CHAPTER 358: CHAPTER 12: THE END_2

The only thing that could confirm his identity was his half-blood-splattered face, glued as if with adhesive to the shattered car window, with a twisted expression frozen in deathly fear and despair.

Sani wandered like a disillusioned specter, continuing his slow walk through this land of death.

He saw more familiar or unfamiliar companions, lying haphazardly in pools of blood like harvested wheat, long devoid of life.

The air was thick with the pungent smell of gunpowder and the sickening scent of blood. The few who survived clasped their heads with their hands, prone and motionless on the ground, their eyes vacant as they awaited whatever fate would befall them.

Alas... Sani could no longer go on, conceding his own defeat. He resolutely drew his pistol, intending to end his life.

But just then, the sound of vehicles came from the direction of town. Over a dozen modified pickups raced in and screeched to a halt before the burning road.

The black man, Omar, hung from a pickup and leaped down as it stopped. Clutching a random stick he had found, he roared fiercely, "You vile and ignorant fools, you must surrender now..."

Sani never thought highly of this black man. Having already decided on suicide, he cared little for any plea, mocking instead, "Black men are unreliable..."

Omar stepped forward, swung his stick, and with a whoosh, struck Sani on the head, shouting, "Shut up, from now on you’re a white slave, and I will be your overseer."

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The smoke had yet to fully clear, with the smell of char and blood still lingering in the air. Only half an hour after the battle had ended, Zhou Qingfeng’s figure already appeared on the war-torn road.

This attack came suddenly and ended just as swiftly and brutally.

The attacking convoy was entirely suppressed by six low-flying "Warthogs."

The dozen or so heavy machine guns on board were not particularly powerful, but the rain of bullets they unleashed was devastating, tearing the convoy trying to approach Avoni Town to shreds and reducing them to burning heaps of scrap iron.

The camp’s trucks soon arrived, unloading a batch of "basic laborers." They operated seized tractors, towing the wreckage blocking the road to the side, clearing a barely passable path.

Afterward, they silently operated excavators, picked up shovels and spades, and dug simple graves along the roadside to hastily bury the lifeless bodies.

When tallying the prisoners, the number was indeed significant, exceeding over one hundred and fifty people, most of whom were white. How to deal with them posed a troubling issue.

Releasing them was certainly not an option.

Detaining them in the camp was akin to planting unstable bombs. Executing them all would be too wasteful from a labor requirement perspective.

After brief discussions, Kongges offered an unexpected suggestion—the camp currently faced a severe labor shortage, so why not control these prisoners and use them as white slaves?

Kongges himself being white, his suggestion genuinely surprised the "Holy Light" team.

Facing the group’s puzzled looks, he candidly smiled and explained, "I’m saving them. If it were up to Victor, he’d probably have already ordered them all shot."

As for how to "control and use" these prisoners, Kongges proposed a simple and brutal method—to manage them as prisoners.

He mentioned the ankle bracelets used by the police on some parolees, shackles that, once worn, were difficult to break by normal means.

Connecting two ankle bracelets with a chain could create a lightweight yet effective shackle, significantly limiting the prisoners’ mobility.

"Won’t they try to escape?" someone asked.

Kongges shrugged, "What prisoner doesn’t want to escape? They’ll definitely try. If they run, we’ll just catch them since we have cars."

But then he shifted his tone, speaking earnestly, "However, we need to clearly inform them of their sentence—one year, three years, or five years.

We must give the slaves some hope, otherwise, they’d either take desperate measures and revolt, or despair and commit suicide. As long as the camp can provide basic living conditions, they wouldn’t dare easily escape for a short time to survive."

As for the specific management work, Kongges offered to take full responsibility.

Zhou Qingfeng and Xiao Jinlang discussed it and found the situation rather helpless. In a post-apocalyptic world, there seemed to be no perfect solution.

After weighing the pros and cons, they ultimately decided to temporarily adopt Kongges’s suggestion, setting the prisoners’ "sentence" to one year and reassessing the situation after that.

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The next task was to plunder, to take in all resources from the surrounding towns...

The survivors of the recent attack encompassed nearly all young men capable of wielding weapons around Avoni Town. Their annihilation left the nearby four or five small towns in a sudden power vacuum.

Undoubtedly, those towns held a wealth of supplies desperately hoarded by other survivors and people pitifully clinging to life.

A simple interrogation revealed that among them were young women urgently "in need of care."

One significant reason the "Holy Light" team ventured out of their shelter was to address the worsening "gender imbalance" issue within.

The number of women sheltered in Avoni Town was pitifully small, less than ten, which for the team’s internal distribution was like a drop in the bucket, far from satisfying the restless desires.