novellhall Chapter 678 Victory is assured!
Chapter 678 Victory is assured!
Chapter 678 Victory is assured! (4000 words)
Lin Xiaohe stood inside the core of the instance, expressionless.
The siege has entered a fierce stage.
At the city gate, with more than half of the defending NPCs killed or wounded, the "collapse of the army" mechanic was triggered. These weak and aged defending NPCs refused to climb the city walls any further.
Once they went up there, they trembled with fear, and some even fainted.
Looking around, the soldiers on the city walls and the officers in key logistical positions were all from the Eastern Kingdom.
Their every move perfectly demonstrated the combat skills and organizational ability of the Eastern Kingdom soldiers.
With just a little training, they can master the use of cold weapons.
"It's the fifth day now, and more than 2000 contestants from the Eastern Kingdom have died." Meng Po lifted her long hair and tied it into a round bun at the back of her head.
A layer of brown skin grew on the bones of both hands.
The thin skin clung tightly to the bone, devoid of flesh and blood, and was barely visible unless one looked closely.
Meng Po turned to Lin Xiaohe: "Are you sure you want to do this? This is a huge gamble, and there's a high chance you'll end up with nothing. Houtu Niangniang has arranged a path to heaven for you. As long as you follow her arrangements, you can inherit most of the power of the underworld. This path will be easier and safer."
"And then what?" Lin Xiaohe crossed her arms, staring at the city gate, and asked rhetorically, "Even at its peak, the Underworld couldn't contend with the Four Great Cities. Even if I inherited most of the Underworld's power, so what? Could I win?"
Meng Po was stunned for a long time, then smacked her jaw: "Well, at least you can get out."
Lin Xiaohe curled the corners of her lips and said meaningfully, "I didn't come here to try and get out."
Knowing she couldn't persuade Lin Xiaohe, Meng Po sighed softly, "They are just ordinary humans; they can't support your ambitions."
"No... I think they have more potential than any other species that has passed away."
Meng Po thought Lin Xiaohe was stubborn and inflexible, so she left angrily: "Fine, I wish you success."
Lin Xiaohe has set trap after trap, so she's bound to suffer some loss. She's not going to worry about it anymore.
Perhaps provoked by Lin Xiaohe, the other 31 deceased beings commanded their followers to launch wave after wave of attacks.
"Charge in and kill them!!"
Before dawn, the city walls were already crowded with people.
The lack of walkie-talkies, telephones, and internet posed a significant challenge to the command and communication of the Dongguo athletes.
The Eastern Army is already a highly qualified force that is information-based and technologically advanced. They are accustomed to having eyes that can see a thousand miles, ears that can hear the wind, and global express delivery capabilities.
The players were a little unaccustomed to returning to such a primitive form of combat.
Fortunately, their predecessors had experienced the use of millet and rifles, and after a brief period of adjustment, they decided to fight with the organizational structure of the Eastern Army.
Anyway, with Director Lin's cheat code, they are not restricted by the fire card.
Li Qing squatted at the foot of the city wall, surrounded by seven or eight battalion-level commanders. Some held tinderboxes, some carried flashlights, and one even used a gong issued by the system to shield himself from the wind.
There was no projector, no electronic sand table, no staff operation system, only a knife, a brick, a map written in shorthand, and a group of Dongguo soldiers squatting on the ground.
The troop deployment map was quickly completed.
A battalion commander of a reconnaissance battalion proposed a circular mobile defense plan, using three battalions to form a rolling defense rotation on the city wall, reducing the continuous duty time from the two hours stipulated by the system to one hour.
The company commander of the engineering corps led his men to find twelve weak points in the city wall and reinforced them overnight with gravel and glutinous rice mortar.
This formula is a mixture of three materials commonly used in ancient city construction. Their instructor mentioned it briefly during their advanced training course.
At the foot of the city wall, the medics of the logistics support battalion were teaching a group of medics how to disinfect arrow wounds with liquor.
There was no iodine solution, no antibiotics, and no sterile gauze.
He used coarse cloth that he had scavenged from the city, and only dared to press it onto the wound after heating it over a fire.
Nearby, the quartermaster of the cooking squad was redistributing rations.
He mixed the old rice he found in the granary with the millet rationed by the system in a 7:3 ratio, and the resulting porridge was more filling than pure millet porridge.
The porridge was very thick, filling a whole row of large iron pots.
Smoke from cooking fires mingled with the morning mist and swirled around the city walls, like a gray dragon watching over the city.
On the sixth day, the Tatars launched their twelfth attack on the city, an offensive even more ferocious than the previous ones.
The first wave was a test.
Tatar cavalrymen, carrying ladders, charged up from the north and reached the foot of the city wall, where they were met by a row of silent archers.
After wave after wave of arrows swept away the enemy, the archers in the front row retreated, while the musketeers in the back row moved forward.
The muskets were old-fashioned models from the Jiajing era, slow to load and inaccurate, so Li Qing chose to use firepower coverage.
This was one of the Eastern Kingdom's strengths. The Tatar vanguard quickly retreated.
"Damn it!! You are a different species, the most brutal hunters! How dare you retreat?!" The fox-faced human shouldered a thin scout and roared.
Grab the scout’s hands and feet with both hands and pull them apart simultaneously.
Suddenly, accompanied by a sharp scream, the scout's body was split in two, and the sprayed blood splattered all over the fox-faced man's face.
His gaze was sinister, and his words were icy: "Either you storm into the city and hold a feast, or you clean yourselves up and serve yourself as a dish on the table!"
"kill!"
"kill!"
"kill!!"
The Tatars, with overwhelming momentum, launched their third siege.
This time, the Tatars used battering rams.
The huge iron mallet struck the city gate. Instead of holding out, the contestants behind the gate laid a layer of oil-soaked dry grass in the moat inside the gate.
The moment the battering ram broke through the gate, a rocket shot into the trench, turning the entire trench into a wall of fire.
The Tatars charged through the wall of fire, only to be met head-on by a line of spearmen.
They worked in groups of three, taking turns to thrust.
One man stabs the throat, another the horse, and a third provides cover. This coordinated tactic originated from the bayonet training manual of a special operations brigade in the Eastern Theater Command, which the participants modified and used on a four-meter-long Ming Dynasty chevaux-de-frise.
The effect is very good.
This strategic retreat, after reaping nearly a thousand Tatars, ended with the repulsion of the Tatars and the recapture of the city gates.
Next, time seemed to disappear inside and outside the city; there was no day or night, only attacking and repelling attacks.
Both sides were so engrossed in the battle that they stopped using time to tell the time, and instead used the number of attacks to determine the duration of the battle.
On the thirteenth siege, the Tatars brought in catapults. The fox-faced man sat on the commander's throne, his eyes cold and menacing, and ordered his men to hurl stones into the city.
The first wave of stones smashed a corner of the city wall, sending bricks flying and injuring more than a dozen defenders.
Before the second round of stones even arrived, the contestants had already modified a crossbow from the Ming Dynasty into a projectile system.
The Tatar headquarters camp was right within range.
The ghost baby was nearly hit by the falling rocks and screamed in anger!
The Tatar army was forced to retreat.
Before the fourteenth siege, Li Qing decided to expand the defensive perimeter to buy time and space for the players.
After a staff meeting, the group devised an ambush formation.
Beneath the scorched farmland outside Deshengmen, there is an abandoned drainage ditch that could shelter 800 people.
The Tatars attacked the city from the north, and Deshengmen was their only route.
The staff officers advised against defending the city and instead to attack outside. That night, 800 contestants who had participated in special forces assessments or training sneaked into the drainage ditch under cover of darkness and lay in the mud for four hours straight.
The fourteenth siege, though late, has finally arrived.
The main Tatar force rushed to the city walls, when suddenly two ambushes appeared from behind.
The Tatar cavalry were caught in a pincer movement between the city walls and the ambush, and their battering rams were burned to ashes. The Tatars retreated, not even having time to properly close the camp gates when they returned to their tents.
After more than ten consecutive crushing defeats, all 31 deceased beings were enraged.
"There are only three days left. If you don't put in the effort, we will not only be laughed at by the Second Meng, but we will also not be able to eat meat."
In the first seven days, each of them suffered heavy losses.
If they can't defeat these 10,000 Dongguo players, they'll suffer a huge loss!
Everyone knew this, so they stopped making excuses and started rubbing their hands together in anticipation.
"Come on, let them see what a true reincarnation species is like!"
"In the face of absolute power, any conspiracy or trickery is nothing but a paper tiger!"
By evening on the eighth day, the Tatar army suddenly fell silent. Altan Khan's central banner slowly moved forward, its nine white fluttering like a giant white banner in the setting sun.
Nearly ten thousand players from the Eastern Kingdom stood on the city wall, watching the white banner slowly rise, and couldn't help but take a deep breath.
The East Country contestants' armor was tattered, their blades were chipped, and their faces were blackened by gunpowder smoke, but their eyes were exceptionally bright.
They were about ten miles apart, and neither side could see the other clearly.
But the tense atmosphere was carried by the wind to every corner of the instance.
Everyone knew that the final battle was fast approaching.
Whether they live or die depends on these last three days!
……
At the Dongguo Emergency Command Center, on the main screen, the red line representing the city's defense value fell below the warning line on the fourth day, but it hasn't returned to zero yet.
"Well done, not a single coward. You've shown the spirit of our soldiers!" Commander Zhang pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket, took one out, and just held it between his fingers without lighting it.
The experts were conducting a battle simulation. Although it was pointless and they couldn't get any information through, it was the only way they could feel better, as if they were fighting alongside more than ten thousand Eastern soldiers instead of standing by helplessly.
Inside the instance, time ticked by, minute by minute.
The setting sun painted the entire capital city a rusty color.
The Tatar camp outside the city was eerily silent.
None of the contestants on the city wall relaxed their guard.
Suddenly, an arrow flew out from the Tatar ranks and landed on the city tower of Desheng Gate.
A letter was tied to the arrow shaft.
[The city is about to fall. Surrender and you will be spared. Open the city gates by noon tomorrow, or on the day the city falls, not a single chicken or dog will be spared.]
Li Qing scoffed, tore the letter to shreds, and threw it off the city wall.
Paper scraps flew everywhere like snowflakes.
On the city wall, someone started tapping the bricks with the back of a knife, one tap after another, the sound growing louder and more frequent.
Immediately following was a perfectly synchronized and magnificent singing performance.
Listen! The bugle call of the new journey sounds, the goal of building a strong military beckons us forward. For the nation to be strong, we must shoulder the responsibility; the iron flag is inscribed with the glory of iron and blood…
Soldiers...fear no powerful enemy, dare to fight, and fight to win the battle for their motherland.
They sang the song again and again until their voices were almost hoarse, and they were all red-faced and furious, venting their frustration and anger.
Their ancestors fought their way through blood and fire.
Countless soldiers, experts, scholars, and workers dedicated their lives to making the motherland prosperous and strong, so that no one would dare to bully it.
Originally, everything was thriving, and a bright future beckoned to every Dongguo person.
With Director Lin's help and through the efforts of every member of the Dongguo Kingdom, the Dongguo Kingdom's economy has successfully transformed and its technology has developed rapidly.
Technology changes people's lives and enhances the combat effectiveness of the armed forces.
In its latest five-year plan, Dongguo has already set its sights on the stars and is exploring space!
but!
but! !
Damn it, that evil country, America, actually poisoned the whole world, leaving all of humanity unable to even crawl out of bed.
The situation in the East is a bit better; they're able to hold on.
But these greedy and abnormal people actually dared to provoke the Eastern Kingdom!
Every person in the Eastern Kingdom was filled with rage, wishing they could exchange one for one and kill them, especially the soldiers whose fighting spirit was extremely high.
But there's nothing we can do; this isn't a battlefield or a fighting style familiar to humans.
They are like meat on a chopping board, completely at the mercy of others.
Feeling stifled? Utterly stifled!
Angry? So angry I feel like I'm going to burn myself.
Just when this suppressed emotion was about to explode, the opportunity arrived!
They can fight the deceased fair and square within the rules.
At this moment, they had no thought about clearing the level; all they had was the fighting spirit to avenge their defeat!
Whether I live or die is irrelevant.
You reborn ghosts, all of you, die!!
"Kill them!"
This willingness to die rather than surrender moved everyone in the command room to tears.
Commander Zhang stood in front of the large screen in the command center, looking at the soldiers who had blended into the darkness. The stirring battle songs echoed in his ears, and a surge of heat rushed through his chest, causing a sharp pain.
He turned to look at the others in the command post and found that everyone's eyes were red.
Old Zhou took off his glasses and wiped them with his sleeve for a long time, but he couldn't put them back on because his tears had blurred the lenses.
In the corner, Xiao Liu buried his face in the keyboard, his shoulders trembling, tears falling silently onto the keyboard.
"These are the true soldiers of the East!" Commander Zhang's voice echoed in the quiet hall. "They know what kind of war they are fighting. They are not fighting for their own lives, but for the land and people behind them!"
He pointed at the disheveled soldiers on the screen, and at the city wall that stood firm in the twilight, his voice growing louder and louder, even bordering on hysterical.
"Eight hundred years ago, we defeated the Oirats beneath this city, displaying the spirit of an emperor guarding the nation's gates and a monarch dying for his country! Today, our people stand once again on this city wall! The city is old, the people are new, but the bones are still the same bones!"
His voice echoed in the hall, expressing the sentiments of everyone present.
Emotions are trapped inside a pressure cooker, and the flames beneath burn ever brighter.
Finally, the gas pressure inside the house reached its limit, and with a bang, it exploded.
Someone, with all their might, roared: "Victory is certain!"
This phrase, "We will win," opened the floodgates of emotion.
Regardless of status or responsibilities, everyone in the meeting room was shouting and yelling, venting their emotions to the fullest.
Victory is certain!
"Kill these bastards!"
"Revenge for every grudge, vengeance for every wrong. We will retaliate in kind for how they have bullied us, the people of Dongguo!"
"Keep going! You have us, the country, and Director Lin behind you!"
(End of this chapter)