Chapter 720 - 692: New Opportunities (Part 2)

Latovia is a country that hasn’t even experienced an industrial revolution yet.

The most advanced part of this country is the lord’s castle, equipped with cars, guns, computers, and televisions, along with various modern industrial products. However, beyond the castle walls, in the villages and fields owned by the lord, there are only the drizzling little huts of the feudal era.

Scenes of large-scale farming using animals only appear on the lands near the Grand Duke’s castle. A little farther away, there are only Latvians wandering around to avoid paying various taxes levied by the lords—

A nation with fertile lands and no war disruption, yet forced to become a nomadic people because of the lords.

But this weak and primitive country has welcomed advanced technology, which has bestowed them with a new life in these fertile hills and valley regions—

Solar panels in the mountains, and graphene batteries smuggled continuously from European Union countries, are enough to support a small amount of farming equipment and prosthetics operations.

Christopher indeed took the task seriously: he knew the biggest requirement of this base was secrecy, and everyone here must possess a high level of loyalty.

Loyalty is difficult to nurture, but if they have a strong sense of hatred towards the enemy, hatred can achieve a similar effect.

Many people have physical disabilities, mostly caused during their wandering: some froze during winter, some were chopped by the lord’s soldiers, and some broke their limbs while fleeing...

The majority of these disabled people have suffered enough from wandering, and their wandering is inextricably linked to the Grand Duke of Latovia.

But their survival is undoubtedly thanks to an entire wandering tribe. By developing these disabled individuals and forming stable connections between them and their tribes, this small mountain community came into being.

Outside the mountain rock base are houses made of wood and stone, with the bio-bonding liquid from the Atlas Group greatly enhancing the strength of these basic materials, making them more stable on the mountains.

In the distance are small plots of farmland, planting multi-cropping grains. However, these fields mainly provide a sense of security to the people and facilitate labor acclimatization after installing prosthetics.

Stable work from sunrise to sunset provides them peace of mind, surrounded by the enemy lords which gives them a sense of urgency. Their high endurance for hardships brings high compliance, allowing them to use brain-computer interfaces to acquire enough knowledge...

This camp houses a total of four hundred and fifty people, perhaps their true creativity may not match that of the research talent produced by external universities, but they are entirely high-level technical workers.

Most of these people wear simple clothes, some with holes, but sheltered housing from wind and rain, stable lives, and a vast amount of knowledge keep their mental state very good.

The clothes are torn but not dirty, and the buildings are simple but not dilapidated.

They sit in the small town square in an orderly manner, looking at Lille with reverent eyes—

The metallic shell doesn’t frighten them at all; instead, they feel comforted by the sense of power that Lille displays.

The emotions of more than four hundred people were perceived by the negative energy, causing Lille’s sensors to experience strange disturbances, which he labeled as...

Trust and Submission.

This is pure submission and reverence, even a sort of madness: the future they anticipate has already closely aligned, in their understanding, with Lille’s commands and instructions—

If Lille instructed them to die for this place, they would do so because it is right.

These emotions awakened some of Lille’s memories. It was the first time he’d felt this emotion in this world, but not the first time overall.

He wanted to say something encouraging or foster some relationships with the people here, get to know them...

But he found he didn’t need to do so.

More complex and peculiar emotions surged from Lille’s memories...

Ultimately, Lille chose silence, merely remembering each of their faces and expressions, turning to enter the base located among the rocks again.

Christopher felt somewhat at a loss: they had already fully accepted Lille’s rule in their hearts, treating even Lille’s slightest breath as law.

But Lille didn’t even breathe.

Fortunately, Lille’s message appeared on his visual system:

[Lille: Alert, I see our reconnaissance soldiers entering the surveillance zone, the Grand Duke of Latovia might be planning something foolish.]

Christopher was momentarily stunned, switching his view to the disguised drones at the edge of this isolated haven:

He nurtured some reconnaissance soldiers to infiltrate local villages and communities to control the situation in Latovia in real-time without arousing suspicion.

These reconnaissance soldiers had the most advanced bionic prosthetics, the most realistic artificial skin, and horses enhanced with implants—

Right now, these reconnaissance soldiers are quickly returning to base; something has happened.

...

[Contact: Martin Lee]

[Martin: I’m glad you’re not dead, but I knew you wouldn’t die that easily... Just didn’t expect you’d turn into... Iron Man.]

[Martin: But I prefer the name Doctor Doom.]

[Martin: We are now in the Atlas underground bunker, the National Guard and local military bases have rebooted the air defense system. Unless Ellis wants to abandon other cities or drop a nuclear bomb here directly, we should be safe, temporarily safe.]

[Martin: Skye is still in a coma, but Conners says her constitution is pretty good, vital signs are relatively intact, though when she’ll wake up remains uncertain.]

[Martin: Peter used the Lizard Serum, now lying in the confinement chamber for observation, with no major issues for now.]

[Martin: Frank and security are looking for opportunities to recover some equipment... In sum, it’s about gathering strength.]

[Martin: We’re all in a room, thank god—it happened during work hours.]

Under the Atlas Group, there’s a 3-layer underground functional area with air raid shelter features. Though the incident happened abruptly, the most critical research and equipment are mostly underground.

Professor Conners, Dr. Otto, Dr. Tumus... Atlas’ most advanced scientists and engineers are still around.

[Martin: But the supplies in the underground space can only last us for about a week... There are many refugees in the New Future District, we must find a way to mobilize.]

[Lille: It’s enough.]

This information was transmitted to the nearby military base through the Atlas Group’s secret antenna.

Normally, military bases would transmit the signal directly across Earth via satellites, but because of that unprecedented Cyberspace storm, they completely lost control over the military satellites—

Everyone did.

So this round of signals needed to be conveyed using a very primitive method: mounting the information on fixed-wing drones, propelling them into high-altitude via boosters, then using aerodynamics to send them into the European Union’s signal area...

It’s very slow, but it’s the only way.

As of now, most overseas military bases and troops have fallen under Ellis’s control, unable to detach due to the need to maintain dominance, leaving mainly Hydra agents and those space airships onshore.

But Hydra agents have infiltrated the military, and given what happened with General Ross, Rod understood that it might not be wise to rashly issue orders at this time...

The stalemate continues, but Lille must solve the issue in New York within a week and find a way to restore global communication.

Flying directly over to eliminate the space airship and rescue people isn’t feasible:

The energy from the ark reactor has decreased, and until he acquires advanced enough equipment to seal the raw materials into Vibranium for nuclear fusion, he can only maintain his activity through charging.

Latovia can’t procure that much energy.

Fortunately, he has a new opportunity...

[Unstable energy impending explosion.]

[Countdown: 1-2 hours.]