Will the kemonomimi encounter Alien Ranch Story?

"Deploy the warships! Don't give these monsters a chance for another attack!" The warships are among the smallest combat ships in the Great Yan Empire, mainly used for close-range combat. These land-based warships rumbled over the wreckage and passed through the gaps in the city to launch a counterattack against the swarms of hovering and wriggling sea creatures.

This was a mission with almost certain death; a warship could only carry fewer than 50 combatants, and no more than 100 people including crew.

Moreover, lacking weapons capable of killing targets over a wide area, they mainly rely on mobility to harass targets, serving as "foot soldiers" within the fleet.

Soon, the sound of warships exploding echoed outside the city. Only one warship from a squadron returned, its hull covered in corrosion, and less than a third of its crew survived.

"Rockets ready!" These rockets weren't rockets, but rather lit crossbow bolts. Then, a dark cloud descended upon the small group of sea monsters chasing after the warship.

"Hmm..." Old Shi noticed that compared to the sea monsters of the past, these sea monsters had a significantly reduced tactical ability. It seemed that there was no unified command. In the past, sea monsters would not have engaged in such useless pursuits.

Moreover, these sea monsters seemed different from the simple harassment and slaughter before returning to the sea. Their behavior patterns, tactics, and units were very different from the past, which gave him a very ominous premonition.

“Because the mainframe was destroyed, these creatures have gradually become feral over the years,” Xia Lin explained, having some knowledge of this. “That’s why they never launched large-scale attacks on land before, but now they’ve lost control, and this might even be the process of a new mainframe being born…”

"Just like insects swarming?"

"It's like insects swarming. When the original queen is gone, any female can become the new queen, and they will lead their loyal colonies to find new habitats. In the past, the queen strictly guarded the borders, preventing humans from entering the sea and marine life from entering the land, or at least not on a large scale. But now that the queen is gone, each one could be the new queen, and they have no constraints. They will instinctively move towards areas rich in food and organic matter."

"So, a new sea god will be born soon?"

“Inevitable…” Xia Lin remained noncommittal. “However, having a new empress doesn’t mean they can recover their lost technology database. Of course, the gene bank won’t suffer any major damage…”

"This means that we are likely to see more advanced Sea Siren units, but Sea Siren will no longer be able to produce technological weapons, and the strength of biological weapons will also decrease significantly, because they will proactively downgrade themselves based on the actual situation."

The reason is that the advanced biological structure, in its current state after grouping, cannot be maintained or supported. It's like how Lao Xia can't build large-scale equipment now. Even if he could, it would be based on sacrificing non-renewable equipment.

The damage to Haisi must be quite severe, otherwise it wouldn't have been downgraded to this level. It's like how humanity, after a nuclear war, returned to a normal agricultural civilization, prioritizing farming to survive before considering industrial recovery.

Two-dimensional defense

mechanism:

Isolated and helpless: No response to payment requests;

Complete lack of fighting spirit: Redeployment time for all operators +100%; Deployment cost +2;

Elite Veteran: All operators' attack, defense, and health +15%;

All-out attack: Operators can be deployed anywhere, and there is no limit to the number of operators that can be deployed.

Special Units:

Civilians: Unstoppable, -1 HP when killed;

Noble: Can be blocked by melee units, loses 2 HP when killed, has slow movement speed, low defense, and reduces the attack speed of nearby operators by 50%.

Civil Engineer: 15 cost. After deployment, melee operators gain +50% defense and +35% attack, and slow all enemy movement speed by 10% for 30 seconds.

enemy:

Hai Si (all the monsters under the overturned nest);

Mobile Nest (BOSS, does not attack, defense S, magic resistance A, health S, creates a group of runners every 2 seconds, the creation speed doubles after being attacked for 5 seconds, after being killed, 8 first speakers will spawn on the spot, if not killed within 30 seconds, it will respawn.)

Chapter Twenty-Two: Carrying the Bucket

-------------Chapter Dividing Line---------------

After the sea creatures that suffered a crushing defeat in the Great Yan, they surged back into a portion of Iberia. Just as Lao Xia had said, the evolution rate of these sea creatures had clearly slowed down, and they had developed very serious problems with their command lines.

Simply put, in the past, under the control of the sea god, the individual still acted on instinct.

However, as a whole, they exhibit a certain intelligence, much like a complete human being, which is why the Agors dare not pursue a technologically competitive path.

Now, Hai Si is more like a giant zombie. Although he has stronger vitality and regenerative ability than before, he has lost his mind and is just running around blindly according to his instincts.

They didn't see any further technological updates or advancements. However, they did produce quite a few new things related to the integration of existing capabilities within the organization.

For example, there are "nests" and "parasites" used for sieges, whose shells are individual drifters.

These floating creatures, shaped like cannonballs, are stuffed into chitinous barrels and propelled by the combustion of some kind of biological marsh gas. Their flight speed is not fast, only several times faster than normal drifters, roughly equivalent to the flight speed of a regular arrow.

The problem is that they have fleshy wings that allow them to adjust their course, and the corrosive gases inside them serve as both ammunition and airbags. This means they can hover over targets for a long time and have ample time to recalibrate their targets.

The only drawback is its relatively low power, relying mainly on the neurotoxins of corrosive gases to kill and affect living organisms. Aside from that, it accelerates equipment aging and corrosion, and damages delicate components.

"You mean this is what you mean by them being downgraded?" The Iberian judge thought this expert from Kazdel must be out of his mind; this was practically a major upgrade.

"Hmm, so this is a demotion..." Old Xia glanced at him sideways, "It's just that we haven't used this kind of outdated equipment before. Hmm, let me give you an example. You used to be equipped with hand cannons and swords. You would usually use the swords to fight the enemy, but if the enemy was too strong, you would take out the hand cannons, right?"

"You are very familiar with our tactics?"

"Dr. Kal'tsit understands this very well, but that's not the point. The state of the Hai Si is just like your tactics. They usually use swords, and when necessary, they use hand cannons. But have you seen their 'hand cannons' on the battlefield?"

They're only using bows and arrows now, which might seem like an improvement over using swords, but in reality, it's a significant downgrade.

Are you sure they have hand cannons?

"You can ask the Agorians about this, they will tell you."

Of course they have hand cannons. The fact that Haisi didn't bring out the biological ion cannon and the extinction-level organophosphorus poison gas already speaks volumes.

"They don't have bio-floating bombs, they don't drop ion bombs on your head, they don't release poison gas and genetic viruses, and they don't create swarms of ant-sized bio-disintegrators, which is already a significant weakening."

These are all standard weapon types for insectoid creatures like Haisi. In other words, they don't even have rifles anymore; they're just charging with bayonets.

"They haven't even released their air force yet, probably because bio-fighters can no longer be manufactured, or perhaps, the Sea-like creatures simply don't exist as such units."

Old Xia complained, "That's also the main reason why we're still able to maintain our defensive line."

Iberia doesn't have the defensive wall of the Great Yan, so it's really like fighting a skirmish with the Sea Kings. The casualties and losses will be even more severe than those of the Great Yan.

However, Kazdel provided them with a significant number of air force units, which largely enabled Iberia to withstand the hordes of Sea Siege attacks.

The Sea Siege lacks high-pressure cannons, which means it has no anti-aircraft firepower. To put it bluntly, the Drifters are just small airships with too low a ceiling, too slow speed, and not maneuverable enough. They are units that can be reached by snipers on high platforms.

Therefore, the air raids are a complete one-sided defeat for the current Haisi. As a result, Lao Xia has made it clear that their technology downgrade has begun irreversibly. Under normal circumstances, according to Agor's data, if Haisi were to suffer such an attack, they should have deployed their biological lasers for air defense.

However, even after seven or eight mother brood sites were destroyed, Hai Si remained unchanged, futilely firing spikes launched from its air bladders into the air, achieving nothing.

Similarly, this was also the idea of ​​the Great Yan people. This time, the sea monster was not equipped with that kind of light cannon unit, which was great news. According to Lao Shi's past experience, the Great Yan's divine light cannon was only useful in the first two days of the war.

Starting from the third day, a lot of things with big eyes started popping out of the enemy ranks, firing lasers and big flames at each other, forcing the Divine Light Cannon to quickly take cover after each shot.

However, this time, even when the Divine Light Cannon was about to melt the core, they still didn't see any of the sea monsters' Light Walkers, which slightly restored the morale of the defenders.

If the defensive wall hadn't turned into this mess, this defensive operation could have been a breeze. The divine light cannons on the warships would have sniped and eliminated those humanoid sea monster leaders, the divine fire cannons would have swept the ground, and the rapid-fire crossbows and the spells of the celestial masters would have filled any gaps. No matter how many sea monsters there were, they would have crashed into this indestructible defensive wall like waves.

However, it was all for naught. There were seven or eight huge gaps in the defensive wall. Even if the tower ships were used to block them, there were still many gaps that required the ground troops to use their lives to fill them. Not to mention that when the tower ships blocked the gaps, the fortress slots that were originally used for docking were empty, and the distribution of firepower in the entire defensive line became extremely unbalanced.

The reason we've held out until today is entirely due to the fact that these sea monsters seem to have lost a unified commander and are just blindly stumbling around on instinct. They've gradually figured out the weaknesses in the defense line by instinct, concentrating ground troops at the gaps while ranged troops suppress the sections of the wall that have lost their ship-based firepower.

"General, our men have suffered heavy losses. We can't continue like this. Let's retreat!"

"Wait a little longer," Old Shi gripped the railing and looked west towards the capital. Damn it, why haven't the reinforcements arrived yet?

He's just waiting for reinforcements to arrive so he can run away decisively. He's already done everything he could, so there's no need to do anything more.

The reason we didn't run away now is that troop retreat is a technical task. If we ran now, not only would we not be able to escape, but we might also lose our defensive position and be caught and killed by sea monsters before the court even investigates.

Therefore, he had to wait for reinforcements to arrive before running away. He didn't need to outrun the sea monster; as long as he ran faster than his allies, he could successfully withdraw from the front lines. He didn't care about the fate of the reinforcements.

Moreover, on the other hand, this is also a good excuse in officialdom—look, I held firm here for several days without moving an inch, but it collapsed as soon as the reinforcements took over, so it's definitely not my fault—after all, the dead won't jump up to defend themselves!

Where are the reinforcements? The reinforcements are still at their posts and haven't set off yet. It's not that the court officials don't know how urgent the situation is.

Rather, they knew that holding back the breach was the sharpest knife in the emperor's hand, as well as a warrior and stumbling block that blocked their interests.

We definitely need to provide support, but when to provide support and when to reap the rewards is an art in itself. "Let's wait and see, let that brute stall for time. There's no rush."

"But what if that warrior just runs away? What if this sea monster..."

“Absurd! Over the years, there has never been any talk of sea monsters invading deep inland. Besides, there are three natural passes, and it takes only half a day to reach the nearest major city for reinforcements. Even if the coastal defense passes are lost, it would only be some barren land on the coast. Moreover, sea monsters do not stay on land for long.”

This argument isn't entirely without merit. If the three natural barriers of the pass still exist, and if the nearby military strongholds do indeed have the 5000-strong rapid reaction mobile force on paper, then the plan to kill three birds with one stone—eliminating political enemies, suppressing military men, and gaining merit—would indeed have a high success rate.

Firstly, while the three natural barriers have not been completely destroyed, they can no longer provide the same level of defense as before.

Even after repairing some of the roadblocks and fortifications on the mountainsides, the original smooth road was simply transformed into a series of obstacles that required some effort to remove.

Secondly, it's highly questionable whether the 5,000 mobile infantrymen, known as the Divine Martial Guard Army in the Great Yan, actually number even 500 combat soldiers.

After all, the Divine Martial Guard was composed of respectable men from good families who brought their own rations. They were well-equipped, had a high level of education, and possessed a strong fighting spirit.

However, all of this is based on the fact that there are enough children from middle-class families who are willing to join the army and who are able to receive the same compensation for their investment.

The current situation is that the middle class in the Great Yan has shrunk significantly, and the wealthy and noble families naturally do not perform corvée labor, let alone military service.

Even without the practice of drawing salaries without working, it would be difficult to find enough soldiers. Not to mention the added issues of drawing salaries without working, generals embezzling rewards and benefits, etc. The entire system is on the verge of collapse. In this situation, it would be a joke to expect a sufficient number of troops.

Regardless of which dynasty the Great Yan was based on, as long as it wasn't modern China, this situation would actually be even more severe. At its peak, the Tang Dynasty theoretically had an army of 54.

In reality, even with their best efforts, they could only squeeze out a figure of less than 20, and then gave Mr. Li Longji almost all of it away in a battle.

However, for the officials in the court, these troops were only available on paper. Although they all claimed to be "knowledgeable about military affairs," in reality, these so-called "knowledgeable" officials had never actually entered a military camp.

Of course, it's not absolute. Both the Grand Tutor and the Celestial Master had such experiences. One experienced the tragic situation when the Great Yan was not very strong, when evil demons from beyond the Great Wall broke into the city, leaving a stench of blood and rivers of blood for thousands of miles.

One of them had personally been to the front lines and witnessed the extent of the corruption within the basic-level troops of the Great Yan Dynasty, as well as the meager combat effectiveness of such troops when facing demons and monsters.

This is why the Grand Tutor believed that with the Celestial Master's plan, at most 30% of the million-strong army would survive, while with the Great Yan Army of that time, it was possible that about 50% would survive. You have to understand that in ancient times, if 30% of the army survived, it would be a total annihilation. In actual combat, let alone 70% casualties, if the casualties exceeded 10%, the army would collapse.

That's why we build so many fortresses and city walls. Only when they are surrounded by monsters inside the fortresses can they fight to the end and hold out with more than 7% casualties.

However, these officials who "know military affairs" either voluntarily or involuntarily erased their military affiliation, because, except for the founding emperors, it was inevitable to prioritize civil affairs over military matters.

Because the later emperors were not the founding emperors who rose to power on horseback; they focused more on political affairs and less on domestic matters. In other words, the armies were too powerful, and the emperors lacked the confidence to control them.

His ancestors were able to do so because they were emperors who fought on horseback and conquered the country together. Generals and soldiers all knew the emperor and even fought alongside him.

However, he was merely someone who rose to power through the protection of his father. Just think about how soldiers viewed officers who became generals because their fathers were generals, and you'll know how later emperors and founding emperors were viewed by military commanders and troops.

Therefore, if an official wants to advance further, he must wash away his military affiliation; otherwise, neither the emperor nor the court will trust someone who can control both military and political affairs.

At such a time, the Grand Tutor could not speak, the Celestial Master could not speak, and the officials in the court who truly knew military affairs dared not speak.

Because revealing the truth at this time would not only incur repercussions, but would also be meaningless to the front lines.

Instead, it would lead to infighting within the court, causing the emperor to be suspected and the front lines to receive even less support.

As a result, Lao Shi held out for two whole weeks in a state of isolation and helplessness on the front line. Meanwhile, the wealthy families whose sons had been killed and whose markets had been destroyed even monopolized the market and refused to release their grain and raw materials. By the third week, even though they had brought several times more supplies and ammunition, they were gradually running out of ammunition and food.

As for casualties, Lao Shi dared not look at them anymore. However, no matter what, the banner of the Great Yan still flew high at this critical moment. As for how long it could be maintained, that depended on when the imperial court would send reinforcements.

"General, we really can't continue fighting! If we keep fighting, we'll run out of manpower!" The subordinate was almost crying his eyes out. These were the lifeblood of the fleet. At first, it was just the new recruits and those with weaker combat capabilities that were being consumed, but now even the battalion commanders were being sent in.