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"How are things in the Northeast District?"

In the grand conference link, the Northeast District was the last to come online, with its officials and military officers appearing very exhausted.

"Not optimistic..." The person in charge had a look of difficulty, "After the opinion outbreak, there were the most temporary withdrawals from our side, and in order not to cause a riot, we couldn’t act rashly, yet we couldn’t control some people who forcibly took back mechanical equipment, and now there are many troubles erupting, conflicts are breaking out everywhere. .."

The other members of the council all showed understanding.

The Northeast District was an entertainment area, with the largest entertainment city in Huazhong Digital City.

Maintenance engineers who went out on a regular basis and those lower-level miners, who wanted to return to the entertainment in Digital City, chose the Northeast District as their first choice.

That was where the largest population of dispersed citizens in Huazhong gathered.

Most of these scattered citizens did not have their own household registration, nor did they have long-term residence permits for Digital City.

It was only right for them to want to leave, wasn’t it?

After all, usually, people couldn’t wait for them to spend up and leave, and now to forbid them from leaving would be absurd, right?

But the key point was that each of these scattered citizens had a mechanical device, as all the energy industries outside Digital City depended on them for maintenance.

But now, with Digital City being unsafe, many people wanted to escape to the outside temporarily, and the mechanical devices used to go out became highly sought after.

The devices of the scattered citizens were mostly rented, and in such times, seeing the high market prices, the owners of the devices, whether wanting to sell them quickly at high prices or keep them as backups for personal use, all chose to take them back without exception.

But if the rental period was not up, ordinary people of course were unwilling, so conflicts erupted, almost to a disastrous degree.

The number of active scattered citizens in the Northeast District was as high as eight hundred million.

With such large-scale violent conflicts occurring, even if all military district personnel were transferred there, it would be very difficult to maintain public order.

Given such circumstances, being late to the meeting, naturally, no one could say much.

"The top priority now is to stabilize the internal situation to prevent further outbreaks; otherwise, if those people outside find the opportunity, who knows if they really will make a move!"

"They wouldn’t dare!" A man in military uniform said with an ashen face.

"Why wouldn’t they dare?" A military official from the Huanan District spoke coldly, "In the current warfare model, high-level life forms are everything. What wouldn’t they dare to do?"

In the Digital Life Era, the once-dominantly powerful modern weapons were almost useless because no missile could be remotely fired over, with the current intelligence almost achieving a 100% interception rate without any surprises.

Since the establishment of the Digital Federation, no war had ever occurred, but which district hadn’t rehearsed dozens of times?

There are only two patterns of warfare. The first is encapsulating everyone in mechanical devices, disconnected from the network, and conducting a standalone war, but this model is almost useless and was phased out a long time ago.

The reason is simple, no matter how precise your combat robot is, if it gets hacked, you can be taken down internally.

And with the evolution of digital life today, many means exist to transfer data inside standalone devices, like a robot as small as a particle or a pervasive optical fiber network.

Any mechanical device that approaches that area could be hacked.

If remote destruction is impossible and close combat would lead to seizure, then investing in combat robots becomes idiotic.

The second pattern is the positional warfare of digital life forms.

Assistive robots are responsible for laying optical fibers, and contemporary weapons provide cover.

As long as the fibers are laid out, hard-pushed towards the opponent’s Digital City, energy stations, and so on, the weaponry of various powers is similar these days.

I can intercept you, and you can intercept me—resistance is almost meaningless.

The real fight happens when networks connect, and digital lives clash directly in the cyber domain.

If you don’t respond to the battle, then the opponent will lay their fibers all the way into your Digital City. If you give up on your Digital City, they will continue to your energy equipment areas. Without energy maintenance, gradually, those digital lives will not survive, even with devices.

This is the current pattern of warfare.

In such a warfare model, high-level digital life forms are very important. In the network, those digital lives that can use the power of the Virtual Realm are nearly oppressive to ordinary digital beings. Thus, the higher the level of digital life, the higher its status today.

Everyone knows that three-quarters of Huazhong’s main military force relies on cultivation from Zhuxian World. With the shutdown of the Huaxi District, more than half of the high-level life forms were locked down in Zhuxian World, their fate unknown.

Most critical are the high-level combat forces of the major families, which suffered heavy casualties during this observational project.

If outsiders were to know about this intelligence, it really is possible they might make a move.

After all, Huazhong now has a significant accumulation of resources, a high-quality engineering population, and the largest nuclear project in the entire Federation. Who wouldn’t be envious?

"The North America District has already formed an alliance with other districts to put pressure on us, clearly a probing move. If we can’t give them a shock in a short time, there really might be trouble ahead."

"Recall all military forces and deploy them to the front line of Digital City, ready for a tough stance!

" the Southern Commander said: "We must be firm, the more we show weakness, the harder they will push. Please ask Elder Yun to leave seclusion and personally participate in the Federation’s summons meeting! "

"All the military power to the front line? What about Digital City?" Someone couldn’t help but say: "The situation is chaotic now, we need a substantial military force to maintain internal order, and the most crucial thing is... if something else seizes the opportunity to cause trouble..."

"What do you mean by ’something else’?" the Southern Commander asked.

"The thing that escaped from that project!" someone said gravely: "Although Huaxi District was urgently shut down, if that thing wasn’t trapped, and the military is moved to the front line, if something happens here..."

"From the issuance of the top-level intelligence in Huaxi to the closure of Huaxi Pass, it was only a total of ten minutes. In such a short time, could the other side have broken through the heavy network blockade and escaped outside the Huaxi District? If that’s the case, we might as well not do anything and just surrender! "

"But..." That person also felt it was unlikely, but something still seemed odd.

But where exactly the oddity lay, he couldn’t articulate at the moment.

"Let’s vote on it!" the Southern Commander said: "I think we should move the remaining high-level combat forces to the front lines for deployment, to ward off external catastrophes. Those in favor, raise your hands."

In the entire conference hall, almost everyone in uniform stretched out their right hand, clearly in support of taking a strong stance externally.

"But what about the internal chaos?" a council member couldn’t help but ask.

"Harsh laws for troubled times, take a few typical cases and punish severely to make an example!" a military officer said: "First suppress it briefly, as for restoring public confidence, we’ll deal with that after the situation has stabilized."

All the senior council members looked at each other and eventually agreed with this approach.

"By the way, has the highest command center been contacted yet?" the commanding officer who had been leading the meeting suddenly recalled this issue.

Those people had urgently shut down Huaxi, and the responsibility lay heavy; someone must bear the blame for this incident in the end.

Among those in the command center, most were high-level members of influential families, but he remembered that there were two who were newcomers with no ties to any power, yet held very high positions - perfect to be scapegoats at a time like this.

"The command center’s coordinates are encrypted, but the exclusion has already started. Once we lock onto their position, you will be notified immediately," a technical officer in the meeting room said.

"Lock it down as fast as possible; something like what happened in Huaxi must not occur a second time!"

"Understood!"

The commander nodded, then concluded the meeting: "Let’s make these arrangements for now. In these extraordinary times, I ask everyone to be on standby at all times. The meeting room will remain open; I expect every summon to be met with immediate attendance."

The others nodded in agreement, but as everyone was about to leave the meeting room, the secretary responsible for organizing documents for the Southern Commander suddenly gave the usually assertive general a peculiar look.

The Southern Commander, an heir of the Hou Family, had always had a forceful style.

Now, assuming the role of being in charge, everyone had grown somewhat accustomed to his tone and mannerisms. There seemed to be no issues, but for some reason, the secretary felt that today’s general was a bit different.

How to put it? He couldn’t help feeling that the general’s body... and facial expressions, occasionally... there was a strange stiffness!