reinforced hulls, they could inflict crushing, wide-area attacks on the Meat Dragons, making them far more effective.

3,000 people was not a small number. Even scattered over a wide area, their presence was significant. After strategic discussions with his think tank, Yang Jie’s team had organized these forces into smaller squads, each assigned to specific regions and functional tasks.

For instance, in addition to the armored and helicopter teams, there was a dedicated group responsible for transporting the Meat Dragon corpses. After all, just killing them wasn’t enough; the bodies had to be brought back to the base to avoid any waste.

To the base, every part of a Meat Dragon was precious. The meat could be processed into food, while the useless parts—the limbs and head—could be ground up and made into bait.

The base had already figured it out: one cut of Meat Dragon loin could be made into twenty fist-sized meatballs. They would give ten to the person who turned in the Meat Dragon and keep the other ten.

The remaining parts could be turned into at least thirty portions of bait.

Although they were prepared to launch a frontal assault on the Meat Dragons to save the world, bait remained crucial. Until every Meat Dragon on the planet was purged, and until all of humanity was strong enough to face them calmly, bait would remain a hard currency second only to food.

The military helicopters weren’t tasked with attacking the Meat Dragons. Instead, under command, they circled at low altitudes. They dropped wads of leaflets, each one printed with a message: "Turn in Meat Dragons at the Yang Family Base in exchange for food." This was to ensure as many people as possible received the news and joined the massive battle.

Tang Mo was also flying at a low altitude on her cloud, observing the scene below. She wasn’t trying to compete with the helicopters for their job; she just wanted to see how the plan they had spent all night devising was being carried out.

What pleased Tang Mo was that the plan, so far, was a resounding success. It even exceeded their expectations; they had never imagined so many civilians would join the war.

Or rather, they hadn’t expected that so many people were still alive in a city that seemed to be nothing but ruins. Their will to survive was tenacious. Their craving for food and Life had finally surpassed their fear of the Meat Dragons.

It wasn’t that no one had ever thought of fighting back against the Meat Dragons to claim the world’s resources for themselves. Sometimes, people just lacked a leader, that initial spark of courage. Once that courage found an outlet, it was like a divine floodgate had opened, and everything else began to fall into place smoothly.

Their original plan had been to clear out the Meat Dragons only in the immediate vicinity of the Yang Family Base. But they hadn’t expected that the more than 3,000 soldiers, joined by the flood of civilians, would swell their numbers to nearly ten thousand.

The Meat Dragons Tang Mo had incapacitated were nowhere near enough to satisfy everyone’s fervor. After the Meat Dragons whose seas of consciousness had been destroyed were almost completely wiped out, the troops and the crowds began to spontaneously spread outward.

To avoid unnecessary casualties, Yang Jie decided to recall the 3,000 soldiers. After all, killing the already incapacitated Meat Dragons posed almost no risk. But facing the Red-eyed Meat Dragons was another matter, and it was best not to underestimate them. If possible, he didn’t want to lose a single soldier.

But while the soldiers, caught up in the frenzy of battle, could still obey the base commander’s orders, how could the equally frenzied and impassioned civilians be expected to simply stop?

After all, every single Meat Dragon could be exchanged for food! The Yang Family Base’s credibility was unquestionable, but their food supplies were surely finite. What if this program suddenly ended?

The first Meat Dragons they killed posed no threat, their minds having been destroyed by Tang Mo’s spiritual power. But if the crowds expanded their hunting grounds, the Red-eyed Meat Dragons they encountered would cause heavy casualties.

Tang Mo cursed silently. ’This is bad.’ She had no choice. Tang Mo was forced to resume her work, continuing to shatter the minds of Meat Dragons over a vast area, constantly expanding her range to meet the demands of the crowd.

This was, after all, only the beginning of their plan. If there were too many casualties right at the start, the crowd’s passion would eventually fade. Once they calmed down, their old fear of the Meat Dragons would return. Then, it would be incredibly difficult to implement the rest of Tang Mo’s plan.

Therefore, Tang Mo had to make these people understand, today of all days, that when it came to Meat Dragons, humans were the true predators. They weren’t at the bottom of the food chain—they were the gods at its apex.

Yang Jie’s troops had all been recalled to the base. Now, the people scattered on the streets, killing with bloodshot eyes, were all those who had previously hidden away in dark, sunless rooms, wasting away their Life and waiting for death.

At first, they found that all the Meat Dragons seemed completely defenseless. But after a while, they started encountering Red-eyed Meat Dragons again. Yet now, having grown accustomed to the slaughter, the people who were once terrified of the Red-eyed Meat Dragons found that they weren’t so frightening anymore.

Afterward, they realized that the dazed, mindless Meat Dragons still far outnumbered the dangerous ones. This gave them even more confidence in their hunt. The more they killed, the more food they could get, and this opportunity might only last for a day. They had to try even harder.

It seemed it wasn’t just about bartering for food anymore. For a long time, people’s hearts had been filling with a growing anger—an anger with no target, no outlet for those cooped up in their tiny rooms. Today’s slaughter, as bloody as it sounded, was one of the most cathartic ways to release that pressure.

Although anger is a form of energy, human stamina is finite. As dusk fell and night began to creep in, the earth-shattering slaughter finally drew to a close.

The crowds gradually dispersed, forming long lines at the gates of the Yang Family Base, each person shouldering their spoils of war.

After all, when it came to exchanging their haul for food, no one wanted to wait until tomorrow.

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