Industrial Cthulhu doesn't believe in the end times.

Chapter 80 The Power Gathered

While Haiqu is actively rescuing the people in the secret realm, Su Xun is also gathering personnel.

This operation will involve bringing along individuals with superpowers, and quite a few of them.

If it weren't for the impending deep-level monsters, the secret realm itself would be a very valuable place. Even though it is usually dangerous, it often attracts many extraordinary individuals to explore it.

Once ability users reach the second tier, their abilities will become more diverse. Su Xun has many skills that he cannot yet teach them. Taking this opportunity, Su Xun calls on various regions to send ability users to Haiqu, especially those with an affinity for wind elements. In Su Xun's vision, these people can solve some pressing problems after they advance.

Based on the reports from various regions, this batch alone has reached as many as 500 people.

This number made Su Xun's eyelids twitch. In his previous life, he had never fought such a rich war. Only one in a hundred people might have a superpowered person. In his previous life, when they were hiding everywhere, they might not see more than a few people with superpowers in a month.

In this life, they no longer lack people with superpowers. By the highest possible proportion, there are probably 200,000 people with superpowers within the jurisdiction of the Taimon Base. Of course, this number is actually much smaller, but it is enough to illustrate the point.

Including other types, the total number of superhumans recruited this time is expected to reach around a thousand. Su Xun thought to himself, if it weren't for the abnormal expansion of the Haiqu Secret Realm, so many people would be enough to surround the secret realm.

This is a completely different story from the previous days when I was exploring the secret realm with a group of other ability users, struggling to survive and avoiding monsters.

These people did not all originate from the Taimon base; they came from all directions and converged towards Haiqu.

Each shelter had its own route planning, so Su Xun didn't need to worry about that. He just needed to gradually take in these people after arriving in Haiqu.

When Su Xun was selecting people to accompany him at the base, Jiang Yi took the initiative to find him, which surprised Su Xun.

"Are you going too?"

Jiang Yi nodded: "I can be your communicator."

Su Xun thought about it and didn't refuse. Since the spiritual energy revival, his body has been gradually strengthened and he has entered the stage of a superhuman. He no longer needs Jiang Yi's care in his daily life. On the contrary, she is busy day and night and looks a little haggard.

That being said, she was still very skilled at handling her work. Su Xun only needed to give her verbal instructions, and she could create documents and convey them to other departments on her own.

Moreover, many of the people in this group are ordinary people without superpowers. Su Xun wanted to know if using the secret realm this time could give these ordinary people the opportunity to advance to the extraordinary realm ahead of time.

Ordinary people can also reach the extraordinary level, and some can go very far, such as Qin Chang in his previous life. Under Su Xun's care this time, their chances of advancing are not small.

Jiang Yi was just one representative; many people volunteered, showing considerable enthusiasm. Among them were numerous students and workers. The immense pain caused by the catastrophe inspired them to travel to other places to help the victims.

Su Xun couldn't say where this enthusiasm came from, and there might be some self-destructive tendency behind it. He politely declined many people and instructed Qin Chang to continue to do ideological work among the masses. It was not yet time for these people to go to the battlefield; they could play a greater role in their production positions.

Accompanying them into the battlefield was a thousand-strong infantry force, carrying a considerable amount of heavy equipment. This was the limit that could be deployed under the current defensive pressure in various regions. While Haiqu was in grave danger, other areas also faced significant risks.

As for the artillery, Qin Chang cobbled together 400 men to form a sizable artillery battalion equipped with 18 large-caliber howitzers. This was a considerable size; artillery was a technologically advanced branch of the military, with extremely high requirements for personnel and equipment. This was true for many branches of the military these days; it was no longer a matter of just anyone being able to handle the job. Even physically strong individuals with enhanced abilities could at most avoid muscle strains when handling artillery shells; calculating mils and setting firing parameters would likely leave them completely clueless.

In addition to the artillery units that were tasked with direct strikes, this operation also placed higher demands on logistics. Their operations could no longer rely entirely on the resource crates scattered across the battlefield, since those crates did not contain 155mm high-explosive fragmentation rounds.

Truckloads of artillery shells were transferred from the warehouse to the trucks, ready to depart with the troops, while more logistics personnel stood by at the rear. Among the logistics department that coordinated these people was a young girl who was only sixteen years old.

Tang Rong, a survivor of the mental arithmetic unit, is currently playing her part in the logistics department, which is actually her job.

Many people actually know how to do abacus calculation; it's an essential skill for anyone who studies accounting. However, the mental arithmetic unit actually originated from the Military Economics Academy.

These people are usually between seven and fourteen years old. Before the cataclysm, Tang Rong had already returned to school. She had responded to the call to return to this team. The members of the abacus unit had received commendations from the General Armaments Department many times. The consumption of military supplies and logistics allocation were courses they had been studying.

Currently, this young woman is still a student. During the day, she participates in the logistics work at the base, and in the evening, she teaches more people mental arithmetic skills.

Everyone is participating in this massive war in their own way.

Preparing this armed force took a considerable amount of time. People from Haiqu have already entered the secret realm to try to rescue the survivors who were lost there, but there has been no news yet. Su Xun is currently unable to help with this matter, and they can only rely on themselves. Haiqu is a coastal city, and although the secret realm did not appear by the sea this time, it is still more than 100 kilometers away from the front line.

This distance would have taken only four or five hours to walk before the apocalypse, but now, the only organizations with bases and various shelters at their core are actually capable of projecting their power to such distant areas.

The sooner they can reach the front line, the sooner they can take the initiative. After this incident, Su Xun couldn't say whether more unexpected events would occur in Haiqu. The dangers in the apocalypse are not limited to the secret realm.

Once the personnel were almost ready, Su Xun didn't delay any longer and immediately ordered them to set off.

With so many personnel being redeployed, the Taimon base had to temporarily tighten its defenses. Fortunately, thanks to the defensive firepower that the base had set up in advance, the zombies alone could not pose a threat.

This combat mission is different from carrying out rescue operations in the city, so Su Xun did not recall the base vehicle serving as the rescue command center in Xinfu City.

But there was still one similar vehicle in the convoy. It wasn't a base vehicle, but a genuine log transport vehicle—the kind with logs on it.

Under the influence of the strong winds, this vehicle is now a giant remote-controlled bomb, and the nuclear warhead it carries needs to be detonated via a broadcast signal from the Taimon base.

Multiple armored vehicles surround it in the middle. Now that there is no longer a satellite threat or the need to guard against espionage, this once-important national asset can now swagger along the highway.

However, many people in the group did not feel at ease when they looked at it; instead, they felt somewhat bewildered.

What kind of monster could make the commander-in-chief think that such a weapon was necessary to kill it?

(End of this chapter)