Chapter 501: Chapter 30: Celestial Gate Falls (Part 2)
The soldier was terrified upon seeing this and shouted into the communicator, "Control room, a giant beast is charging towards us! Get the big guns out quickly!"
The control room had already spotted the colossal creature.
Giant beasts are extremely rare, and because their massive bodies consume a lot of energy, they mostly remain dormant and only awaken to hunt for food. It’s even rarer for them to approach the Patrol Station.
Nevertheless, the Patrol Station had contingencies for such situations.
Normally, they would turn off the searchlights to avoid attracting the giant beast’s attention and let it wander off on its own.
If confrontation was unavoidable, the ultimate weapon of the Patrol Station would be activated.
"Attention all departments, a giant beast is approaching. According to the Patrol Station defense act, the plasma railgun will be activated. The energy network of the Patrol Station will become unstable, so please shut down important equipment immediately to prevent voltage damage."
Under the warning from the control room, the wall tower in the middle section of the Patrol Station began to slide open to the sides, with a gigantic cannon slowly rising from within.
This plasma railgun was supported by a thick metal framework atop the wall, resembling a tower reaching into the clouds, its metal surface reflecting the blaze of the surrounding crossfire.
Under the control of the personnel in the control room, the plasma railgun began to calibrate, aiming at the giant ape charging towards the Patrol Station, locking onto it.
"Buzz—buzz—" As the sound of the charging engine roared, the plasma railgun started accumulating energy, with azure energy surging within the barrel.
At this moment, all the lighting in the Patrol Station began to flicker unpredictably, casting shadows of soldiers and beasts fighting each other into darkness and light.
Finally, energy accumulation was complete.
"Boom!!!" With a deafening roar, the plasma railgun fired a blinding beam, with the air rippling in waves from the high temperature as it passed.
The beam formed a line from the barrel to the heart of the giant ape, and even a dominant giant beast appeared vulnerable before advanced high-tech weaponry.
The heart of the giant ape was pierced with a giant hole several meters in diameter, completely destroyed, with no blood flowing from the wound as all fluids had solidified under the high temperature, and an acrid burnt odor permeated the air.
Just when everyone thought the greatest threat was eliminated, and they could breathe a sigh of relief...
"Roar!!!" The giant ape erupted in a rage-filled bellow, its mountainous muscles bulging and swelling, blood gushing from its ruptured wounds and mouth, as if creating a bloody storm around it.
Roaring and raging, it used its last ounce of strength in a mad dash towards the Patrol Station’s wall, leaving deep pits in the ground with each step, shaking the entire valley.
The soldiers and their comrades, unfortunately positioned on the wall in the path of the giant ape’s charge, were dumbfounded as they watched the rampaging giant beast rush towards them, their vision filled with the monstrous bloodstained body, unable to escape the paralysis brought by despair even in death.
"Boom!!!" The enormous body of the giant ape crashed into the Patrol Station’s wall, its structure twisting and completely collapsing, with concrete and metal components raining down, killing at least fifty soldiers from the fall or from being crushed by the falling debris.
After breaching the defense wall, the giant ape’s life finally reached its end, collapsing in ruins, never to rise again.
However, the death of the giant ape was not a victory, but the beginning of true catastrophe.
The giant ape had absorbed most of the turret’s firepower, allowing the following hordes of beasts to charge directly through the fire zone.
Additionally, the destruction of the defense wall by the giant ape had damaged the energy supply lines buried within, causing many turrets to lose power and become inoperable, leaving the incoming horde of beasts unstoppable.
Various beasts trampled over the body of the giant ape and surged into the interior of the Patrol Station through the breach in the defense wall.
The surviving soldiers watched the overwhelming horde of beasts, and their morale quickly plummeted to an all-time low.
Since the establishment of Celestial Gate Patrol Station, it had never faced a major conflict, let alone fallen, and no one had ever imagined it could be overwhelmed by beasts.
Now with a breach in the wall, they were completely exposed to the threat of beasts, and with their limited manpower and low-lethality personal weapons, there was no way they could hold out.
In the office at the top of the administrative building, Xie Zongchang and his assistant watched in a daze as the defense wall collapsed in the distance and the beasts poured in continuously.
Xie Zongchang’s already sparse hair was soaked with cold sweat; perhaps he never imagined that, after eighty years and seven commanders, Celestial Gate Patrol Station would fall into ruins under his watch.
The assistant stammered nervously, "Things are getting serious... I’ll go find the communications department!"
Xie Zongchang snapped back and quickly stopped him, "What are you doing?!"
The assistant paused, saying, "I’m going to the communications department to have them report this information to headquarters."
Xie Zongchang’s expression turned grim, saying with a somber tone, "Do you want me dead? If the Patrol Station falls during my term and headquarters finds out, I’m done for."
The assistant, unsure of what to do, asked, "Then... what should we do? The defense wall has been breached, and with only our current forces, it is practically impossible to retake control."
Xie Zongchang paced back and forth in the room, his expression shifting before he said decisively, "Organize everyone immediately, establish combat positions with available weapons to reconstruct a defensive line!"
The assistant anxiously protested, "But these beasts are crazy today, and who knows how many more are behind them. We can’t hold them off, and it’s better to report it as per protocol! If we report timely, the penalties might be lighter."
Xie Zongchang grabbed the assistant’s shoulder firmly and pointed at his nose, coldly saying, "Your son is going to high school this year, right? Attending a prestigious high school in the Capital City is nice, huh?"
"Do you think he lives like this for no reason? It’s because you have a decent position in the company! If you report this now, I get shot, and at best you’d end up in jail for decades. Then what happens to your son?"
"With his father in jail and the family assets seized, he’d be expelled from school and end up homeless. If he’s lucky, he’d work in a factory for life, and if not, he’d freeze or starve to death on the streets. Is that what you want to see? Hm?"
These words left the assistant in hesitation, struggling within himself before bitterly asking, "But if we cover it up, what’s the point? The problem won’t be solved, and when the time comes to face the consequences, won’t it be a dead end anyway?!"
Xie Zongchang impatiently replied, "I didn’t say we wouldn’t solve the problem!"
The assistant was somewhat bewildered, "Then what do you mean?..."
Xie Zongchang lowered his voice, saying, "We have to find our own way to solve this without escalating it to headquarters."
"Crisis Management Center No. 7 is closest to us, and Yang Fuchai is the director there. He was my subordinate before; we can approach him for help to recover Celestial Gate Patrol Station. Once the issue is resolved, everything else would be manageable."
The assistant mulled over this with grit teeth for a moment before asking the critical question, "We are a border patrol station, and beyond us is the World Government Territory’s interior."
"If Yang Fuchai doesn’t send help, or the dispatched team fails to resolve the issue, wasting precious resolution time, the beasts could very well wreak havoc inland."
"Wild beasts have been extinct inland for over a hundred years, with no cities having contingency plans for beast incursions; who knows how many would die if something happens..."
Xie Zongchang simply cast a sideways glance at him, coldly saying, "Is your son more important or are those strangers more important?"
The assistant fell silent, not speaking further, the somber look in his eyes revealing his answer.
Xie Zongchang scoffed, taking out his phone, saying, "I’ll call Yang Fuchai now. Go organize the personnel to reconstruct the defense line immediately. Even if they die, they must die defending Celestial Gate Patrol Station!"
