After greeting Zane, Jiyan walked up to Rover and gave her a respectful military salute.
"The Magistrate and Taoqi have already informed me that you left the city to come provide support. Thank you for coming. I am Jiyan, the general of the Midnight Rangers."
"This is our first meeting. We should have welcomed you according to Huanglong's customs, but the current situation doesn't allow us to delay. I'll explain our plan as briefly as possible."
As he spoke, Jiyan took out four bottles of medicine from his pocket and handed them to Rover and the others.
"These are anti-Retroact Rain potions provided by the research institute. Please take them first."
When he handed the potion to the Doctor, Jiyan paused for a moment and looked up, carefully examining this cute girl.
He had learned about the Doctor's deployment of Jinzhou from Taoqi. It had to be said that in terms of strategic planning, Jiyan considered himself a qualified general, but not someone capable of being a supreme commander.
And the Doctor in front of him was, without a doubt, someone suited to be a commander.
A commander must understand astronomy and geography, military formations, and be able to strategize from behind the scenes, coordinate the overall situation, and devise perfect battle plans.
A general, on the other hand, only needs to follow orders and lead troops into battle. Win every fight, take every objective. That's all.
If the Midnight Rangers was considered a border defense force, then the combat strength of Jinzhou's patrol guards was at most comparable to local armed police.
It couldn't be said that the patrol guards were completely inferior to the Midnight Rangers, but in terms of handling emergencies and fighting will, they were far behind soldiers who had been battling year-round.
Under such circumstances, if Jiyan had been tasked with commanding the patrol guards to defend Jinzhou, he would probably have had no choice but to lead from the front to inspire them to fight harder.
It sounded simple, but in practice it was extremely difficult.
But the Doctor had managed to make full use of everyone and everything. Whether it was sending non-Resonators into the defensive line in batches to resist the tide of remnants, or dividing Resonators into groups based on their abilities so each could fulfill their role.
Making full use of combat-type Resonators for "decapitation" missions, mobilizing healing-type Resonators to assist logistics, and arranging reserve forces to prevent opportunists from taking advantage of the chaos…
For every one of these, Jiyan believed he wouldn't have been able to complete such detailed deployment within just a few minutes after the outbreak of the remnant tide.
"While it can't completely block the effects of Retroact Rain, it can at least reduce the hallucinations it causes."
Jiyan explained as he distributed the potions, until...
"Hm? Where's Zane?"
Looking at the three girls in front of him, the most troublesome white-haired guy was missing.
Jiyan's eyelid immediately twitched repeatedly. Although Zane hadn't been in the army for long, every time he disappeared, he would end up causing something big.
The last time Zane disappeared was because Jiyan punished him by making him write a 1000-word self-reflection.
He ended up running to the house of a conservative official and forcing the man to write a 10,000-word reflection for him.
The time before that, it was because military rations hadn't arrived. So he went alone to rob food from nearby exiles. Then he disguised himself as an exile and went to rob a conservative official's food.
While disguised as an exile, he even got into a fight with a certain peaceful, friendly, helpful, cute, and innocent Jinzhou girl. And by accident, he smashed up a conservative official's house…
Fortunately, this time Zane hadn't gone far.
Seemingly noticing Jiyan's confusion, the Doctor couldn't help covering her face with her hand while pointing toward the Silent Zone not far away.
Jiyan looked toward the center of the Silent Zone and saw a white figure sitting there cross-legged with his back to them, as if in meditation, occasionally letting out a couple of strange laughs.
Meanwhile, Thundering Mephis's corpse had been torn into pieces and scattered all over the ground.
If he hadn't already taken the anti-Retroact Rain potion, Jiyan might have thought that what was sitting there was just an illusion woven by the rain.
Or the trigger point for a jump scare in a horror movie.
"What are you doing?", Rover, Jiyan, and the others walked over with deep confusion.
They saw Zane staring intently at the center of the Silent Zone with an excited expression, constantly letting out eerie "heh heh heh" laughter.
Hearing the voice, Zane immediately stopped laughing, turned his head expressionlessly, and answered stiffly, "I'm waiting for Thundering Mephis to revive."
For some reason, he suddenly looked a bit like an imposter.
In reality, he was just afraid of getting his head smacked by Rover again. After all, getting hit in the head too many times really would make you dumb.
As long as soldiers continued to die here, Thundering Mephis would revive again.
Just now, while Jiyan was explaining the situation to Rover and the others, Zane had thrown all the materials he could dismantle from Thundering Mephis into the system, instantly gaining 20 Star Sounds.
What did 20 Star Sounds mean?
Grind eight times and you could save up for one pull. Eighty times and you'd have a ten-pull.
Even looting exiles didn't give such stable Star Sound income.
The only thing that could match this efficiency might be using Rover's foot-washing water to exchange for Star Sounds in the system.
Back then, one bottle could be exchanged for 10 Star Sounds.
He just didn't know if it was a one-time thing.
Unfortunately, there hadn't been enough time. It had only been three days since he met Rover. If he had a few more days, he was sure he could bankrupt the system.
Although they didn't understand why Zane was waiting for Thundering Mephis to revive, it didn't stop Rover from grabbing his ear and, amid his indescribable screams, dragging him up and toward the frontline.
Soon, they arrived at the defensive line closest to the Threnodian... the Withering Defense Line. Here, the most elite unit of the Midnight Rangers, the Break Formation Camp, was stationed.
Just as Zane stepped one foot into the defense line, a strange frequency came from the north.
The ground beneath their feet began to tremble continuously, and a sense of danger spread through the flowing air into everyone's hearts.
"Look over there!"
A shout rang out among the Midnight Rangers. They looked up and saw a massive stone statue rising from the floating ruins, hovering in midair.
A strange purple light glowed from its chest, like a blasphemous god overlooking the land of Jinzhou.
A barrier also formed along with the appearance of the giant statue, enclosing the entire floating ruins.
Seeing this, Jiyan's sharp eyes filled with heavy seriousness.
"That is a statue pieced together by the Ovathrax using fragments of weapons, buildings, and rocks. For a long time, it has loomed over Jinzhou like a giant, proclaiming its ambition."
At that moment, an untimely gasp came from Zane.
"So this big guy can be called a stone man, right?"
"Stone man… that does fit."
Jiyan thought for a moment and nodded. Though somehow, the term "stone man" gave him a vague feeling of lacking intelligence.
Looking at the massive statue, Zane suddenly had an idea. "Then we just need to face it head-on and break the enemy stone man, right?"
Jiyan was suddenly a bit speechless. Although what Zane said wasn't wrong, why did it sound like defeating the Ovathrax was such a simple matter when he said it?
"Defeating the Threnodian is indeed the key to this battle… but in several previous engagements, the remnant tide in Northfall Wilds has shown various abnormalities."
"And the research institute has already reached a conclusion. The remnants in Northfall Wilds are not naturally occurring, but entities suddenly created through the infusion of some kind of power."
"I have analyzed their formation patterns and reached a conclusion, the source of the power creating the remnant tide is that statue."
The more Jiyan explained the situation to Rover and the others, the more he realized that Zane had actually pointed out the key in a single sentence?
After going around in circles, didn't it all come down to breaking the stone man?
Jiyan found it hard to imagine how Zane, without knowing the background, without intelligence, and without much thought, had summarized the key to this battle in just one sentence.
It was a case of the beginning and process being completely wrong, but the result somehow being correct.
'Could he really be a genius?'
Jiyan rubbed his chin, unable to help but start doubting.