Chapter 249: Putting on a Real Show

Chapter 249: The Play Becomes Real

“Boom!”

“Boom boom boom!”

The roar of a 107 rocket exploded behind the first squad’s position.

Huang Meng swiftly issued orders, reversing the first squad’s line of fire.

The 301 heavy machine gun kept firing, yet what left Huang Meng slightly bewildered was that he could see no trace of any monster.

——

To be precise, it wasn’t that he couldn’t see them.

It was that they were hard to track.

When those creatures moved, the lingering image on his retina would instantly point to their direction.

But when he swung his barrel toward that bearing, all he saw were trembling branches, no shadow of a monster at all!

How the hell do you shoot that?!

The monsters were still beyond safe range, yet anxiety began to gnaw at Huang Meng’s mind.

He set aside his sniper grenade and took up a 201 universal machine gun, crouching, aiming, and fired a burst of probing rounds at every spot where he sensed movement.

Unfortunately, the probe yielded none of the expected results.

The monsters kept closing in.

Advancing in a manner he could not comprehend, they stalked ever nearer!

Instinctively he glanced at the man behind him, Shen Yue, whose expression was equally grave.

He knew what was coming.

Mantis!

The mantises of Chuan Sha City!

Such tactics, such maneuvers—he had seen them a thousand times before.

In that fleeting glimpse he even wondered whether he was in Jinling or in Chuan Sha.

Where on earth did these things come from?!

Honestly, even if they were to arrive, shouldn’t they come from the southwest?

This is the southeast side of Jinling City!

Shen Yue cursed a hundred times under his breath, yet his thoughts remained clear.

He quickly relayed commands to Fuxi and Zhan Liu, reprogramming the intelligent image‑analysis logic—switching contour tracking to motion tracking and making object acceleration the primary filter.

In an instant, the “suspected target” data on the drone feed sharpened dramatically.

It was as if every hue had been stripped away, leaving only a single shade of red.

Red dots flickered across the map, and before long Fuxi had identified more than four hundred targets.

Four hundred!

Shen Yue inhaled a cold breath.

He knew these creatures hunted in packs, but four hundred was still an exaggerated number.

Now his three squads were spaced at least a kilometer apart—classic “no support from either end” situation.

If one position fell under attack, rapid reinforcement from the others was virtually impossible.

Perhaps ordering a rally was the optimal choice.

But the problem was, how could he guarantee the troops wouldn’t be ambushed by monsters bursting out of the forest during the gathering?!

Battlefield decisions often rely on a commander’s intuition, and the accuracy of that intuition reflects the commander’s caliber.

After a brief pause, Shen Gang swiftly issued the orders.

“All squads, move fast! Advance toward the center of the encirclement!”

“Eliminate the last two large monsters, then regroup there and establish a new position!”

“Understood!”

“Copy that!”

At the sound of the command, the three squads sprang into action.

At that moment, Shen Yue could no longer bother with any “script.”

He surged ahead, with Xie Liu and Li Shi close on his heels.

In just two minutes he reached the edge of the woods, less than a hundred meters from two raging monsters.

The weapon mounts unfolded in the next heartbeat.

Two rocket launchers spewed fire, metal‑shaped armor‑piercing rounds struck head‑on! Boom!

The explosions roared, and the monsters toppled to the ground.

They were not yet dead.

Instantly, Li Shi’s 301 heavy machine gun erupted in flame, cleanly severing the neck vertebrae beneath the monsters’ heads.

Meanwhile, Xie Liu spun and, with the poise of a discus thrower, lobbed an anti‑tank mine.

They had scavenged that device back in Tongling City, originally intended as a fixed trap, but now it served as the perfect finishing weapon.

“Boom!”

The blast rang out, and the monsters’ lives faded away.

“Li Shi, Xie Liu! Support the first and third squads, clear monsters along the way!”

“Watch your own safety! Keep an eye on the infrared feed at all times!”

“Got it!”

The two men locked onto their bearings, without hesitation or affectation, and sprinted toward the direction Shen Yue had indicated through his scope.

By now the number of moving targets had swelled from four hundred to over six hundred, and Shen Yue finally caught sight of the first wave of monsters.

The weapon mounts fully deployed; he raised a blast gun identical to the one Chen Jian favored.

The fire‑control system ran at full power, laser radar sweeping a spherical sector, the PDA crunching millimeter‑scale calculations to prioritize, then four direct‑fire cannons unleashed in unison.

Compared with his first arrival in Chuan Sha, Shen Yue and his squad’s firepower had undergone a qualitative leap.

He could, on his own, effortlessly handle no more than twenty mantis beasts.

Yet at this moment, nearly a hundred monsters fell within the fire‑control’s detection range.

He was surrounded on all sides.

Yet he did not move a single step.

On the contrary, he began to drift toward the open ground’s center, intent on drawing as many monsters as possible while evading the imminent crossfire!

10 seconds.

Shen Yue read the positions of the three squads with pinpoint accuracy.

At the same time, Fuxi, in the simplest of words, fed him the most precise tactical directives.

5 seconds.

Shen Yue swapped the grenade launcher’s magazine, snapped the empty‑chamber safety lever, and with a single shot shattered the head of the monster that had already leapt into the air.

In the next instant.

A cascade of gunfire finally rang out at the edge of the woods.

The first to arrive were the interleaving team of Squad Two; though they bore little heavy firepower, their handheld weapons alone swiftly suppressed the mantis assault and carved a passage for their comrades!

"Boom!"

The explosion followed, and the nearer Squad One pressed forward.

The tide had not yet turned, but under the suppressive fire of the two squads, the third squad—tasked with fire support and carrying the heaviest arms—finally broke through.

"Captain! We’ve taken casualties!"

The commander of Squad Three panted, his breath ragged:

"We faced twenty‑something monsters head‑on; the terrain is too cramped!"

"Comrades Xie, Liu, Li, and Shi are ferrying the wounded from the rear; they told us to move on first."

Shen Yue’s gaze shifted in an instant.

In the distant trees, the red dots that marked moving targets had grown so dense they nearly formed a single mass.

Do they still have a chance to break out?

There’s no time to dwell on that.

Shen Yue drew a deep breath, then ordered:

"Rapidly erect a defensive line, establish intersecting fire!"

"No matter how many come, today we will bury them all here!"

(End of chapter)