Chapter 49: Chapter 49, Battle Settlement

Gu Hang sat in an armored infantry vehicle, his face pale as he closed his eyes to recuperate.

He was aware of the noise outside, but he was too lazy to bother with it.

The battle had just ended, and it had drained him significantly.

The main issue was that he had been directly charged. “Spiritual Protection” had blocked nearly all the damage, but it had also depleted all of his spiritual energy.

In fact, this was a very dangerous situation.

According to the education on psychic spells he had received from his memories, completely depleting one’s spirituality could lead to uncontrollable consequences: death, madness, mental abnormalities, personality disintegration… All of these were possibilities.

After the battle ended, Gu Hang rested while checking the state of his spirituality, which fortunately, allowed him to breathe a sigh of relief.

The severe conditions hadn’t appeared; his current symptoms were just some fatigue and a slight headache. Generally speaking, they would improve after some rest.

But he still took away some lessons from this experience.

This time, it was slightly risky, to the point that he had put himself in danger.

But upon careful reflection, Gu Hang didn’t think there was anything particularly wrong with his actions. It was true that he was a governor, but it wasn’t to the extent that he would avoid risk altogether. His enterprise was still in its early stages, and there were times when he had to fight.

This time, there was no second psychic in his entire domain. If he hadn’t taken action himself, today’s situation wouldn’t have been resolved.

He couldn’t just stand by and let Yan Fangxu and his 3rd Infantry Battalion be trapped and perish in the woods.

But the outcome was definitely good.

The methods of the Primordial Wrath Owl Sect in nurturing and controlling so many monsters certainly weren’t easy; otherwise, they wouldn’t still be rats in the sewers. Having used such tactics and lost three formidable priests here, the sect must have suffered significant losses.

Even before that, they must have been in a lot of pain already.

If it weren’t for him urging Revival City to intensify the crackdown on the cult, forcing them into desperate action and attempting to assassinate him at a great cost, they would not have done so.

Well, that’s good. If you didn’t finish me off this time, wait until I get to Revival City and uncover everything you’re hiding.

…

After resting for a good while, he felt his condition had recovered a lot.

It was only then that he truly had the energy to properly tally his gains.

This time, the victory was substantial, though the losses were also the greatest compared to previous battles. But the results were equally significant.

[Having a slight upper hand, 86 points of grace obtained]

[Losses 103, exterminated 6597, captured 0]

[2nd Infantry Battalion: Losses 77, exterminated 4447]

[3rd Infantry Battalion: Losses 24, exterminated 1613]

[Navy Marine Corps: Losses 2, exterminated 537]

Just looking at the casualty ratio, it was impressive, but Gu Hang wasn’t the least bit happy about it.

All that had been exterminated were brainless monsters.

If they acted according to Yan Fangxu’s strategy, they could almost no loss cleanse each of these monsters’ lairs one by one over the next few months, rather than facing them all at once after they had been rallied.

Not to mention facing three Storm Priests at the same time.

In total, 103 soldiers were lost, with the 2nd Battalion already exceeding a 25% casualty rate.

Most of these casualties happened amidst the raging winds and dense fog.

Among them, two recently promoted tier 3 members of the Marine Corps had been killed by the most formidable priest, meaning the invested 2 points of grace were gone.

The two regular infantry battalions, especially the 2nd, needed a substantial number of replacement troops.

Gu Hang’s total population under his control amounted to just under six thousand. Excluding the Mech Servant Battalion, he had already supported two infantry battalions totaling six hundred men, with a mobilization rate exceeding ten percent. In fact, given the composition of the population, this was already a significant pressure, not to mention Gu Hang needed manpower for various rapidly expanding production lines outside the military.

The excessively high mobilization rate was already affecting production efficiency.

Especially for the young and able-bodied workers, the shortfall at the Abandoned Cave Society was significant, becoming a limiting factor in development.

The army’s casualties would require a further hundred men to be drawn from the labor pool… which was going to be a strain. Gu Hang could already foresee Patel, who was in charge of heavy industry at the Abandoned Cave Society, tearing his hair out.

The guy wouldn’t put any obstacles in the way of the young men joining the military for the Governor; in his heart, that was an honor, a defense of their labor achievements. But after the decrease in manpower, how to maintain or even expand production was certainly going to be a headache for him.

As for other costs… the textile factory had been set up, and uniforms could be produced in-house, with the relevant design plans already passed on; alloy and plastic steel production lines could turn out armored vests; firearms could either be salvaged from battlefield remnants or newly produced. Even if it was just for soldier training, a hundred soldiers would only cost 1 point in grace. All of these were not an issue.

The problem was still the population.

They still needed to bleed others dry.

The Quintet in the sky was no longer easy to exploit, and going after the lower-end population was also not very meaningful. Gu Hang had other plans for the female captain; on the Quintet, there were plenty of talents he coveted. To annihilate the Primordial Wrath Owl Sect, or at least give them a severe blow, he would need to borrow the female captain’s power and also consider it as a form of repayment to Yelisia, but that could be discussed later.

What remained were Revival City and Rubbish Town.

Most of those in Rubbish Town were adventurers dreaming of striking it rich, and it wasn’t ruled out that some who had been through trials and tribulations now wanted to live the life of an honest person… no, to settle down as an honest person, but it couldn’t be forced.

Revival City was a huge source; Gu Hang did not disdain the refugees who could no longer survive outside the city walls.

Tens of thousands of people were unrealistic to take in all at once, but he now had ample job positions and abundant food to support many.

…

Having thought through the losses, it was now time to consider the gains.

86 points of grace, the largest sum Gu Hang had accrued thus far.

It was even more than all the previous ones added together.

This gave Gu Hang a sense of having struck it rich.

The heavy shadow of the soldiers’ massive casualties and losses was much dispelled by this joy.

Of the 86 points of grace, it was estimated that over thirty were ‘contributed’ by those three priests, with the strongest one alone providing over twenty points.

That high priest, just in terms of Spiritual Energy strength, was even greater than Gu Hang.

However, when it came to the application of Spiritual Energy, Gu Hang had the nuanced ‘Soul Severing’ inherited from an ancient family and ‘Spiritual Protection’ provided by the system, which were much stronger than the high priest who could only use the native Evil God’s power to perform Storm Sorcery.

In other words, Gu Hang’s victory was due in part to his powerful spells and numerical advantage. In terms of sheer strength of spirituality, Gu Hang at LV2 still couldn’t match the opponent.

Eliminating such a formidable enemy and receiving extra grace seemed only fair.

As for the remaining fifty points, they were the spoils of war from the soldiers wiping out over six thousand different monstrous creatures.

Clearly, the lives of these creatures were cheap.

But the sheer number was impressive, and after more than six thousand fell, they had brought a fair amount of grace to Gu Hang.

It was just a pity that the victory rating only reached a slight advantage, so the grace coefficient gained post-battle was not high enough; otherwise, there might have been room for more.

Next came the issue of how to spend this windfall of grace.

Feeling elated, he summoned the panel and then saw one old item flashing and a new item appeared.

The flashing one was the [Hero] panel.

The new appearance was a function named [Event].