CHAPTER 877: CHAPTER 877: FALL!

The western suburbs of Tiandu City.

Sandbags were piled under the rubble of broken bricks, and dugouts were dug in the yard, with wooden stakes reinforcing the walls behind the courtyard walls.

The residents who lived here had long since moved away, and judging by the household items left behind, they left in quite a hurry.

The soldiers of Poluo Country hid behind those shelters, repeatedly checking their equipment and bullets, passing the remaining time.

No one spoke.

The position shrouded in the night was silent, yet anyone could see the unspoken melancholy within it.

Stationed here was the 700,000th Corps of Poluo Country, led by General Pickley, who was Gale’s father.

As one of the conditions for getting his son to attend Mammoth University for his undergraduate studies, Pickley volunteered to lead the charge and stood at the front line of the defense of Tiandu.

In the Poluo Province, the first line of defense has always been where the cannon fodder stayed.

Though General Duwata allowed him to "act according to circumstances," he knew well that even so, he was more likely to face danger than not.

It was said that the Army’s shells could evaporate the entire position in an instant, especially those warheads that could split in mid-air.

Even among the Alliance, many corps leaders unfortunately received a fatal blow in the first round of bombardment, let alone him, a commander who came out of nowhere.

However, Pickley did not regret it.

He had already paved the way for his son’s future.

As long as that kid wasn’t too useless and didn’t idle away his time at school, even if he died, he’d be more than capable of coming back as a committee member, even if he didn’t make it to become a General.

Standing beside General Pickley, the adjutant held a pair of binoculars, looking at the distance where airships floated, his face full of worry.

"Damn it... how on earth do we bring that thing down."

He didn’t know what kind of deal his superior and the general had reached, only that the 155mm artillery provided by the Alliance was of no use against that thing.

However, he equally did not regret standing here.

Not everyone took up arms to fight for the sake of profit; at least he himself did it for the great righteousness in his heart.

"Who the hell knows, worse comes to worst, we’ll go all out against those dog-faced bastards!"

Pickley cursed softly, adjusting the brim of his officer’s hat with his index finger, staring at the five iron fortresses floating in the sky.

Though he said that, truthfully, he had no idea how to go all out with those guys.

The disparity in strength was too great!

From the very beginning, it was an asymmetrical battle.

Looking at the approaching iron fortresses, Pickley felt like every minute and second were torment.

He couldn’t help but pray in his heart, hoping that it would all end quickly, at least sparing him from the torment before this glorious demise.

At that moment, the five airships suddenly dropped their anchor chains.

The heavy anchor chains landed on the ground, plowing the earth and raising clouds of dust as they fell.

The adjutant, peering through his binoculars, gasped sharply in low tones.

"They’ve dropped anchor!"

That was a signal indicating the onset of bombardment!

Pickley’s heart lurched into his throat as he took the radio hanging over his shoulder and shouted with a strained voice.

"Take cover, all units!"

There was actually no need for his reminder.

The communication devices of the Poluo Country’s army were only issued down to the hundreds, whereas combat was conducted by teams of ten.

For this reason, the decisions of grassroots officers were more often based not on commands from the rear but rather on the actions of the enemy before them.

Even as the anchor chain hit the ground, the soldiers on the ground, under the shouts of the centurions, quickly scrambled into the anti-cannon holes or into dugouts or hollows where there was no place to hide.

At the same time that the 700,000th Corps prepared for the bombardment, a row of dazzling flames flickered across the sky.

Burning rain descended from the heavens, lighting up the pitch-black night sky in an instant!

As if to flaunt, the Southern Legion had equipped each artillery piece with tracer bullets, attempting to crush the enemy’s position, bodies, and spirits with overwhelming firepower!

The already crumbling rows of houses were immediately blown away, with shattered brick and rubble strewn across the fragmented streets.

Pickley hurriedly hid in an anti-cannon hole, yet was still shaken to his core by the roaring artillery fire and dirt falling down left him covered in dust.

However, this was just the beginning!

At the exact moment that the first salvo ended, the Weilante artillerymen in the airship’s cannon compartment quickly completed the loading for the second round!

They’d clear out part of the "mice" with cluster bombs, driving whatever was left into the holes.

Then it would be the incendiary bomb’s task.

The oxygen on the surface would be rapidly consumed, with carbon dioxide being heavier than air, and even more so, the phosphorus pentoxide from burning white phosphorus would be much heavier than air.

The lethal gas would flood the tunnels, killing the final wave of rats.

This was much more direct than the "mortal serum"...

The bridge of the Horn Number.

Leaning in his chair, John watched the earth outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, playing with the medal in his hand, the corners of his mouth slightly curved upward.

"Not bad shooting."

"Pity that it’s of no use."

Although he hadn’t stood on this land for a second, standing in the sky, he could see things as clearly as his brothers on the ground.

Those Mouse Tribe people, Snake Clan people, and other hodgepodge of survivors weren’t truly weak, just dormant for a bit too long in that half-century-long winter.

If given enough time to awaken, it wouldn’t be impossible for them to become formidable adversaries for the Army. And if the Alliance truly brought them onto their chariots, the threat to the Army would be unprecedented.

But unfortunately.

What they had now was just the courage to face the long night, and courage alone could not change anything.

In the face of absolute power, their dying struggles were meaningless.

The playfulness at the corners of John’s mouth gradually turned cold, and he lightly tapped the medal pinched in his fingers on the armrest of the chair, then slowly raised his calloused right hand.

However, just as he was about to swing that hand down, he suddenly saw the medal attached to the seat armrest float upwards as if weightless.

It wasn’t just the medal.

There was also the mug, notebook, ballpoint pen, and pen cap on the control panel, and all the officers standing in the aisle without seatbelts... Everything floated up as if weightless.

The incident happened so suddenly that no one realized what exactly had happened.

John froze on the chair.

Before an astonished expression could appear on his face, he suddenly felt the seatbelt pressing on his shoulders, dragging him down like a withered hand.

And those officers who had taken to the air, along with the floating garbage and debris, were all slammed into the ceiling.

"Thud——!"

A dull heavy sound came from above, and seeing the world turned upside down in an instant, John’s face was filled with panic.

What exactly happened?!

It wasn’t just him; everyone’s minds were filled with confusion.

Just then, a startled voice came through the communication channel.

"Damn!! We’re falling!"

Before that voice finished speaking, Ryan’s bellow reached his ears almost immediately.

"Horn Number!! What are you doing!!!"

"I, I don’t know!?"

John shouted in terror with a voice that had gone off pitch. Then he quickly switched the communication channel and shouted loudly into the walkie-talkie on his shoulder, desperately trying to stay calm.

"Activate the buffer device! Quickly!"

That was the equipment prepared to deal with the phase gun.

Among all known weapons, only the phase gun could have a deadly impact on the anti-gravity device of an iron airship.

Thus, Triumph City’s Equipment Manufacturing Bureau referenced the Alliance’s modifications to the Iron Heart and designed buffer air cushions under the iron airships of the major corps.

This way, even if attacked by the phase gun, the airship would not crash due to its massive weight.

However, to John’s horror, the air cushion expanding downward did not slow the airship’s descent at all, and they were still plummeting at an acceleration of over 1 G!

Wait——

More than 1 G of acceleration?!

Seeing the constantly fluctuating flight parameters on the holographic screen, John suddenly realized.

Their plummet was not due to the failure of the anti-gravity engine. In fact, their engine was still functioning perfectly!

They were hit not by a phase gun, but by something else!

That thing was like an invisible hand, gripping their airship tightly and pulling it towards the ground with a near 2 G acceleration!

Their anti-gravity engine was useless against that force, like wheels trapped in quicksand, futilely spinning, unable to do anything about the rapidly falling altitude.

No rescue!

Gonna crash!

A trace of despair appeared on John’s face.

However, as a battle-hardened soldier, he did not sit idly in his chair awaiting doom.

Gritting his teeth, he unbuckled the seatbelt, raised his arm to cover his head, and then fell towards the ceiling with less than 1 G acceleration, forcibly absorbing this "blow."

Fortunately, the ceiling of the bridge wasn’t too high, and although the fall left him dazed, it wasn’t enough to knock him out.

The adjutant beside him struggled to get up from the floor, then hurriedly walked over and helped the just-fallen John up.

"Sir, are you okay——"

"To the escape pod..." Interrupting the adjutant’s nonsense, John tightly gripped his arm and gasped, "Escape pod... it’s a chemical engine! We can escape! Hurry!"

The adjutant, shouted at, nodded immediately, and with the escort of a few still-mobile officers, dragged him limping towards the escape pod next to the bridge.

Including the terrified Martin.

He was frightened by that never-before-seen force, but at least he could keep up with John’s pace and wasn’t left behind on the bridge.

As for those unfortunate souls who were knocked unconscious or incapacitated, as well as the crew in the engine room and the gunners in the gun turret, they would have to perish with the airship...

There was only one escape pod.

Though it could hold many people, not everyone had the chance to board it.

An orange-yellow flame shot out, tracing a clumsy arc in the air, propelling the escape pod towards the distant west.

And at the same time Horn’s accelerated plummet began, a familiar scene played out on the other four airships one after another.

In the dimensions unseen by humans, the "invisible membrane" formed by "invisible gravitons" collapsed downwards into a vertical and abstract well.

If it continued to collapse unrestricted, infinitely extending the well’s depth, while continuously spreading the wrinkled ripples, the center of the wellhead would eventually nurture a point with infinite density, attracting everything around it, becoming a universe-devouring entity, triggering even more terrifying catastrophes.

Clearly, the Heavenly Palace’s nuclear fusion reactor didn’t possess such dimension-warping force, and the collapse occurring on that membrane was merely a ripple of a breeze on a lake, only significantly increasing gravity in a certain area.

Nonetheless, although that force was insignificantly small on an astronomical scale, like a firefly’s light being incomparable to the stars in the sky, it was enough to deal with a few airships.

An invisible hand clutched their throats, yanking them violently from the sky above the clouds down to the ground.

They were trapped in a well!

And it wasn’t just them!

Together with the debris orbiting in near-Earth orbit behind them, everything fell along the invisible well walls towards the depths!

The orbital debris that fell into the atmosphere traced burning trails across the sky, resembling a magnificent meteor shower from afar!

The Vellante people crafted a new shell for the starship core using old weapons, yet clearly, they didn’t truly understand what made steel soar through the skies.

It is precisely for this reason that, despite racking their brains, they couldn’t fathom why their airships suddenly plummeted from the clouds.

Watching the five fortresses fall from the sky, Commander Ryan’s eyes widened with fury and despair, his ashen face filled with hopelessness.

"No!!!"

The desperate roar couldn’t escape the shackles of gravity, and in the end, each steel fortress crashed into the muddy wilderness.

The fragile gasbag was harshly torn by the jagged steel, the twisted steel emitted unbearable wails, crushed together with racks stuffed with incendiary bombs.

"Boom——!!!"

Fiery pillars shot up into the sky, mingling with dark smoke, forming a mushroom-shaped cloud.

The explosion’s shockwave swept across the plains, shattering sandbags piled in the dirt roads and toppling tilted courtyard walls.

The crew members on the airship who failed to escape perished instantly, and the next to suffer was the Vellante outpost beneath the airship.

A ten-meter-long steel bar burned and rolled across the wilderness, like a flaming windmill.

A "Grey Dog" reconnaissance vehicle failed to evade in time and was struck by the whirling steel bar, sending the entire vehicle flying like a spinning top!

Nearby the overturned reconnaissance vehicle, a truck speeding away was also flipped over by the explosion’s shockwave.

An entire squad of Vellante people was thrown out of the overturned carriage, landing chaotically on muddy ground.

They cursed as they climbed up, but before they could lift their terrified faces, they were engulfed by the advancing flames!

The entirety of Tiandu’s western suburbs was swallowed in a boiling sea of fire, the sympathetic detonations of ammunition exploding like endless fireworks.

The deafening sound of explosions resonated throughout the wilderness, audibly clear even twenty kilometers away in the Heavenly Palace.

The soldiers of the 300,000th South Army Corps were frozen in shock, as were the soldiers of the 700,000th Poluo Country Corps.

People stood up spontaneously, gaping at the explosion’s epicenter, momentarily speechless.

Including the players watching from afar.

"My God..."

Debt Giant Eye swallowed hard, muttering as he gazed at the sea of flames.

"Do those slugs from the marshlands have such abilities?"

A construction site youth also swallowed hard, exclaiming in disbelief.

"This is probably the first time they’ve directly taken action since the server opened."

After thinking for a moment, the Drumheaded Washing Machine spoke.

"Not necessarily; I remember the Burning Corps brothers clashing with them before, didn’t they?"

The construction worker’s face showed a sudden realization.

"Oh yes... the Beacon team’s encounter. Damn, that was so long ago I almost forgot it without you mentioning."

"And the Alpha Special Mobile Force," Laplace teased, "It’s indeed a bit strange, these guys certainly have their quirks, but their presence just never seems to rise."

At least compared to the corporation, the Academy’s presence is much lower, even less so than the Free State, whose big moves always end anticlimactically.

To this day, they still don’t know if the Firestone Group salesperson mistakenly captured by some short-lived king is alright.

Edge Shoveling grinned a toothy smile.

"It turns out they’re better suited for scheming behind the scenes rather than the frontline battlefield."

Fortunately, these guys are allies.

Debt Giant Eye looked towards Edge Shoveling.

"What’s next?"

"Next... it’s time to end this battle."

Saying this, Edge Shoveling had already taken out the bugle hanging at his belt.

Upon seeing this, the nearby players excitedly donned their gas masks, chambering rounds in their LD-47 assault rifles.

Indeed, it was already over.

The Southern Legion’s front was completely in disarray.

Although only two ten thousand troops were caught in the explosion, the impact of the airships falling far exceeded the explosion itself.

After all, those five airships weren’t just the mainstay of Southern Legion’s firepower, they were also the faith of countless Vellante soldiers!

At this moment, they didn’t even know what their adversaries did, only watching helplessly as their faith fell from the sky, disintegrating in the flames.

Alongside their faith, their pride and courage, and their invincible resolve and determination fell from the clouds.

Rather than saying they lost the will to fight, it’s more accurate to say they no longer knew how to continue this war.

How the hell can we fight now?!

Whether crouched in trenches or sitting in the command vehicle, Commander Ryan had the same hopeless expression on his face.

In contrast, on the Alliance side, the ambush artillery in the suburbs, including the 155mm cannons and multiple rocket launchers, were already aimed at them.

Moreover, the First Mechanized Division from Jinjaron Harbor and the Second Mechanized Division just arriving at Tiandu, along with the First Armored Division of the Black Tiger Army and the First Armored Division of the Black Panther Army.

Including Brother Mole’s Skeleton Corps.

A total of four divisions plus an enhanced regiment had encircled the eastern line of the Legion, while the frontline battlefield had nearly fifteen ten thousand troops from the Poluo Country Corps standing ready.

They hadn’t really lost to the Academy.

But in the end, they lost to their own arrogance...

Before the Edge Shoveling could sound the charge horn, a loud horn echoed from the distant ruins, followed by a roaring whistle.

That was the position of Poluo Country’s 700,000 troops.

Standing at the entrance of the anti-cannon hole, looking at the boiling flames in the distance, General Pickley’s face was flushed with excitement.

Like most officers from a humble background in Poluo Country, he drew his pistol and placed a foot on an overturned sandbag.

"Brothers! The time for revenge has come! Follow me!!!"

Including his guards!

All Poluo people holding guns roared in anger as they charged towards the Southern Legion’s positions under the cover of 155mm howitzers and rocket artillery.

"Kill!!!"

Not just the 700,000 troops’ position!

The 710,000 and 720,000 troops stationed on both sides of the position also launched a charge!

Including the Skeleton Corps who were ready!

An all-out offensive had already begun!

The sound of gunfire echoed in the night sky, accompanied by tracers flying wildly across the sky.

Facing the surging offensive, the Conqueror No. 10 tank fired while retreating, but it hadn’t gone far before its turret was blown off by a 60-megajoule shell.

The Vellante soldiers crouched behind the machine gun bunker were desperately pulling the trigger, their faces illuminated by the gunfire and filled with terror.

Before he could finish firing a magazine, a rocket landed nearby, blowing him and his position sky-high.

The airship that posed the greatest threat to the artillery was no longer there.

The Goblin Corps artillery could unleash their firepower freely!

And those propeller planes!

The severed arms blown off by rockets had barely touched the scorched earth before being trampled by soldiers who feared no death.

The Southern Legion’s frontline was collapsing at a speed visible to the naked eye!

Facing the offensive from the Death Legion and the 700,000 troops, the 300,000 troops deployed at the forefront were driven from the suburban fields to the edge of the Everflow River.

Including the restructured 340,000, 360,000, and 370,000 troops!

At this moment, they were suffering setbacks far greater than those encountered in Akale County, and the tide-like offensive left them no room to even defend.

Inside the command vehicle.

Listening to the continuous reports of misfortunes and calls for reinforcements from the frontline, Commander Ryan’s pupils were filled with a dim and desolate gray, lacking the arrogance and defiance from half an hour ago.

It’s over.

This war...

Just as he was lost in failure and despair, his adjutant suddenly grabbed his shoulder and shook him awake forcefully.

"General! Retreat! While the Alliance hasn’t reached here! We still have a chance!!"

Tiandu is likely hopeless, and Akale County is probably lost too, but it doesn’t matter, at least Lion City and the entire Lion State are still in their hands!

They still have the servant army brought from the colonies!

And enough ammunition and artillery!

As for the iron airships...

The loss of five airships is indeed severe, but this isn’t the entirety of the Southern Legion’s assets.

Moreover, they don’t only have the airships as their trump card!

They still have the 902 mm cannon!

And nuclear bombs!

As well as the "Mortal Serum" that’s being developed!

As long as they don’t admit defeat in this war, no one can stop them from ultimately winning.

Shaken awake by his adjutant and hearing the word "retreat," Ryan finally showed some reaction on his rigid face.

Half was bitter, and the other half was a mix of emotions even he couldn’t describe.

Eventually, though, he recognized the reality, picked up the communicator, and squeezed the word "retreat" from his parched lips.

At the very least, he couldn’t fall into the hands of the Poluo people...

In fact, even if Ryan didn’t issue the retreat order, those few ten thousand troops on the frontline were already on the verge of collapse.

Even if they held on to the end, it was merely a difference between "strategic withdrawal" and a "complete rout."

Meanwhile, on a research ship more than twenty kilometers from the battlefield.

Yang Kai, leaning on a chair, was examining the burning flames with great interest, his face showing undisguised mockery.

"...I wonder how many ten thousand troops are on these five airships, this fuel really burns well, haha."

Just then, the sound of a door opening came from behind him, and Jiang Xuezhou, dressed in protective gear, walked in with a tablet in her arms.

"Professor, the data you needed has been collected, should we turn off the equipment?"

"Oh, save it to the database, I’ll look at it later, I’m busy now." Yang Kai replied casually, then turned his gaze back out the window.

But suddenly, he thought of something, and added another sentence.

"Oh right, don’t turn off the recording, let it finish."

He still had to send a copy to the allies later.

"Yes."

Looking at her mentor, who seemed even more meticulous than a toothpick, Jiang Xuezhou made a helpless expression, then nodded slightly and turned to leave the bridge of the research ship.