The moment Hu Hao and his men stepped out of the vehicles, they were confronted with the sheer chaos of the combat zone. Artillery shells and bullets filled the air. The sky was swarming with fighters, bombers, and attack helicopters. On the ground, rocket artillery, tanks, howitzers, and APCs clashed amidst billowing pillars of black smoke.
“Son of a bitch,” Hu Hao muttered, staring at the sheer scale of the carnage.
“Hurry up! Hao-ge, get the brothers moving!” Li Jingsong yelled frantically.
“We’re walking in?” Hu Hao asked, looking at Li Jingsong in disbelief.
“Mmh!” Li Jingsong nodded.
“Mmh my ass! Brothers, back in the vehicles! Tanks take the point! All heavy machine guns and tank main guns, prepare to fire! APCs follow the tanks! Drivers, stay in your seats! Everyone else, dismount and use the armor for cover as we advance! Move!” Hu Hao roared.
“We are not marching out there naked! Once we hit the front line, use the tanks and APCs as mobile barricades! There’s no natural cover out there! How else are we supposed to fight?!”
“Go! Mount up!” The veterans shouted, immediately scrambling back into the vehicles.
The drivers fired up the engines. The tanks roared to the front of the column, with the APCs forming a line behind them. Hu Hao and his infantry squads quickly fell in behind the APCs, jogging at a steady pace to keep up with the advancing armor.
“Hao-ge, this is a nightmare! Look at all those enemies! They’ve got every weapon imaginable over there!” Sima Xuankong yelled over the noise as he jogged alongside Hu Hao.
“Listen to me! Stay directly behind the APCs! If you see the enemy aiming rocket launchers at us, or if a tank rotates its turret toward us, hit the dirt immediately! Do you hear me?! Do not try to run out into the open to dodge! There is no safe open ground here! Staying behind the APC is your best chance!” Hu Hao barked his instructions loudly.
“Understood!” the soldiers roared back.
“Once we hit the perimeter, unload all our weapons and ammo immediately! Do not leave the munitions inside the APCs! The armor is the enemy’s primary target; their attack helicopters are going to blow them to hell.
And you rocket teams, keep your eyes on those helicopters! If you get a shot, take them down! Do not let them line up their autocannons on us! If an autocannon opens up, it doesn’t just kill one man; it shreds entire squads! Do you hear me, rocket teams?!” Hu Hao yelled.
“Got it!”
“We hear you!” Sima Xuankong and the other anti-armor gunners shouted back.
Hu Hao’s unit quickly reached the front line. Bullets zipped through the air around them like angry hornets. Up ahead, their tanks had already engaged, firing their main guns across the river.
“Deploy the APCs! Spread them out! Drivers, dismount! Dismount the heavy machine guns! Hurry!” Hu Hao roared. He threw open the rear doors of his APC and began frantically unloading the weapon crates.
The APCs were still rolling slowly into position, forcing Hu Hao and his men to keep pace while hauling the heavy munitions out.
“Right here! Huan Xingtao, get down here and help me unmount the heavy machine gun!” Hu Hao shouted.
Another soldier immediately scrambled onto the roof of the APC alongside Huan Xingtao to detach the heavy weapon.
“Move!”
Rat-tat-tat! Bang! Bang! Bang! BOOM! BOOM!
The noise was deafening. To communicate, they had to scream at the top of their lungs; otherwise, their voices were completely drowned out by the cacophony of war.
“Hurry up! Get over here! Now!” a Brigadier General yelled in the distance. The moment the words left his mouth, he stumbled backward and collapsed, his chest stitched with several bullet holes.
“Keep your heads down! Stay low! Don’t stand up!” Hu Hao warned his men.
Carrying a heavy ammo crate in one hand and his sack of grenades in the other, with his rifle slung across his back, Hu Hao moved rapidly toward the riverbank.
Many of the Imperial soldiers were too terrified to push all the way to the water’s edge. They huddled behind the parked APCs, firing blindly across the river. The river itself wasn’t wide—perhaps two hundred meters across.
The Allied forces were actively preparing for an amphibious assault. Dozens of small assault boats were lined up on the opposite shore, ready to ferry troops across.
The Allied artillery had been pounding the Imperial lines for God knows how long. The bombardment was relentless, churning the earth around Hu Hao’s position as the enemy desperately tried to blast a hole in the defense for their infantry to pour through.
“Right here!” Hu Hao yelled, throwing himself flat against the dirt of the riverbank.
Huan Xingtao and the rest of the squad quickly followed suit, spreading out along the embankment near Hu Hao.
“Dammit!” Hu Hao cursed, un-slinging his rifle. He racked the bolt and immediately began firing at the opposite shore.
There were no Allied boats in the water directly in front of them right now, but the river was choked with the floating corpses of Allied soldiers. It was clear the enemy had recently launched a crossing attempt here that had failed, leaving their dead behind.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Hu Hao fired rhythmically, targeting the muzzle flashes on the opposite bank. The Allied soldiers returned fire, and the two sides traded lead across the narrow stretch of water.
“Did you bring the entrenching tools?!” Hu Hao yelled while firing.
“Yes! We have two!” Huan Xingtao shouted back.
“Dig foxholes right now! Just shallow, one-man scrapes! Hurry, the bank is mostly sand and loose dirt; it’s easy to dig! Move!” Hu Hao commanded.
“On it!” Huan Xingtao immediately crawled back to grab the shovels.
Hu Hao then took over the heavy machine gun. He braced the heavy weapon against the dirt and opened up on the opposite shore. Although the Allied soldiers were prone, Hu Hao’s aim was terrifyingly precise, and his physical strength allowed him to control the massive recoil effortlessly. He swept the barrel methodically along the enemy embankment.
Rat-tat-tat! With every burst, Hu Hao could clearly see Allied helmets snapping back. Most of his rounds were headshots; anyone hit had zero chance of survival.
“Hao-ge, look out! Enemy tanks!” He Jizhong screamed, spotting movement across the river.
Hu Hao saw them too. Several Allied tanks crested the far embankment and drove straight into the shallows. The water was less than a hundred meters wide, and the rest was just exposed sandbars.
Behind the tanks, swarms of Allied infantry began their charge, many of them hauling heavy assault boats.
“Rocket teams! Rocket teams! Take out those tanks! Now!” Hu Hao roared. Sima Xuankong had already shouldered his launcher and was lining up the leading armor.
Whoosh— Whoosh—
The Imperial rocket teams unleashed a volley at the advancing tanks. Several armor-piercing rounds found their marks, detonating violently against the hulls and destroying several vehicles.
“Get down!” Hu Hao screamed, seeing the surviving tanks rotating their turrets directly toward his sector.
Hearing Hu Hao’s warning, every Imperial soldier in the vicinity—whether they were veterans from his corps or the terrified green reservists—instantly flattened themselves against the earth.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The enemy tanks opened fire. High-explosive shells slammed into the Imperial embankment, showering Hu Hao and his men with dirt and shrapnel. They stayed pinned to the ground, not daring to move.
“Ah! Help! Medic!” The bombardment caused numerous casualties along the Imperial line. Fortunately, the combat medics were already moving through the trenches; treating the wounded wasn’t Hu Hao’s job right now.
“Take out those tanks! Kill them!” Hu Hao roared as the shelling paused. He immediately hauled himself back up behind the heavy machine gun, unleashing a torrent of fire at the exposed Allied tank commanders and the infantry using the armor for cover.
His bullets tore through the advancing ranks. Hu Hao didn’t bother counting his kills; he just swept the gun wherever the enemy clusters were thickest.
“Get down!” Hu Hao’s instincts suddenly screamed danger. He launched himself sideways, tackling his assistant gunner and throwing them both several meters away.
CRASH! A tank shell slammed directly into their heavy machine gun position, obliterating the weapon.
“Are you okay?” Hu Hao asked, looking at the stunned gunner beneath him.
“Hao-ge, I’m fine! Are you?!” The gunner was dazed, but he quickly realized Hu Hao had shielded him with his own body.
“I’m fine! Keep moving! Find another heavy machine gun!” Hu Hao shouted, scrambling to his feet.
“Hao-ge! Look, over there!” The gunner pointed to a nearby heavy machine gun nest. The crew manning it had just been killed by shrapnel.
“Go!” Hu Hao crouched low and sprinted toward the vacant gun, the soldier right behind him.
“Hao-ge, you alright?!” He Jizhong yelled, reloading his rifle as he saw Hu Hao’s previous position go up in smoke.
“Fine!” Hu Hao slid into the vacant nest. Seeing the heavy machine gun was undamaged and had plenty of ammo, he racked the charging handle and immediately resumed firing.
Down by the river, the Allied infantry had managed to launch their assault boats and were beginning their mad dash across the water.
“Get those grenades ready! But keep them back! Don’t bring them up until I ask for them!” Hu Hao yelled. Seeing the sheer volume of boats hitting the water, he knew a brutal close-quarters fight was inevitable.
Rat-tat-tat! Hu Hao shifted his fire from the infantry on the far bank to the assault boats crossing the river.
His heavy rounds shredded the thin hulls and the men inside. He completely wiped out the crews of several boats in a matter of seconds.
But there were simply too many of them. Looking up and down the river, the water was swarming with tens of thousands of assault boats, fishing skiffs, and flat-bottomed barges, spread across a massive fifty-to-sixty-kilometer front. This was the Allied coalition’s overwhelming amphibious assault.
The Eastern Spirit Empire’s forces were fighting for their absolute survival. And it wasn’t just the enlisted men—the Generals were fighting for their lives too. Along this massive front line, no one knew exactly how many high-ranking officers had already been killed.
The aristocratic Generals didn’t dare retreat. They were forced to stay in the trenches and command the defense. Even if they were too terrified to fire a weapon themselves, they had to remain on the line. High Command had issued a blanket order: anyone who took a single step backward could be executed on the spot by anyone else. The pampered “Young Master” Generals had no choice but to bite the bullet and stay.
“Hao-ge! Hao-ge! There are too many of them! What do we do?!” Li Jingsong crawled over to Hu Hao’s position, his face pale with panic.
“How the hell should I know?!” Hu Hao yelled back as his assistant gunner frantically loaded a fresh ammunition belt. “The line is massive! There are hundreds of thousands of troops fighting here! If they break through, they break through! What do you expect me to do about it?!”