Thousands of rockets shot into the sky, their trails flickering with light.
They unleashed a series of explosions across the battlefield.
Cold, unfeeling machines marched through the flames and the smoke,
Colliding with the fully prepared forces of the Snowwind Mercenary Corps.
Machine guns, turrets, rocket launch nests, armored vehicles, tanks, and exoskeleton soldiers jumping several meters into the air, along with spider robots,
All wove together a battle line stretching for miles.
On the surface, the sound of pouring rain
Was completely drowned out by the deafening sounds of gunfire and explosions.
The fierce battle,
Which began the moment the two sides engaged, continued for over ten minutes.
At some point,
The rainwater flowing across the ground gradually turned red with blood.
Amidst the chaos, wherever the eyes could see,
There were fallen bodies and twisted, shattered mechanical parts scattered everywhere.
Every soldier, every spider robot,
The moment they were pushed to the front line—whether by force or by choice—had their lives measured in seconds.
This was pure violence,
Enhanced by technology to reach the highest levels of efficiency, making the slaughter as brutal as it was efficient.
At the 12-minute mark of the battle,
The Snowwind Mercenary Corps' air force began to join the fray.
Dozens of armed helicopters and heavy transport helicopters
Dropped powerful bombs and incendiary devices from the sky.
The deep crimson flames, like rivers flowing from the depths of hell,
Burned relentlessly through the heavy rain and flooding, spreading into an endless inferno.
The black clouds above the battlefield were lit up by the flames,
The burning skies mirroring the immense power of human technology.
On the outskirts of the battlefield,
A group of scouts from various shelters around Jianghe City watched from afar.
Some came from different numbered official shelters,
Others were dispatched by large civilian shelters,
And some were simply leaders of smaller, mid-sized shelters.
Faced with the war on the surface that could determine their fates,
None of them could stay hidden in their own shelters, waiting for the outcome.
They were all compelled to come out and witness it firsthand.
And as they watched,
They saw a battlefield far beyond their imagination.
This was the brutal side of modern weaponry,
A side that the movies and fiction never truly captured.
It was like a sci-fi reality come to life.
They had once believed that a well-trained army consisted of uniformed soldiers, armed with automatic rifles and carrying rocket launchers.
But in the face of the combatants on this battlefield,
That vision seemed laughably naive.
Everyone grew increasingly silent.
Some, who had hoped to negotiate with the final victor to secure their own survival,
Suddenly found their hopes vanish without a trace.
When the difference in power is so vast,
It becomes meaningless to try and fight for anything.
The only thing left to do was to pray for mercy from the victorious side.
"You think, if the Snowwind Mercenary Corps wins in the end,"
"What will happen to us?"
A leader from a mid-sized shelter, who had come out to gather information,
Stood in a half-collapsed room, barely sheltering from the rain,
Looking out at the burning battlefield in the distance.
His face was filled with anxiety.
"What else can happen?"
"They'll take whatever they want."
"And—"
"Forget Snowwind. Even if the Huangshi Shelter wins, does it make any difference to us?"
"What can we do to stop them?"
The leader's friend, the head of a nearby small shelter, snorted.
His tone was filled with complicated emotions.
The leader paused in realization and suddenly understood.
He smiled bitterly.
"That's true."
"Now that the Official Shelter's been wiped out,"
"Where is there any order left?"
Neither of them had the will to continue the conversation.
In silence, with a sense of confusion and unease,
They kept their eyes on the distant battlefield, where the booming sounds continued to echo.
No matter how the battle ended,
Their futures would never be the same again.
Farmhouse Courtyard, Underground Control Center
As one of the command centers of the two forces currently fighting on the surface,
The control center was rapidly processing vast amounts of battlefield data.
"Specially constructed fortifications detected."
"Preliminary analysis shows they can withstand 76% of external impact damage."
"17th analysis of the swarm drone performance."
"New data: maximum instantaneous flight speed 57.2 meters per second."
"Enemy intelligence center node detected, beginning artillery bombardment."
On the screen in front of Su Wu,
As his mechanical army advanced,
The artificial intelligence began frequently updating the newly gathered enemy information.
Adjusting the tactics in real-time to gain an advantage.
Bit by bit, the edge was slowly tipping in their favor.
When the AI finally completed analyzing the Snowwind Mercenary Corps' swarm drones' underlying behavioral logic,
The attack drones under Su Wu's command began entering the battlefield on a massive scale.
The balance of the war
Was steadily, and irreversibly, tilting toward Su Wu.
"Almost there."
Su Wu gazed at the green dots on the map, now occupying an overwhelming advantage.
There was no excitement in his heart.
He calmly calculated for a moment,
Then turned his gaze to the floodwaters of the eastern Jianghe City.
At that moment,
Far in the eastern part of Jianghe City,
On one of the Snowwind Mercenary Corps' ships,
Lan Yu, the commander, hung up the phone call with the leader of the mechanized infantry division near the 4th Official Shelter.
He turned and walked to the captain's observation window.
Silently gazing at the center of the war in the ruins of the city.
The difficulty of this battle
Had surpassed even the worst-case scenario predicted by him and his staff.
None of them had anticipated that,
Just a civilian group,
Could possess a far more powerful unmanned mechanical army than they had.
Until now, it had effectively cornered them,
Leaving them with a hard choice:
Whether to abandon their main forces on the ground and retreat from Jianghe City in defeat,
Or risk everything, betting all their chips on being able to defeat the enemy.
He didn't think too long.
A few seconds later,
Lan Yu sighed softly.
He knew,
He ultimately couldn't abandon the main forces that were trapped on the battlefield.
Without them,
The Snowwind Mercenary Corps would no longer
be a complete military force.
Instead, it would truly become a band of marauding thieves roaming the wastelands.
And that would mean the end of their future.
Now, all he could do was fight to the bitter end.
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