Chapter 188 Hero <TOC> Chapter 190 Triumph
Translator: SumTLMan
The catastrophic losses of the armored forces left the battalion commander in a state of anxiety, and he hesitated to send his troops back into the city for fear of incurring even greater losses.
The battalion’s artillery sporadically fired towards the city, but the 120mm mortar had a negligible capacity to damage shelters, resulting in the shells serving merely as noise for the Soul Cult within the city.
Li Mu reclined on the roof of an infantry fighting vehicle, using a backpack as a makeshift pillow. He never anticipated that the provincial forces would degenerate to such a degree, with the entire army being obstructed by the ruins and a group of Bloodthirsty Beasts, rendering them immobile.
“Rest for a while; there will likely be more struggles ahead. Remain vigilant at night,” he advised the officers and soldiers of the company.
The entire company immediately took a breather on the spot, with even the infantry fighting vehicles and power armor that had escaped death resting after undergoing maintenance.
Shen Luoyan supported her chin with both hands, not expecting Li Mu to establish considerable influence among these soldiers within just half a day.
As Li Mu predicted, the battalion did not advance, only firing shells throughout the night, eventually ceasing to fire altogether.
In the latter half of the night, the Soul Cult manipulated the Bloodthirsty Beasts to launch a surprise attack on the camp, with the beasts pouring over the virtually nonexistent external defenses like a tidal wave.
The rudimentary arrangements made by the battalion commander were no match for these highly agile Bloodthirsty Beasts.
The armed Soul Cult, led by the titled cultists, infiltrated the battalion headquarters from another direction. Disguised in the uniforms of the provincial forces, their objective was to take advantage of the disorder created by the Bloodthirsty Beasts to carry out a decapitation strike and annihilate the entire battalion’s command structure.
The sudden gunfire awoke the soldiers in the camp, but there was insufficient time to organize a defense.
The Bloodthirsty Beasts easily tore through the soldiers like a predator amidst prey.
Panicked soldiers fired their weapons haphazardly, with a large number of them perishing not at the hands of the Bloodthirsty Beasts but due to friendly fire.
In the darkness of the night, the soldiers’ morale disintegrated rapidly, and they frantically fled the camp, rushing into the marsh.
As they ran, they became mired in the mud and disappeared without a trace.
“Where is your battalion commander?” inquired the titled cultist who had stormed the camp, gripping a soldier’s head with his hand.
“I… I don’t know! Don’t kill me!”
“Bang!”
His head was directly crushed.
The titled teacher flicked off the brain matter stuck to his hand.
“Such a bunch of trash dares to oppose us. Keep moving forward, I’ll crush everyone’s head like this.”
At this moment, the camp commander was as pale as a sheet, slumped in the seat of the command vehicle. His legs were so weak that he could barely stand, wearing only a nightgown. He opened his mouth but didn’t know what to say.
He didn’t even know that an elite team had infiltrated the camp and was looking for him.
Amidst the chaos and as the entire camp was about to be crushed by the Soul Cult, a crossfire network halted the Bloodthirsty Beast’s rampage.
After experiencing the daytime battle, the soldiers of the unit were no longer so afraid of the Bloodthirsty Beasts.
The power armor fired and advanced, squeezing the Bloodthirsty Beast’s space. The roaring firestorm instantly reaped the Bloodthirsty Beasts suppressed by the machine gun fire.
A giant Bloodthirsty Beast, over three meters tall, was precisely taken down by the main cannon of an infantry fighting vehicle. The tungsten-core projectile penetrated its head directly.
Shen Luoyan’s psychic energy wave beam allowed her to achieve real-time monitoring of all situations on the battlefield, and she meticulously controlled all the soldiers, infantry fighting vehicles, and power armor to fight together using her psychic link.
Her command efficiency alone surpassed that of all the cultists in the Soul Cult.
The entire unit was like an unrivaled sharp blade, effortlessly severing the Bloodthirsty Beast’s offensive.
The chaos in the camp gradually subsided.
The Soul Cult elites who rushed into the battlefield also felt a powerful resistance, and the calmed soldiers no longer ran around like headless flies.
Under these circumstances, the armed cultists who had infiltrated the camp were quickly exposed.
They were like being trapped in a swamp, struggling to move forward. Bullets from all directions occasionally brought down one or two armed cultists.
Since they had been exposed, the leading titled cultist boldly leaped straight up to a height of seven or eight meters amidst the howling. He finally saw the command vehicle of the camp in the air.
He landed on the ground, but before the titled cultist could steady himself, he heard an even louder commotion.
The groups of Bloodthirsty Beasts suddenly plunged into chaos. They seemed to have lost unified command; some were biting each other, some continued to attack the provincial army, and others simply chose to turn tail and flee.
The arrogance of the titled cultist was instantly extinguished, as he knew what had happened. The cultists controlling the Bloodthirsty Beasts from behind had been killed, and only in this way would the Bloodthirsty Beasts fall into large-scale chaos.
“This is a trap!”
He couldn’t fathom why the Santanu family’s slaves suddenly displayed such immense courage and resolve, employing a mutually detrimental strategy to obliterate the Soul Cult.
The control range of psychic-type awakened individuals was limited. In order to execute this covert assault, the titled cultists of the Soul Cult responsible for directing the Bloodthirsty Beasts left their secure and hidden underground shelters, stealthily approaching a location less than a kilometer from their initial position.
When striking an enemy, it was also the most vulnerable moment to be hit. All these titled cultists, who had demanded a significant amount of resources to cultivate, were eliminated.
Inflicting a thousand wounds on the enemy while sustaining eight hundred oneself, causing such substantial losses to the Santanu family’s assets during the operation, the commander would undoubtedly face execution!
A chilling sensation surged within the cultist’s heart. The next instant, he abandoned the armed cultists behind him, opting to flee on his own. If he didn’t escape now, he would be ensnared here as well.
In the wilderness, lifeless bodies littered the ground, with all the manipulator-type titled cultists lying in pools of blood. Encircling them were two enhancer-type titled cultists tasked with protection and over thirty elite armed cultists.
Li Mu stood amid the corpses, his arm impaling the chest of the final titled cultist.
This titled cultist had persevered until the end. Desperate and frenzied, he sought to drag Li Mu down with him, only to have his heart brutally crushed.
He was an enhancer-type titled cultist, so formidable that he resembled a clothed bear, yet before Li Mu, he appeared as feeble as a child.
Blood gushed from his mouth, and even with his heart pulverized, he refused to die immediately due to his unyielding vitality.
“The Lord of Souls is observing me, and she sees you! Blasphemer! Brace yourself! Your forthcoming days will be infinitely more miserable than mine! I will witness your fate from within the Lord’s divine realm!”
Li Mu discarded his body on the ground.
“Tedious.”