In the apocalypse, I hoarded goods and handed over my storage space to the government.

Inside the headquarters of the Awakeners, piercing alarms blared incessantly.

Su Ran was standing in front of a giant tactical sand table, his brows furrowed as he planned the resource allocation scheme for the new batch of awakened individuals.

Suddenly, the tactical terminal on his wrist vibrated violently, and glaring red characters flashed on the screen.

It is Li Guodong's encrypted private line.

"Xiao Su, come to Strategic Conference Room Number One immediately."

The moment the call connected, Li Guodong's hoarse voice came from the other end of the line.

"The global front... is stuck."

Ten minutes later, at Kunlun Base, in the highest operations conference room.

The alloy door slid open, and Su Ran strode in.

The long table was filled with high-ranking military officers, each with a face so gloomy it seemed to drip water.

A huge holographic globe floats in the very center, with blue arrows representing the advance of the Great Xia Expeditionary Force, which are now largely halted.

Once everyone had arrived, Li Guodong stood in front of the control panel, his eyes bloodshot, and immediately pulled up a set of glaring data.

"Just three hours ago, the Central Asia 07 outpost lost contact."

The holographic screen switches between images. The surveillance video has strong static noise.

The time displayed in the upper right corner of the screen is three hours ago.

A standard heavily armed mechanized outpost, with three multi-barreled crystal core cannons firing at the distant Gobi Desert.

The next second, the ground collapsed without any warning.

A burrowing-type mutated beast, over fifteen meters long and covered in dark gold armor, burst out of the ground.

The two heavy tanks, along with their crews, were swallowed whole by that serrated maw.

The stationed soldiers, their eyes bloodshot, desperately concentrated their fire with their Tier 1 crystal energy rifles, but when they hit the monster, only a series of sparks flew up.

This terrifying creature, at the peak of the third tier, withstood a hail of bullets and, in less than five minutes, crushed the entire outpost's metal fortifications into scrap metal.

The video recording ended with a jarring static noise.

The camera zooms in, revealing a thick, segmented limb covered in black scales protruding from the edge of the abyss.

"A Tier 3 Giant Burrowing-Type Mutant Beast."

Li Guodong pointed to the severed limb, his tone icy.

"It was dug out from 200 meters underground, directly bypassing surface radar and defense positions."

Two hundred elite garrison troops were wiped out before they even had a chance to deploy and fight a positional battle!

He slammed his hand heavily on the table.

"Entering November, the changes in the battle situation brought about by the upgrade wave far exceeded our expectations!"

The current arsenal is seeing a continuous increase in the production capacity of Tier 2 crystal energy rifles and crystal energy heavy artillery, but the adoption rate is far from sufficient!

Ordinary heavy firepower, even Tier 1 crystal energy weapons, are no longer sufficient to inflict effective lethal damage on Tier 3 mutated creatures!

He pulled up a graph showing the expansion of global security zones.

"Everyone, it's November now. Take a look at this line."

Following Li Guodong's finger, one could see the blue rising line that originally rose at a 45-degree angle, representing the overwhelming advance of the Great Xia Dynasty.

After entering November, it abruptly changed into a flattened horizontal line.

Some areas showed a downward bend.

"Last month, our expeditionary force was able to advance 200 kilometers outwards every day."

Li Guodong pointed to the sharply slowing global propulsion curve, gritting his teeth.

"This month? Every twenty kilometers we advance, we have to stop and thoroughly clear out the remaining enemies!"

The Great Xia's control lines are spread too far; those newly liberated safe zones are now leaking everywhere!

Everyone knows that the nature of war has completely changed.

In the early stages of the catastrophe, the Great Xia relied on its ample ammunition reserves and overwhelming force to harvest zombies like straw.

But now, facing the third-tier mutant beasts with abnormal defensive capabilities, the advantage of humanity's proud mechanized forces is rapidly evaporating.

"Where are our Awakened units? Can't those high-level combatants step in?"

A military general with graying temples couldn't help but turn his head and look at Su Ran.

"We're already working non-stop."

Su Ran remained calm as he raised his hand to connect the tactical terminal to the large screen and brought up the global dispatch panel of the Awakener Headquarters.

On the large screen, there were countless emergency requests flashing red.

"The Awakened Ones and the Great Xia's Crystal Core Special Forces are indeed carrying out high-level target decapitations all over the world."

Su Ran's voice was deep and resolute.

"But everyone needs to understand this reality!"

Faced with the thousands of Tier 3 monsters surging across the globe every day, our limited high-end combat power, even when deployed globally, wouldn't make a ripple.

Humanity is being dragged into a quagmire with no end in sight.

Su Ran stared at the holographic projection.

He knew better than anyone that if they continued to use human lives and awakened beings to fill this ever-expanding hole, the Great Xia war machine would eventually be worn down and killed.

"The front lines are stalled, and casualties are surging."

Li Guodong looked at Su Ran, then surveyed the entire room, his tone heavy.

The General Staff provided two contingency plans overnight.

First, immediately consolidate the defensive line, abandon secondary security zones except for Europe and North America, and construct a tiered defense perimeter.

"Retreat? Bullshit!"

Zhang Xiao, who had been silent all along, let out a cold laugh, his face ashen, and interrupted him directly.

"If we take one step back, those beasts will dare to take two steps forward!"

If they abandon Latin America today, they can build their nests on our border tomorrow.

Giving away resources to them for incubation is suicidal.

Even this most ruthless and hawkish general had to admit that the war situation was beginning to take a sharp turn for the worse!

The future has begun to become irreversibly difficult.

"What if we follow the second contingency plan?"

Li Guodong's voice also suddenly rose in pitch.

"Continue to unlock the nuclear arsenal!"

Implement indiscriminate physical purification on all identified third-order high-density clusters!

"Plow the Earth!"