Chapter 704.3: Not Only Do They Not Want To Surrender, They Want To Play Even Bigger
Chapter 704.3: Not Only Do They Not Want To Surrender, They Want To Play Even Bigger
While sailors at the port gawked at the spectacle, the Gray Wolf Army’s forward detachment on the outskirts of Port Gallon was mired in a living hell.
The rear artillery attempted counter-battery fire, but they had no fire control.
The first ranging shot went to fuck. A burst of blind firing followed and no one knew if it hit anything. All they managed to do was draw the New Alliance’s counter-fire. Six 100mm howitzers were blown into scrap on the spot and most of the gunners were killed or wounded. The artillery shelters filled with wails.
Battered by the bombardment, Prince Dilip did not retreat. Instead, the roaring guns stirred his blood.
Seeing the distant columns of black smoke and soldiers cowering in trenches, he abandoned hopes of counter fire and screamed hoarsely into the radio, “Press forward!”
“Are you staying there to be target practice for the New Alliance? Once you’re in the city there’s cover everywhere! Advance, now!”
His voice cracked from shouting. He was clearly giving it his all, but it still couldn’t drown out the New Alliance’s guns.
The commanders crouched in the trenches ignored him, eyes closed, counting the shells landing nearby, pretending they had been deafened.
Even a pig knew that stepping out meant getting blown apart. Why not wait until the shelling stopped before moving on?
That was why they had dug the trenches in the first place!
Though, to be fair, those damn peasants had dug them deep enough... even peeking out felt risky.
Fortunately, Prince Dilip only yelled from the back. He didn’t dare rush the front to drag soldiers out of the trenches himself.
When the bombardment ended, the troops trickled out at the whistle’s signal and continued toward the city.
During the advance, New Alliance shells fell intermittently. Soldiers who couldn’t reach cover in time were occasionally hit.
Still, they were elite and well-trained, almost the instant the guns boomed, they hit the dirt. For Prince Dilip, the casualties were within acceptable limits.
Watching from farther back, General Alyang felt his heart bleeding.
The troops assigned to Prince Dilip weren’t the Gray Wolf Army’s elite, but they were still his men, his countrymen.
“That idiot!” He cursed, clenched his fist, and slammed his binoculars down.
At the same time, four players squatting on the outskirts of Port Gallon cheered at the thunderous fire.
“Haha! Beautiful!”
“Our brothers manning the guns are getting more accurate!”
Watching Coincidence pump his fist, No Family chuckled, “By the way, notice how those coffin pits we gifted them actually helped a bit?”
Compared to the unlucky ones blown apart, he was more interested in the survivors.
Those soldiers who dove into the trenches couldn’t even stick their heads out. When climbing back out, they had to toss their rifles up first, then brace their feet against the wall.
Under roaring fire, wave after wave advanced awkwardly toward the city, never daring to move too many at once, but also not too few.
They knew it well. Long-range firepower looked terrifying, but it didn’t kill that many. As long as they weren’t packed too tightly, pushing forward in clusters was feasible. If they sent too few into the city, and given the New Alliance’s individual combat performance in the last fight, it would be nothing but feeding them kills.
After leaving behind more than hundreds of corpses, five battalions gradually pushed into the settlement, using narrow streets and buildings on either side as cover.
Having completed a round of fire support, the artillery ceased fire to prepare for the next.
Seeing the New Alliance guns fall silent and his forces advancing like a hot knife into the outer city, Prince Dilip could no longer contain himself.
He tossed the phone to the radio operator and excitedly shouted to his bodyguard captain beside him, “Quick! We’re going in too!”
The captain hesitated slightly, but didn’t dare disobey. He steeled himself and led the way.
Meanwhile, inside the city, the four players watched with binoculars, snacking and tracking where the soldiers were heading.
A few days earlier, big names on the official site had posted long analyses, confidently asserting that General Alyang would make Rowell Camp his main axis of attack, each argument sounding airtight.
Yet after watching for half the day, the players saw no one heading toward Rowell Camp. Instead, the troops went farther and farther away.
“... Looks like they’re heading for the Governor’s Manor,” No Family grinned at Coincidence. “Captain, your prediction flopped!”
Coincidence, clearly realizing it too, stubbornly kept watching. Only when the troops vanished from sight did he lower his binoculars, eyes wide. “Holy shit... are they crazy?”
No Family laughed, “Nice. Looks like this demolition office director is about to earn some merit.”
A budget of 100,000,000, and they only spent 90,000,000. They scattered cash to level everything near the Governor’s Manor and create nearly 600 meters of open ground without cover. It was also littered with unmovable rubble. One machine gun could lock it down completely. Without armor or artillery, attacking it was literally sending themselves to death.
Half Wasted scratched the back of his head, utterly baffled. “This makes no damn sense.”
Ignoring a strategic target like Rowell Camp to attack the Governor’s Manor right by the port, what the hell are they trying to do?
They even sent five battalions! There was no way they could even consider it a feint.
Heaven Stepping nodded dumbly. “Yeah.”
No Family urged, “Stop talking, let’s move!”
The Governor’s Manor was where they had to protect. It wasn’t that they feared for allied forces there; they were worried about arriving too late and missing all the action.
Half Wasted looked at Coincidence and pointed at the ground. “What about this place?”
Coincidence thought for a moment, opened the VM interface to report the situation, then looked at his teammates. “Let Peepo and his crew watch this spot... and leave them the cameras. Keep one drone here too.”
At the same time, far away in the port district of Port Gallon, Ample Time and Old White received the frontline report on Gray Wolf Army movements.
Seeing Ample Time’s speechless expression, Old White teased, “Looks like our opponent isn’t playing by the book this time.”
Ample Time sighed helplessly, “I actually hate fighting this kind of enemy. You can never analyze what they’ll do next using normal logic.”
Even after so long, he couldn’t figure out who had given these people the nerve to start an undeclared war, thinking they could act without being noticed, then getting beaten and, unable to accept it, flipping the table and going all in.
Of course, that was exactly what he wanted. If the Xilande Emperor had formally admitted fault through diplomacy, the administrator would likely have approved a settlement based on compensation and apology, and the Burning Corps would have had to stop short, end their self-defense counterattack quickly, and return to French Fry Harbor with some sort of reparation as a consolation prize.
After all, the administrator’s earlier telegram had explicitly requested they do not proactively escalate the military conflict.
However, with the Gray Wolf Army proactively attacking them, everything was different. Since the other side had escalated on their initiative, there was no need to hold back.
If the Xilande Empire thought the Burning Corps’ heaviest firepower was just a few 88mm guns they revealed previously during their first offensive, they were gravely mistaken. 12 155mm guns were already deployed at the port.
Beyond that, six massive, four-meter-tall giant crabs had also landed along the port. Six thick legs supported heavy arched steel armor. Above each claw hung a pair of 20mm autocannons, long ammo belts feeding through the joints into rotary magazines embedded in the armor’s flanks, with the cockpit centered beneath the carapace.
Standing on the port, they looked like ferocious monsters, black metal shells gleaming with a chilling sheen in the sunlight.
The brand-new weapon bore the code name Emperor Crab, officially designated the DWX-1 “Emperor Crab” amphibious all-terrain armor.
In both form and mechanical structure, it was clearly cut from the same mold as the Crab-class engineering exoskeleton recently issued to the French Fry Harbor seabed construction teams.
And indeed, that was the case. The Emperor Crab infantry armor was a military variant designed from the Crab-class exoskeletons.
Pilots entered through the crab’s rear and rode it like a motorcycle, freely switching between joystick control and neural interface operation.
Its battlefield role was as a general-purpose platform for complex terrain, underwater combat, and amphibious landings, while also handling armed transport in roadless conditions.
Originally, the claws mounted two explosive rifles with grenade launchers, but since Port Gallon had no targets requiring such weapons, they were replaced with 20mm autocannons.
Like the engineering exoskeleton, it couldn’t yet be mass-produced. Core power units, transmission systems, and frames had to be fabricated at Shelter 404’s level B7 Manufacturing Center, then sent to the Dawn City industrial zone for secondary processing.
That was why its cost exceeded even the subsidized Ethereal exoframe, reaching 2,000,000 silver.
If not for a windfall and preparations for a future war with the Torch Church, the Burning Corps wouldn’t have spent the money on the damn thing.
Looking at the six Emperor Crab units ready to go, a mischievous smile tugged at Ample Time’s lips.
“Since they don’t want to negotiate, then let them help us test our new equipment.”