What truly made this path terrifying was that, for the first time, it reduced a nation's capacity for war to cities and networks. Factories were not just a string of numbers on a map. They also needed energy, workers, housing, schools, roads, water, and waste disposal.
Just then, Lin Cuo thought of the Mercenary Module again.
If IS Academy could volunteer for recruitment, and Southern Cross and Uruz could enter the losers' bracket, what about the Red Alert world?
A Mobile Construction Vehicle, the Chronosphere, a Weather Control Device, the Iron Curtain, Psychic Detection-getting his hands on any one of them could shave decades off the current technology tree.
He opened the search bar and entered Red Alert. The interface paused for a good long while.
Then a constantly flickering composite-world card popped up.
In the background, a Mobile Construction Vehicle had just finished deploying. In the distant sky, a solar focusing array, a Chrono Storm, a Psychic Beacon, and a batch of flying units that clearly did not belong to the same timeline all appeared at once. The system tried to sort out their origins, but ultimately offered only an exceedingly perfunctory explanation.
[Red Alert Composite Warzone.] [Current status: still resisting.] [Due to the overlap of numerous mod worldlines, friend-or-foe identification is constantly changing.] [The Corona War, Psychic War, Allied Nations Time Anomaly, Parallel Plan, and other unregistered conflicts coexist.] [This world has not yet entered the losers' bracket.] [All major factions are currently still firing at every target that appears within range.]
Lin Cuo watched a newly built superweapon get blown up by troops dropped in from another timeline before its countdown had even finished. He fell silent for a moment.
"Can I just buy one Mobile Construction Vehicle?"
[No willingness to sell.]
"Blueprints