Chapter 734.1: Battle of Broken Blade Peak!

"... This is Flying Fox. We've arrived over the target area!"

"Time to get to work! I don't want to miss lunch today. Damn it, those gluttons from the Wandering Swamp eat like starving ghosts reincarnated. Have they never had meat before?!"

"Haha! Maybe they really couldn't afford meat back home!"

"That 'wonton' we had this morning was pretty good. I think that's what it was called..."

"Quit chatting and watch your targets."

"Roger that!"

...

On the western side of Broken Blade Peak, 12 Cloudfly aircraft beat their wings through the air, missile racks loaded to capacity, aggressively circling toward one side of the mountain.

At the same time, three infantry companies composed of mercenaries completed their assembly and launched an assault from the north.

It was 0800 in the morning.[1]

And during the hour before, their allies in the New Alliance had already poured at least 500 155mm heavy artillery shells onto the mountain, thoroughly bombarding every position they could reach.

As if anticipating the coming offensive, the Mutant Humans on the mountain had long since prepared themselves.

Pairs of vicious eyes stared down the slopes. They gripped their assorted weapons tightly, ready to teach these overconfident human creatures a lesson.

The mercenaries at the foot of the mountain felt the same way. They had traveled all the way from the Among Clouds Province for one reason, to slaughter those green-skinned monsters.

For the qualifications to live in Ideal City, and for the generous reward, they had to succeed!

The moment both sides laid eyes on one another, sparks practically flew through the air.

"Open fire!" roared the mercenary commander.

"Chop them to pieces!" bellowed the Mutant Human commander.

The two shouts erupted almost simultaneously. In an instant, dazzling flashes and streams of tracer fire exploded across the cliffs and precipices.

Amid the storm of bullets, a mercenary was struck squarely in the chest by a large-caliber slug.

His blood-soaked ballistic plate shattered instantly. Blood poured from his chest and mouth as comrades grabbed his collar and dragged him behind cover.

The Mutant Human who fired the shot was immediately riddled with bullets but even as the final round smashed through its skull, the creature continued frantically pulling the trigger of its shotgun.

The battle exploded as the fighting reached its climax almost immediately.

More and more Mutant Humans poured out from cover and exchanged fire with the advancing mercenaries.

People and creatures fell constantly. Mutant Humans, exoskeleton-clad soldiers. Both fell one by one.

The battlefield became utter chaos. Gunfire and shouting mixed together, echoing endlessly through the mountains. The mercenary offensive quickly bogged down and appeared on the verge of collapse when the next moment, missiles carrying metallic-hydrogen warheads suddenly descended from the sky.

Without warning, blazing orange-red explosions erupted throughout the mountains. The flames burst forth like volcanic magma as countless Goblins were blown into the air.

Those green-skinned brutes didn't even have time to scream before they were reduced to chunks of flesh.

The Cloudfly Ornithopters continued their attack runs along the mountainside as the co-pilots' fingers seemed welded to the firing triggers as they continuously unleashed rockets and autocannon fire under infantry guidance.

Within moments, hundreds of lives had been harvested.

"Beautiful!" Looking at the fiery corridor carved through the enemy lines, a mercenary lying behind cover shouted excitedly toward the sky. Then he led his squad charging up the winding mountain path with renewed morale.

Advancing alongside them were more than 20 Hellhound unmanned combat vehicles.

Faced with the relentless rain of firepower, the green-skinned creatures stood no chance. Jagged rocks became littered with severed limbs and scorched bloodstains. Under the protection of the Cloudfly Ornithopters, the mercenaries storming toward the summit advanced like a hot knife through butter.

Before long, they had reached the mountainside.

On nearby Black Cloud Peak, the soldiers of the first battalion of the 100th Mechanized Mountain Division watched with boiling excitement.

Many clenched their fists eagerly, itching to join the battle.

"Sir, when do we go in?" a soldier wearing an exoskeleton approached his commanding officer and asked energetically.

His name was Tang Feng. Part of the reason he enlisted was to fight for humanity's future, but the larger reason was the recruitment slogan on Endpoint Cloud.

[Fight for the Future of Humanity.]

The officer glanced at him before turning his gaze back toward the towering mountain. "You charge when I tell you to."

The soldiers immediately looked disappointed after hearing such a useless answer. They were already at the very front, yet all they could do was watch allied troops steal the spotlight.

At the same time, however, a new development occurred on the battlefield.

Apparently running low on ammunition, the two Cloudfly attack squadrons began returning to base. At that exact moment, the Mutant Human forces that had been steadily losing ground suddenly seemed to come back to life as though injected with stimulants, especially among the larger green-skinned brutes.

Some... different creatures began appearing. Even after their skulls were pierced, they refused to die. Instead, they charged forward in a frenzy. In fact, they became more dangerous after suffering headshots.

Caught completely off guard, numerous mercenaries were grabbed by berserk Mutant Humans and beaten savagely.

Exoskeletons and bones alike were smashed into fragments. Some victims had their throats bitten out alive and others lost half their faces.

Everyone was horrified by the Mutant Humans' ferocity.

Headshots didn't kill them and shots to the heart didn't kill them either. They ignored suppressive fire entirely.

For a moment, nobody knew how to deal with them. Even worse, these extraordinarily resilient monsters looked almost identical to ordinary Mutant Humans. They were like landmines hidden among the crowd. The moment they rampaged, they caused massive casualties and disruption.

The Mutant Humans, meanwhile, had no intention of giving the humans time to recover. Seeing signs of weakness, they immediately howled and launched counterattacks with increasing ferocity.

The three mercenary companies that had fought their way to the mountainside were instantly dragged into a brutal struggle.

One company was crippled almost immediately and forced to withdraw from the meat grinder.

...

Inside the command center, Division Commander Lin Shangwen stared at the aerial imagery displayed on the holographic screen with his brows tightly furrowed together.

The footage came from the belly camera of a Seagull fixed-wing drone. The drone currently circled 500 meters above Broken Blade Peak.

At that moment, it was the only remaining source of close-range support available to frontline troops.

Standing beside him, Yun Song wore an equally grave expression. After a moment of thought, he finally spoke. "We have eight tactical missiles left. Let’s use them to cover their retreat."

As the former commander of the 26th Assault Team, he knew exactly how troublesome Mutant Humans could be. Ordinary people lost more than half their combat effectiveness after being shot. Mutant Humans became even more dangerous. They fought harder and harder until they finally died.

Moreover, those green-skinned Mutant Humans were clearly different from the usual kind. There was no telling whether the Torch Church had only modified them cybernetically, or included some biological mutations.

Lin Shangwen nodded, then he remembered the mocking expressions of the Wislanders and hesitated. "But..."

"You'll have to choose whether you want pressure from Triumphant City or pressure from Ideal City." After a pause, Yun Song continued. "Even if they're only mercenaries, we can't simply let all of them die out there."

Hearing that, Lin Shangwen stopped hesitating. He turned toward his adjutant. "Order the mercenaries to withdraw and tell them if they want full payment, each of them better bring back at least one Mutant Human corpse."

The adjutant immediately saluted. "Yes, sir!"

...

When the withdrawal order finally reached the front line, the blood-soaked mercenaries breathed a collective sigh of relief. Two remaining companies alternated covering one another as they withdrew in an orderly fashion down the narrow mountain path.

On Black Cloud Peak, Midnight Umbrella stared in surprise. "The guys from the Enterprise are actually retreating?"

Then hadn't the morning's artillery barrage been completely wasted?

At that moment, Wakey Sleepy, standing nearby, scratched his tactical helmet and muttered, "By the way... what the hell were those Mutant Humans? Are they new monsters?"

The moment he mentioned a new enemy type, Lawless Madman immediately turned toward him. "What do you mean? Did you record something?"

Without speaking, Wakey Sleepy uploaded footage from his drone to his VM and showed it to the curious players gathering around. In the video, a mutant missing half its head emerged from behind a rocky outcrop. Swinging an axe wildly, it sent an unlucky soldier flying before charging straight into the troops behind him.

The Enterprise soldiers concentrated fire on it, yet the mutant seemed completely unaffected. Only after being riddled with bullets did it finally collapse.

After watching the footage to the end, everyone gathered around the VM swallowed nervously.

Holy crap...

Had Mutant Slime Mold possession entered the game?

Meanwhile, the battle on the front lines continued. Seeing the human troops retreating from the mountainside, the Mutant Humans had no intention of letting them go. Every weapon they possessed was dragged out from the tunnels and caves. Heavy weapons, light weapons, everything.

A storm of fire rained down upon the withdrawing humans but suddenly, a thin white contrail descended from the sky.

A missile slammed into the area beside a tunnel entrance halfway up the mountain as several Goblins carrying artillery shells screamed before vanishing in the secondary explosion. They were instantly transformed into blood mist and fragments.

Even the green-skinned brute carrying an iron tube cannon nearby was swallowed by the blast and sent tumbling down the mountain while howling.

The missile strike immediately intimidated the Mutant Humans preparing to rush out of their tunnels.

Thinking the wing-flapping flies had returned, they quickly retreated back into their caves.

The Beast King had warned them long ago.

Hundreds of meters of rock constituted the strongest natural shield against their enemies. Even nuclear weapons were insignificant before it. Against two-billion-year-old hardened rock formations, even yields measured in millions or tens of millions of tons could do little more than blast away loose stone or trigger occasional cave-ins.

The Mutant Humans had already excavated hundreds of interconnected tunnels throughout the mountain. Even if half of them collapsed, it didn't matter. Yet, those foolish humans still dreamed of building roads and bridges above them. As long as they didn't recklessly charge downhill, they could hold their position forever with the supplies stored inside.

At 1100, the three-hour battle finally came to an end.

The result was that the battle ended in a draw.

...

1. gonna change the timing convention to 24h military time for clearer reference ☜

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