In the highest echelons of Utopia Security, within the Chairman's office, a massive holographic three-dimensional terrain map of the world unfolded before Sun Jack.
The areas surrounding the Metropolis were being segmented into smaller blocks.
And all the cities across the continent had the numbers and distances of Wild Men marked.
Here, each fully armed Wild Man dispatched was responsible for the awakening of Wild Men in a designated region, and each group had its own area of responsibility, including finding other Wild Men and selecting cities for infiltration.
All of this would be uniformly planned by the Think Tank and the Digital Personality to avoid overlapping with each other.
Moreover, under favorable conditions, all Wild Men troops would establish a mature information network for sharing intelligence among themselves.
As batches of people were sent away, it became evident that there were not enough Hover Cars for the Metropolis, and the cities had become considerably quieter.
Sun Jack stared intently at the world map, pondering. He discovered that the Metropolis was located east of the Himalayas, though it was difficult to discern which country's territory it once was, it roughly seemed to be in the Middle East region.
Aside from some nuclear bomb craters, the world map's terrain hadn't changed much.
But due to the absence of the moon, the impact of tides, and out-of-control climate conditions, areas below the 100-meter sea level had been completely submerged, visibly shrinking the world's continents.
At least in his memory, Suzhou, Shanghai, and Tianjin were completely submerged under a sea filled with trash. It's fair to say the scale of Earth's transformation was colossal, a result of the monumental human struggle against the crises of AI and the Smart Coalition.
Just as Sun Jack leaned closer to the holographic map, trying to determine the exact location of the Metropolis, Abu's voice came from behind him once again.
"What about the Metropolis?"
"What?" Sun Jack turned to look behind him and saw the red fox standing on heels, her arms crossed behind her.
"I know you think big and that your plans are comprehensive, but what about the Metropolis? Have you considered our home, the Metropolis, in your plans?"
"Without the Wild Men as cannon fodder, what happens to the Metropolis? Are we going to rely on the Metropolis's army you've built to fight off FFP?"
"You've sent all the Wild Men away to pass on the torch, so what then? How are we supposed to withstand the FFP Expeditionary Army?"
Sun Jack looked at her as he slowly lit another cigarette. "Are you thinking of running away with your brother?"
Abu didn't answer but said fiercely, "Don't forget, there are tens of millions of people living in the Metropolis. What about them? Are they going to become cannon fodder for the Wild Men? How is that any different?"
Sun Jack shook his head. "The Metropolis? Do you really think a single city like the Metropolis can withstand an invasion from the FFP? Even if we use all the Wild Men as cannon fodder and manage to fight them off, then what?"
"What then? Tell me, what do we do!" Abu charged over, furious.
As she approached Sun Jack, he grasped her neck with one hand and lifted her, his head leaning close to her fuzzy ear to whisper gently, "I don't oppose your escape, but Tapai is monitoring you. If you really think about going to FFP, I will indeed kill both of you."
"Cough... Let go... of me!" Amidst desperate struggles, Abu's fur kept changing colors. "I didn't... escape... I was just... asking... what to do... cough cough..."
Sun Jack loosened his grip and let Abu down. "I have a way to get Metropolis through this crisis, but it will require the residents to sacrifice something."
A month can be long or short, but the moment the Expeditionary Army arrived above the skies of Metropolis, the rain over the city finally stopped.
The massive spacecraft carrier loomed in the sky, its shadow engulfing the entire city with all of the combat units.
The voice of & echoed throughout Metropolis. "The air defense system is shut down, even the network has disappeared. Sun Jack, it looks like you have completely surrendered?"
A swarm of nanoworms descended, but when they transmitted back their findings, &'s face turned extremely ugly.
"Damn it! What's going on! How come even the network is down?" A feeling of unease rose in his heart.
As the drone swarm entered every corner of Metropolis, more details were relayed to &'s analytic AI. "Master, inside Metropolis, besides a few who insisted on staying, it seems everyone else has been taken by Sun Jack to the wilderness. According to the traces, they have completely hidden themselves. Additionally, Sun Jack has left a message for you on the Metropolis network."
"A message? Send it!"
Soon, a video Sun Jack recorded a few days ago popped up on &'s system. Sun Jack adjusted the camera inside a shield machine, then began to speak, "&, is that you? I was originally thinking about how to deal with your enemies, but no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn't figure out how to fight 1 against 40. Later, I realized you were right, FFP has the most mature industrial production lines on Earth, and they could easily mass-produce an Expeditionary Army if they wished to. By wanting to destroy Metropolis, you'd have an easy time of it."
"But you, my friend, gave me a hint. Why should I face you head-on?" Sun Jack tilted his head, chin in hand.
"Since your goal is to kill me publicly, all I need to do is hide, right? If you're capable, try to find me in the wilderness."
"Those dozens of spacecraft carriers, along with so many combat units, must cost a lot for a round trip, right? If you want to play hide and seek with us for a lifetime, I don't mind."
"Fuck!! Level Metropolis to the ground!" & burst into rage as he watched Sun Jack on the screen. At his order, all weapon systems fired at once, and with several nuclear bombs exploding, a huge mushroom cloud rose, engulfing the entire Metropolis in a sea of flames.
But when it was all over, & faced a dilemma. Sun Jack had actually gone into hiding, avoiding a direct confrontation, so what should he do next?
Before coming, he had actually gathered intelligence that Sun Jack was recruiting Wild Men from the wilderness.
He thought Sun Jack was using the Wild Men as cannon fodder, but unexpectedly, he had run off to the wilderness to live like a Wild Man himself! Could it be that those Wild Men were the Wilderness Guides he recruited?
After making a long trek and not seeing a single enemy, & felt like he was hitting cotton with his punch.
"Just return like this? That's naturally impossible. We are live-streaming, and many people on the network are waiting to see me kill Sun Jack. How can we just go back with things like this?"
For a moment, & felt as if he was at an impasse, torn between going and not going.