Chapter 599: Street Fighting in Jinhe City!

Chapter 599: Street Fighting in Jinhe City!

What Ga'en had not anticipated was that the Alliance's high-intensity offensive would last a full three days.

During those three days, light infantry armed with rifles infiltrated the city from several northern entrances, engaging in fierce firefights with his tribesmen in the streets, alleys, and stairwells of abandoned buildings.

Both sides suffered considerable casualties during this time.

According to reports from his warriors, over a thousand tribesmen had already died in the street battles with the Human Alliance soldiers, among them not a few big brutes who had undergone cybernetic modifications.

Of course, the Alliance's casualties were equally heavy.

Corpses piled up like small hills at the mouths of alleys, and blood stained nearly the entire road red.

Yet those people seemed utterly unafraid, charging forward headlong, firing their weapons and shouting incomprehensible words as they howled.

To be honest, Ga'en was somewhat bewildered.

If it were just the survivors of Jinhe City, that might be one thing—perhaps one day those sheep would suddenly snap, hate them to the bone, and throw away their own lives to kill them. That wasn't entirely impossible.

But the problem was those madmen from the north... He didn't recall ever actively provoking them, did he?

Except for that time at Dust Town.

But that settlement wasn't Alliance territory either, was it?

Just as Ga'en was feeling troubled, the tent flap was pushed aside, and a burly mutant with a back like a bear walked in, clasping his fists in salute.

"My lord."

This man was named Delu, a warrior personally named by Ga'en and also the tribe's thousand-man commander.

When the Alliance forces attacked, his tribe was the first to engage them, and the combat zone was precisely the area where his tribe was stationed, so Ga'en ordered him to serve as the frontline commander.

For mutants, it didn't really matter who commanded.

After all, most of the time, those green-skinned beasts didn't have the concept of following orders in their heads—just hand them weapons, tell them where the enemy was, and that was it.

So even if the appointment of a commander was a bit hasty, it had little effect on the mutants of the Qi tribe.

Ga'en looked at Delu standing in the tent and spoke slowly with a dignified expression.

"What is it?"

Facing the tribe's chieftain, Delu reported in a rumbling voice.

"The Alliance's offensive has slowed down—both their firepower and manpower are much less than on the first day. From this morning until noon, we have repelled three of their attacks, and our positions have not budged an inch... I can feel that they are about to give out."

Ga'en's heart leaped with joy at these words, but his face remained impassive. He merely curled his lips coldly and said with a hint of sarcasm.

"These weaklings—can't even last three days?"

He had actually thought slightly better of them before.

It seemed he had overestimated them.

Delu nodded and continued in his rumbling tone.

"Chieftain, I believe now is the perfect opportunity for us to counterattack. If we strike with all our might and retake the positions they captured earlier, those weak two-legged beasts will surely lose the will to fight any longer!"

Ga'en pondered for a moment and felt there was some truth to his words.

They had already inflicted enough casualties on the Alliance, and the softening of their offensive was the best proof.

Now, if they could just muster a little more strength and tear a gap in the enemy's crumbling line, they would soon flee the city like a bursting dam.

With that thought, Ga'en hesitated no longer and immediately spoke.

"I'll give you thirty armed vehicles, a thousand brothers, and twenty tons of ammunition. Make sure you retake the positions we lost yesterday before sunset!"

Hearing this, Delu's face lit up with joy, his caterpillar-like eyebrows relaxing. He clasped his fists tightly and pledged his loyalty.

"As you command! Delu will not disappoint the chieftain's expectations!"

"Repay me with the heads of those two-legged beasts," Ga'en said, his eyes fixed on Delu before him, a cruel grin spreading across his lips. "Go now. I want to see their heads piled into a mountain."

Delu respectfully acknowledged the order.

"Yes!"

...

On the other side, in the northern district of Jinhe City.

Beside a half-collapsed elevated road bridge, the Silver Corps, which had pushed deep into the mutant front lines, was engaged in fierce combat with the mutants stationed in the area.

Compared to the overwhelming offensive of the frontline legions, the Silver Corps—which had long been a mere spectator—naturally performed much worse.

But this couldn't really be blamed on the three clowns, Silver Sword, Silver Hand, and Silver Dad; it was mainly because their corps had too many newbies.

As long as someone met the standards to join a death corps and there was an open slot, newbies basically never chose to join their corps.

Big corps not only had veteran players to guide them but also offered more benefits. Small corps had nothing, and on top of that, they often had cliquish bad habits.

Not to mention that the corps leader was called Silver Dad—if you joined, wouldn't you be stuck with an extra dad out of nowhere?

Thinking of this, Silver Sword gritted his teeth in frustration.

That bastard had promised before creating his account to be everyone's shield, but then he turned around and changed "shield" to "dad."

Was that something a human would do?

Of course, he himself wasn't exactly honest either. He had originally said he would train as an agility build, but after seeing everyone on the forums praising strength builds as beasts, he instantly chose strength.

In the end, only Silver Hand was the honest one.

Just then, Silver Dad, pinned down by fire, shouted loudly.

"Old Sword! The machine gun up ahead is too intense! Think of something!"

"Damn it, why don't you think of something yourself?!"

"I'm pinned down here!"

"%￥#@!"

A light machine gun was mounted on a broken window, rattling away at the Silver Corps' position, pinning down several newbies who had barely managed to advance behind a fallen billboard on the road. Silver Dad was the one leading them.

From a hundred meters away, the players couldn't see where the mutant was, and the mutant couldn't see them either, just spraying wildly based on where his teammates were shouting.

When it came to street fighting, these mutants had some skill. Though they looked dull, they were not sloppy in certain tactical details.

But—

Their opponents were clearly no pushovers either.

Leading a four-man squad, Silver Sword gritted his teeth and circled around to the flank of the firing position, about fifty or sixty meters away, crouching beside a broken wall.

He roughly estimated the distance.

He took the RPG launcher off his back, quickly loaded a fragmentation grenade, aimed at the muzzle flash flickering in the thick fog, and pulled the trigger.

"RPG!"

He bellowed, pouring strength into the rocket as it trailed white smoke, watching it blast into the barely visible window.

An orange-yellow flash of fire flickered in the fog, and he vaguely saw something blown out.

The machine gun fell silent.

The troops behind could finally continue advancing.

Silver Sword, excited, was about to pump his fist, but as he turned back, he saw a rookie lying flat on the ground in a big "X" shape.

His eyes widened, and he quickly crouched down to pat the guy's face.

"What the hell?! What's wrong, bro?"

The man was still out cold; the two rookies beside him exchanged a glance, and one of them said with a wry smile.

"He... got hit by the backblast from your rocket launcher."

The other nodded and added.

"Right in the forehead, I even heard a 'bang'."

Silver Sword almost choked on his own spit, just as the guy on the ground finally stirred awake.

Seeing the dazed look on his face, he said with a mix of exasperation and amusement.

"Seriously, bro... this is a recoilless rifle, why the hell were you standing behind me?!"

It was a miracle he wasn't blown away.

The guy on the ground scratched the back of his head sheepishly and let out a silly chuckle.

"I-I just wanted to learn how to aim this thing."

"Pfft—"

Silver Sword was about to chew him out when a bright headlight suddenly flared in the distance.

A wide truck cab, wrapped in wire, burst out of the fog with a deafening engine roar.

Seeing the six-barreled rotary gun barrel aimed straight from the roof and the green, scarred face behind the welded steel plates, Silver Sword's expression shifted instantly.

"Scatter!"

He barely got the shout out before a hail of bullets swept over them. Two of the four-man squad were blown into bloody chunks, silenced instantly as they splattered against a scrap car shell behind them.

Silver Sword broke out in a cold sweat.

A dozen tracer rounds zipped past, grazing his arm.

Luckily, he reacted fast, throwing himself through a broken window and hiding inside a storefront on the street side.

The rookie who had been lying on the ground survived by a fluke, crawling into the display window with a face smeared in gore and blood.

Spitting out a bloody wad, the rookie said with a wry grin.

"Bro, weren't we supposed to be racking up easy kills?"

He felt like...

They were fighting way too hard.

"I..."

Silver Sword was both annoyed and amused, at a loss for words.

That line was indeed what their battalion commander had said, no mistake.

But he hadn't expected these new guys to have zero common sense—complete 99k pure rookies!

He couldn't really blame the guy, so he held back his temper and patiently reassured him.

"Can't help it, we just happened to hit the most heavily fortified line. Once we get past this, it'll be smoother."

Still, to be fair, the mutants in Jinhe City were different from elsewhere—not just their fierce automatic firepower, but also their welded-steel-plate-modified vehicles.

Though the roads in the city were in terrible shape, these green-skinned beasts had lived here for years and knew every passable route like the back of their hand, their vehicles always popping up out of nowhere.

Add to that the fog grounding air support, and they had to rely on portable anti-tank weapons to engage.

Word had it the Skeleton Corps was on its way from Dawn City.

Once the Alliance's armored units arrived, the push should face less resistance.

The rookie, surprisingly sensible, nodded excitedly.

"Got it, bro! I trust you!"

Honestly, though it was tough fighting alongside this guy, he found it thrilling.

Ignoring the dead weight, Silver Sword tapped his VM, clicked his earpiece, and shouted.

"...Silver Hand, Silver Dad, this is Silver Sword! An off-road vehicle just passed us—might be heading for your flank."

"That thing's got heavy firepower, watch out!"

The comm channel only crackled, with no response for a long while.

Sensing something wrong, Silver Sword quickly opened his contact list and saw the no-signal icon. He cursed and cut the call.

"Damn it!"

The rookie swallowed and asked.

"What now?"

"Signal jamming! Bet that vehicle's got a mobile jammer or something!"

Silver Sword grabbed his RPG tube, stepped over the glass-littered display window, and glared in the direction the vehicle had gone, grinding his teeth.

"We've got to catch it!"

With his sole remaining teammate, Silver Sword chased the off-road's exhaust fumes, heading toward the Silver Corps' main position.

But no matter how fast, two legs couldn't outrun four spinning wheels—catching up was impossible.

And then—

A gruesome scene unfolded.

The Silver Corps was locked in fierce combat with mutants from behind street cover when an off-road vehicle suddenly burst into their rear flank.

Before anyone could react, the rotary gun opened up with a rattling burst. Silver Dad barely had time to yell "Run!" before he was shredded into pulp.

"Dad!!!" Silver Sword roared in grief, hoisted the RPG from the ground, and fired a round.

The smoke-trailing rocket slammed straight into the welded steel plate in front of the rotary gun.

The explosive metal jet splattered across the mutant's face; the guy, smoke rising from his head, howled and tumbled off the off-road.

But soon, a strong right hand reached out from the cabin, grabbed the half-shielded machine gun, and kept spraying the Silver Corps' position.

The screaming tracers whipped up a gale in the thick fog. Caught under fire from two directions, the Silver Corps quickly took heavy losses.

And with the jammer vehicle, they couldn't call for indirect fire from the Steel Heart or close air support.

Seeing the mutant tide surging in, Silver Hand, still on the front line, rushed to pick up the megaphone Silver Dad had dropped and yelled.

"Retreat! Retreat!"

This was probably the Alliance's only retreat in three days.

But he had no choice.

Failing to stop the enemy vehicle was a tactical error, but even without it, they couldn't have held out much longer.

It was obvious that the enemy was concentrating their numerical advantage to launch a counterattack, and had chosen this spot as the breakthrough point to turn the tide of battle.

This was a strategic decision.

If they didn’t retreat, everyone would be finished here, and the outcome wouldn’t change a thing.

Hearing the shouts from the position, the rookie following behind Silver Sword swallowed hard.

“Should we pull back too?”

Silver Sword looked up at the sky and sighed, then suddenly shoved his VM, RPG launcher, and the ammunition pouch strapped to his back all into the rookie’s arms.

Taking the pile of gear, the rookie stared at him in bewilderment.

“Buddy, what are you doing?”

“Take the VM back for me. The rest—keep them for fun.”

“Then… what about you?”

“… See you in three days!”

Silver Sword chambered a round in his rifle, stepped forward with tragic resolve, leaving the rookie with a towering silhouette.

For three days, the Alliance’s front had been pushing forward—only here had they been driven back. Even if it was understandable, he simply couldn’t face his brothers again.

“Long live the Alliance!!”

Don’t think you’ll take this position while I’m still alive!

He charged, shouting, toward the tide of mutants surging in like a flood. Soon, a thunderous explosion rang out, and he vanished into the vast sea of smoke…

The rookie stood dumbfounded, his eyes slowly filling with emotion.

“Good brother…”

Next time, I swear I won’t screw you over!

Not daring to linger, he hurried back toward the rear position.

Not far from him, Hengchi of the Qi tribe stared at the scattered flesh on the ground, his heart pounding violently.

He had watched that human charge out of the mist, kill his tent-mates, and then detonate the bomb strapped to himself.

Hot blood splattered across his face and trickled into the corner of his mouth.

For the first time, the food that usually made him drool felt scalding, so much so that he instinctively spat out the mouthful of blood.

Just then, Hengchi saw their leader, Delu, step forward, raise his rifle high, and roar in a coarse voice.

“Victory!”

The entire street erupted in deafening cheers.

“Victory!!”

“Oooh!”

After losing two kilometers of ground in three days, they had finally fought a satisfying victory, reclaiming a street from the Alliance.

Even if that street was only a dozen meters wide and a hundred meters long.

Both the fresh-faced grunts just sent to the front and the veterans who had crawled through the trenches for three days were ecstatic.

Yet there was no joy in Hengchi’s heart. He felt these humans were different from the ones he had eaten before.

Still, watching his excited, howling brothers, he joined in the roar, venting his unease through the noise.

Would it really go that smoothly?

He didn’t know.

But this was a war for survival—a war between species.

There was no other path left…

…

On the afternoon of the third day of the Alliance’s ground offensive against the mutant tribes in Jinshui City, the mutants, who had been cowering behind their defenses, finally launched their first large-scale counterattack.

Every sector of the Alliance’s front line came under heavy pressure.

After a concentrated assault, the Qi tribe’s forces finally tore a gap in the Alliance’s line.

But the total collapse of the defense that Delu and Ga’en had anticipated did not happen.

Almost at the same moment the breach appeared, the Alliance, with astonishing speed and skill, pulled back their line and established a new offensive position near an abandoned department store.

They seemed to have prepared for this, even predicting where trouble might strike.

Silver Hand crouched sullenly behind a newly built barricade of sandbags.

Both of his good brothers were dead. His entire regiment, counting the rookie, had fewer than ten men left, so they were temporarily tagging along with the Burning Regiment.

Beside him, Jie Yan, who had quit smoking, chuckled and teased.

“You guys are seriously unlucky. Those beasts were just looking to save face, and they picked you to take it out on.”

“Ah!”

Silver Hand sighed and deftly shifted the blame.

“It’s all those rookies’ fault for feeding themselves to the enemy! If I saw such a soft target lying around, I’d pick it up and squeeze it too.”

The newcomer who had barely survived with him overheard and immediately took offense.

“Damn! How is that our fault? Who was it that bragged about carrying us?”

“Yeah!” chimed in another guy with his arm in a sling.

Ignoring his own men’s complaints, Silver Hand pretended nothing had happened and looked at Jie Yan, who was stifling a laugh.

“So, when are we hitting back? Those fucking beasts dared to counterattack—they must be tired of living!”

Jie Yan smiled.

“No rush. Our CO and the other regiments have agreed: since they’re confident enough to come back, we’ll give them a little taste of success first.”

Silver Hand looked puzzled.

“Why not just steamroll them in one go?”

Jie Yan shook his head.

“These guys aren’t like raiders. They’re something between mutants and raiders—vicious and cunning. If we push too fast, they’ll just hide in cover and never come out. The deeper we go, the harder it gets. Better to pull back a bit, give them some hope, and then lure the pigs in for the slaughter!”

Silver Hand’s eyes lit up.

“That’s a great idea! Which sneaky bastard came up with it?”

What a dirty trick!

Jie Yan chuckled.

“Who in our regiment do you think fits that description best?”

Silver Hand grinned.

“Got it.”

At that moment, Fang Chang, who was studying a map on the front line, sneezed, and a faint warmth stirred in his heart.

It must be dear Dolly thinking of her.

When this battle is over, I must go back and spend time with her...

...

At the same time, on the bridge of the Steel Heart.

Chu Guang, standing before the floor-to-ceiling window, was overlooking the hazy battlefield through several holographic screens.

In three days, although the Alliance's front line had advanced only two kilometers, and had even retreated a few hundred meters just now, the casualties inflicted on the mutant's effective strength were astonishing.

According to the report compiled by Xiao Qi, as of now, they had killed a total of 1,207 mutant soldiers, of which 411 were cybernetic mutants, and had recovered 217 modified cybernetic parts, which were sent to Boulder Military Industry for analysis and research.

In addition, a total of 219 prisoners held captive by the mutants had been rescued, and were currently housed in the operations base beneath the Steel Heart.

A few of these people were wastelanders, but most were residents of nearby settlements like Pinecone Farm, and they were severely addicted to Nagu, each one like a puppet with its strings cut—just looking at them sent chills down one's spine.

Setting aside the matter of the prisoners for now, the kill count of mutants was still rising, and some unconfirmed kills were yet to be verified, to be tallied only after the front line advanced.

From the current perspective, most of the kills were contributed by veteran players, while the newbies who had joined the game in the past two months mostly just went up to join the fray.

However, Chu Guang did not consider this a meaningless sacrifice.

Rather, it was precisely because the newbies kept throwing themselves into death that the mutants developed the illusion of 'I can counterattack.'

Thus, even while suffering such heavy casualties, they still maintained an aggressive combat strategy in defense, even bravely charging at the positions the Alliance had established within the city.

In the eyes of those creatures, the Alliance's offensive was probably already at its last gasp.

After all, the number of newbies participating on the third day was indeed much fewer than on the first day.

Watching the city district flickering with firelight beyond the window, a faint smile tugged at the corner of Chu Guang's mouth.

Tomorrow would be the fourth day, and those who had fallen on the first day would soon begin to resurrect one after another, and they would resurrect with the experience of death and the hatred of withdrawal symptoms.

Soon these green-skinned beasts would realize how foolish their confidence was, and the large-scale offensive from three days ago would soon come again.

And this time—

The nightmare truly begins!

Xiao Qi, sitting on Chu Guang's shoulder, propped her chin on her hand and muttered a quiet complaint.

"Master, you look like a villain when you smile."

Chu Guang casually replied.

"It doesn't matter, I'm smiling at the window. No one can see me anyway."

"I-I see."

Xiao Qi, surprised, couldn't help but secretly admire him, her eyes sparkling as she looked at his profile, becoming even more adoring.

As expected of Master.

He even planned out such trivial details!

That's just too meticulous!