Shushan: Extinction

Chapter 281 Counterattack
Three years later,

At this time, the Great Qian had already occupied almost half of the Great Wilderness, which was equivalent to occupying the entire south.

In the north, under the full impetus of sects led by Emei, the two kingdoms merged into Xuan Kingdom and Xia Kingdom, joining forces to resist the Great Qian Dynasty from the east and west.

Under such circumstances, Daqian also entered a phase of strategic contraction, simply because Gong Tianwu now felt that Tianming was sufficient and needed to stabilize the territory he had swallowed.

Of course, more importantly, after learning about Dongjun's extermination plan, all the resources of the Great Qian Dynasty began to be tilted towards the Pudu Plan!
As the saying goes, when soldiers come, generals will block them; when water comes, earth will dam it. In Gong Tianwu's view, Dongjun's extermination plan was indeed extremely insidious and vicious.

Without me, if the five methods of drought, plague, earthquake, cold, and demon were used, the entire Great Wilderness would have been devastated, with only one in ten surviving.

However, with its own energy continuously drawing people from Earth, combining the power of the two worlds into one, it might not necessarily be afraid of him.

Incidentally, as the number of people participating in the Purdue Project increased, the Daqian Academy of Sciences was also established.

At this very moment, a plague suddenly broke out across the entire Great Wilderness, and even immortals could not escape it.

The Xuan Kingdom was the first to be affected, and then the virus quickly spread to the Daqian Kingdom.

However, compared to the helplessness and chaos on the Xuan Kingdom's side, the Daqian side's response was astonishingly swift.

Upon hearing the news of the plague, the Great Qian Dynasty immediately attached great importance to it. The well-established Epidemic Prevention Division rushed to the disaster area, and the army was immediately mobilized to block all major intersections and prohibit the movement of people. Anyone who disobeyed the order would be warned the first time and executed without mercy the second time.

In each locked-down area, designated personnel conduct door-to-door checks until no new cases are reported within ten days before the lockdown is lifted.

In areas where the epidemic has broken out, isolation zones were built immediately to concentrate all patients in one place.
Meanwhile, professional doctors quickly determined that the outbreak was dysentery, so they strictly controlled the patients' vomit and bodily fluids.

At the same time, large-scale publicity was carried out on some conventional ways of dealing with the situation: for example, patients should rest in bed, drink more salt water and sugar water, and normal people's drinking water, food, bowls and chopsticks, etc. must be thoroughly boiled in boiling water before consumption.

Thanks to this series of combined measures, the epidemic in Daqian was brought under control within almost a month.

In contrast, the Xuan and Xia kingdoms were in a state of utter devastation, with chaos and devastation everywhere. Things only began to improve as the weather turned cold.

However, misfortunes never come singly. After the weather turned cold, more people caught colds and flu, and then a terrible epidemic broke out!

Once infected with this plague, one suffers from a violent cough, turns black all over, coughs up blood, and dies. Often, the whole family is infected, and even entire villages perish.

However, since Daqian already had experience in dealing with dysentery, they were able to handle the isolation and control measures much better this time. Furthermore, the public now knew that violating orders would result in the serious consequence of being killed.

Under these circumstances, the Daqian side only held out for half a month before easily finding a powerful tool to control the plague: face masks.

The smallpox, mole plague, and malaria that followed were like child's play to the medical experts from Earth—cowpox, rat extermination, and mosquito control completely wiped them out.

Moreover, these three plagues actually helped the Great Qian Dynasty a great deal. Despite the continuous devastation caused by the plagues, the Great Qian Dynasty grew stronger and stronger, and in turn, took the initiative to provide medical assistance to the Xuan Kingdom and the Xia Kingdom, euphemistically calling it humanitarian aid.

The high-ranking officials in Xuan Kingdom were quite stubborn and resolutely refused to accept it, resulting in the loss of popular support.

Meanwhile, the royal family was unfortunately infected with smallpox during the epidemic, and most of them died. The people seized this opportunity to rise up in rebellion, and even the gentry wrote petitions in blood, demanding to join the Great Qian Dynasty.

As a result, Daqian annexed Xuan Kingdom almost effortlessly.

The Xia Kingdom, on the other hand, tacitly allowed the Daqian medical aid team to enter, and as a result, neither the military nor the civilians harbored any hostility towards Daqian—the will of those in power ultimately had to be carried out by those at the bottom.

After the plague in Xia Kingdom was brought under control, the leaders sadly realized that they could no longer command their subordinates.

Therefore, when Dongjun used the "plague" tactic, it not only did not put Daqian in a predicament, but it also accelerated its unification process, which was probably something Dongjun did not expect.

***
After the "Plague" technique was used, Gong Tianwu received a notification from Kang that Dongjun would have to wait at least two years to unleash his next technique, since cross-dimensional attacks are not an easy task.

Gong Tianwu seized the opportunity of the past two years to continue to vigorously promote the development of the "Pudu Project" and do his best to poach high-end talents from around the world.

At the same time, they successfully annexed the Xia Kingdom with almost no effort.

By this time, over 90% of the Great Wilderness had been occupied by the Great Qian Dynasty. The remaining areas were either barren mountains and treacherous waters or icy, snowy places unsuitable for human habitation.

Two years later, a terrible drought struck, and the rainfall in the entire Great Wilderness decreased by 90%. Unfortunately, the Great Qian Empire was well prepared. In addition to storing a large amount of grain, it had already dug deep wells and built a large number of reservoirs in various places.

Even more absurdly, improved drought-resistant genetically modified crops, which had already been cultivated and tested, began to be promoted throughout the entire wilderness. These genetically modified crops mainly fall into two categories:

The first type is corn that combines the genes of desert plants—such as poplar, cactus, and sophora flavescens—to create a genetically modified variety.

Another type is sweet potatoes that have been improved by combining genes from marine plants.

The former only needs a small amount of water to successfully flower, bear fruit, and produce food, while the latter can be irrigated directly with seawater.

Of course, the downsides of these two crops are that their yields are average and their taste is poor, but at least they can keep people from starving! They can also be used to feed livestock.

The Eastern Lord's methods were truly ruthless; the severe drought lasted for ten years, yet it was still easily controlled by the Great Qian Empire.

Because in the fourth year, a seawater purification technology exclusively for the Eastern Sky Realm was developed, which is the mutated giant Kun!
This behemoth can inhale nearly a thousand tons of seawater at once, then filter it into fresh water within its body and excrete it, all in just two hours.

With a large number of mutated giant Kun being cultivated, unless Dongjun can dry up all the seawater, there is no hope of achieving the goal.

Incidentally, during the ten-year drought, the demon race was the first to succumb. Due to the goodwill intentionally shown by Gong Tianwu, at least 80% of the demon race were forced to join the Great Qian Empire.

***
The threat posed by Dongjun's subsequent methods to the Great Qian Dynasty was even smaller.

When plagues and droughts broke out, Gong Tianwu took precautions and had the people carry out work relief to build houses using lightweight materials such as bamboo, paper, and wood. He also popularized the construction of shear walls and gravity walls.

So when the earthquake really does happen, it will have an impact on the Great Qian Dynasty, but that's all it will be. As for the plagues and other disasters that may occur after the earthquake, don't even think about it.

When the cold disaster struck, the Daqian court had already stockpiled an astonishing amount of fuel resources: coal, oil, and natural gas, and had also built a large-scale heating system.

Such things were done during the earthquake preparedness phase. People had food in their hands and were warmed by heating at home, so the bitter cold outside meant nothing to them.

As for the demonic calamity, it is truly insignificant in the face of the powerful central government that has already unified the entire Great Wilderness.

Because scientists from Earth invented the Monster Radar.

Of course, this radar is quite different from radar on Earth; it's a completely new creature resembling a dog, called a Demonhound.

Their first improvement was to the Blood Demon Basin, which could be used to create bodies. Now, this thing has been completely transformed, upgraded, and is called Eden. Even the latest model of Eden has reached the third generation. The demon-hunting hounds it synthesizes can sense and track the traces of monsters from a kilometer away through a pineal gland-like tissue.

Therefore, after the first invasion of demons, the Great Qian Empire even captured hundreds of earth demons and human demons alive, imprisoned them, and dissected and studied them for fun.

The demon race is also a highly organized and intelligent species. After realizing that they were no match for the humans of this plane, they stopped coming even after the invasion portal was opened.

Thus, all five extermination methods devised by Dongjun have been thwarted. It would be a lie to say that they had no impact on the Dongxiao Realm, but they were far from wiping out the creatures here—cough cough, it was the mosquitoes, rats, and flies that truly suffered a devastating blow.

Because there are demons in this world, such as cat demons, chicken demons, and bird demons. If they focus on hunting these pests and beasts, their efficiency is much higher than that of humans.

***
After accumulating power for about five or six years, Dongjun was still unwilling to give up and launched another extermination plan.

However, it's still the same old tune, with the same few methods over and over again. The only new thing is the emergence of compound disasters.

For example, droughts and plagues occur together, and earthquakes are followed by severe cold.

However, for the well-prepared Daqian, these tricks were completely ineffective.

With the influx of a large number of scientific elites with a global perspective, coupled with the inscription and cultivation civilization of the Eastern Heaven Realm, an extraordinary and amazing spark was ignited.

Amidst these constant frictions, the strength of the Eastern Sky Realm has been steadily increasing, and everything progresses from quantitative change to qualitative change.

When a powerful space physicist from Earth arrived here, the long-standing problem was finally solved! Just one month later, the dimensional passage between the Eastern Heaven Realm and Mount Shu was discovered.

It's important to understand that the relationship between the Eastern Sky Realm and the Shu Mountain Realm is actually quite special. The former is equivalent to a sub-plane of the latter, or a trial realm!
To put it simply, there is a passage between the two, but this passage is locked and can only be opened occasionally.

This is completely different from creating a passage from scratch; the difference in difficulty is immeasurable.

In just about two and a half years, the Great Qian Academy of Sciences mastered the method to unlock this lock, and the Eastern Heaven Realm and the Shu Mountain World were successfully connected!

Of course, Dongjun had anticipated this and had already mobilized a large number of people to ambush outside the passage. At this time, the other side also deeply understood the importance of arming mortals, and there were 200,000 mortals equipped with inscribed weapons to assist in the battle.

Based on this calculation, the upper limit of cultivators in the Shushan world is higher, reaching the Nascent Soul stage directly. Their high-end combat power completely surpasses that of the Great Qian Dynasty, and they also have mortals to assist them. Therefore, Dongjun felt that it was a sure-win, crushing victory.

However, Dongjun overlooked one variable.

That's the Great Qian Academy of Sciences!! The trump cards that this group of elites from Earth created for the Great Qian Academy have finally been revealed one by one.

When the Great Qian army was besieged at the dimensional portal and was engaged in a fierce battle, more than a dozen enormous inscribed mechanical beasts quietly emerged from the portal and then faced the surrounding enemies.

It is worth mentioning that after they appeared, the high-end combat forces of the Great Qian Dynasty at the front line simultaneously withdrew back to the dimensional channel at all costs.

The dozen or so massive inscribed mechanical beasts were also targeted by concentrated fire immediately, but they were clearly weak despite their strength, and were destroyed one after another, lasting only two or three minutes in total.

However, hidden within the core area of ​​that inscribed mechanical beast is a terrifying trump card: the Tsar Bomba!

Its explosive power is equivalent to 1.7 million tons of TNT, and the mushroom cloud it rises up is nearly 40 kilometers wide and about 64 kilometers high, which is more than 7 times the altitude of Mount Everest.

The explosive yield of this hydrogen bomb was equivalent to 10 times the total explosives used in World War II, and also included the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan.

At the core of the explosion, the temperature reached a terrifying 3.5 million degrees Celsius! This is a terrifyingly high temperature that no magical artifact can comprehend or even resist.

One strike,
Just one strike!

The solid defenses built by Dongjun were destroyed in an instant.
When the nuclear explosion occurred, Zhou Qingyun happened to be in this location, but his body was never found, and even the Purple Ying Sword disappeared without a trace.

After all, almost nothing can withstand a temperature of 3.5 million degrees Celsius.

After this news spread, the entire Shushan world was shaken and terrified!

Next, the Daqian army marched forward and boldly entered Shushan.

Admittedly, the cultivators of Mount Shu clearly have an advantage in high-end combat power. However, the three major inventions brought out by the Great Qian Academy of Sciences have made even Nascent Soul cultivators feel extremely troubled.

Of these three inventions, the most perplexing is the "Star Flash" electromagnetic flying sword.

This device was inspired by the Earth's electromagnetic railgun and utilizes superconducting materials and powerful psionic capacitors to create a miniaturized electromagnetic orbital acceleration system.

It can launch either ordinary flying swords meticulously crafted by cultivators.
It can also launch standard flying swords made of high-strength composite materials (such as spiritualized carbon nanotubes), with the blade integrating micro-vector thrusters and psionic sensors; of course, it would be normal to call it a flying shuttle.

The cultivator locks onto the target with his divine sense and issues a command. The electromagnetic track instantly releases a massive amount of stored spiritual energy, accelerating the flying sword to tens or even hundreds of times the speed of sound in a short time (far exceeding traditional sword control techniques).

The sword's sensors, combined with the cultivator's divine sense, adjust the micro-thrusters in real time, enabling precise trajectory changes and tracking at ultra-high speeds, and even conducting complex "sword array" coordinated attacks.

The immense kinetic energy generated by ultra-high speed is the primary means of destruction (similar to kinetic energy penetrators). The sword tip is shaped like an armor-piercing cone, or integrated into a "spell-breaking" tip that instantly releases high-energy psionic energy.

Some advanced models can perform "saturation attacks," launching multiple miniaturized flying swords at once.

The killing concept of this thing is exactly the same as that of bullets: extreme speed can be converted into extreme lethality.

In actual combat, even ordinary soldiers using the "Star Flash" electromagnetic flying sword can cause damage to Nascent Soul cultivators.

The second great invention is the quantum phase-shift protective amulet.

This is a defense technology based on quantum theory.

At its core is a device that can briefly disrupt the quantum state of space around the wearer (using psionic energy to drive special crystals). Its effect is not to withstand damage, but to make attacks "pass through" or "miss" the wearer.

Its drawbacks are that it is not effective against continuous AOE, rule-based attacks, and spiritual attacks, and the "quantum superposition state" lasts only a few seconds, while the charging time is long.

The third great invention, Heavenly Punishment: Antimatter Annihilation Bomb
Using a powerful psionic field and special spatial folding technology, trace amounts of antimatter are created and sealed within a highly secure container, and then projected through a sophisticated psionic guidance system.

Upon reaching the target area, the container is released, and antimatter comes into contact with matter, resulting in a 100% mass-energy annihilation reaction. This releases a devastating gamma-ray burst, high-energy particles, and a shock wave.

The power of this thing is beyond doubt. Even a Nascent Soul cultivator who is on guard would find it difficult to survive for more than three seconds in the annihilation zone, and its power can cover an area of ​​hundreds of meters.

Of course, its problems are that the launching device weighs hundreds of tons, has poor mobility, and is indiscriminate in killing.

(End of this chapter)