thefictionvixens Chapter 134: Saving people but losing land, gaining both people and land.
Chapter 134: Saving people but losing land, gaining both people and land.
As he walked towards the blacksmith's shop beneath the north city wall, carrying the food box, the Lord of Northern Frost City was filled with excitement. He was now extremely grateful to his past self.
A whole night and a whole morning have passed since we saw these young people who suddenly appeared in Northfrost City yesterday afternoon.
During this period, the city lord of Beishuang City witnessed all the changes that occurred in Beishuang City due to the arrival of these young people.
That was hope, the hope of survival.
With only a few hundred people left in Northfrost City no longer needing to fight the sandworms hand-to-hand, he, as the lord of Northfrost City, no longer needed to accept the daily loss of hundreds of people.
For the first time, the reinforcements from Northfrost City have left the Sandworm-controlled area by air, which means that Northfrost City is no longer an isolated city. Soon, this city, which belongs to the Northern Alliance, will receive reinforcements from the Alliance.
Upon entering the blacksmith's shop, the Lord of Beishuang City disregarded his status and knelt before the still busy crowd.
"Lord Luo, what are you doing? We can't possibly accept such a grand gift."
"You all saved my North Frost City from its predicament, and you are my absolute benefactors. As the city lord of North Frost City, I, Luo Shixin, am the one who owes you the greatest debt of gratitude. Whatever price I have to pay now is only right and proper. You young brothers are worthy of this gift."
"Ah, Lord Luo, it's not that we're being pretentious, but we do feel ashamed about saving Beishuang City from its predicament."
We were originally planning to visit you again this afternoon, but since you're here now, we'll discuss some things together. Please be prepared; this is extremely bad news.
Because of her position, it was Bei Bei who helped up the city lord of Beishuang City. Fortunately, Bei Bei decided to take this opportunity to tell Luo Shixin, the city lord of Beishuang City, the information she had gathered that morning.
Having been tested in actual combat, Lord Luo dared not underestimate a single word spoken by the people in the blacksmith shop.
"Please speak. I have experienced worse news this past year. Before you arrived, I had already prepared myself for the possibility that Northfrost City would fall at any moment. I believe there is no worse news than the fall of the city and the death of its inhabitants."
Seeing the serious expression on the Lord of Northern Frost's face, and knowing he wasn't just spouting nonsense, Bei Bei immediately spoke without hesitation:
"This morning, we conducted a more detailed reconnaissance of the sandworm swarm. In the process, we discovered that the situation of the sandworm swarm is more complex than we had previously imagined."
First, the number of sandworms is far greater than what is shown during the nightly sieges. The ratio of the number of sandworms appearing outside Northfrost City each night to the total number of sandworms in the swarm is far greater than the ratio of Northfrost City's population to the total population of the entire Northern Alliance.
"How is that possible? If there are that many sandworms, how could my Northern Frost City have held out for so long?"
Before Beibei could finish speaking, the expression on the face of the Lord of Beishuang City changed from serious to ugly, with obvious doubt mixed in between.
"Lord Luo, please don't be agitated. We have gathered sufficient evidence to support our earlier hypothesis. Please take a look."
As Beibei prepared to introduce the new situation of the sandworm swarm to the city lord of Beishuang City, Longyou had already prepared the relevant information. Now, as soon as Beibei finished speaking, Longyou controlled the tablet to project the integrated underground situation map of Beishuang City onto the wall of the blacksmith shop.
At the beginning of the morning, the entire situation map only showed rows of connected cavities, but now red dots representing the life of sandworms have appeared in these cavities.
The reason, of course, is that Longyou has upgraded its detectors. Furthermore, the number of "milk bottle" soul-guided devices has increased significantly, allowing large stealth soul-guided unmanned reconnaissance aircraft to conduct long-term reconnaissance missions over Beishuang City.
(Recharging the baby bottle can be done by anyone in the city.)
Unwilling to fail to detect any signs of life in the sandworms, Long You tried many different detection methods. Finally, the dynamic detector successfully captured traces of live sandworms.
Upon realizing that a sandworm was very close to the surface, Long You quickly grabbed Bei Bei and rushed over, capturing it alive. He then created a targeted soul-guided detection device.
"Lord Luo, please look at this map. It shows the underground situation of Beishuang City. Each of those red dots represents ten sand worms."
There's no need to repeat the detailed explanation here. In short, the more Beibei explained, the uglier Luo Shixin, the city lord of Beishuang City, looked.
"How could this happen? What have we done? The population of the entire North Frost City has dropped from 80,000 to 800, all because we misjudged the situation?!"
Break out! We'll break out when reinforcements arrive. The mines aren't important; the city of Northfrost is important too. There are plenty of mines and cities to build on the continent. But the people of Northfrost are the most important.
I have already caused so many of my subjects to die needlessly; I must ensure the safety of the remaining people no matter what.
The most important question now is: how long can Northfrost City hold out? Can it hold out until reinforcements arrive?
Despite his pale face and sorrowful tone, Luo Shixin was indeed, as he said, used to experiencing too much bad news and had long since become tough.
To have managed to sustain Beishuang City for over a year under such overwhelmingly unfavorable circumstances demonstrates Luo Shixin's undeniable competence and decisiveness. He fully agreed to Long You and the others' plan, accurately grasping its most crucial element: how much longer Beishuang City could remain on the surface.
"Half a month. The obsidian ore layer is very strong, and now there is no more earthwork in North Frost City. Even if the thickness of the obsidian ore layer is only half a meter, North Frost City will not collapse directly."
At the current rate of sandworm swarm growth, in about two weeks, the obsidian layer will likely have about one meter of thickness remaining.
"Half a month? If not much has changed in the Northern Alliance in the past year, the nearest reinforcements should be able to arrive by now."
But how can we ensure that there aren't too many casualties during the breakout? Should we try to travel as far as possible during the day, and then take advantage of the gaps when those insectoid creatures come out to move at night to rush out in one go with the help of reinforcements?
But when we travel during the day, won't those sandworms really burst out of the ground and attack us?
Since Beishuang City could fall at any moment, the sooner the better to break through, but how to break through became a problem facing Luo Shixin.
“Soul-guided vehicle, Lord Luo, we naturally have a solution to this problem.”