Chapter 11 Opportunity
In the days that followed, Ka Lun organized the training of his men while assigning them various tasks.
With their numbers increasing, Ka Lun divided them into several teams.
Those who were agile and quick-witted formed the scouting squad.
Those who were strong and powerful formed the combat team.
Those who were physically weak were put in charge of logistics.
And those who were bored out of their minds were responsible for supervising training.
Of course, the last group consisted of only two people.
One was called Wan Lei, and the other was Fang Xiaoyu.
Ka Lun was busy from dawn till dusk every day. Whenever he saw Lei and Yu wandering around idly, he would fly into a rage, scolding them for being hopeless and unable to share any of his burdens.
The scouting squad took turns going out to find human settlements and gather intelligence.
As the saying goes, perseverance pays off. After several months of scouting, Ka Lun had a grasp of all the scattered human settlements within a few hundred miles.
To his surprise, there were actually two large human settlements on the coast.
These two settlements could accurately be described as cities.
One was a city without walls. This city was small; before the disaster, it had a population of only a few thousand. There were very few good people, only a few hundred, and the rest were criminals.
Because this city was located in a remote area with inconvenient transportation and a high coastline with no port, its development was extremely slow.
After the disaster struck, the good people in this city were terrified. Overwhelmed by fear, they began to frantically slaughter the criminals. At first, the criminals, who had no weapons and were used to being oppressed, suffered many casualties.
Later, the criminals realized that if they did not resist, they would be completely slaughtered by the good people.
In the age of cold weapons, the number of people was an important factor in determining the outcome of a war.
These criminals united and desperately resisted the attacks of the good people, eventually suppressing the good people within the city lord's mansion in the center of the city.
They set fire to the city lord's mansion, burning it to ashes.
All the good people died, and the criminals suffered at least two thousand casualties. It was a pyrrhic victory.
Afterward, they took over the city, elected a new city lord, and under the extremely cold conditions of the end of the world caused by the falling celestial bodies, some of the old, weak, sick, and disabled died, but everyone else survived.
To this day, it still has a scale of more than two thousand people.
The original purpose of building this small city was to provide supplies to a military fortress not far to the north.
This military fortress was a group of castles located on a high mountain.
It was a commanding height, with cliffs on both sides. Only two roads, north and south, could lead to this military fortress, making it extremely easy to defend and difficult to attack.
This was the westernmost end of the many fortress defense lines built by this country to defend against attacks from northern countries.
To break through this place, one could only attack from the southern slope.
This was because the southern slope was gentler and easier to charge.
Secondly, this fortress was mainly to defend against enemies from the north, and all the important fortifications were in the north.
Of course, even the ambitious Ka Lun knew that with their current force of less than a hundred people, it would be a pipe dream to take these two settlements.
Therefore, Ka Lun set his sights on the scattered human settlements.
Ka Lun's strategy was to sustain the war with war. He led Wan Lei, Fang Xiaoyu, Yang Lazi, and others, along with his trained soldiers, to continuously plunder the surrounding human settlements. Once they took one down, Ka Lun would bring all the people and supplies back to the shelter.
His power grew rapidly like a snowball.
But having many people also had many problems. These people were a mixed bag, and all kinds of people were there, so conflicts often broke out.
Whenever a riot broke out, Wan Lei and Fang Xiaoyu would lead the first group of people who had joined to suppress those who were fighting.
This group of people was the strongest and most loyal, and they could easily suppress the conflicts every time.
But after a long time, Ka Lun became impatient. In one conflict, he personally led people to take down the two groups of brawlers, and gathered everyone, and in front of everyone, beheaded all these people as a warning to the others.
Ka Lun's iron fist shocked everyone. The efficiency of these people in training and performing tasks immediately increased several times over.
After more than half a year, all the surrounding human settlements had been swept away, and the base's population had surged to more than 1,800 people, of which more than 1,000 could become soldiers.
Ka Lun was extremely enthusiastic about power, wishing he could do everything himself, and everyone had to obey his orders.
Wan Lei and Fang Xiaoyu still maintained a passer-by mentality, never participating in the struggle for power and profit. They would do things when they needed to be done, and when they didn't, they would go and try to figure out what the answer to the question given by the immortal was.
Because the two were very maverick and had a detached status, they were not inferior to Ka Lun in the shelter. In addition, they often disagreed with Ka Lun, because Ka Lun's methods were becoming more and more ruthless, while the two of them still had a more Buddhist mentality. The two sides had also had several fierce arguments, which made Ka Lun feel dissatisfied.
But this dissatisfaction was only insignificant compared to the long-term friendship and trust between them.
Ka Lun's brainwashing skills were very strong. Under his carrot-and-stick approach, everyone was submissive to him.
To Wan Lei's surprise, even Yang Lazi, who had always been proud and maverick, had been conquered... convinced by Ka Lun. Yang Lazi gradually obeyed Ka Lun's orders and trusted him infinitely, and the way he looked at Ka Lun was fiery.
Several times, Wan Lei went out in the morning and happened to see Yang Lazi coming out of the room next door.
As everyone knows, the room next door to Wan Lei's was Ka Lun's.
Once, Wan Lei asked Ka Lun with great interest how he did it.
Ka Lun put his arms around Wan Lei's shoulders with a smile and said a few words.
Young Master Lei didn't understand.
Now, the shelter was overcrowded, and the stored food was decreasing at a rate visible to the naked eye. If this continued, the shelter would fall into famine in less than two months.
After careful consideration, Ka Lun decided to choose one of the two human settlements to attack.
Most people thought they should attack the city, because the military fortress was not easy to attack, but Ka Lun overrode all opinions and decided to attack the military fortress.
His reasons were sufficient. The military base was indeed easy to defend and difficult to attack, and the casualties would be great if they attacked it head-on, but once they took it down, they would be invincible and could often go down the mountain to plunder the city.
If they took the city, it would be easy to attack but difficult to defend. They would also have to worry about the people in the military fortress coming down to attack. Defense would be extremely difficult, and the later consumption would be great.
Wan Lei supported Ka Lun's view and also believed that they should attack the military fortress.
Among the four giants of the shelter, Wan Lei and Ka Lun agreed. Fang Xiaoyu and Yang Lazi could not possibly have any objections to them, so the matter was settled.