Dragon Country.
Weiyang Province, Jianggu City.
Outside the Great Wall Forbidden Zone.
The Great Wall.
"The situation... has it really deteriorated to this extent?"
Lin Ran stood on the Great Wall, gazing into the distance.
The Great Wall Forbidden Zone was so named partly because it was sealed by a Great Wall that stretched for thousands of miles.
This Great Wall was the remnant of an ancient battlefield, later reinforced and repaired multiple times, and had become Jianggu City's natural barrier against alien races and beast tides.
However, so far, the Great Wall had not been called upon to play a significant role.
After all, the small city of Jianggu had never truly experienced a crisis that could be called turmoil.
The scattered beast tides were annihilated by the defensive forces of the nearly a hundred armed fortresses stationed ahead, long before they could reach the Great Wall.
But this time...
A bitter smile came from Zhou Yi through the bio-chip:
"It's indeed rotten to the core..."
"No one expected such a large-scale beast tide to erupt at this point in time."
"All the ferocious beasts within the Great Wall Forbidden Zone have gone mad, almost launching a full-scale assault."
"The defending soldiers were caught completely off guard..."
"Now, all the armed fortresses outside the Great Wall have fallen, and the soldiers have retreated within the Great Wall, leaving only machines and AI to resist."
"Therefore, the only barrier that can protect Jianggu is that Great Wall..."
Lin Ran frowned:
"With such thorough defenses and abundant firepower in the armed fortresses, how could they fall so quickly?"
"As long as the soldiers inside don't voluntarily open the gates, these individual strongholds could have held back the ferocious beasts for a very, very long time."
"Unless..."
Zhou Yi's smile became even more bitter:
"As you suspected..."
"They retreated voluntarily, unwilling to risk their lives to do those things."
"So they evacuated positions that could easily become submerged and withdrew their main forces to within the Great Wall."
A cold glint flashed in Lin Ran's eyes:
"But this way, it's equivalent to having only this last line of defense left..."
"If anything were to happen to the Great Wall, what about Jianggu behind it, and the neighboring cities?"
"The army is supposed to be the vanguard, facing death without fear. Now they've been influenced by those people to become cowardly and afraid of death."
"Are they worthy of their benefits, bonuses, and salaries?"
"Furthermore, I don't see any large-scale, fully armed reserve armies within this Great Wall either?"
Hearing Lin Ran's words, Zhou Yi didn't know what to say and could only maintain a deathly silence.
After a long pause, Lin Ran sighed:
"It seems that Weiyang Province is quite terrible in all aspects..."
"Changing the current situation is not something that can be accomplished overnight."
"Since that's the case, we can only administer a strong dose of medicine..."
"Of course, we must first deal with this immediate disaster."
"Those who prefer to avoid danger and stand by will regret it to the point of wanting to disembowel themselves!"
With that, Lin Ran ended the communication, took out the Fate Box from his Soul Ring, and looked at Luo Qingyan beside him:
"How about we establish a family together?"
Luo Qingyan did not expect Lin Ran to say such a thing at this moment, and her pretty face turned red:
"Why... why bring this up so suddenly? I'm not mentally prepared!"
"And with just the two of us, isn't calling it a family a bit of an exaggeration..."
"We can't possibly expect me to give birth to ten or eight children right away, can we?"
"Then then then..."
Lin Ran rolled his eyes:
"What are you thinking about..."
"Do you think of it as breeding? Giving birth to litter after litter?"
"Ten or eight..."
"Our family members are all in here right now."
"To us, who have gathered nine energies and given them life, we are like parents to them."
Luo Qingyan was stunned:
"You mean, in the blink of an eye, we have twenty-five thousand new offspring?"
Lin Ran quickly waved his hands:
"No, no, no, it's not that exaggerated..."
"It's just that they will treat us as the creators of their lives, not real parents in the true sense..."
"This also guarantees their absolute loyalty."
"Not to mention, we can remove their Fate at any time within the Fate Box to achieve annihilation."
"So, we've just gained twenty-five thousand powerful, loyal, and potentially immensely promising enforcers."
"And these enforcers are fearless, and even if they die, their souls will return to the Fate Box..."
"We can summon them again at any time by replenishing the energy of the Fate Box!"
Luo Qingyan then blinked in realization:
"As expected of the 'Children of Elements' plan that the alien races prepared for so many years, it's truly terrifying..."
"So, can we summon them now?"
Lin Ran smiled:
"Of course!"
Saying that, Lin Ran gently stroked the Fate Box and activated its summoning system.
The next moment, on the originally empty Great Wall, wave after wave of "people" clad in simple attire appeared.
They were men and women, handsome, strong, and with powerful auras. With every movement, faint arcs of lightning flickered...
Each of them looked heroic, destined to be the dragons and phoenixes of the future.
Even now, their average strength hovered around the second tier.
Due to the memories Lin Ran had pre-implanted in the Fate Box, after adapting to their bodies, they immediately prostrated themselves towards Lin Ran and Luo Qingyan:
"Greetings, Family Head, Greetings, Family Mother!"
Luo Qingyan almost spat out blood:
"Look at what you've fed them!"
Lin Ran laughed heartily:
"It's just a title of identity... it's not like they truly see you as their mother."
"Don't rush, don't rush."
"Instead of being anxious, why don't we think of a name for our new family?"
Luo Qingyan glanced at Lin Ran's seemingly harmless smiling face and could only suppress her frustration and mumble discontentedly.
Lin Ran, however, waved his hand grandly:
"Children, get your weapons!"
"Pry open all those storage depots behind us and arm yourselves to the teeth."
"There should be some space storage devices left in the depots. Seize those too, and use them to carry anything you can't take by hand. Leave not a single one!"
"After taking everything, return to the Great Wall and prepare to defend the city."
Upon hearing Lin Ran's command, these thunder-attribute Children of Elements erupted in enthusiastic cheers and ran off gleefully. They easily subdued the ordinary human soldiers guarding the depots and confiscated vast quantities of supplies.