Catastrophe Containment Facility
Chapter 589 - 579: Pre-war Meeting

"Be prepared for the fight. We have been at a standoff here for a few days, and beginning today, we will start gathering Rangers on a large scale. It seems we are about to launch a general attack."

Wen Wen nodded. It was only natural for the Association to take action, but he was curious about how they would deal with those tigers, given that there were still many hostages in the city.

Yueshan City was a small city with a population of less than four hundred thousand, and at least about fifty thousand people were still held hostage by these tigers. Even if the Association wanted to attack, they could not possibly disregard so many lives.

In the evening, Wen Wen received a notice asking him to go to the command center in the camp to discuss the subsequent attack plans for Yueshan City.

The command center was a three-story building where dozens of Association staff members were busy working. The conference room was on the third floor. When Wen Wen entered, he found that eight people were already sitting there.

Among them, seven were Upper Order Realm Rangers. Two were familiar faces; one was Qiao Feiya in her armor, and the other was Metal Frenzy, whom he had met during the pursuit of Wu Wang.

Although Wen Wen had not met the rest, he knew a bit about them. The Upper Order Hunters from the Capital District were neither few nor many. Among them, a short, chubby old man dressed in earthy yellow who was called "Hand of the Earth" had probably created this camp.

Another person sat cross-legged in a corner of the conference room, surrounded by a barrier with blue Runes. He was likely the Barrier Master who supported the huge barrier enveloping Yueshan City. Maintaining such a massive barrier required constant focus, and his presence at the meeting was beyond Wen Wen’s expectations.

Upon entering, Wen Wen was closely watched because his rapid progression and exceptional performances in major incidents had already made him a celebrity among the Rangers.

When Qiao Feiya saw Wen Wen, her expression brightened. She walked over and said with a smile, "I truly didn’t expect your strength to improve so quickly. In less than a year, you’ve reached the Upper Order... Let’s spar a bit when we go out."

Her eyes were filled with a strong fighting spirit. She had once heard that friendships between strong individuals grow through battle. She wanted to befriend Wen Wen, so she needed to fight with him.

Wen Wen’s mouth twitched slightly. This woman wasn’t looking for trouble, was she?

Sparing wasn’t out of the question. Wen Wen quite enjoyed fighting with the strong, and he also wanted to know how much of a gap there was between himself and Qiao Feiya.

In the past, in the Underground Labyrinth, Wen Wen had needed to fight hard to defeat opponents that Qiao Feiya could kill with a wave of her hand, but now he was at the same level as her.

However, fighting now clearly wasn’t the right occasion.

Wen Wen declined, saying, "Well, we’re on a mission right now, we need to conserve our energy..."

Qiao Feiya nodded, then glanced at the metal canister on Wen Wen’s back and said with a smile, "Are you nurturing your sword? Let’s leave the sparring for later then, since you can’t use your full strength right now."

Seeing Qiao Feiya reveal what he was doing with one sentence, Wen Wen was slightly surprised. His gaze swept over the golden longsword at Qiao Feiya’s waist; it seemed she must have had similar experiences.

"Then we have an agreement to spar, and you shouldn’t back out," said Qiao Feiya as she returned to her seat, worried that Wen Wen would renege on their agreement to spar.

Wen Wen touched his hair, wondering what he had done to offend Qiao Feiya.

A few minutes later, two people entered the conference room one after the other. The man walking in front was a skinny man in white clothes, with the strength of a Disaster Lower Order, holding a plastic bag of sand.

The other man was tall with red, upright hair, dressed in non-mainstream holey clothes, likely a True Order Realm superpower user.

The man in white coughed twice and said, "My name is Yuan Xiao, and I’m the overall commander for this operation. The man next to me, codenamed ’Eightfold,’ is a True Order Realm Hunter."

Wen Wen raised his eyebrows. A Disaster Lower Order commanding two True Order and eight Upper Order implied this man definitely had extraordinary capabilities. No one in the room seemed dissatisfied. Technical expertise doesn’t necessarily mean suitability for command, and it’s better to leave professional tasks to the experts.

Yuan Xiao didn’t waste much time but directly poured the bag of sand onto the table and then placed his hands on the surface. The sand automatically moved to form an incredibly detailed sand table.

"This is the map of Yueshan City. In ancient times, this place was a strategic location, so the city is surrounded by twelve-meter-high walls. These walls have been reinforced with the Superpower Strength of those tiger-like beings, and any conventional approach would surely attract their attention."

"The city is built along the mountain, and the southern side of the city is several tens of meters high cliffs. For a normal war, this is the hardest point to breach, but for superpower users, this is the most convenient and least noticeable way to enter the city for those tiger-like beings."

"Remember this location, and it would be best if you could also memorize everything on this sand table, then at noon tomorrow, we’ll make our move to enter Yueshan City!"

"We start at noon tomorrow? That’s so soon," Wen Wen thought they would wait at least two or three days.

Yuan Xiao nodded and said, "Sooner rather than later. Half of the creatures in the city are human, and after so many days of standoff, the food inside is almost depleted. If we don’t act now, they’ll start eating people. The fifty thousand residents in the city are not just hostages for those tigers; they’re also their rations."

"But with hostages in their hands, once we start attacking, won’t they slaughter the hostages? What will we do then..." Qiao Feiya asked, frowning.

Yuan Xiao smiled and continued manipulating the table. Soon, tiny tiger heads and normal human figures appeared. These figures represented the tiger-like beings and humans inside the city.

Then, Yuan Xiao confidently said, "The evolutionary speed of these tigers is very fast; within just a few days, they have already constructed their own societal structure, which allows them to resist our attacks more effectively. But this also leaves them vulnerable."

"How so?" asked Metal Frenzy, puzzled.

"This tiger-like society is almost equivalent to a human Slave Society. In the eyes of high-status, strong tiger-like beings, humans are less than livestock, so they refuse to live on the same land as humans. They see it as a disgrace and have driven all the humans to the East City District while they reside in the West City District."

"This means that the powerful Slave Masters and Tiger Warriors, who mostly reside in the West City District enjoying life, are actually watching over the hostages in the East City District, and only the low-tier slaves are there!"