The air in the 13th Street was thick with the suffocating smell of sulfur and motor oil.

  The Guild's drones hovered above like tireless vultures, broadcasting the cold countdown on loop. The red holographic numbers "12:00:00" were projected onto the walls of every abandoned building. With each second that ticked away, it felt like a hammer blow to everyone's heart.

  "Damn it! Where's the welding torch? Miller! Where the hell is your acetylene tank?!"

  Behind the ruins at the street entrance, Veteran Harry, leaning on his cane, shouted louder than anyone. Sweat poured down his face as he directed several usually idle young men to move sandbags.

  Miller, the black-hearted old mechanic, crawled out from under a scrapped garbage truck, his face smeared with grease. He pushed his goggles up, revealing bloodshot eyes.

  "Stop rushing me! I'm turning a garbage truck into a tank here!" Miller cursed as he rolled the acetylene tank over. "I even ripped the exhaust pipes off my Harley and welded them on! They're packed with old batteries and compressed oxygen tanks. If they dare ram us, this thing is a five-ton roadside bomb!"

  Behind Miller, the once lively alley had transformed into a chaotic yet efficient assembly line.

  Sarah, the underground bar owner, had lost her usual flirtatious demeanor. Her hair was tied back messily, and the bar counter was covered with glass bottles scavenged from every household, cheap liquor, and gasoline stolen from the station.

  "Add soap powder! More of it! It makes the fire stick to armor!"

  Sarah shouted as she deftly filled bottles. Beside her, a group of aunties who usually haggled over vegetable prices were tearing up old bedsheets for fuses. Their hands trembled, but they didn't stop.

  "This is everything we have left," Sarah gritted her teeth, shoving a Molotov cocktail into a crate. "No drinks tonight. We're serving those bastards a big one!"

  [Clinic Second Floor, Temporary War Room]

  It was chaos.

  Blueprints flew everywhere, data cables tangled around table legs like spiderwebs. John Doe's hair was a bird's nest, his eyes red. He wasn't standing by the window pondering like a general; he was hunched over the table, furiously punching a calculator, sweat dripping from his nose onto the Yin-Yang iPad screen.

  "Not enough... still not enough! It doesn't add up!"

  John tore at his hair, his voice hoarse.

  "Bone! Stop polishing that broken axe! Go count how many painkillers and bandages we have left! Grace! Is the enemy firepower analysis done? Don't tell me they have those damn heavy mechs!"

  "Boss, calm down!" Grace's projection flickered on the messy table. She was wearing a battlefield camouflage skin, her small face full of anxiety. "Thermal scans show at least three heavy infantry companies on the perimeter, and... two siege-class 'Behemoth' self-propelled artillery. That firepower can plow through us three times over!"

  "Two Behemoths..."

  John looked at the golden number in the top right corner of the iPad screen: [6.975].

  Less than seven thousand.

  This was like bringing a fruit knife to a fight against an aircraft carrier fleet.

  "Can we summon General Zhao Yun again?" Bone leaned in, asking hopefully. "Or that Spartan King? Even for a few minutes?"

  "Summon my ass!"

  John slammed the calculator on the table, pointing at the price list on the screen and roaring.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  "Look closely! Zhao Yun, Leonidas, Xiang Yu... these S-Class combat heroes start at 10.000! And that's per minute! With our money, summoning them would just be hearing a sound effect before we go bankrupt!"

  "Those are nuclear weapons that burn money by the second! We can't even afford the gas!"

  John felt like his head was going to explode.

  Poverty.

  This bone-deep poverty, at this life-or-death moment, was more despairing than enemy fire. He had to scrape a path to survival out of a limited budget.

  He took a deep breath, forcing himself to restart calculations on a piece of paper scribbled with mess.

  "Only one principle: Cheap, Useful, Cost-Effective!"

  John's finger swiped frantically through the iPad's [Hero Library (Low Energy Zone)].

  "First, we must have a doctor."

  John wrote [Medical] heavily on the paper.

  "Dr. Hua Tuo is too hard to book, and his acupuncture is too slow for this kind of bullet-rain battlefield. We need a 'Battlefield Angel' who can stop bleeding quickly over a large area, boost morale, and doesn't need expensive herbs."

  He filtered the conditions: [AOE Healing], [Iron Will], [Self-Sufficient Kit].

  A name popped up.

  "Florence Nightingale. The Lady with the Lamp." John checked the price. "Summoning cost 2500. comes with 'Absolute Sterile Field' and 'Iron Will Aura'. As long as she's there, survival rate goes up by 50%. This money must be spent!"

  John circled it on the paper. 2500 deducted. Balance remaining: 4475.

  "Next is Air Defense."

  John looked at the gloomy sky outside. The Guild's drone swarms were the biggest threat. If they couldn't deal with them, the ground defense, no matter how strong, was just a target.

  "Red Baron is too expensive, and the terrain here is too complex for flight. We need someone with strong single-target combat ability, effective against air, and cheap..."

  His finger stopped on an Eastern name.

  "Li Bai. The Green Lotus Sword Immortal."

  "Boss, isn't he a poet?" Bone asked, confused.

  "He's a swordsman! And a lunatic whose combat power doubles when he drinks!" John gritted his teeth. "His 'Green Lotus Sword Song' is an anti-air weapon, sword qi everywhere. The most crucial part... his appearance fee is only 1500. plus a pot of good wine!"

  "Bone! Go dig up that jar of aged Erguotou Old Wang left behind!"

  "You got it!"

  Balance remaining: 2975.

  "Finally... we need Crowd Control."

  John looked at the remaining balance of less than three thousand, caught in the toughest decision.

  Head-on confrontation was impossible. The enemy's firepower was too strong; even with the neighbors' homemade bombs, they couldn't hold. They had to muddy the waters and disable the enemy's high-tech weapons.

  "Fog? No, too expensive. Jammer? That's Grace's job, but she lacks computing power."

  John's eyes wandered to the [Special Items Zone] and suddenly spotted an inconspicuous option.

  It wasn't a Heroic Spirit, but a [One-Time Environment Card].

  Name: London Smog

  Effect: Creates a toxic, thick fog covering the entire sector. Visibility drops to zero, blocks most electronic signals, and inflicts continuous 'Suffocation' and 'Panic' Debuffs on enemies.

  Price: 2000 Merit Points.

  "This is it!" John slammed the table. "If we can't beat them, drag everyone into the mud! In the fog, their artillery is blind, but we know the terrain!"

  Balance remaining: 975.

  This little bit was kept as a reserve fund, or to buy some lubricant for Bone, or quick-acting heart pills for himself.

  "This is everything."

  John looked at the shabby, pathetic battle plan, feeling like a madman trying to put out a volcano with a broken fan.

  "Battlefield Medical, Single-Target Anti-Air, Environmental Control."

  "No tanks, no heavy artillery, no reinforcements."

  "Boss..." Grace's voice trembled. "Can this work?"

  John looked up, a fierce glint in his bloodshot eyes.

  "It has to work."

  He grabbed the scalpel from the table, tucked it into his waist, and picked up the fox mask.

  "Let's go."

  "Where?"

  "To the front line. To tell everyone... our 'reinforcements' are coming."

  John pushed open the door and rushed into the noisy, chaotic, yet vitality-filled ruins.

  Downstairs, on the playground of the Ruins Elementary School.

  Confucius wasn't holding a book as usual. He had taken off his green tracksuit jacket, revealing muscles like granite, and held a steel bar as thick as a wrist.

  Dozens of children stood before him, holding wooden sticks and iron bars, their small faces tense.

  "The Master said: 'To see what is right and not do it is want of courage'!"

  Confucius shouted, swinging the steel bar down with a whistling sound.

  "It means—"

  The children shouted in unison, their immature voices echoing over the ruins with a touching killing intent:

  "—If you see these bad guys and don't fight, you're a coward! Beat them to death!"

  "Good!" Confucius nodded with satisfaction, his gaze sweeping over the children who were barely as tall as a table. "Remember the footwork I taught you! If you can't beat them, run, drill into holes, throw lime! We don't talk martial ethics, we only talk survival!"

  On the other side, Uncle George pushed his hotdog cart to the intersection, piling gas tanks underneath. Auntie Mary held scissors, distributing strips of cloth soaked in chili water (as makeshift gas masks) to a group of women.

  The whole street was like a rusty, broken, yet frantically running meat grinder.

  John stood at the second-floor railing, watching it all.

  His hands were still shaking, but his heart slowly settled.

  "Grace, countdown."

  "Time until ultimatum expires: 00:15:00."

  "Fifteen minutes."

  John put on the fox mask, covering his pale but determined face.

  "Enough."

  "Prepare to receive guests."

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