Chapter 693.1: I'm Not Fighting These Freaks
“Charge! Shove your gun barrels up their noses! They don’t even have enough people to make up a full company, crush them with your titanium-steel will!”
Almost at the same moment that Peepo gave the order to open fire, Dilrang was roaring his own command. In an instant, gunfire erupted across the beach, and a boiling rain of bullets poured into the jungle.
He could tell that there weren’t many of the blue gophers hiding in the forest. There were maybe 10 or 20 at most. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have bothered pretending to distance themselves from those blue-skinned creatures in the sea, nor would they have put on an act of coming to rescue him. They would have simply drawn their weapons and attacked.
If it were him, that was exactly what he would have done.
Though most of his men were exhausted and their morale was low, it was the perfect moment to wipe out the New Alliance in one stroke!
Once the monsters in the sea caught up and formed a pincer with the blue rats on shore, they would have no chance left at all!
That was precisely why Dilrang bellowed desperately, urging his soldiers to charge forward.
However, what he hadn’t expected was that the firepower erupting from the forest far exceeded his imagination.
Streams of tracer rounds swept across the beach like a torrential storm. The dust and sand kicked up formed an airtight wall, pinning every soldier who tried to rush into the rainforest flat against the beach, unable to move an inch. No matter how hoarse Dilrang shouted, he couldn’t force them to advance even a single step.
The bullets flying everywhere seemed endless, and the soldiers of the Xilande Empire lying on the sand were completely stunned by the barrage.
Even worse than the storm of bullets was the fact that their rifles felt like fire pokers in their hands, utterly useless against those figures armored to the teeth in exoskeletons.
Are they really the New Alliance that had been founded less than three years ago?!
Why is this nothing like what the propaganda posters showed...
...
About 600 to 700 meters away from the battlefield, on another stretch of beach.
Standing atop a reef and holding binoculars, Roshan stared dumbfounded at the distant shoreline engulfed in gunfire. After a long moment, she muttered blankly, “Have they gone insane?”
She had clearly seen a group of blue skinned, fish-scaled Mutant Humans wreck those people’s ships, so why were they shooting at the folks on shore who were trying to help them?
“Not necessarily,” Sisi replied casually while comparing the coastline’s contours and setting coordinates on her VM. “They might have been coming for us in the first place. They just ran into a little accident along the way...”
Lowering her binoculars, Roshan looked at her in confusion, her fluffy face filled with disbelief. “... Coming for us?”
Sisi nodded and said concisely, “What kind of normal cargo ship carries this many soldiers? Were they not hauling goods anymore? The only explanation is that they weren’t here for a simple purpose at all.”
It had to be said, these guys had picked a truly unfortunate moment, colliding head-on at sea with the mutant force sent by the Torch Church. At least they’d ended up feeding them early.
Tail, holding binoculars nearby, suddenly cried out in excitetment, “Oh! That’s the sound of Blade rifles! Could it be friends from the Army?!”
Sisi replied with a subtle expression, “... Hard to say, but probably not. I don’t think the Wislanders will be this weak, and they shouldn’t have any reason to pick a fight with us. The Xilande Empire, though, that’s more plausible.”
Standing beside her, Sesame Paste curiously glanced at the VM on her arm. “By the way, what were you writing on your VM just now?”
Sisi said, “That? Artillery coordinates...”
Roshan asked curiously, “Is that really necessary?”
While they were talking, the fighting on shore had already ended.
Under the machine-gun fire and grenade launcher bombardment from the jungle, the 100 or 200 scattered troops sprawled on the beach were completely outmatched. They were unable even to lift their heads.
After all, they weren’t an amphibious combat unit to begin with. Many of them couldn’t even swim and had only barely reached shore thanks to small boats and makeshift tubs.
On top of that, their Blade and Eviscerator rifles wasn’t designed for amphibious combat. After soaking in seawater and rolling around on the wet sand, they probably all jammed.
The soldiers had to clear their chambers while firing, and against the New Alliance’s firepower, they didn’t even have a chance to fight back.
At first, they had scraped together a bit of courage from who-knows-where, but in less than five minutes, that bluster evaporated completely.
Quite a few of them even took off their seawater-soaked pants on the spot, hoisted them overhead with rifle barrels or bayonets, and waved them frantically in surrender, begging for a ceasefire, utterly losing the ferocious demeanor they had shown earlier.
Honestly, they looked less like aggressors and more like a bad joke.
Sisi raised her binoculars and glanced into the distance. “... It’s delayed fire support. Not meant for them. The people in the sea are almost all dead now, the blue skins should be coming ashore.”
...
On the other side, at the very front line of the firefight.
Seeing underwear rising one after another on the distant beach, Dumb Turtle, the simpleton who had been bracing a machine gun, released the trigger and shouted to the nearby squad leader, “Boss! They’re surrendering!”
Glancing toward the beach, Peepo lowered his rifle and shot a look at the strength type brute beside him. “You go shout at them. Tell them our artillery is already zeroed in on their position. If they don’t want to get blown sky-high by 155mm shells, they better throw their gear onto the sand and crawl over to surrender!”
Dumb Turtle nodded with a cheerful grin and ran over in excitement. Reading off the VM-translated lines, he bellowed toward the beach 100 meters away, “Everyone on the beach, listen up! You are surrounded!”
“If you don’t want to get blown to pieces, drop your weapons and ammunition immediately, put your hands over your head, and surrender!”
“Otherwise, we’ll treat you as accomplices of the Mutant Humans and blow you up together!”
Hearing this, the soldiers on the beach panicked. Even so, no one dared crawl out from cover.
On one hand, they feared a trap. On the other, they feared being shot by those on their side.
Just then, an artillery shell whistled down and slammed into the beach. The blast wave hurled dust more than 10 meters into the air, leaving behind a terrifying crater.
It was a ranging shot from the New Alliance artillery positions, not a full barrage.
Even so, the thunderous boom was enough to shatter what little nerve the soaked, cowering soldiers had left. At last, they completely broke, throwing down their weapons and packs, raising both hands, and sprinting desperately toward the rainforest.
“Come back! Damn it! You cowards! You’re a disgrace to the Wolffolk!” Dilrang glared at the soldiers fleeing toward the enemy lines, his eyes bulging with bloodshot fury.
Useless beasts!
There were clearly only 20 or 30 enemies! So what if they had exoskeletons? Even exoframes would stall if it took enough bullets!
If they had even a shred of courage, if they had rushed forward with their weapons instead of fleeing so easily, they would have taken the enemy position long ago!
A trembling bodyguard nearby looked at him. “Sir... those cowards have betrayed us. We have no men left. Should we keep fighting?”
They were not afraid of death. But what they were fighting could no longer be called a war.
All along the way, everyone had told them that the blue gophers were nothing more than paper tigers, bullies propped up by others, chased all the way to River Valley Province by an Army detachment and barely surviving thanks to the protection of the Enterprise and the Academy’s intervention.
Yet what stood before them now was clearly not that.
They were even more terrifying than the Wislanders with gunpowder in their veins.
Looking at the fear-stricken faces of his guards, Dilrang knew they were backing down. His mud-smeared face twisted with rage, teeth grinding audibly.
He was an officer personally decorated by His Majesty the Emperor! His valor was the pride of the Gray Wolf Army!
Surrender? He would rather die!
But at that moment, the corner of his eye caught sight of blue, ghostly shapes surging toward the shoreline. A bone-deep chill crept up his spine.
He had seen with his own eyes how those things pinned his soldiers underwater, ripped them open, tore out their organs, and devoured them alive.
If he had a choice, he would rather be executed by New Alliance artillery than be caught by those monsters.
