novelraw Chapter 124: Two Stories
Chapter 124: Two Stories
After leaving the Governor's Mansion, Soshyan went on another trip to Starfire. He urged Loken to make sure to be present when the floating shipyards began construction, and supervise the building process.
By the time he finished handling those affairs and returned anew to the trial grounds, it was already evening.
Passing through yet another daytime, 19 new eliminated ones were produced; additionally, three strongholds successfully changed hands.
However, this was only an appetizer.
The main event often occurs during the night, or right before nightfall.
Soshyan chatted for a while with Sol, who supervised on his behalf, and heard several relatively interesting stories.
A certain team that chose the Cyber-mastiffs had a genius in their ranks. He discovered a type of plant that could emit a pungent gas after being ignited. Then, he got a backpack for each of the two hounds, and stuffed a Smoke Grenade inside.
Waiting until evening, this team secretly lurked close to the vicinity of a certain river valley stronghold. Subsequently, they ignited those plants and stuffed them into the backpacks, and also ignited the Smoke Grenades.
Afterward, dragging streaks of smoke, the two hounds sprinted madly all the way with extremely swift speed, jumping into the stronghold through an unclosed window.
At that time, the color of the sky was dim. Although the stronghold's guards had discovered the anomaly, they fundamentally couldn't think of what kind of thing it was, and even thought some monster had appeared.It wasn't until the entire stronghold was filled with the pungent thick smoke that they realized they had been sneak-attacked. But for a steel-and-concrete stronghold, everything else was good except for relatively poor ventilation.
By the time they had been smoked until dizzy and disoriented, that team of people had already used wet pieces of cloth to cover their mouths and noses, charging in and eliminating them all.
The other story was that there were two teams that had surprisingly conducted a rare cooperation. They even abandoned the hilly stronghold they originally occupied, preparing to jointly launch a sudden raid on another foothills stronghold.
This immediately attracted Soshyan's interest.
When he found the screen showing those Candidates, he instead discovered that the combat had already begun.
Da-da-da—
Bullets howled completely out from the gun chambers, emitting whooshing sounds as they caused friction against the air.
The machine gun set up at the high-ground stronghold was like a falcon that had discovered a little mouse, frantically sweeping fire downward, continuously firing that lethal scorching metal.
The attackers had long since rapidly scattered, searching for all possible cover, and immediately began to return fire using their guns.
"How completely did they discover us?"
Bahram turned his head over, suddenly discovering that he himself was in an extremely dangerous exposed state. He could only scramble and crawl his way behind a rock.
Haomo was right by his side, panting heavily.
"I seem to have heard a dog barking!"
Hearing Haomo's words, Bahram was stunned for a while, then popped his head out.
In the vicinity of that solitary stronghold, it seemed there truly was a canine barking.
"How could it be—"
At this time, a communication request came from the walkie-talkie.
"The situation has changed."
When Bahram pressed the talk button, panting sounds mixed with gunshots came from the other side.
"There's more than one group within this stronghold! In actuality, there are two groups of people here! We planned to sneak attack from the flank, but were intercepted."
Hearing this, Bahram's heart instantly became as ice-cold as a harsh winter.
This situation couldn't be described using just the word 'terrible'.
This morning, after he made the decision to cooperate with the other party, he additionally made another decision.
That was to abandon their originally possessed stronghold.
He pondered for an entire night, feeling that unless they were under circumstances of extreme luck, otherwise, with their current personnel situation, it would be very difficult to hold out until the fifth day.
Even if they had a machine gun, even if they had a Battle Automata, the massive disadvantage in personnel still could not be made up for.
He played out various situations in his mind once over.
The most likely scenario to occur was that on the fourth day, they would fire completely through their machine gun bullets and additionally use up the automaton; they could only use light weapons to defend the stronghold.
During that period of time, it was very likely that everyone would only have light weapons left over. At this time, the importance of personnel would become prominent.
Under such circumstances, he would rather gamble on it.
The secret stronghold would be this battered and exhausted small group's final opportunity.
But right now, with the attack on the first stronghold being obstructed, the situation became entirely different.
Even if they couldn't take down this place, Oskar's group could still retreat into the jungle, utilize their advantage in concealment, and search for a new stronghold to overcome.
But for their group, it would be very difficult to ever have the opportunity to acquire a second stronghold again.
Their originally possessed stronghold definitely also had already been occupied by others.
Right now their squad could correctly be said to have sunken into a condition of being in a dilemma.
"However, we will not give up!"
Subsequently, Oskar's words gave Bahram some confidence.
"We still have a chance! You guys over there set up the machine gun and advance under cover fire! Once you reach around fifty meters in distance, you should be able to use the Battle Automata! We will tie down the enemies over here for you!"
"Copy that."
Closing the walkie-talkie, Bahram turned his head back round.
Not waiting for him to call out, Kerisa—carrying the machine gun single-handedly—had already reached a waist-high rock in a relatively better position, and shrank behind the rock before the bullets arrived. There were also two people following behind him: one carrying an ammunition box, and one carrying the bipod.
"Hurry up!"
The machine gunner roared and slapped each of their heads, then snatched the bipod and began deploying the machine gun.
The squall-like lethal bullets struck the rock, crackling and spattering. Fragments flew over the heads of the group, but Kerisa—relying on a burst of hot-blooded courage—did not flinch in the slightest. Instead, he deployed the machine gun with extreme speed, and pulled the trigger.
"Suppress them, Kerisa."
Bahram was shouting hoarsely with all his might. However, even if this was the case, his voice still vanished without a trace amidst the roaring of the heavy machine gun and the firing sounds of more than ten rifles.
"Die!!!!"
At the very beginning, Kerisa was still not too used to using this heavy weapon. But after the ammunition belt jumped for a short stretch, he successfully grasped the technique.
Suddenly, a moving shadow was right within his own field of vision.
Before the opposing party could recover their senses, his fingers had already pulled the trigger, firing a string of bullets toward their general direction.
He also didn't know whether it was truly good luck, or if the Emperor favored him exceptionally that day.
That burst of bullets surprisingly hit exactly upon the body of that Cyber-mastiff which for some unknown reason appeared on the battlefield. And it was unknown whether it detonated some device, or if it hit its energy battery precisely.
A small burst of naturally roaring akin to a lightning strike rang out within the sky above the stronghold, perfectly covering up almost all the gunfire.
Subsequently, a thoroughly tattered corpse fell down from within the fireball.
As soon as the sole hound died, the people guarding the stronghold discovered a terrifying situation.
The sky went dark.
They thoroughly lost their sensing capability regarding Oskar's group.
Oskar's group also seemed to have discovered this situation, immediately shifting from their originally occupied attacking position and arriving at a new attacking direction. This made the people within the stronghold have no choice but to scatter their limited strength to their surroundings.
And this, once again weakened their frontal power.
"Baldy, you truly shoot accurately."
Haomo teasingly whistled toward Kerisa. Meanwhile, the opposing party was still focused upon exchanging fire with that machine gun. He merely impatiently replied with a single sentence.
"You too."
At this time, Bahram squatted up from the ground, and waved his hand toward Robin's direction.
"Smoke Grenades ready!"