Wasteland: My items are infinitely upgraded.

Chapter 264 A Beast Plague After Thousands of Years: Cannons Without People

The scene on the monitor screen shocked everyone in the command and control room.

They were all first-order evolved priests of the Papacy, and the oldest of them was no more than two hundred years old.

As he approached the end of his life, the bishop would take his crew to the Temple of Zhuma to see if he could gain the Lord's attention and care, and continue to serve the Lord of the Holy Spring and the Church.

Even if they fail, they can still rest in peace in the temple and complete their lives.

In any case, the people in the command and control room rarely had contact with the outside world, so they were unaware that such a large pack of wasteland wolves existed in the wasteland.

But not only the people present, even Lin Feng had never seen tens of thousands of densely packed evolved wild beasts gathered together and moving in groups.

In the entire town of Oasis, more than 99.99% of the residents had never seen such a breathtaking scene.

It is estimated that only Li Hao, the head of the Li family, or the bishop who has lived for nearly a thousand years, would have been fortunate enough to witness, in his rich adventures and long life, the only large group of evolved beasts that has survived from the Dark Ages of the Old Calendar to the present wasteland.

If it weren't for the protection agreement made by the gods back then, the Wasteland Wolf clan, having lost the protection of the third-tier king beast, would have been driven to the brink of extinction by various settlements and human forces long ago.

Ultimately, only those loyal to humans were eliminated, and they gradually evolved into a new generation of guard dogs.

To become humanity's most loyal friend.

After all, with the current strength of the Wasteland Wolf Clan, they are not even a first-rate force, at best a top-tier second-rate force.

It has a second-tier, level 29 wild wolf behemoth as its leader.

There are also three giant wolves that are at the early stage of the second tier, serving as Lang Ao's right-hand men.

It is equivalent to a top-tier existence below the third-tier royal city.

Normally, in the wilderness, they can freely attack wanderers or herds of rockhorse, and roam freely in unclaimed lands.

But now, in the wasteland, any region or route that has any value has been brought under the control of major powers.

Even a medium-sized settlement at the town level will have at least one level 29 being in charge. If a town manages to develop and grow to a population of 100,000, a large or top-tier power will definitely send a level 3 early-stage king to consolidate their rule.

After all, from the beginning of the great catastrophe in the old Earth era to the present wasteland apocalypse, the evolutionary time that life on Earth has undergone has exceeded ten thousand years.

Thousands of third-order beings were born during this period!

The number of third-order evolution paths left behind is countless, and many established large forces possess more than three high-order evolution paths.

Even secondary top-tier forces like the Wilderness Hunter Guild and the Life Farm, through thousands of years of development and accumulation, may have high-level origins in their secret vaults.

All it takes is finding the right person to directly create a Tier 3 King.

The reason for not doing so is twofold. Firstly, the top powers above need to be considered, such as the Holy Spring Cult and the giant corporation. But most importantly, there are not many usable resources left in the wasteland to build a medium-to-large settlement that can support a third-tier king.

The problem is not the evolutionary pathway, but the resources required to achieve evolution.

This is actually a problem faced by the Steppenwolf clan. Although the gods have decreed that top-tier large forces cannot attack the Steppenwolves or plunder their evolutionary pathways...

However, in order to support the huge pack left behind by the wolf king, the wolf clan needs to consume a lot of resources every year to maintain such a large group of evolving wild beasts.

In particular, the Steppenwolf is a predatory animal.

They need to eat meat to survive.

Unlike large herbivores like the rock stag, the Steppenwolf has not evolved photosynthetic properties similar to plants. Its fur and skin are hardened and metallic, which, in addition to enhancing defense, is mainly for heat dissipation to improve the Steppenwolf's durability.

It is good for pursuing large herds of herbivores like rockhorses over long distances, exhausting their stamina, and killing the target perfectly without taking any damage.

Even so, the biological resources of the wasteland are gradually shrinking, causing the evolutionary wolf pack under the command of the third-tier wolf king, which once numbered over 100,000, to now only have about 10,000 left.

Even though the Wilderness Wolf Pack occasionally attacks human nomadic forces, it cannot stop the gradual decline of the new generation of evolved Wilderness wolves.

Now, with the seal on the ruins broken and the dark turmoil about to descend, the wasteland wolf pack has no choice but to break the protection agreement and risk attacking a medium-sized human settlement.

By utilizing a medium-sized settlement, nearly ten thousand human evolvers, and tens of thousands of enhanced humans, the strength level of the wasteland wolf pack can be directly raised to a higher level.

And coincidentally...

Oasis Town is currently in a critical and extremely vulnerable period.

If the Li family and other local clans do not instigate a rebellion, but instead cooperate sincerely with the Oasis Church, sharing a common hatred and working together to deal with the crisis of the beast tide.

Even if Steppenwolves possessed the strength and scale of a top-tier second-rate force, they still wouldn't gain much advantage.

Although human evolved beings are far inferior to evolved beasts of the same level in terms of individual strength, their numbers and weaponry far surpass those of the bloodthirsty evolved beasts.

Unfortunately, Oasis Town is currently rife with internal strife, and the first second-tier arena competition has already resulted in casualties. Faced with Li Mingquan's meaningless death, the Li family and Li Hao will only become more frantic and determined to achieve their goal.

The struggle between the rebels and the church is now only one step away from being openly confronted.

There's always the possibility of things falling apart and turning on each other to the point of violence!

But the Steppenwolf clan happened to encounter this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!

With the church and the Li family locked in a power struggle, other forces, such as the Wilderness Hunting Guild and the two villages that cheered for the Li family, were now only concerned with their own survival and had no intention of paying attention to the threats outside Oasis Town.

They were completely unprepared for the impending attack by the wasteland wolf clan.

This is why, despite tens of thousands of wolves having already set up a semi-circular encirclement within ten kilometers of Oasis Town, the major forces in Oasis were completely unaware.

With Li Mingquan's death, the atmosphere between them had reached a freezing point.

More than 90 percent of the attention of each side was focused on the other, fearing that the enemy would suddenly launch an attack and catch them off guard.

If Lin Feng hadn't sensed something and gone to the highest point of the oasis, the church tower, to overlook the surroundings...

Otherwise, they might actually be caught off guard by the Steppenwolf clan and become the beneficiary of the conflict between the snipe and the clam.

Fortunately, under Lin Feng's guidance, the Oasis Church became the second force to obtain this information and was able to make preparations in advance.

Lin Feng informed the church of this news, which allowed the Oasis warship to take precautions in advance, in order to prevent Oasis Town from being breached by the Wasteland Wolves.

It became the first medium-sized settlement in thousands of years to be wiped out by a town-level beast plague.

After all, his dual-cannon long-range firepower alone was not enough to repel the wolf pack attacking from three directions simultaneously.

The Oasis warship possesses super firepower, equipped with two 200mm battle cannons!
With a base damage of 1,000, a maximum range of 20 kilometers, a rate of fire of five rounds per minute, and 20 rounds of ammunition, the warship is equipped with five 150mm howitzers on each side.

Base damage of 400, rate of fire of 10 rounds per minute, maximum range of 10 kilometers, and 100 rounds of ammunition.

The two large-caliber battle cannons can directly kill leader-level giant wolves and threaten second-tier wild wolf behemoths, while the remaining ten 155mm howitzers have an effective kill range that can cover two basketball courts. Against packs of evolved wild wolves, their power is even stronger than Lin Feng's rapid-fire cannons.

With these weapons in combat readiness, and in conjunction with Lin Feng's defense of Oasis Town, at least 70% of the Wilderness Wolf Pack can be intercepted.

The remaining three or four thousand evolved wolves, after breaking through the firepower defenses, were able to inflict some casualties and damage on the various villages in Oasis Town...

But it certainly won't threaten the Oasis warship itself.

This is also the result Lin Feng wanted.

That is, to weaken Lin Feng's forces as much as possible while keeping the Oasis warships operational.

He wanted to gain absolute power for a short period of time before the Holy City's reinforcements arrived, in order to try to crack all the secrets of the Oasis, a town-class warship.

To find an effective route for imitation and optimization in order to upgrade the tank later.

However, the most crucial question is how to use members of the Li family and the other two major families as shields against this beast plague.

This would allow them to reap the benefits of the damage they have suffered and rapidly expand their own power.

As the exclamations in the command and control room gradually subsided, only the pale-faced, half-dead Taboo remained silent.

Lin Feng coughed lightly, and seeing their bewildered and unsure how to respond, he couldn't help but offer a reminder:

"As a town-class warship, the Oasis warship couldn't possibly be without weapon systems, could it? Even if there were no longer any threats from beast tides back then, there were still other hostile forces, such as the Wanderers or the Cult of the Sun..."

"If an Oasis warship dares to sail alone to the edge of the Blazing Sun Forbidden Zone, it must at least be equipped with defensive counter-attack measures to deal with second-tier powerhouses."

Upon hearing Lin Feng's reminder, the people in the control room exchanged glances, and finally turned their attention to the Grand Priest beside Lin Feng.

This spiritual deacon was a confidant of the bishop, and was trusted by Bishop Zhang Hui to a degree far exceeding that of the archpatriarch and Father Su An.

As the actual captain of the Oasis warship, apart from the bishop who holds the Oasis Key, no one knows this steel behemoth weighing tens of thousands of tons better than her.

With Lin Feng's prompting, the bewildered High Priest finally recalled the firepower system equipped on the Oasis warship.

He then spoke to Lin Feng:

"Yes! Moreover, it can pose a threat to second-tier evolved beings, and it is a perfect match for dealing with extremely large chieftain-level wasteland behemoths."

"But these traditional cannons require a professional artillery unit of over a hundred people to unleash their true power..."

"Back then, there was indeed a group of old men on the Oasis warship, but now seven or eight hundred years have passed, and the original first-tier evolvers have long since died of old age."

"Although they trained many apprentices and new recruits according to the bishop's instructions, teaching them how to operate these heavy weapons, the Oasis warships have not experienced a single actual battle in the past seven or eight hundred years..."

"Now that the artillery has been passed down for at least fifteen or sixteen generations, without any actual combat experience or verification through drills, this batch of artillery squads will likely find it difficult to exert the suppressive effect of the shipborne giant guns once deployed in combat..."

"The accuracy and hit rate of the shots, as well as the delivery yield of the rate of fire, are unlikely to meet the standards."

"The problem now is not the weapons. These shipborne cannons are well maintained, and at least firing them is definitely not a problem. The problem is the manpower responsible for operating them."

At this point, the Grand Priest lowered his voice and said:

"His Excellency the Bishop was also aware of this problem. After all, this is the foundation upon which Oasis Town stands in the wasteland. Decades ago, His Excellency also applied to the Holy City, requesting that a group of professional artillery elite squads be sent to serve as captains of the Oasis artillery force to enhance its combat effectiveness."

"Unfortunately, this proposal was rejected by the Holy City Diocese due to a shortage of manpower."

"Next comes the crisis of the Li family's rebellion. Because the threat comes from within, the Oasis warship's cannon fire cannot solve the problem of the villages at our feet."

"Therefore, the improvement of manpower for warship artillery was temporarily put on hold."

"Over time, no one knows how much of the original strength the artillery squad can retain until the first shell is fired."

"If it weren't for Governor Lin reminding me, I would have almost forgotten about this..."

After hearing the Grand Priest's explanation, Lin Feng frowned slightly; this was not quite what he had expected.

Having previously scanned the Oasis warship's basic attributes, I learned that its durability was still above eight points, and all attributes could be activated and used normally...

Lin Feng subconsciously assumed that the warship was still in good working order and that the wear and tear was not too severe.

But he overlooked an important fact.

Warships are not fully automated intelligent machines.

As a steel behemoth weighing 40,000 to 50,000 tons, or a massive land vessel, it is a sophisticated war machine that requires thousands of personnel to coordinate and cooperate in order to unleash its true combat power.

In recent years, the bishop has been lacking in energy, and his control over Oasis Town has been declining. He can only control the command and control center of Oasis.

It's like taking control of a person's brain and heart to ensure their survival.

However, it has gradually become powerless to treat the lesions in the extremities, resulting in a situation where it has a lot of firepower but is weak in the limbs and cannot deliver a powerful blow.

If the warship's super firepower can only barely exert less than half of its power at present, the damage caused will be even lower.

It's estimated that it will be difficult to hit a second-tier wild wolf behemoth, and more than half of them will likely escape...

The original plan to use someone else to do the dirty work and reap the benefits could very well turn into a battle to defend the oasis.

There is a real possibility that the Oasis warship could be directly destroyed or severely damaged by the Wasteland Wolves!
Unless the Oasis battleship's devastating weaponry is utilized...

The Prism Curse, derived from the Moonlit Ritual.

Using the concentrated sunlight to strike, and with the help of the human evolved beings to restrain and maneuver, they severely injured the second-tier wild wolf behemoth.

However, no one is certain about the actual effectiveness of the Prism Curse.

Just as everyone was sinking into despair, the High Priest suddenly sensed something and spoke solemnly:

"His Excellency the Bishop has sent a message."

"He is aware of the danger posed by the Steppenwolves and is currently in a secret room. Please come over there!"

(End of this chapter)