Hu Hao aimed his sniper rifle at the street below!
Bang! Bang!
Ten consecutive shots. He emptied the entire magazine in less than 30 seconds. Below, several Allied officers dropped dead! Hu Hao immediately changed positions.
“Brothers, when you fire from one spot, don’t stay for more than 30 seconds! Move immediately! Everyone focus on eliminating the troops below for now. Zhao Yang, contact the ground forces here so we can cover them as they push forward!” Hu Hao instructed through his headset while relocating.
Zhao Yang had followed Hu Hao into this building, but they were positioned separately. While moving to his new spot, Hu Hao swapped in a fresh magazine.
Arriving at a new window, he looked down and saw that many Allied soldiers had been killed—all the work of his subordinates.
“Good shooting!” Hu Hao commended, keeping his rifle trained on the street below.
“The Allied soldiers might be entering the buildings; they don’t want to retreat. Ground brothers, push closer! Everyone else, provide cover!” Hu Hao continued issuing orders through his headset, his eyes locked on the street!
Crash! Just then, the sound of shattering glass came from the building opposite him. Hu Hao instantly aimed his rifle in that direction and spotted a gun barrel sticking out of a window.
Bang! Hu Hao fired a shot. He saw the gun barrel jerk before disappearing from the window.
“Brothers, Allied soldiers are heading upstairs too! Snipers, make sure to cover the brothers below!” Hu Hao warned through his headset!
Bang! The moment he finished speaking, Hu Hao fired again, taking out another target. Having secured that kill, he immediately relocated once more.
“Zhao Yang, Zhao Yang, notify the brothers in other sectors! The Allied forces have started moving upstairs to fight. Pay close attention to covering our ground forces; do not let the enemy mobilize!” Hu Hao ordered into his headset. He reached his next firing point, squeezed off three shots, and kept moving.
About ten minutes later, Hu Hao sensed there weren’t many Allied soldiers left in his immediate vicinity. He immediately led his team downstairs; they needed to continue pressing forward.
Gunfire and calls for backup were echoing heavily from the buildings ahead. Many of the Allied troops in this area were now hiding inside the structures!
“Damn it, why are they all hiding in the buildings?” Hu Hao was slightly puzzled by this development.
If heavy weapons were positioned in buildings to fire from high ground, that would be completely normal; urban combat was all about controlling vantage points. But regular infantry rushing upstairs as well? That, Hu Hao didn’t understand. He slung his sniper rifle over his back, switched to his standard assault rifle, and charged forward, arriving outside one of the buildings.
Bang, bang, bang! Rat-tat-tat!
A massive hail of bullets flew outward from inside the building, while Hu Hao’s troops retaliated by throwing grenades inside.
“There’s a massive number of soldiers inside! They were all pushed back here by us earlier, and now they’re all holed up in this building!” A Team Leader ran over and reported upon seeing Hu Hao.
“That many troops?” Hu Hao listened carefully and realized there was at least an entire Allied battalion hiding in the few buildings nearby. And this was just one section of a single street!
“Damn it, did all three of those Allied corps really enter the city?” Hu Hao mused. The three new corps, combined with the remnants of the previous defending forces, totaled over 200,000 troops.
“Hao-ge, they really might have all come in. They started their counterattack very early on. So far, they haven’t managed to break through our defensive lines. Look, Hao-ge, the nearby streets are littered with corpses—all Allied corpses!” Zhao Yang pointed out.
Hu Hao also noticed the streets were covered in Allied bodies. And these were only the casualties from tonight’s offensive; the bodies from yesterday’s fighting had already been cleared!
“Attack! Wipe them out!” Looking closely, Hu Hao noticed many officer corpses scattered on the ground. A thought struck him: the soldiers hiding inside were likely leaderless. They had no idea how to fight anymore. And with Hu Hao’s forces pressing the attack, they didn’t dare stay on the streets, choosing to hide in the buildings instead. A unit without officers to command them couldn’t wage war!
Bang, bang, bang! Hu Hao found a firing position, stood up, and unleashed a barrage into the building. After emptying a magazine, he immediately crouched down. He had no idea how many he had hit.
It was too dark inside. Even though flares had been fired in, the Allied soldiers were hiding in the shadows. Hu Hao had only been firing at rough silhouettes.
Bang, bang, bang, bang! Rat-tat-tat!
Just then, the armored vehicles of the regular forces arrived and began furiously strafing the interior of the building.
“Brothers, charge in! Brothers from the Special Operations Regiment, leave this place to us!” a battalion commander yelled to Hu Hao’s team from the firing port of an infantry fighting vehicle.
“Brothers of the Special Operations Regiment, advance! Continue the assault forward! Leave this to the regular troops!” Hearing this, Hu Hao immediately ordered through his headset.
Flushing Allied troops out of buildings was a job for the regular army. The Special Operations Regiment’s task was to control the overall flow of the battlefield and prevent large Allied formations from charging forward unimpeded.
Meanwhile, in the Allied command center in Tonglong City, the new commander, Lieutenant General Schliemann, stood before the map. They had been attacking for two hours now, yet their forces hadn’t advanced a single step. On the contrary, they had been hit by a counterattack from Hu Hao’s troops, who had pushed the frontline further into Allied-held territory.
“General, many of our frontline officers have sacrificed themselves. The enemy has shooters specifically targeting our officers. Right now, many frontline units lack junior officers and have no idea how to fight.
Many units retreated into buildings in an attempt to set up defenses, but as Hu Hao’s troops pushed forward, our men were quickly surrounded, and then…” a staff officer reported to Schliemann.
“I know. Tell them to hold the line! Damn it, how are their shooters specifically targeting our officers?! This Hu Hao is too vicious!” Schliemann said through gritted teeth.
Although they hadn’t tallied the casualties yet, based on current reports, their forces had suffered heavy losses tonight.
“It was the exact same situation last night. My troops tried to organize defensive lines, but the soldiers realized their officers were gone. With no one to organize them and the chain of command severed, the regimental commanders couldn’t contact their battalion and company commanders at all. Command became impossible!” Kesma explained, standing nearby. He had already handed over command authority to Schliemann.
“With a unit like that inside the city, we cannot hold it! We must find a way to counter them! Yet we don’t even know what kind of unit this is, who trained them, how they were trained, or how they operate! If we stay here, we’ll just be slowly ground to dust!
We are merely acting as training fodder for the enemy. Today, Hu Hao sent at least eight divisions into the city. I observed those soldiers during the day; they are all fresh recruits. But if they gain enough combat experience here, they will become eight divisions of veteran troops!
This means the enemy grows stronger the more they fight, while we grow weaker. In a war of attrition like this, no amount of troops will be enough for them to grind through!” Schliemannfumed.
As a commander from the Vaal Kingdom, he had been dissatisfied with being sent to defend Tonglong City. However, seeing how formidable the opponent was, he had felt a surge of excitement, hoping to test his mettle against them.
But after exchanging blows, he realized it wasn’t a contest of skill anymore. The enemy had already secured victory; all that was left was for them to crush his troops.
Right now, he was desperately trying to figure out how to counter the enemy, how to prevent his officers from being slaughtered en masse. Even having them disguise themselves in regular soldier uniforms proved useless.
Hu Hao’s troops had sharp eyes and keen ears. The moment they heard someone shouting combat orders from the Allied side, they knew it was an officer and immediately opened fire. The heavy machine gunners didn’t even get a chance to shoot. This infuriated Schliemann!
“Report! A call from the Supreme Commander!” a staff officer brought a phone to Schliemann.
Schliemann took it. “Greetings, Supreme Commander. This is Schliemann , Commander of the Vaal Kingdom’s 31st Corps!”
“Mhm. How is the battle progressing? You’ve been attacking for two hours now. Have you recaptured any sectors of the city?” Vostok’s voice came through the line.
“No, Supreme Commander. Right now, the issue isn’t whether we can recapture sectors of the city; it’s a question of how many days our troops can hold out! Supreme Commander, I recommend temporarily abandoning this location!” Schliemann stated.
“What did you say?! Abandon it?! Can this place be abandoned?! Do you have any idea how important this location is to our frontline forces?!” Vostok roared over the phone.
“I know, but we cannot hold it! The enemy possesses an incredibly formidable unit dedicated to assassinating our commanders. Furthermore, they have a new weapon—we don’t know what it is yet—that can destroy our heavy armaments!
The moment our troops engage them, our heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, armored vehicles, and tanks are swiftly eliminated. Only infantry remains, and our officers are quickly killed off as well!
As of now, seven or eight of our regimental commanders have reported losing contact with their frontline units, not even knowing if their men are dead or alive!” Schliemann continued his report.
“Such a thing is happening?!” Vostok fell silent for a moment on the other end.
“Yes, Supreme Commander! Our troops here are simply being used by Hu Hao to train his men! No matter how many troops we send, Hu Hao will grind them all down! Supreme Commander, please consider this carefully!” Schliemann urged.
“This place must be held! I’m asking you, can you hold out for five days? I need you to hold out there for five days!” Vostok demanded.
(End of Chapter)