The official shelter's garrison troops, as the defenders, relied on their fortifications and automatic weapons. They unleashed a barrage of ammunition, like a torrential rain, but the results were minimal. The hit rate was shockingly low. Even when a bullet occasionally struck the enemy, most of the shots were deflected by the exoskeletons' hard outer armor, unable to cause significant damage. From the moment Su Wu started calculating, the battle had lasted just 1 minute and 15 seconds. The official garrison troops were already showing signs of collapse. One after another, the fortified firing positions were either breached by exoskeleton soldiers or obliterated by suicide swarm drones. As the battle neared its end, one exoskeleton soldier seemingly noticed Su Wu's surveillance, raised the terminal computer on his wrist, and made a few adjustments. Soon, the screen Su Wu was viewing began to ripple and snow, then completely disappeared. However, this did not affect Su Wu much. He quickly searched again on the control panel and retrieved more surveillance footage. From multiple angles, the movements of the invading armed forces were clearly displayed.
"These people," Su Wu murmured, "they should be the Federation's regular army." Su Wu furrowed his brow. The tactical movements and advanced combat equipment displayed by the attackers were far superior to the official garrison troops, making the gap between them too obvious. Apart from regular army forces, Su Wu couldn't think of any other possibility. However, this wasn't important. What mattered was that these forces demonstrated a strong desire to invade Jianghe City. Soon, when they took the official shelter or even just reached a stalemate with the official forces, it was highly likely they would turn their attention to Su Wu. After all, Su Wu's expansive internet presence in Jianghe City and his massive population made his existence almost as significant as the official forces. There was no way to hide. If these invaders were looking for a rich and easily exploitable target, Su Wu would undoubtedly be their first choice.
After thinking for a moment, Su Wu issued a production order to the manufacturing center for 300 heavy armored combat spider robots. Although he had previously developed the new generation of weapons, the hypothetical enemy had been the official shelter. Considering the need to save resources and maintain a strategic advantage over the official forces, he hadn't widely deployed the new equipment, producing only 50 heavy armored combat spider robots. Now, faced with the evidently more powerful Federation regular army, these numbers were insufficient. In fact, with this level of armament, Su Wu wasn't confident he could guarantee the absolute safety of the Farm Shelter. "The exoskeleton armor they're wearing is at least 2.5 times better in terms of defense and auxiliary power," Su Wu analyzed. "Combined with the operator's combat skills, one soldier can fight 10 of the security team members from the Jingyuan Shelter wearing exoskeletons, or two or three ordinary spider robots, without falling behind."
With the help of artificial intelligence, Su Wu extracted hundreds of soldiers wearing exoskeleton armor from the video, frame by frame, and analyzed various data to simulate their maximum combat potential in outdoor or complex underground shelters. "The ammunition they're using seems to be more powerful military-grade gunpowder. Their weapon performance is comparable to electromagnetic rifles. The grenades they carry have some drone-like features. They can fly short distances and autonomously search for targets. They can also activate individual grenades in a cluster with their teammates and launch simultaneous attacks. However, despite similar size, the destructive power of these enhanced military explosives is still inferior to that of full nitrogen compound explosives." The images on the control panel continued to enlarge, displaying the soldiers firing bullets, the speed of the rounds, and the collision data when they encountered obstacles. The footage also showed grenades being activated, floating and transforming into drones, flying around obstacles, and joining up with other drones to form suicide swarm drones. They swarmed into the machine gun bunkers inside the official shelter and exploded, causing devastating casualties.
"Also, the heavy weapons from the other side haven't appeared yet. The data is still inconclusive." The screen displayed the final image—a reconnaissance drone capturing a long-range photo in mid-air above the surface. In the photo, a massive fleet, at least two to three hundred ships in size, was quietly anchored at the deep water area at the edge of Jianghe City, surrounded by floodwaters. Numerous armored vehicles, tanks, and heavy artillery were lined up on the ships' decks, their gun barrels wrapped in raincoats, like deadly beasts waiting to strike in the pouring rain. Su Wu stared at the photo for a moment, letting out a soft sigh. It felt like he could already see the coming end, as steel and fire swept through the city.
Two hours later, the battle in Jianghe City came to an end. With little resistance from the official shelter's garrison troops, the entire Shelter 4 was completely occupied by the invading forces. Soon after, the invaders posted an announcement on Su Wu's internet, declaring that they were the Xuefeng Mercenary Group and had officially taken over Shelter 4. A few minutes after the announcement, they enacted an unprecedentedly strict military control over Shelter 4. They severed the shelter's connection to the outside network and began a search operation, which, in reality, was a rampage of pillaging, killing, and looting.
At the Farm Shelter, in the first-level control center.
Su Wu calmly watched the gruesome scenes unfolding in Shelter 4. Due to the invaders' deliberate blocking, he could no longer access the public cameras inside Shelter 4. However, using some stealth drones and mini-cameras that had been deployed in Shelter 4 long ago, he was able to quietly observe certain areas of the shelter. But even just these few glimpses were enough for Su Wu to confirm the nature of these so-called Xuefeng Mercenaries. They were not interested in governing the ordinary people of Jianghe City, treating the place as their territory for sustainable growth. Instead, they were simply marauders, here to plunder the limited survival resources of Jianghe City. All they brought were destruction and death.
After watching for a few minutes, Su Wu reached out and deliberately shut down the surveillance of the invaders.
(End of Chapter)