Chapter 863

Liu Yan and the rest of the beast tamers also looked toward Su Yang, waiting for his answer.

"One basis is that they took away a large number of women and children — a normal organization wouldn't need these burdens, right?" Su Yang said solemnly, analyzing. "Even for experiments, it's impossible to take over ten thousand people at once, and what kind of experiment only needs women and children? Wouldn't it be better to use some young and strong adults for experiments? I think it's because women have low combat power and are easy to control, and can still bear offspring, while children won't resist and can be brainwashed and trained to form combat power — this looks more like something a country that has suffered great chaos and is short on population could pull off!"

"Makes sense!" An Ban nodded.

Even Liu Yan, who had just opposed Su Yang's words, couldn't help but nod slightly.

Su Yang continued: "Another basis is that a domestic organization wanting to take over ten thousand civilians simply couldn't escape our intelligence personnel's notice — unless they were looking to die!"

Liu Yan agreed: "Right, taking over ten thousand civilians at once with such a massive scale — a domestic organization shouldn't be that stupid!"

Su Yang summarized: "So, I lean more toward the Haicheng incident being the work of foreigners, and this country must be coastal, needing to conduct water battles often — their beast-companion configurations wouldn't be this extreme!"

After hearing Su Yang's analysis, dozens of beast tamer experts from the Southeast Military Department nodded one after another.

Su Yang's analysis was well-reasoned and well-supported; they all felt it made a lot of sense.

Even Guo Shu said in surprise: "City Lord Su's words make a lot of sense. I've been thinking about this lately — which organization could be so insane — but I racked my brains and couldn't connect any domestic organization to this incident... If it's a foreign organization, then everything can be explained. Thinking about it now, my vision wasn't broad enough — I hadn't stepped outside the framework of the Huaxia Federation!"

As the commander-in-chief of this operation, An Hang also looked at Su Yang: "City Lord Su, your analysis makes a lot of sense and has given us another excellent line of thinking. Even I hadn't considered that it might be the work of foreigners!"

"Right, City Lord Su's analysis makes a lot of sense!"

"If it weren't for City Lord Su, we could hardly have thought of this possibility!"

"..."

Su Yang, showered with such heavy praise, felt a bit embarrassed.

If it weren't for the system mission giving him a hint, he wouldn't have thought of looking abroad in such a short time.

Working backward from the result, the difficulty was actually not that great!

"Now, let's go into the city and search for clues!"

An Hang said, "Let's take another look and see what useful clues we can find!"

A 72-year-old surnamed Guo warned: "Everyone, you'll need to be careful — the situation inside looks quite unpleasant!"

"What?"

Guo Shu sighed heavily, "Our service crew hasn't dealt with the corpses yet — first, there are too few people; second, we were afraid of disturbing the scene. The corpses in the city have already decomposed severely!" "That's fine, we can imagine it!"

"That's good then!"

Just upon entering Haicheng, a foul stench hit them, making Su Yang choke.

Su Yang immediately pinched his nose shut.

This couldn't be blamed on Su Yang being spoiled — his overly powerful sense of taste and smell talent made this environment absolutely torturous!

Inside the city, a scene of utter devastation — everywhere were traces left after fierce battles.

The entire city was filled with rotting corpses.

These corpses were crawling with maggots, with countless green bottle flies swarming around.

Such a tragic scene of so many corpses filling every street and alley of Haicheng hadn't been seen for many years.

An Hang gritted his teeth and said: "These bastards — I'll kill every last one of them!"

At this moment, everyone present felt exactly the same way!

Any organization that dared to slaughter a city — the Huaxia Federation would hunt them down to the last.

This was a matter of principle!

After the rise of beast tamers, although humanity gradually gained the ability to resist fierce beasts, beast tamers themselves had also become an unstable factor!

Because some powerful beast tamers could single-handedly slaughter a city!

The Huaxia Federation, on one hand, absorbed beast tamers into its military ranks; on the other, it relentlessly pursued beast tamers or organizations that acted lawlessly, wiping them out completely!

Because the Huaxia Federation understood clearly that the Federation's most precious resource was its enormous population base.

Only with a sufficient population could Huaxia civilization continue to endure.

Only with a large enough population could new beast tamers be born in a steady stream!

After two hundred years of "stick-and-carrot" education, illegal organizations within the Huaxia Federation all knew one truth.

If they wanted to court death, besides suicide, the fastest way was none other than slaughtering a city...

Led by the service crew personnel, several dozen experts first headed to the Haicheng City Lord's residence and the military camp.

These were the places most likely to leave clues.

The Haicheng City Lord's residence building was the most severely damaged, almost reduced to ruins.

Su Yang, enduring the piercing stench, followed along to search.

Everywhere were unfamiliar smells; the strongest one he smelled was still the briny sea scent.

He had stayed in Mount Dajiao before and knew this briny sea scent could only be smelled on people who frequently went to sea.

Ordinary people in Mount Dajiao who never went into the water definitely wouldn't carry such a strong scent.

The scent situation in Mount Dajiao and Haicheng was definitely not the same.

Half an hour later, someone shouted: "Deputy Commander An, I've found something here — it could be an important clue!"

An Hang immediately rushed over, and not long after, An Hang called out: "City Lord Su, come take a look too!"

"Okay!"

The discovery was at the edge of the City Lord's residence building.

When Su Yang rushed over, he saw a female soldier whose body was almost completely decomposed.

She had just been dug out — her lower body was still buried in bricks and rubble, and on the ring finger of her left hand was a sparkling wedding ring.

An Ban handed Su Yang a pale yellow sticky note.

Su Yang knew sticky notes — office workers used them a lot; Liu Mengyun's office was plastered with them everywhere!

"Look at what's written on it!"

Su Yang looked at the scrawled writing on the sticky note: "I can't understand what they're saying, I feel they're not like..."

If not for Su Yang's earlier analysis, this clerk's seemingly insignificant clue would very likely have been overlooked by the searchers. But precisely because Su Yang had warned them in advance, this half-sentence became almost a corroboration!

He doesn't look like a Huaxia person!