Chapter 825: Hell and Heaven Are Only Thousands of Kilometers Apart (2/4)

Chapter 825: Hell and Heaven Are Only a Few Thousand Kilometers Apart (2/4)

Ross was stunned for a moment; though his breath still came heavy, the earlier madness had faded.

McLennan continued unhurriedly.

“Don’t you have those ‘Gray Men’ mercenaries… I’ve got a fine idea. Since they’re so bold, let’s see just how bold they really are.”

As he spoke, a cruel grin slowly crept across his taut lips.

Seeing that brutal smile, Ross felt a chill run down his spine.

He understood what this man intended to do.

No wonder he was a brute from the Eastern Legion—his methods of torment were truly out of the ordinary.

But then…

It did sound like a good idea.

A cruel curve gradually lifted the corner of Ross’s mouth as he reached an accord with the devil from the Eastern Legion before him.

Indeed…

Execution by cannon was too merciful for them.

How about pitting them barehanded against mutants?

From what he knew of the Gray Men, those beasts would tear them apart piece by piece, keeping the meat fresh as long as possible…

He no longer wished to treat those on the shore as human; he only wanted to slaughter them in the cruelest way possible!

McLennan’s grin faded as he clapped Ross on the shoulder, then turned his gaze toward the coastline.

“…Even if there’s a single Vallant survivor, we have to rescue them.”

“We’ve vented enough rage. Now it’s time for our boys to take over.”

…

As the gunfire ceased, two transport ships packed with soldiers charged toward the harbor.

The soldiers on deck, their fury pent up, gripped their rifles tightly, aching to devour those beasts on the shore alive!

The “Purge” squads stood at the front, big men in heavy armor wielding flamethrowers and rotary gun barrels.

These giants were Vallants who had failed to Awaken; unstable fragments buried in their DNA granted them extraordinary toughness and strength but robbed them of intellect.

Yet even those simple faces were now etched with bloodthirsty rage.

“Roar—!”

One giant bellowed, lifting his rotary gun barrel half an inch above his knee, unleashing a storm of bullets amid the howling spin!

Pinned down by the torrent of fire, the Tianwang Army soldiers behind cover couldn’t even raise their heads, blindly spraying their rifles over the barriers.

In street fighting, that tactic worked, but from a hundred meters away, the bullets either flew into the sky or struck the ground.

They were utterly useless, wasting nothing but ammunition!

The beachhead fire positions were quickly set up, and the first hundred-man squad split into ten teams, advancing in three waves toward the rubble churned by artillery.

Soon, the ruins echoed with rattling gunfire and the screams of the fallen.

A Vallant soldier shot a Tianwang soldier’s leg through a wall, then, amid the latter’s pleas for mercy, smashed his rifle butt into his forehead.

“Bastard! What kind of skill is it to attack civilians? If you’ve got guts, come at me! Get up!!!”

The man roared, pounding the bloodied face like a pestle until his comrade pulled him behind cover.

“Enough, the beast is dead!”

The other soldier, reloading with practiced ease, his face twisted with hatred, ground out through clenched teeth.

“…There are plenty more alive.”

“Kill!!!”

The Vallant soldiers had gone berserk, killing everyone in sight!

They shot, burned, clubbed, and stabbed!

Trampling through shattered shop windows and streets, they closed in on the Tianwang soldiers, using every method of slaughter!

Faced with these maddened Vallants, the Tianwang soldiers were terrified, their earlier bravado gone.

At first, they tried to fight desperately, but realizing they couldn’t win, they tore off the bandages on their arms, dropped their weapons, and fled for their lives.

Just as they had hastily wrapped those bandages on, now they cast aside that makeshift faith like trash.

In truth, this battle was never evenly matched.

Most of the defenders here were civilians just days ago, barely learning to shoot and aim.

If they had true courage or a faith worth dying for, those flaws might not have been fatal—they could have traded lives.

But clearly, they didn’t.

At least, most of those dying here didn’t.

On the other side stood “gene warriors” bred with technology from the Era of Prosperity!

Not only were these Vallants naturally 20% stronger, tougher, and faster—like having an extra attribute point in strength, endurance, and agility—but these weren’t ordinary Vallants; they were disciplined soldiers!

Though the Legion’s proportion of Awakened wasn’t as exaggerated as the Alliance’s dozens of regiments, they too had crawled through hellfire.

And these thugs, who only dared strike at the weak, were no match for such demons!

Watching the Tianwang soldiers flee with tails between their legs, the blood-crazed Vallants roared in pursuit, firing and shouting.

“The hell… weren’t you so tough? Why run? Come on! Pick up your guns!”

Bullets whistled behind them; the Tianwang soldiers, having torn off their armbands, dared not stop, scattering through the ruins like frantic rats.

Two decimated ten-man squads were herded into a two-story house with a collapsed upper floor.

Terrified, they instinctively aimed at each other, nearly starting a friendly fire.

Just then, the Vallants reached the door. Panicking, they dragged a cabinet from the glass-strewn room to block the door and front windows, then hung a white cloth on a broken chair leg and thrust it outside.

“We surrender!”

“Sir, sir… we won’t dare again! Spare us!!”

“We’re… we’re from the city defense force! We’re not with them—Yanush forced us to fight you!”

The two soldiers at the door exchanged glances, grinning cruelly. One pulled out a grenade, but the other stopped him, patting the white phosphorus grenade on his belt.

“Use this.”

Pulling the pin, the soldier by the door pried open a crack in the sealed window, tossed the device inside, then pulled the barricade tight.

A cacophony of strange cries erupted from the room, like rats in a flooded burrow.

Brilliant, deadly flames bloomed like fireworks, dragging trails of acrid smoke as they danced, igniting everything flammable inside.

Screams of agony filled the room; the burning Tianwang soldiers tried to shove the cabinet aside, but those at the door kicked them back into the inferno.

The screams rose and fell across the battlefield.

This could no longer be called a battle; it was a one-sided slaughter...

As the Verlanders landed one after another, the carnage stretched from early morning until noon before finally drawing to a close.

When McCullen and Ross stepped onto the harbor, the entire dock was nearly stained red with blood.

In the end, the Verlanders suffered nearly a hundred casualties, while the twenty thousand Heavenly King’s soldiers defending the port had nearly five thousand killed, with most of the rest fleeing into the various districts of the settlement to hide.

West Sailport was once a gathering place of a million souls, and even after the upheaval caused by the Heavenly King’s forces, some seven or eight hundred thousand remained.

Ross first reported the situation to Eternal Night Port, called for reinforcements and supplies, then dispatched three hundred-man squads to seal off the main exits from the settlement, issuing a stern order: “Anyone daring to approach the checkpoint will be shot on sight.”

Blood debts must be repaid in blood.

Their revenge had only just begun...

...

Like other high-ranking officers of the Heavenly King’s forces stationed in the settlement, the Chiliarch Imran had no chance to flee the city or even hide himself before he was dragged back to the place where he had once fought.

To be precise, he was handed over willingly by the residents of West Sailport.

Those bloodthirsty Verlanders had terrified everyone, and no one dared to shelter this man.

He knelt on the stone tiles of the harbor.

Imran, his lips trembling, looked up at the two Verlander officers standing before him, trying to beg for mercy.

“M-my lord...”

“I, I was forced too... That night had nothing to do with me! It was all that man named Yanush... They were the ones looting the port district! I, I can help you—”

McCullen didn’t even glance at this beaten dog; he simply took the cigar from his mouth and blew out a smoke ring.

Then, suddenly, he reached out, grabbed the man’s head, and viciously ground the burning tip of the cigar into his left eye, twisting it hard.

“Sizzle—”

“Aaaah!!!”

A pig-like scream echoed through the room, instantly drowning out the sizzling sound of the Maillard reaction.

Only when the oozing blood extinguished the cigar’s flame did McCullen toss the bloodstained cigar into the sea, then grab the man by the hair and lift his head.

“Did I ask you?”

Imran, his face covered in blood, trembled and convulsed as if electrocuted, gasping for air in great gulps like a dead fish thrown onto the shore.

“You still have one eye left,” McCullen said, staring into that remaining eye, enunciating each word. “I ask, you answer. Understand?”

“Yes... yes! Oh no, I understand! I understand, my lord!” Imran nodded his feeble head with all his remaining strength.

McCullen threw him to the ground in disgust, watching the man squirm like a maggot, and coldly asked all the questions he wanted answered.

Including who had been involved that night, the masterminds, how many had died, how they died, and how many had survived.

Everything he knew, Imran poured out in a torrent.

Having gotten the information he needed, McCullen nodded, then swiftly drew his sidearm and, with a “bang,” fired into that stunned face.