Chapter 699: Follow Me! Go Get Your Gear!

Chapter 699: Follow Me! Go Get Your Gear!

While the crowd stirred by the harbor, a cargo ship meant for hauling livestock, moored beside the dock, was likewise packed with ragged people.

Their expressions were vacant, their eyes numb, much like the two-headed cattle crammed into the neighboring vessel.

Just then, several men clad in exoskeletons stepped onto the deck.

One of them used a plasma torch to cut the chain securing the iron gate, while another walked before them, raised his helmet’s speaker, and declared in a loud voice.

“You are free.”

The deck fell into a deathly silence.

Facing the commotion at the bow, those faces remained unmoved, not even glancing in that direction.

Old Bai couldn’t help but feel a bit awkward.

The players beside him exchanged glances and whispered among themselves.

“What does this remind you of?”

“The Legion’s clones.”

“Ha, great minds think alike.”

Watching Old Bai, who seemed at a loss for words, Fang Chang sighed, stepped forward, and patted him on the shoulder.

“That won’t work… Let me handle it.”

With that, he strode forward, looked at the crowd crouching on the deck, and shouted in Common.

“We are the Alliance—a union forged by survivors standing together.”

Old Bai stared at him in surprise.

Fang Chang gave him a reassuring look, then gazed down at the bowed heads, raising his voice to continue.

“Before we came here, we met some of your suffering kin. Their diligence, optimism, and courage left a deep impression on us. No matter how dire the circumstances, they never gave up… The cramped, sweltering holds, the endless journeys, the scorn of others—everything you can imagine.”

“Later, we found them a place to stay, gave them some spare wood and straw, and soon they built rows of huts along the beach. Then we gave them land and seeds, and they turned it into fields and plantations. All we had to do was give them a hand, and they knew where to go next.”

“I thought that since you are their kin, you might be a little like them. But here we stand, and all you offer us is the backs of your heads.”

His voice was swallowed by the rolling tide.

A few heads lifted, but only for a fleeting second of eye contact before they quickly dropped again.

As if their own eyes were something filthy.

Fang Chang watched them, pity flickering in his gaze.

Something similar had happened in Boulder City, but when the whip cracked there, the people would flinch. Even before the Alliance came, blood had flowed in the casinos time and again.

That was why, despite Lord Hyde’s immense power, he dared not go too far; he still had to invent justifications when needed.

But the situation in the Bharata Province was entirely different.

When the noose slipped around their necks, they not only accepted it willingly, pinning their hopes on the cycle of reincarnation, but even learned to breathe through their backsides instead of their mouths.

“…The Empire enslaved your fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, wives, and children, selling them off to mines, quarries, plantations—every place they themselves refused to go. And you just crouch there, staring blankly at the sea like livestock.”

“Were you born for this? Look me in the eye! If you dare not, then look at that ship beside you—the pigs and cattle locked in cages. What difference is there between your sorry state and theirs? A pack of jackals in human skin tells you to squat, and you squat obediently. Do you know what we did in the River Valley Province? We skinned them alive! We boiled them into soup!”

“Only beasts belong in cages. You should shove them in there, not squat in this broken ship in their place!”

“Get up, all of you!”

That roar crashed like a thunderbolt, shattering the waves slapping against the hull and breaking the chains coiled around their hearts.

The buried heads finally lifted, and with them rose the knees that had lightly touched the deck.

The raised pupils no longer shied away.

Some held shock, some astonishment, some burned with blazing fury, and others still bore a trace of bewilderment.

But whatever it was, it was better than the daze before.

Seeing those human eyes and the people slowly rising from the deck, Fang Chang nodded with slight satisfaction.

“Good. It seems you have some courage—not much, but we’ll lend you what you lack.”

With that, he drew a pistol from his belt and hurled it hard toward the crowd standing on the deck.

Some flinched aside in fright, others ducked back down with their heads covered, but a few reached out bravely.

In the end, a stocky man with a crew cut snatched the gun.

He gripped it tightly, raised it high above his head, and fixed his gaze unblinkingly on the figure in the exoskeleton.

Fang Chang was pleased with the look in that man’s eyes.

Generosity and bravery can be faked, but instinctive reactions never lie. Among this hopeless mire, there were still souls worth saving.

“Your name! Shout it loud!”

Veins bulging on his neck, the man bellowed with all his might.

“Rashi!”

The players behind Old Bai nearly lost their composure, but luckily their helmets hid their faces.

Fang Chang, however, stared intently at the man and roared back without changing expression.

“Excellent, Rashi! From this moment, you are the leader of these people—the commander of the First Brigade of the Revenge Alliance!”

“No need to wait until tomorrow! Right now! We’ll go skin those jackals and see what ugly face hides beneath that hide!”

“Follow me! Go get your guns!”

“Ooh-ooh-ooh!!” The moment the words fell, a deafening roar erupted from the deck. Those murky pupils were utterly ignited by fury and desire.

They gazed at the man at the bow with fervor, as if worshiping their deity.

The players behind Old Bai and Fang Chang exchanged astonished glances and whispered in the comm channel.

“Holy crap.”

“What does Brother Fang do in real life?”

Old Bai looked at Fang Chang, a hint of confusion on his face.

“Aren’t we here to grab population?”

According to the original plan, sailing these slave ships to Fries Harbor would be enough. There, their kin would teach them how to start anew.

But handing out guns now was clearly asking for trouble.

Watching the seething slaves, Fang Chang smiled softly and said in a low voice.

“What’s the use of taking these people to Fries Harbor? Do we need slaves? Given the sorry state they were in just now, I wouldn’t take them even if you paid me a thousand dinars.”

Old Bai was about to mention the Refugee Home method, but quickly realized it would be too slow for this situation.

Though practice had shown that the Refugee Home helped countless helpless slaves learn skills and reintegrate into Alliance society, its very operation meant its capacity had limits.

Moreover, its implementation required a prerequisite: the local survivors must have the will to save themselves and be willing to help others who suffered like them.

Pick anyone here—as long as they could scrape by, they saw no problem. If they found someone half-dead, they’d just think it was that person’s own fault.

Perhaps only by letting them shed a little blood could there be a faint hope of ending this cycle.

But only a faint one.

Seeing that Fang Chang seemed to have an idea, Old Bai continued to ask.

"Then what do you plan to do next?"

Fang Chang glanced at the nearby ships, his eyes narrowing slightly.

"There are a few more ships over there. Once we hand out the guns to them, I intend to send a team to lead them in attacking the largest prison in this settlement."

The Lowell Camp, located on Blackwater Street.

According to a record in a continuously updated travelogue by Si Si, that camp, over a century ago, was once a shelter housing thousands of survivors, and some locals even believed it to be the predecessor of the settlement of Golden Port.

However, no matter what that camp was used for in the past, it now belongs to His Majesty the Emperor of the Xilan Empire, managed by the Governor's Office.

Apart from the Moon Clan, who were persecuted for inexplicable reasons, it also holds a vast number of bankrupt debt slaves and some prisoners of special status, their numbers accounting for as much as 5% of the entire settlement!

A month ago, the concentration camp that the White Bear Knights captured and burned was merely a "warehouse" for temporarily housing slaves, with defenses that were not particularly tight.

But the Lowell Camp is the true source of the slave trade in this settlement.

Before implementing the Alliance's laws, they must first uproot that place; otherwise, any effort would be a waste of time.

And as a symbol of imperial authority, capturing the Lowell Camp is of extraordinary importance in awakening the confidence of the local resistance.

Looking at Fang Chang, Old Bai hesitated and asked.

"They haven't been trained yet. Isn't this too soon for them?"

"If we strike now, they'll only face some jailers and the city defense forces we've already crippled. Wait a few more days, and it might not be the same."

Pausing, Fang Chang continued.

"And before training, what they need more is confidence. We have to make them realize that their enemies are actually nothing to fear!"

……

The slaves on the ship swarmed ashore, and the merchants gathered by the port watched with eager eyes.

Especially a few big-nosed men from the West Coast, who, seeing the Alliance people driving the slaves off the ship, immediately began shouting in agitation.

"What are you doing! Those are my slaves!" a Vlandian merchant cried out indignantly.

Fang Chang, stepping down from the dock, happened to spot the furious shouter and casually tossed the shackles he had just removed into the man's arms.

"Go catch them yourself."

The shackles struck the Vlandian merchant's chest, and he instinctively caught them with both hands. Looking up, he saw Alliance soldiers dragging wooden crates of weapons from the warehouse, smashing open the iron locks, pulling out rifles, and handing them directly to his slaves.

The merchant's face turned ashen, and he nearly spat out a mouthful of old blood.

He recognized those wooden crates—they were the very ones he had delivered to the port warehouse yesterday as payment for this thousand-odd head of livestock.

Watching those monkeys clutching their rifles with delight, he gritted his teeth and finally swallowed his anger.

He shrank back into the crowd, not daring to make another sound.