The Fall of the Black Snake Mercenary Group!

Inside the half-collapsed abandoned building. Prone beside a broken perimeter wall, Karl rested his sniper rifle, aiming at the street eight hundred meters away. Every now and then, he pulled the trigger to pick off targets exposed outside cover. The field of fire here was wide open; the entire street fell beneath his sights. Not even a rat trying to scurry past could escape his watch. "Number five... Die!" In his scope, a cloud of blood erupted from the back of a rocket launcher-wielding survivor's head. The survivor beside him seemed startled for a second, but without panicking in the slightest, immediately bent down, snatched up the dropped launcher, and ducked into nearby cover with the others. "These endless rats... Just how many of them are there?!" Cursing under his breath, Karl took a deep breath, smoothly worked the bolt to eject the spent casing, and began scanning for his next target, pulling the trigger again. Squad C had already engaged the enemy, locked in a fierce firefight with the local survivors. The fighting at the entrance of Huayuan Street Subway Station was exceptionally brutal. Machine gun bullets wove a deadly web across the open street! Yet the dense barrage did not frighten the survivors. Even when comrades beside them were shredded into bloody sieves, they continued to charge forward with reckless bravery. This left Karl utterly bewildered. He could not fathom what kind of courage this was, much less what made them so completely fearless in the face of death. Even though he had successfully suppressed at least three squads and pinned down well over a dozen men, Squad C's situation hadn't improved in the slightest, bogged down in a grueling battle against the survivors' sheer human-wave tactics. His teammate's voice crackled over the comm channel: "Dammit, I've already emptied an entire drum mag! If we weren't in the northern suburbs, I'd have sworn we were fighting the Tide!" "Karl! Just how many of them do you see?!" "Forty... no, maybe fifty," Karl said, licking his chapped lips while zeroing in on his quarry. "You'd better brace yourselves for a tough fight. From what I can see, they're like ants!" "Fuck! I never heard anything about there being this many survivors in the northern suburbs! Did every single one of them show up?!" "Probably." Panzerfaust rocket launchers, "Ripper" rifles, and the Legion's signature sixty-centimeter bayonets! Seeing this familiar gear made Karl's eyelid twitch frantically, an ominous premonition creeping over him. He was certain they weren't Legion soldiers. Which meant there was only one explanation: they had defeated the Legion in open battle at least once! Even if it was only Legion remnants! Cannon fodder like this couldn't possibly defeat the Legion in a pitched battle—unless they had other trump cards up their sleeves. Just then, a noise suddenly came from downstairs. As the squad's professional scout, Karl's nerves tightened instantly. He quickly set down his sniper rifle, drew the pistol holstered at his waist, and crept toward the doorway with hushed footsteps. The noise downstairs seemed to have faded. Most of the walls here were shattered, leaving only load-bearing pillars barely intact. The rest of the space had largely become a playground for mutants, inhabited by gnawers along with mutated rats and roaches. He hadn't cleared out the mutants in the entire building. Yet he was certain that noise hadn't come from a mutant! Remembering the suspected Awakened target he had spotted yesterday, Karl felt his heart leap into his throat. Silence fell all around. It was so quiet he could even hear his own heartbeat. Glancing at the comm channel's indicator light blinking frantically, a drop of cold sweat slid down Karl's forehead. He knew he couldn't afford to waste time here. He had to relocate to a new sniper perch as quickly as possible to provide fire support for the struggling Squad C! He had to take the initiative! Steeling his resolve, he gripped his pistol, stepped cautiously out of the room, and crept toward the neighboring room. There was a breach about two paces wide that led straight down to the floor below. Judging from the noise, the intruders were probably near the emergency exit. Once he dropped down, he could flank through the corridor to the exit entrance and catch them off guard from behind! His boots touched the floor, and Karl smoothly dropped into a crouch. Yet just as he ducked low and pressed against the wall, an arrow whooshed right over his head! "Fuck!" Startled, Karl cursed loudly, leaned out of cover, and fired three rapid shots toward where the arrow had come from. Without hesitation, his other hand pulled a grenade and hurled it forward. *Boom—!* The fragmentation grenade detonated, shrapnel tearing across the open hall and stirring up gnawers in the adjacent room. Karl didn't panic at all. The enemy's numbers were unknown while he was alone; the more chaotic the situation became, the more it played to his advantage. This was precisely why he hadn't cleared out the mutants on the adjacent floors! When necessary, those gnawers would become his most reliable shields, covering his movements between levels! Right then, another arrow whistled past his scalp and thudded into the concrete wall behind him. Karl sneered inwardly. A bow and arrow? What era was this? Someone was actually using a primitive weapon like that. Daring to challenge him without even holding a gun—they were practically begging for death! "Aside from sneaking around, is this all you've got—" Before the last syllable left his lips, a deafening blast tore through the space behind him. He hadn't noticed that strapped to the shaft of the earlier arrow were three thumb-thick tubes. Three fifty-gram charges detonated simultaneously, sending sixty steel balls sweeping across the room like a hailstorm. Caught completely unprepared, Karl's back was shredded into a bloody mess, and he shrieked in agony. "Ah—!" A bloodcurdling scream tore from Karl's throat alongside a spray of blood. Through the drifting smoke, a figure walked toward him. Almost by instinct, Karl forced his pistol up and fired several shots at the man, only to see the rounds spark harmlessly off the chest armor, barely scratching it. The magazine clicked empty. Despair washed over Karl's face. The man stopped in front of him, casually reached down, grasped Karl's right hand holding the gun, and effortlessly plucked the pistol from his grip. And casually crushed his wrist. Looking down at the red-named target writhing on the ground like a maggot, Lao Bai glanced at the scratches on his chest armor and couldn't help but marvel. "Holy crap, this armor is awesome!" As expected of the armor the esteemed Administrator once wore! Ordinary bullets couldn't pierce it at all! At most, they added a few more medals of honor to his breastplate! Carrying a javelin, Kuang Feng strolled over from the adjacent room and glanced down at the man babbling incoherently on the ground. "What's he saying?" Fang Chang said, "Begging for mercy, probably? That's how it always goes in movies." Lao Bai looked at Fang Chang and asked, "By the way, did the bounty quest say anything about taking prisoners?" Fang Chang pondered for a moment. "Two hundred silver coins should be the base reward. I feel like this sniper might be useful later. Maybe keep him alive for now... Ye Shi, what are you messing with?" "Holy shit, this sniper rifle looks so badass!" Cradling the sniper rifle he had scooped up from the floor, Ye Shi ran his right hand along the barrel again and again, his eyes gleaming as if he had struck gold. The light-green finish, the hefty receiver, the reassuring length, and the muzzle flash hider all proclaimed its sheer power. What thrilled him most of all was the optical scope mounted on the top rail—up to 6x magnification, with adjustable zoom and focus! This was infinitely better than the crude telescope he had bought from the NPC shop! "I've made up my mind," Ye Shi said gravely, looking at Fang Chang. "From now on, its name is Cannon!" Hearing that name, Fang Chang couldn't resist roasting him. "Can you please pick a name that isn't so damn tacky?" Ye Shi rolled his eyes. "Tch, can it be any tackier than your Daybreak?" "What's wrong with Daybreak?!" "...Alright, there are still people outside," Kuang Feng cut in, glancing out the hallway window toward the street below. "We've already bagged our two hundred silver coins. What's the plan? Keep going?" Staring at the gunfire echoing through the street below, Fang Chang suddenly had an idea and turned to Ye Shi. "Ye Shi, can you hit anything from here?" "Let me see!" Clutching the sniper rifle, Ye Shi leaned toward the window, glanced outside, and narrowed his eyes slightly. "A bit far, and the angle isn't great... but it shouldn't be much of a problem." "Map distance is eight hundred meters, and we're on the nineteenth floor," Fang Chang said, gripping his shoulder. "You're the first guy in our squad to work a bolt-action. It's up to you, bro." ... Eight hundred meters away. At the entrance of Huayuan Street Subway Station. Gunfire rang out incessantly, throwing the entire street into chaos. The players used homemade smoke bombs concocted from phosphorus, potassium nitrate, and white sugar to lay down smoke screens across the street, hurled crude black-powder grenades, and sprayed rounds from an assortment of makeshift weapons as if ammunition cost nothing. In just three minutes, they pushed their frontline halfway down the street. "Fire! Fire!" "Dammit, just how many of them are there?!" "I don't know! All I know is that if this keeps up, I'm going to run out of ammo!" The pungent stench of gunpowder hung thick over the roadway as bullets whistled through the air. Muzzle flashes from his machine gun bathed Lambert's face in crimson. At first, he had used controlled bursts, but eventually had to resort to full-auto fire, and now the barrel was overheating. Yet even that failed to stem the surging tide of survivors! Were these people insane?! Did none of them fear death?! To avoid being overrun by the human wave, Squad C had to pull back again and again, ultimately retreating all the way to the subway entrance. Setting up his machine gun once more, Lambert couldn't help but roar into the comm channel. "Damn it! Where's Karl?! Is that idiot asleep?" "I have a bad feeling about this..." "I don't care what feeling you have, hold your ground! Squads A and B are still down in the subway—" Mid-sentence, a spray of blood burst from the chest of the teammate beside Lambert. Without even a groan, the man collapsed to the ground. "Sniper!" Terror seized Lambert's heart. Just as he scrambled to fall back, two more rockets punched through the smoke—one streaking into the subway station, the other slamming into the concrete rubble providing them cover. The fiery blast practically singed his hair. Knocked flat, Lambert scrambled on all fours, grabbed his fallen comrade's rifle, and bolted into the subway. Vaulting past the security checkpoint, he sprinted all the way to the platform, tumbled into a train car, and leveled his rifle at the stairs behind him. Panting heavily, he keyed his comms: "This is Squad C. The surface position is lost. We need to find a new—" Before he could finish, a sudden gust of wind whipped behind him, followed by a vicious blow to the back of his head that knocked him cold. "Hahaha! Broke even! I broke even!" Gripping a piece of rebar, Mosquito was so excited he practically wanted to give the red-named elite another whack. Snagging a free kill felt absolutely glorious! "What are you getting so hyped about? That's only two hundred silver. You need one more kill to break even—holy shit?" Creeping over from the adjacent car with him, Brother Mole instantly zeroed in on the jet-black rifle lying on the floor. He scooped it up, his eyes shining with excitement as he took in the tactical flashlight and vertical foregrip mounted on the rail below the barrel. "This rifle is sick..." While it might not match his Black Swan, selling it for two or three hundred silver coins shouldn't be an issue, right? "A pistol, plus two grenades... and this body armor looks usable too!" Clutching his rear, Zhang Hai had somehow slipped over from the next car as well. With his free hand, he excitedly patted down the elite mob, muttering the whole time. "We're rich! We're rich!" Mosquito and Brother Mole exchanged a silent glance. *What does this have to do with him?* *Hell if I know!* ... On the surface. A street adjacent to Huayuan Street Subway Station. Watching the smoke billowing in the distance, Liu Jiuyue felt his palms grow slick with sweat despite the subzero temperatures hovering between minus ten and minus twenty degrees. Escorting the camel caravan back to Brown Farm, he happened to pass nearby and had witnessed the entire engagement from start to finish. Only one thought crossed his mind: They're so strong! The guard beside him swallowed hard and whispered to the other guard. "Is it over?" "Looks like it..." "What in the world is hidden inside that subway station? First those folks from the northern suburbs, and now even mercenaries from Boulder City showed up." "Whatever's down there, it's none of our business." Cutting off the guards' murmuring, Liu Jiuyue swallowed hard, then added, "Let's keep moving. The fighting's done." The neighbors near the wetland park might be even stronger than they had imagined. He suddenly began to understand why Mr. Brown had voluntarily offered grain to those people... ... Voice of Boulder City Headquarters. As the station's star host, House sat in the broadcast studio with his feet propped on the desk, looking over the news draft a colleague had just delivered. Though his posture appeared relaxed, his expression was anything but, gradually hardening into a look of solemn tension. Suddenly, he sat bolt upright in his chair and stared at the colleague standing in the studio. "The Black Snake Mercenary Group lost? To a bunch of hicks? How is that possible?! Is there a mistake somewhere?!" The colleague in the studio shook his head. "You're not the only one surprised. I double-checked with the lookout reporters twice, and the answer was the same both times. "The Black Snake Mercenary Group's ambush thoroughly enraged the rednecks in the northern suburbs. They mobilized at least a hundred men to hunt them down. The squad Captain Prit left on the surface was wiped out completely, and the remaining two squads are trapped inside the subway station. From the looks of it, their chances are slim to none. "Word from Central Casino says plenty of people placed bets after watching our broadcast today. We're airing this report in fifteen minutes. Get ready." With that, he turned and left the broadcast room, pulling the door shut behind him. House's face shifted between pale and flushed, his fist clenching the news draft tightly. Though he hadn't hired the mercenaries himself, nor was Prit an acquaintance or friend of his, just a short while ago he had wagered five hundred chips that the Black Snake Mercenary Group would suffer at most two casualties. That was an entire week's wages! If this report was true, his week's work had gone down the drain. "Incompetent, good-for-nothing bastards! What an absolute disgrace! Go straight to hell, every last one of you! Best if not a single one comes back!" Cursing profusely, House crumpled the draft into a ball and hurled it into the wastebasket. He decided to rewrite it from scratch, tearing into those shameless, honorless northern suburban hicks who relied on overwhelming numbers! ... One kilometer from Huayuan Street Subway Station. Clad in his exoskeleton, Chu Guang sat on a roadside bench, observing the smoke-shrouded battlefield through a Hummingbird drone linked to his VM. The players had already breached the subway entrance. From arriving on the battlefield to securing the station, barely a quarter of an hour had passed. Aside from the one who fled into the subway, the other three mercenaries had all perished beneath his players' hail of gunfire. The entrance to Vault 117 was located halfway down the tunnel. There was virtually no cover to exploit there; predictably, those mercenaries would be dug in, guarding the vault's exit. A faint smile touched the corner of Chu Guang's lips. Reaching out, he grasped the warhammer resting beside him and rose from the bench. "Finally, my turn to take the stage." ... Beneath the surface. Inside the tunnel of Huayuan Street Subway Station. "Damn it! Squad C is gone! We're on our own now!" Listening to the static crackling over the comm channel, Jerry cursed furiously, resting his rifle against the staircase along the tunnel wall. This was the only usable cover in the tunnel. The captain had left them behind and entered Vault 117 alone. As leader of Squad B, his orders were to hold the entrance at all costs. Yet even with two light machine guns and two rocket launchers, he couldn't muster the slightest sense of security. They had no reinforcements. Whoever remained here was all they had left. And according to the intel from Squad C, they were facing enemy forces outnumbering them tenfold or more. Jerry wasn't even sure if their ammunition would hold out until the captain emerged from the vault. Just then, a commotion rose from the far end of the tunnel. Not just Jerry, but every man present felt his heart leap into his throat. A figure stepped into the tunnel. Clad in steel armor, he held a warhammer in hand, leveling it toward them in open provocation. The moment that figure appeared in the tunnel, Jerry roared with every ounce of strength in his lungs. "Open fire!" *Rat-tat-tat-tat—!* Amber tracers poured from both sides of the tunnel, crisscrossing like shears toward the figure in a dense wall of fire. Yet a jaw-dropping sight unfolded. The hundreds of rounds unleashed in an instant struck as if against an invisible wall, failing to elicit the slightest reaction. They didn't even produce a ripple! Switching from a single-handed grip to both hands, Lao Bai, standing at the center of the storm, shouted excitedly: "Holy crap! This hammer is bloody amazing!" A few minutes ago, the esteemed Administrator had placed this warhammer into his hands, telling him that all he needed to do was hold down the button on the grip, point the hammer at the enemy, and strike a taunting pose. Before entering the tunnel, Lao Bai had worried whether he could withstand the onslaught, but now that concern proved utterly unnecessary! The nitrogen shield flaring from the head of the warhammer acted like a transparent umbrella, blowing away every incoming bullet. Fierce as the barrage seemed, not a single round touched his armor! "Come on, put some muscle into it!" "Is that all you got? Did you skip lunch?!" Lao Bai wasn't sure whether these elite mobs could understand his accented Mandarin, nor was he sure if they could even hear him over the deafening gunfire. Not that it mattered. Looking badass was all that counted! Please, give him more quests this awesome! Watching the "monster" standing motionless amid the storm of lead, Jerry felt pure terror surge within him. Shaken, he hurriedly ordered his men to ready the rocket launchers. Yet before the man shouldering the launcher could pull the trigger, a round with the devastating power of an artillery shell tore his upper torso into bloody shreds. Jerry froze. Only a second later did he realize what had happened, his face turning paper-white. A Gauss rifle! These northern suburban hicks actually had a Gauss rifle! Chu Guang gave the mercenaries no time to regroup. Seeing that Lao Bai had successfully drawn the enemy's fire, Chu Guang stowed his Gauss rifle and blew sharply on the whistle gripped between his teeth. A shrill whistle echoed through the tunnel. Deafening battle cries erupted simultaneously. Players with bayonets fixed surged from the platform into the tunnel like a bursting dam. "Charge!" "Ura!" "Demacia!" "For the Administrator!" "Crush them!" The thunderous shouts battered the mercenaries' eardrums painfully. Watching the cold glints of steel rushing out of the darkness, Jerry's heart filled with sheer terror, his resolve crumbling uncontrollably. By now, the heavily armored monster charging behind his warhammer had reached their front line. With a casual swing of his arm, he sent a machine gunner flying through the air. Close-quarters melee erupted. A mercenary barely managed to draw his combat knife before countless thrusting bayonets impaled him like a sieve. It was over. Completely and utterly over. Even if their captain came out in power armor to save them, breaking out from this encirclement was impossible. Having lost every shred of will to fight, Jerry frantically tossed aside his weapon, threw his hands above his head, and dropped to his knees, begging for mercy. "Stop! Stop!" "We surrender!"