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Artillery shells rained down relentlessly, detonating all around them. The explosions were deafening. Gao Fei could hear their continuous roar, but the dominant sensation was the violent tremor shaking the earth. If a single shell dropped straight into the trench, everyone along that line would die. A trench funneled blast waves, and the shockwave would kill every person caught in a straight section. So what happened when the explosive payload of two whole artillery shells was buried directly in a trench and detonated? The snapped wire in his concussed brain suddenly reconnected after that jarring shock. Gao Fei wished he could slap himself twice across the face. How could he have overlooked something so basic? How had he let a reckless brute like Andrey lead him astray? At most, they had been thirty meters away. While burying anti-tank mines in a hole kept the airborne blast wave down, it magnified the ground shockwave. At barely twenty-odd meters, they hadn't been anywhere near safe. Even someone with a death wish wouldn't gamble like that. The bombardment didn't last long, nor was it particularly dense. To be frank, it was only because Ukraine lacked artillery ammunition; had they possessed as much ordnance as Russia, a single barrage like this would have left no survivors on the position. Infantry advancing behind a creeping barrage essentially just walked over to occupy the captured ground, but the intensity of the Ukrainian shelling was nowhere near a creeping barrage—at best, it amounted to brief preparatory fire. Hearing no shouts, and no longer detecting detonations or the ground-shaking tremors of nearby blasts, Gao Fei rose and climbed out of the artillery shelter. A layer of loose dirt coated the trench floor. Looking down the line, several sections had caved in. This hadn't been done by the artillery; it was entirely the concussion from the two anti-tank mines. When it came to demolitions, one plus one could sometimes yield far more than two. The dust had settled. Gao Fei looked toward the communication trench. As far as the eye could see, the earlier communication trench was completely gone. Over a dozen meters of trench had disappeared, replaced by a radial expanse of leveled ground. The effect of detonating mines buried nearly two meters underground was completely different from a surface explosion. On open ground, an explosion relied primarily on shockwaves and shrapnel to inflict damage. But buried underground, no noticeable massive crater formed on the surface; nearly all the energy that would have generated an airborne shockwave was converted into seismic elastic waves, triggering an earthquake effect. On top of that, detonating inside the trench caused a cavity effect. The end result was that no deep crater appeared, because whatever pit was blasted open was immediately backfilled by falling dirt. The blast's ground zero looked more like a sprawling depression than an obvious shell crater. The good news was that the communication trench was indeed obliterated. There was no way the enemy could rush down it as before. The downside, of course, was that when the Russian military launched a counterattack, they wouldn't be able to advance through it either. Within a twenty-meter diameter around the blast point lay a zone of churned earth—in layman's terms, the soil had been pulverized into loose silt. Unless a few downpours soaked the loose ground completely, allowing it to naturally settle or freeze solid, no one could walk across it. How did Gao Fei realize this? Because he spotted someone struggling to crawl out of the communication trench. The man took a few steps forward across the collapsed dirt, only for his leg to sink into the soft soil all the way up to his calf. Who would have thought collapsing the communication trench would yield such an unexpected advantage? The two enemies who scrambled out of the communication trench were dropped on the spot by a burst from Glaski's machine gun. Those attacking Ukrainians were truly unlucky. Even though they could clearly see the trench ahead had been severed, they still had to grit their teeth and push forward. Needless to say, someone in the rear was watching them like a hawk. Hand grenades began flying over, but with a distance of forty meters between them, no matter how hard those men tried, their grenades couldn't reach accurately enough to drop into the trench. In other words, even though Andrey's two anti-tank mines had nearly killed them, the demolition had proved genuinely effective. Not only had it choked off the enemy's assault corridor, but it had also created a wide obstacle zone. Defending this position had just gotten much easier. A moment of danger for lasting safety; bitter first, sweet later. Not bad. Gao Fei rested his rifle level, aiming toward the intact section of the communication trench. Now that the communication trench was cut off, the enemy would have to leave the trenches to mount an attack. Any assault preceded by preparatory artillery fire was bound to be a major engagement for the Ukrainians. In a battle like this, ordinary soldiers couldn't just advance or hold back on a whim. Sure enough, Gao Fei watched as several figures crawled sluggishly out of the trench. They hauled themselves over the trench parapets onto the flat ground and began creeping toward them. Low-crawling had its uses at long range, but in an engagement barely fifty meters across, it was utterly futile. Sprinting in a charge was pointless; low-crawling was pointless; stopping to shoot from where they lay was equally pointless. Leaving the cover of the trench meant death, whether Gao Fei was there or not. Glaski didn't even fire; he wanted to conserve machine gun ammunition. Instead, Samir Bek and Andrey opened up together, instantly killing all six enemies who had climbed out along the trench edge. The enemy stood no chance. At this moment, they were truly reduced to the brutal reality of World War I trench warfare, completely out of options. Gao Fei held his fire, watching intently. There was no rush; he only needed to shoot if an exceptionally dangerous target appeared. "Looks like they're out of drones!" Samir shouted at Gao Fei. At this point, Gao Fei wasn't very afraid of suicide drones; he feared bomber drones more. Protective netting couldn't stop mortar shells dropped from high altitude. Yet it seemed the enemy really was out of drones, because up to now, not a single one had appeared to drop ordnance. Though artillery was deadly, frontline infantry feared drones above all else. Especially in defensive fighting like this, whichever firing position laid down heavy fire was usually bombed by a drone in short order. Trying to take a position held by Gao Fei using only artillery and infantry was sheer suicide. Gao Fei's hearing was recovering, but he still couldn't make out what Samir was yelling. He pointed to his ear, waved a hand to signal he couldn't hear, and raised his rifle once more toward the communication trench beyond the collapsed zone. The enemy stopped poking their heads out. Even if the barrier troops prevented them from retreating, they would have to alter their tactics. First of all, they would have to bypass that zone of collapsed, loosened soil. By now, if the enemy lacked sufficient drones, it only made sense for them to bring in mortars. The 60mm mortars accompanying the infantry could come into play, along with grenade launchers firing rifle grenades—both weapons could fill the firepower gap between heavy artillery and hand grenades. Gao Fei's assessment proved accurate. After about a ten-minute lull in the attack, the first mortar shell came shrieking in. The round landed thirty meters in front of the position. The enemy could direct mortar fire from the frontline, continually adjusting the point of impact until they could drop shells squarely into the trench. Gao Fei immediately began scanning for targets. Directing mortars and walking rounds onto target required someone maintaining continuous observation. Spot that observer, kill that observer, and the enemy's mortar fire would lose its precision. Of course, if a drone was doing the spotting, there would be nothing he could do about it. Gao Fei searched for a long while without spotting anyone popping their head up to observe. Right then, another mortar shell arrived, slamming down behind him, just four or five meters outside the trench. Just the second shell, and it had landed that close already? At most ten shells, as few as five, and at fastest merely three—that was all it would take for their mortars to land a direct hit in the trench. Fighting like this was utterly suffocating. He was a sharpshooter, sure, but if the enemy gave him no target, even the greatest marksman was useless. At a time like this, they needed fire support of their own to suppress the enemy. Before the third mortar round arrived, rifle grenades began arching over. Rifle grenades weren't especially powerful. The 30mm rifle grenades used by both Russia and Ukraine lacked the punch of defensive hand grenades, packing roughly the power of offensive hand grenades at best. While they lacked individual destructive power, they came in volume. Their accuracy wasn't great, but there were plenty of them. Any weapon became a menace in sufficient volume. When the enemy concentrated their rifle grenades, dozens came raining in all at once. What was more, rifle grenades could be fired in high-angle arcs, meaning the shooters didn't need to expose themselves to Gao Fei's sights. Dense pops and bangs of explosions erupted all around. The fact that Gao Fei remained standing in the trench was already a show of serious guts; he was no longer easily rattled by explosions of this scale. Then the third mortar shell fell, striking the earth directly ahead of the trench. This time, Gao Fei finally caught sight of a head flashing briefly in the communication trench before vanishing. The value of a sharpshooter, the value of a tactical anchor, the value of a firepower core, and the value of being 1st Squad's golden pillar were all made unmistakably clear in that instant. Just one shot, a single bullet, striking the spotter dead in the head. Not with a sniper rifle, but with a standard assault rifle, scoring a hit on the first shot from roughly fifty meters out. Making that shot was harder than landing a first-round hit at five hundred meters with a sniper rifle. Because all the enemy showed was a head—and not a head that stayed exposed, either. For Gao Fei to seize that fleeting split second to fire and drill that single head, describing it merely as extraordinary talent couldn't begin to capture the true caliber of that shot. Even Gao Fei found his own shot nearly unbelievable. The consequence of that single shot was that the enemy mortars fell silent, while rifle grenades kept peppering the area without pause. On his first day, explosions of this density would have scared Gao Fei half to death. On his second day, he would have instinctively ducked for cover. But now, Gao Fei treated the erratic barrage of rifle grenades like background noise, feeling not the slightest bit threatened. Take cover? The time spent ducking down and popping back up was far better spent keeping his sights locked on the enemy spotters. Whether he had caught Andrey's recklessness or simply developed psychological immunity to attacks of this intensity, he couldn't say. If a drone was hovering high above to direct the mortar fire, he would be powerless. But if an observer dared show his face, Gao Fei would put down every single one who tried.