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

(I couldn't pronounce that word, so I changed the term!)

Three days later.

Kunlun Base, Supreme Operations Conference Room.

The air pressure inside was frighteningly low, like the deep sea before a storm.

The alloy gates opened, and the division commanders and theater commanders entered in order of rank.

There were no pleasantries, no whispers.

Everyone's faces were ashen. The heavy tactical boots slammed against the steel plate, carrying a sense of impending doom.

Qian Liye clutched a thick brown paper document bag, sat heavily back in his seat, his eyes sunken, clearly having stayed up several nights in a row.

Sun Desheng held his thermos cup, his brows furrowed in a deep frown.

The military leaders opposite him, including Zhang Xiao and Wang Jianjun, sat upright, but the menacing aura between their brows, as if they were ready to draw their guns at any moment, almost overflowed from their eyes.

Su Ran sat at the end of the long table, coldly observing the two distinct groups of people.

"The garrison commander has arrived!"

The alloy doors slid open silently to both sides.

Li Guodong lagged half a step behind, accompanying an elderly man with gray hair but a sturdy back as he entered the venue.

Swish!

All the generals stood up in unison, the sound of their boots clapping together in perfect unison, like thunder.

Su Ran also stood up and looked towards the door.

Many people haven't seen the chieftain for months.

His presence today signifies that the Great Xia Dynasty has once again reached a crossroads where a crucial decision must be made.

The old man, dressed in a dark Zhongshan suit, glanced around the room without uttering a single word, and went straight to the head seat to sit down.

"Sit down."

Everyone took their seats in unison.

His hands were crossed on the table, and his voice was calm, yet carried a penetrating pressure.

"You two argued fiercely in the first two meetings. I've read the meeting minutes."

The garrison commander's gaze lingered on Zhang Xiao and Qian Liye for a fleeting moment, neither too intense nor too faint.

Arguing won't solve anything.

The Great Xia Dynasty has come this far not because of who shouts the loudest.

"General Staff, bring up what you've been working on for the past three days."

Zhao Ming immediately stood up, grabbed his tactical tablet, and strode to the reporting platform.

He turned on the holographic projection and precisely pointed the laser pointer at the three-dimensional sand table of Blue Star in mid-air.

"Everyone."

Zhao Ming's voice was loud and clear, but his tone still betrayed an undisguised nervousness.

"Based on the spirit of the previous two meetings, and taking into account the existing military strength, logistical capacity, and activity levels of mutated creatures in various regions of Da Xia."

The General Staff, in conjunction with the Intelligence Agency, developed a completely new global strategic regional division plan.

As the sand table rotated, the large blue safe zones that were originally on the map instantly disappeared.

Instead, there are four distinct and glaring color blocks.

"We divide the world into four tiers."

Zhao Ming expands the Asian section.

"First, the core area of ​​Great Xia. This includes the entire mainland and a 300-kilometer buffer zone around it."

This is the absolute bottom line for survival; it is heavily guarded, and not an inch of land will be yielded.

Zhang Xiao snorted coldly: "Nonsense, of course we have to protect our hometown to the death."

Zhao Ming ignored it and continued to switch the view; a yellow band of light appeared around the border.

"Second, the surrounding buffer zone. Extending outwards along the border of the Great Xia Dynasty for five hundred to one thousand kilometers."

The region is densely populated with cities, and has established outposts and radar arrays.

Its primary function is to provide strategic depth and prevent large-scale animal tides from directly impacting the national border.

The camera zoomed out again, revealing hundreds of green dots lighting up across Western Europe and Africa.

"Third, industrial and population hub areas."

Zhao Ming used a laser pointer to circle several key locations.

"Several major heavy industrial bases in Europe, core special mineral veins in North Africa, and multiple energy hubs in the Middle East."

We recommend abandoning the complete occupation of the surrounding wasteland and instead concentrating our forces entirely within these key nodes to build iron fortresses.

"What about the rest?"

Qian Liye suddenly raised his head and stared intently at the large, glaring red areas on the map.

Zhao Ming's Adam's apple bobbed as he pointed towards the South Asian subcontinent and the Latin American rainforest.

"Fourth, personnel must not be stationed in the nuclear clearance area."

The entire room fell silent.

"These areas have complex terrain and unfathomable underground lairs."

Taking the South Asian insect infestation and the Latin American mutated rainforest as examples, the troop loss rate is extremely high, and the output cost-effectiveness is extremely low.

Zhao Ming took a deep breath and presented the General Staff's final conclusion:

"The General Staff recommends that all stationed troops be withdrawn."

These areas should be designated as high-risk targets and directly added to the strategic nuclear weapons clearance list!

After finishing his report, Zhao Ming turned off the projector and returned to his original position.

The hall was so quiet you could hear a pin drop; the only sound was the hum of the holographic projector's cooling fan.

The garrison commander picked up the teacup in front of him and took a sip.

After setting down his teacup, his gaze slowly swept across the entire room. His voice was not loud, but it struck everyone's heart like a heavy hammer.

"Everyone has seen the General Staff's plan."

The old man clasped his hands together.

"We can no longer continue to draw young and able-bodied men from within the country to fill the bottomless pit at the front."

Since we don't have enough soldiers, we must make choices today.

The guard's gaze narrowed slightly.

"Tell me about it."

As soon as he finished speaking, Qian Liye was the first to push back his chair and stand up.

He clutched the thick report on supplies tightly in his hand, his eyes revealing an barely suppressed urgency and fervor.

"I absolutely support the General Staff's proposed division of responsibilities!"

Qian Liye's voice was hoarse, and he spoke very quickly.

"Commander, generals!"

We must completely abandon the absurd standard of "measuring victory by the area occupied"!

"Conquering tens of millions of square kilometers of wasteland, besides making the war reports look better, what good is it for the survival of Great Xia!"

He slammed the report onto the table.

"Besides the heavy industrial parks in Europe and the 04 mining area in North Africa, these are the real flesh and blood that Great Xia needs!"

By concentrating limited troops and defensive materials at these key points to create absolute defensive fortresses, the logistical supply lines can be shortened by at least two-thirds!

"The Engineering Department fully agrees with Director Qian's opinion."

Liu Zhen immediately stood up and loudly echoed,

"Stop the unplanned, sprawling expansion; this is the only way to build a permanent fortress!"

We demand that personnel and building materials be concentrated on reinforcing the Great Xia's border defense network, laying radar installations in the surrounding buffer zones, and fortifying key overseas nodes.

Liu Zhen pointed to the red area on the sand table, his tone resolute.

"As for the South Asian insect sea and the Latin American rainforest, those are not places where living people can gain a foothold!"

Forcing them to build a wall there is like throwing my engineers' lives into a bottomless pit!

The two civil officials' statements were clear and unambiguous: shrink the defensive lines and hold fast to the core.

Sun Desheng sat in the chair, then stood up, supporting himself on the table with both hands, his eyes unusually sharp.

"Since we've come this far, I'll reveal the bottom line of the Civil Affairs Department."

Sun Desheng surveyed the room and offered a proposal even more drastic than the contraction:

"I propose a temporary suspension of all overseas military operations!"

These words immediately caused an uproar among the military leaders.

Ignoring everything else, Sun Desheng continued to shout at the top of his lungs:

"Except for the industrial and energy nodes designated by the General Staff, all other troops scattered around the world must be withdrawn to the surrounding buffer zones!"

"Once the defense system is built to resemble a fortress, then we can discuss the next steps!"

"Bullshit!"

Zhang Xiao could no longer contain his anger and slammed his hand on the alloy tabletop, erupting into a rage.

The force of the impact caused the teacup on the table to bounce, and tea to splash.

"Suspend overseas operations? Sun Desheng, have you lost your mind?"

Zhang Xiao's eyes widened as he pointed at Sun Desheng's nose and roared angrily.

How much blood did the millions of soldiers shed to reach the current situation?

With just a touch of your upper lip, you made the soldiers on the front lines hand over the position to those beasts?

Do you even know what morale is? What it means for an army to collapse like a house of cards?

Wang Jianjun couldn't sit still any longer. He stood up with a cold face and threw a top-secret intelligence document onto the table.

"Director Sun, do you really think that once we withdraw our troops, we can live a peaceful life behind closed doors?"

Wang Jianjun pointed to the holographic sand table, his voice as cold and hard as ice.

"The military's bottom line is that there must be no withdrawal of troops from overseas!"

Your proposal is utterly absurd!

He stared intently at Sun Desheng.

"High-level mutated creatures will never stop evolving just because we humans have stopped!"

By giving up all your territory, you're essentially providing them with an absolutely comfortable breeding ground!

Zhang Xiao picked up the conversation, his tone extremely fierce.

"That's right! Once the insects in South Asia and Latin America are no longer suppressed by firepower, they can breed a terrifying beast tide of hundreds of millions in less than a year!"

When they cross the ocean to attack the Great Xia homeland, are you, Sun Desheng, going to defend against them with your mouth?!

"I didn't say we shouldn't be on the defensive! I just said we should take a 'phased pause' to catch our breath!"

Sun Desheng roared back without backing down.

"If you withdraw the main force, who will go to the front lines to suppress and decapitate high-level monsters!"

Zhang Xiao took a step forward, staring intently at his opponent.

"Isn't there an Awakened Headquarters? We can just send them to conduct targeted raids!"

"..."

Su Ran sat at the end, her eyelids slightly raised.

I never expected that the fire would spread to me.

There are fewer than 100,000 awakened people in the world at the moment. Even if they let loose and kill, how many could they kill when facing a number of trillions of mutated beasts?

The two factions completely broke off relations, and the atmosphere in the hall was so tense that it seemed like it could explode at any moment.

The pro-war faction stubbornly insists that "the mutated beasts continue to evolve and must be suppressed."

The logistics faction stubbornly adhered to the bottom line of "resource depletion necessitates downsizing".

Both sides were working for the survival of the Great Xia Dynasty, but their approaches to implementation were completely different.

The garrison commander watched as the officers argued heatedly over the survival of the nation, their faces flushed, but he still didn't say anything to stop them.

Truth is always revealed through intense debate and discussion.

Two full minutes passed before the arguing began to wane, both sides hoarse from shouting.

Seeing that the time was right, Li Guodong turned his head and whispered something to the garrison commander.

The guard nodded.

"Alright."

He raised his hand and pressed down lightly.

The sound wasn't loud, but the entire conference room instantly fell silent; you could hear a pin drop.

Everyone quickly shut up, sat back in their seats with upright posture, and focused their attention back on the head of the table.

"Zhang Xiao is right, we can't retreat. Retreating is just waiting to die."

The garrison commander's first words eased the tension in the military personnel's backs slightly.

But then he looked at Qian Liye.

"Li Ye's calculations are correct. The Great Xia's resources are insufficient to withstand a full-scale war of attrition."

Shouchang's gaze was calm and profound.

"Fighting is a must. But how to fight, where to fight, and what methods to use—we need to change our thinking."

He turned his head, his gaze passing over the long table and landing precisely on Su Ran, who was sitting at the far right end.

"Xiao Su."

Shou Chang's tone was gentle, yet carried an undeniable weight.

"You are both the person in charge of the Awakened Ones and hold the power to allocate resources in the Great Xia Dynasty."

"How do you solve this dead end?"

Swish!

The gazes of all the generals and bureau chiefs instantly shifted from the main seats and focused entirely on Su Ran.

There are expectations, scrutiny, and doubts.

Su Ran slowly stood up, meeting everyone's gaze.

"Commander, generals, and director."

Su Ran's voice was deep and resonant, without a single word of pleasantries or pleasantries.

The argument between the two sides just now is actually based on the same underlying logic:

"With insufficient military strength, how can Great Xia suppress the entire world?"

He strode over to the holographic sand table and casually took the laser pen from Zhao Ming's hand.

"The military is worried that withdrawing troops will cause the monster to grow bigger, while the logistics department is worried that expansion will drag down the country's strength."

Both of these concerns are valid.

Su Ran pressed down hard with her thumb.

drop!

On the sand table, the large black "uninhabitable nuclear clearance zone" instantly lit up with a blinding blood-red alarm light.

"Therefore, the current suppressive posture in overseas operations must not be changed!"

Great Xia must retain absolute offensive capability.

Su Ran's tone was resolute.

"Hiding in a defensive posture is a form of slow suicide."

Especially those high-level mutated individuals that can threaten the core area of ​​the Great Xia Dynasty—if one shows its face, it must be crushed!

Upon hearing this, Zhang Xiao's eyes lit up, and he was about to slam his fist on the table and applaud.

"but,"

Su Ran abruptly changed the subject, her gaze fixed on the depths of South Asia and Latin America.

"What we need to change is our playing style."

His gaze was sharp and intense, sweeping across the entire room with a fierce killing intent.

"The operational approach has shifted from 'total occupation and sweeping advance' to 'core occupation and targeted elimination'—a guerrilla-style annihilation warfare strategy!"