The plunder of the heavens begins with the Spirit Cage.

Lu Yue did not give a direct explanation, but her tone softened and became more reassuringly confident.

"You'll find out soon enough, Colonel Lu. You don't need to worry about this. All you need to do is hold the front line before you leave."

As she spoke, she looked at several officers, both high and low, who had also been promoted several ranks in quick succession, and told them directly what supplies and energy the Ming family had taken away.

"At most, the military strength in the Southern Region can only fight three more wars."

It's impossible to recover in a short time; concentrating the defenses on one point will only allow the Devouring Beasts to wear us down.

To defend this area, the bunker will also require a significant amount of manpower and resources.

The best outcome would be to move everything from here.

"During this transfer, the families of all soldiers will be given priority..."

After Lu Yue pointed out the severity of the situation and the tangible guarantees, the last bit of hesitation in the hearts of these newly promoted officers finally subsided.

There was no way they could refuse; they knew perfectly well that they had no room to refuse now.

By rising through the ranks to a command position, he gained more troops under his command, but the morale of his men also became mixed.

Want to rebel?

Many people, initially filled with envy and jealousy, had their eyes on their positions.

They were well aware that being without a gun was absolutely unacceptable in the apocalypse.

The high-ranking commanders who had been transferred from the headquarters of the bunker beside him all exuded confidence that they had victory in the bag.

The officers, who had once belonged to the aristocratic alliance, exchanged glances, and their initial doubts eventually turned into obedience.

…………

The Devouring Beasts rely on the macro-level support of the entire natural ecosystem to regenerate and recover, which is indeed a dimensional reduction attack for the people of the Ling Cage world.

The same applies to Lu Qianwei's spacetime portal; the system did not stipulate that only one portal could be opened in a world.

Because the spacetime anchor point had already locked onto that world, the energy required to open the second door in the same world was actually reduced by half.

The 'door' is merely a form of medium; the system's energy relies on planar objects to maintain the stability of spacetime.

As countless long strips of metal, gleaming with a cold silver luster, were pulled together, spliced, and stretched in the void.

A giant rectangle, tens of meters high and wide, is 'drawn' in the air to form the outline of the door frame.

Lu Qianwei infused it with the energy he had acquired in the Southern Region over the past few days.

As energy flowed, a primitive, wild, yet vibrant world appeared in the center of the originally empty door frame.

When the families of the soldiers who had been transferred to the core area looked up and gazed at the endless green mountains and forests, the previous hustle and bustle fell silent at that moment.

As the suspended door frame fell back to the ground, the Combine soldiers and engineers who had been ready on Gina Star rushed out.

A large number of transport hovercraft and ground vehicles set off in a grand procession, heading in an orderly fashion towards areas such as factories, research institutes, ecological parks, and energy rooms.

As more and more hunters and mercenaries flock to Gina.

The dangerous species and plants around Black Peak Mountain have long been cleared out and thoroughly investigated. Using Gina Star as a transit point, the time portal will not pose much danger to the basin area.

Lu Yue explained the uses of the time portal to the evacuated people through the internet, looking at Lu Qianwei beside her with hopeful eyes.

"Brother, with such a convenient teleportation method, I think it's necessary to connect Jingxu and Jiuchuan to our side."

"We'll have to wait until they've finished making the outer frame of the time portal before we can talk about that."

Such a door frame is easily knocked down; it's best used as a temporary solution.

The stability of the spacetime gate is related to the medium of the gate frame, a finding further confirmed by Lu Qianwei's experiments.

When the door frame, which serves as the medium, is destroyed, the energy disappears directly and is not recycled by the system.

When he has the power to extract energy from the Mana Giant, he will not hesitate for a second.

As for the consequences of opening a time portal and using it as a teleportation device in the Ling Cage universe and being discovered by the Mana Giant, a higher-dimensional being...

Honestly, he didn't take it to heart.

If it weren't for the fear of triggering some kind of stress response, he would have already exiled the immobile entity to another world to be used for his own purposes.

I wonder how much knowledge ASH has acquired from the other party's mind?

Chapter 88 Refugees

The most fundamental purpose of the underground city in The Wandering Earth is to provide a long-term safe haven for surviving humans after the engines start, the Earth stops rotating, and it enters a frozen, wandering state.

Furthermore, due to differences in geographical location, energy conditions, and industrial base, each underground city has its own focus in terms of production and function.

At most, any underground city can only be partially self-sufficient.

For example, the Hangzhou No. 1 Underground City and the Sulawesi No. 3 Steering Engine Base are the most typical examples of resource complementarity.

This major north-south transportation artery is not only connected to two separate underground cities.

Instead, it connects multiple underground cities and surface supply stations, forming a survival network of inter-city transfers and mutual supplies.

Starting from Hangzhou, the transport convoy will first arrive at the Shanghai Underground City to distribute the supplies.

Further south, they will refuel, rest, or exchange emergency supplies at surface supply depots set up by the coalition government along the global road network for 300–400 kilometers.

They finally arrived at Sulawesi Base 3.

Li Shicai is such a senior driver. At this moment, he is leading a grain transport convoy southwards towards Sulawesi Base 3, mentoring new drivers.

On the snow-covered ground, three box trucks, each the size of a whale, were traveling on a specially designed road.

The people in the driver's cab started chatting while the car was on autopilot.

"Uncle Li, is the next stop Yongzhou Supply Station No. 4?"

I heard that the rest area at that station sells adult-themed physical VR headsets.

"Hehe, after running for so long, I can finally relax a bit." A young man named Wang Yunxing inside the car grinned lewdly.

People inevitably experience depression when living underground, so relevant departments have released a large number of VR virtual games as a result.

Due to material scarcity, virtual games have become a panacea for the masses, but certain content is always strictly prohibited.

The middle-aged man in the passenger seat rolled his eyes when he heard his nephew's impatient manner.

He cursed, "You're spineless!"

"You silly brat, your mother didn't ask me to bring you on this long trip so you could see this."

"Hey, what's wrong with that? I'm an adult, what's wrong with me being curious and taking a look?"

"I don't believe you didn't see it when you were young." Wang Yunxing said with a disdainful look, always emphasizing things that he himself couldn't do to others.

Double standards, blatant double standards!

"Alright, alright, if you like watching it, you can find it yourself when the time comes."

Li Shicai stared at the instrument panel: "We'll reach Yongzhou Supply Station No. 4 in 34 kilometers."

After checking the vehicle and filling it with fuel, we rested for two hours before setting off.

Wang Yunxing glanced at the map on the display screen, not quite understanding it, and asked, "Uncle Li, how many stops until we reach Sulawesi?"

Without hesitation, Li Shicai said, "After passing Yongzhou No. 4, and then Hezhou No. 8 and Wuzhou No. 2 supply stations, we will be close to Sulawesi."

"Alright, hehe, when we get to Yongzhou No. 4, I'll go to the arcade first, and then we'll continue on our way."

"Don't just relax," Li Shicai solemnly reminded him, "There have been several robberies of homeless people on the highway recently."

Don't assume you're safe just because it's freezing cold.

During the underground city era, 90% of the people served within the system.

However, 0.3% of the population disobeyed the United Government's regulations and lived on the edge of the underground city or in warmer areas on the surface.

Of these, 4.5% of patients who have lost their jobs or are completely unable to work are at risk of becoming homeless at any time.

As the saying goes, "a large forest has all kinds of birds," and there are many people within the system who are dissatisfied with the coalition government.

Even though the country abolished the lottery system back then and chose to fully accept its citizens to enter.

But that was during the later period of natural disasters and man-made calamities, and the large-scale man-made casualties were an indelible shadow on them.

It's impossible to say you don't harbor hatred in your heart.

After all, you were the ones who said that some people would be left out by the lottery, and then you were the ones who talked about providing rescue.

The fact that the underground city can sustain the existence of refugees is largely due to the help of these people.

Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to acquire the equipment and information to carry out robberies.

"This batch of supplies is urgently needed by the equatorial base. We need to be careful of surrounding vehicles and roadblocks as we transport it there."

Even if a convoy has identification codes, do not open the doors of the vehicles without proper identification.

Most of those people are filled with hatred; if you don't want to lose your life, then don't bother with them.

Li Shicai recalled the past with lingering fear, and finally instructed: "If other convoys really encounter trouble, the troops stationed at the supply stations along the way will come to rescue and support them."

Just focus on doing your own thing and remember not to meddle in other people's business.

Hearing this unknown story, Wang Yunxing was incredulous: "There's no such thing, is there?"

I've never encountered any refugees when I was working with other masters."

“That’s a short distance. We run the Equatorial Route, which has a long gap in our schedule, making us easy targets,” Li Shicai explained in a deep voice.

The planetary engines are only built north of 30° North latitude and along the equator, and these core areas are under strict control.

The southern provinces are almost entirely covered by vast snowfields, which are uninhabited areas and areas outside the jurisdiction of the government.

Not only is the military strength weak, but after looting, the refugees can easily flee to any place and are basically difficult to pursue and capture.

Hearing about the potential dangers, Wang Yunxing swallowed hard: "Then we shouldn't encounter such a thing, right?"

As soon as he finished speaking, the convoy drove into a collapsed overpass that was frozen over by ice and snow.

Broken steel bars, like withered bones, pierced the gray sky. The dilapidated roof of the toll station was covered by thick snow, with only the blurry characters "Yongzhou" half-exposed.

This area of ​​abandoned buildings, which was a necessary passage, became an excellent ambush site.

"boom--!!"