Chapter 1068 - 541: Daily Life (2)

"Survive two more years, will the war be over?"

"Of course not, it’s that the wartime stockpile of nuclear warheads should be almost depleted, and the top-priority strike targets like nuclear facility reactors and missile bases have pretty much all been leveled. Now it’s about competing for production capacity.

When selecting the site for Nest City, nuclear defense capabilities were a key design focus, so the nuclear production base is also placed here.

Underground, besides hundreds of centrifuges and uranium enrichment plants, there are transmutation reactors and plutonium-239 processing plants, as well as heavy water reactors and tritium purification accelerators under construction. Once completed, they can significantly enhance the utilization rate of plutonium warheads, at least 500 nuclear warheads per year, and the theory is to plan eight such Nest Cities, which will begin mass production over the next two years.

Of course, the other side also has similar doomsday fortresses and nuclear energy underground cities, with disaster shelters and black lamp factories everywhere. But their productivity is a bit lower, they prepared later than us, so in this ebb and flow, within two years, they will be thoroughly suppressed, and strategically, we’ll enter the counterattack phase.

Of course, before that, in the next two years, it’s still a phase of resource struggle and violent production capacity stalemate. Whoever can endure, persist to the end, can have the winner-takes-all outcome."

Although Yang Yunzhao didn’t understand, he could see the heaps of corpses in the subway, seemingly all burned to death...

"How long will this continue..."

Chen Xuantian shrugged,

"For nuclear warfare like this, even if we enter a counterattack, it will have to last ten more years at least.

After all, by the beginning of the cold war, both sides had almost completed the mechanical revolution. Now, the battlefield is filled with AI drones and robots, receiving normal supplies of nuclear, solar, and geothermal energy, continuing the global resource contest without humans, maintaining resource extraction, with all factory production lines being fully automated black lamp factories.

As long as energy and resources are continuously supplied, there will be a constant stream of drone armies heading to the battlefield. And in fact, a lot of resources haven’t been deployed in the military domain. After all, Nest Cities and various shelters consume unknown amounts of resources and energy, plus priority is given to operating and maintaining biological farms and network servers.

Hence, theoretically, the main resources are still idle in the civilian domain, primarily ensuring food supply, and neither side has fully mobilized yet. So even though ICBMs fill the skies, ultimately, so far, nuclear warfare is only preparation for bombardment. It’s estimated that after ten years of combat, full-scale war will just begin."

Yang Yunzhao was already numb,

"Really, not a full-scale war yet..."

Chen Xuantian chuckled,

"Of course not, you might not believe it, but even now, the sides are just attacking each other’s military installations and industrial bases, those high-value targets with priority, because there are really too many damn valuable targets.

Alas, frankly speaking, human lives are the least valuable. The more living people, the more resources they occupy, and apart from a few elites, most humans are essentially just burdens. AI won’t waste precious nuclear warheads on areas with no strategic value, that can occupy the opponent’s bandwidth.

But this slow-paced state won’t last much longer, nuclear winter has practically led to a global reduction in crops, ninety percent of people will starve to death, lacking food resources, even nutrient paste factories can’t sustain for ten to twenty years. Once the supply chain collapses, residents in shelters will die en masse.

And once one side’s mortality rate exceeds the warning line, managing AI will trigger revenge mode, attacking the opponent’s residential points and shelters. Naturally, passing the red line, the opponent will initiate equivalent retaliation.

By that time, unrestricted weapon permissions will be unlocked, all resources will be thrown into the war, and the remaining remnants of human civilization systems and national organizations will transform into huge war machines driven solely by killing, with the surviving purpose only to destroy the opponent at all costs for victory. The countdown to human extinction will finally begin.

As for which side can win afterward, it’s beyond human estimation, not that there’s any need to bother. After all, carbon-based biological warfare ended four years ago, now it’s silicon-based’s turn.

This way, please."

Chen Xuantian kicked away the mountain of piled-up dried corpses, exerting force to dismantle the safety valve locked from inside, revealing the safe passage leading to the Nest City shelter.

Yang Yunzhao silently stepped over heaps of broken bones,

"Isn’t... there a way to peace?"

Chen Xuantian chuckled softly,

"Regrettably, at least I don’t have a way. You think, with the situation developing to this extent, I did nothing, just watched eating chips? I certainly tried hard, but unfortunately, my abilities are limited, every attempt at peaceful coexistence failed.

In the early year of the war, I just went all out, intimidating them at home, beheading those attempting to start the war extremists in one fell swoop, trying to end the war immediately, but even though I went down the list killing, it didn’t work. Because with the situation today, it’s not a matter of one or two so-called extremists, there’s no so-called ’pacifist’ on their side overall.

Once the suspicion chain forms, it can’t stop until one side completely collapses. If there was any hope, it wouldn’t have come to this, now that it’s happening, the war must be finished.

So now, there are no so-called command headquarters camps, no leaders to behead, it’s all AI control acting in proxy. Each Nest City, each shelter has independent management AI and local servers, once offline, another gains top authorization.

My authorization can only order the Cangtian Base to cease fire, but it doesn’t matter, under these circumstances, no one else will stop either. If I cease, outsiders will think Cangtian was annihilated, directly halting supply to Nest City 02, prioritizing resources allocation to other Nest City shelters, maximizing optimal utilization.

So do I have a choice? Do I let fifty thousand starve in the base? I can’t, I can only watch them keep fighting until everything ends."

Chen Xuantian led Yang Yunzhao to a place resembling a communications room, pointed to the red button on the console,

"Press it."

Yang Yunzhao reached out with a tentacle and pressed it.

"Boom, Boom, Boom!"

"What now?"

The communications room started shaking as if an earthquake was happening.

"Don’t worry, it’s just their nuclear warhead hitting us."

Chen Xuantian shrugged, waved his hand to open the screen, displaying another man-made ruined city, but this one bordered the sea, clearly not the one they had just gone down the hill to cruise.

Yang Yunzhao approached the screen, discovering it shrank with his focus, like standing in the clouds overlooking the ground, even clearly seeing people living on the ground, seemingly several thousand gathered in the suburbs, forming a settlement.

"Hmm? Why aren’t these people living underground?"

"Oh, the other side’s shelters charge fees. Those sustaining till now are usually custom-made rich communities with private security. The nuclear launch command just came from here.

Of course, not these above, but the doomsday base underground, those wealth dungeons have all the survival facilities, occasionally toss some kitchen waste out, so many survivors gather to scavenge.

Shelter people wouldn’t drive them away, like raccoons breaking into the yard, occasionally picking up some useful garbage to trade, and as long as they aren’t seriously ill, they can be used for experiments, blood draws, organ swaps..."

The next moment, the screen whitened, then a giant mushroom cloud rose.

Chen Xuantian picked up the red button, pressed it twice, and explained to the bewildered Yang Yunzhao,

"The shelters are buried pretty deep, launching three rounds should do."

Then, two consecutive flashes followed.

Yang Yunzhao turned to look at Chen Xuantian, then turned to look at the pit that was the ruins, remained silent for a while, suddenly collapsed to the ground, emitting a series of monster-like screeches from the War Remains Cabin, like vomiting from a jar.

"Ha, don’t worry, the nuclear strike command was authorized by me. A general’s achievements come from countless bones, Liu Lang, you’re the reincarnation of a stellar general, destined to slaughter tens of thousands, just a flick wipes out thousands of lives, I’m just letting you experience it in advance."

Chen Xuantian shrugged, smiled while patting Yang Yunzhao’s shoulder,

"All in all, if you wake up with nothing, go for a run, hit back if hit, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, that’s pretty much the routine here.

Welcome to my Earth."