While the Heart of Iron vented its fury upon the deserted urban ruins, the official forum in another world was buzzing with excitement.
Almost the moment they logged off, the Death Corps players who had participated in the raid rushed to post their firsthand battle reports on the website.
Beyond tallying their spoils, these trailblazers who were the first to taste the fruits of success shared their practical experiences and thoughts on testing the "Wolf Cavalry" doctrine.
Rainy Night Thirteen: "Damn, that was so satisfying!"
Midnight Umbrella No Blade: "666!"
Yangyoubao: "Scavenger is awesome! (Voice cracking)"
Laplace: "Objectively speaking, aside from being a little dim-witted, our Scavengers have almost no flaws!"
Ma'am You Wouldn't Want That: "Couldn't agree more! There is no mount more perfect than Scavenger!"
Scavenger Lv99: "???"
Brother Edge: "Ahem, it's fine if you call them that in private, but show some restraint in front of Scavenger himself."
Tail: "Darn it, Tail wants to raise one too!"
Sisi: "Isn't Ah Wei riding Rou Rou anymore?"
Tail: "Only kids make compromises; Ah Wei wants them all!"
Currently, Vault 79 had fitted seventeen deathclaws with psychic interference devices, nearly all of which were assigned to the Death Corps.
In the previous night's ambush, almost all seventeen wolf cavalrymen had deployed. The results were remarkably impressive, living up to the Administrator's expectations.
Twenty cavalrymen had squared off against a full century of infantry plus ten Legion elites.
From the first exchange of fire to the end took less than three minutes. The enemy barely mounted any effective resistance before being shattered by the Wolf Cavalry's charge.
Experience proved that while this seemingly outdated cavalry doctrine sounded questionable on paper, combining it with new-era biotechnology and modern tactical concepts produced a miraculous, almost chemical reaction on the wasteland.
The deathclaws' devastating melee prowess and superior mobility, paired with the players' mid-to-short-range firepower, turned this "rider-and-beast-as-one" combat style into an unstoppable force across rugged terrain—especially inside urban environments.
Against soft targets lacking armor and mobility, infantrymen firing from behind cover became sitting ducks, ripe for the deathclaws to hunt down at will.
Naturally, while the deathclaws put out immense DPS, the players' role on the battlefield could not be overlooked either.
Take the previous night's ambush, for example.
It wasn't just the deathclaws showcasing their power, but also the light weapons designed for the Wolf Cavalry by Goblin Technology.
Two weapons in particular stood out above the rest: the LD-50 carbine and the "Whirlwind" grenade launcher.
The former resembled an AK-74U in outward appearance, but it was actually modified from the LD-47 assault rifle. It still fired 7mm full-power rounds, yet its overall structure was much more compact than the rifle, offering slightly greater firepower and stability than a submachine gun.
Its design philosophy wasn't meant for cavalry to shoot from atop a deathclaw's back. Instead, it was designed for riders to dismount and clear lingering hostiles inside buildings alongside the keen-nosed, brutally powerful beasts.
Even so, practical combat proved that while shooting from astride a deathclaw wasn't an ideal firing platform, it was far from useless.
At least for Level 20 Agility-type players, properly timing their shots and having enough familiarity with the weapon allowed them to hit targets behind cover while on the move.
Moreover, the Wolf Cavalry rarely needed to dismount at all. Charging through for a single devastating sweep and immediately withdrawing was the most efficient tactic.
As for clearing residual hostiles inside buildings, that could easily be left to the Death Corps' regular infantry. Every one of them was an urban combat specialist skilled at keeping costs low with inexpensive weaponry.
The other piece of equipment crafted for the Wolf Cavalry, the "Whirlwind" grenade launcher, was Goblin Technology's imitation of the real-world MGL rotary grenade launcher.
The contraption looked like an oversized revolver.
Its revolving cylinder allowed it to fire multiple grenades in rapid succession, unleashing massive firepower to suppress enemy lines and cover the cavalry's swift breakthrough.
As the world's most widely produced 40mm grenade launcher, the MGL was essentially the AK of grenade launchers, or the RPG of rocket launchers. Its reliability and firepower made it wildly popular among irregular militias, spawning countless clones across the globe. Mosquito had shamelessly copied it straight into his company's catalog.
To facilitate rapid mass production, Brother Mosquito had tweaked several structural elements. The most prominent change was reducing the caliber from 40mm to 37mm.
Yet despite shedding three millimeters, its destructive power hadn't decreased in the slightest—if anything, it had surpassed the original.
After all, a weapon's lethality wasn't measured by caliber alone, but by its explosive filler.
The N10 anion salt azide compound recently unlocked by the New Alliance's Scientific Expedition had completely replaced the RDX and TNT previously packed into warheads.
This high-performance explosive saved massive amounts of volume inside the warhead, and the freed-up space was promptly packed with additional steel bearings and pre-fragmented shrapnel.
Nor were fragmentation grenades the only option.
Goblin Technology had also crafted a specialized flechette round for the Whirlwind launcher.
Its interior mirrored a shotgun shell, but instead of ordinary steel pellets, it fired clusters of long, slender steel darts.
These specialized penetrators possessed ferocious armor-piercing capabilities at close range, purpose-built to puncture the rigid armor worn by Legion soldiers and the ballistic inserts slotted into heavy plate carriers.
While the LD-47 rifle's 7mm full-power cartridge packed tremendous kinetic energy and raw stopping power, its armor penetration was mediocre.
Against hard armor in particular, once a bullet shattered upon impact, its penetrative capability fell off dramatically, inflicting internal trauma without necessarily killing the target outright.
The AP flechette suffered from no such shortcoming.
During the Death Corps' opening charge, the five lead wolf cavalrymen had loaded these specialized rounds, turning several heavily armored Legion soldiers into veritable pincushions in an instant.
The riders following close behind laid down a blanket of high-explosive grenades over unarmored targets like the auxiliary levies.
By the time the deathclaws slammed into their ranks, the entire century had practically lost all fighting ability, leaving only a one-sided slaughter...
WC Really Has Mosquitoes: "Sigh, what a shame! There were too many obstacles in the urban zone to showcase the full glory of high explosives! If this had been trench warfare, my launcher would've caused insane casualties!"
Brother Mole: "Trench warfare? Sure, if your idea of combat is beating up toddlers. (Side-eye)"
Makabazi: "Sigh, ever since we ran into the Legion, I've realized that compared to well-trained regulars, the Bone Chewer tribe was just a little brother."
Stop Bullshitting: "Wait, did your ass even go to the front lines??"
Makabazi: "Doesn't matter. The grain I grew went to the front lines, which means I went to the front lines. (Funny)"
Stop Bullshitting: "Holy shit?! That counts?"
Drum Washing Machine: "Speaking of which, it'd be great if we could get personal shields. I only realized after heading back that I took a bullet to both legs."
Elaina: "Should we rob the Administrator of his war hammer? I remember that hammer can pop a shield, and a damn strong one at that. (Funny)"
Elven King Fugui: "No need to rob him. Just work harder so our Administrator can upgrade to god-tier gear sooner. Once he gets bored of that hammer, won't it trickle down to us? (Funny)"
Drum Washing Machine: "The way you put it makes me feel like a bottom feeder picking up scraps."
Fang Chang: "Isn't scavenging scrap the very essence of this game? (Funny)"
Jokes aside, gear discarded by the Administrator wasn't something just anyone could pick up.
Named weapons bearing the [Unique] tag and epic historical significance would fetch astronomical bids at auction regardless of their practical stats.
For instance, the shotgun wielded by the Bloodhand Clan's boss that Mosquito had snagged early on still held a five-figure valuation, even though it was rusted to near-useless flakes.
Just as the players' banter drifted into appraising the worth of the Administrator's hammer, a server-wide announcement suddenly popped up across the forum.
[Server Announcement: Expansion Pack "Boundless Yellow Sands" will launch upon the destruction of the world boss airship "Heart of Iron".]
"Holy shit?!"
"Awesome!"
The moment the notice went live, the forum exploded.
Another expansion pack within less than two months!
Isn't this update schedule a little too fast?!
...
Ruigu City, West District.
Concealed on a rooftop, Commander Spring peered through his binoculars, keeping his eyes glued to the airship hovering in the sky. He suddenly muttered under his breath.
"...Something's off."
Beside him, I'm the Darkest asked curiously, "What's off?"
Commander Spring pondered for a moment before answering.
"Look at that lift elevator. Yesterday it came down loaded and went up empty, but today it's going up full and coming down empty... Doesn't that strike you as odd?"
Not only that.
Commander Spring also noticed that several pieces of engineering equipment deployed on the ground were being winched up toward the sky one after another.
Under normal circumstances, constructing defensive fortifications was an ongoing, planned effort. There was no reason to withdraw engineering plant after barely a month of deployment.
Unless...
The enemy planned to relocate.
Commander Spring frowned, suddenly recalling the announcement posted on the forum the previous evening.
The new expansion pack would launch once the Heart of Iron was brought down.
If the enemy was pulling out...
Would the expansion pack still launch?
Lowering his binoculars, Commander Spring turned to I'm the Darkest.
"Notify the others... Log off for an operational briefing."
"Got it!" I'm the Darkest nodded at once, turning to head downstairs.
Although the Legion could triangulate radio signal sources within twenty kilometers with pinpoint accuracy, there were always more solutions than problems.
The Storm Corps players had previously seeded the urban area with numerous manually activated, single-use transmitters, allowing commands to be pushed out unilaterally while frontline units maintained radio silence.
Confirming whether orders had been carried out was just as simple: log off and drop a message in the group chat.
The corps system in Wasteland OL was essentially a variation of guild mechanics, and every guild naturally maintained external chat groups.
To make this out-of-game coordination more efficient, Commander Spring had deliberately assigned a dedicated dispatcher role within the corps, tasked with relaying group-chat feedback from frontline players back into the game.
Estimating that everyone should have logged off by now, Commander Spring put away his binoculars, carefully retreated into the building, lay down in a quiet corner, and logged out.
Picking up his phone to check the WeChat group, he was about to share his observations when he saw his "mole" embedded in the enemy camp eagerly updating the squad on the Legion's latest movements.
Battlefield Atmosphere Group: "Breaking news! Those big-noses are planning to pull out!"
Kakarot: "Withdraw?!"
Catching Ghosts at Graves: "What's going on???"
Battlefield Atmosphere Group: "According to the sentries on watch at Falling Leaves Camp's gates, General Griffin has ordered them to advance to Oasis No. 9 in the Sunset Province. They intend to withdraw within a week... But Captain Maclen seems reluctant to abandon the outposts they built in the southern corridor of River Valley Province, so he plans to leave a contingent of ground forces behind."
I'm the Darkest: "Damn, they're just going to leave like that?"
Battlefield Atmosphere Group: "No idea on the details, but overhearing the black-robed soldiers chatting, General Maclen threw a massive fit last night... Those big-noses finally seem to have realized that the ones fighting them aren't the Enterprise, but the local natives."
After bustling around for nearly a month, they had finally discovered they'd been shadowboxing thin air, while the Enterprise's relief column had slipped into the desert right under their noses.
Though Battlefield Guy hadn't witnessed it firsthand, he could easily picture General Maclen blowing his stack.
Yet...
The other players were focused on something else entirely.
I'm the Darkest: "Holy crap? Did they figure out it was us?"
Kakarot: "No way. We shouldn't have left any obvious slips, right?"
Battlefield Atmosphere Group: "Uh, no, they haven't realized it was us. The Alliance's name still doesn't carry much weight around Ruigu City. As for the troops in exoskeletons... they seem to think it was Boulder City."
Strictly speaking, Battlefield Guy deserved some credit for that.
He recalled Colway approaching him to ask which regional faction was the strongest around here, and he had answered Boulder City without hesitation.
On top of that, he had embellished the tale, claiming that the inner-city nobles of Boulder City were Enterprise lapdogs who had gone so far as to replace their vital organs with Ideal City cybernetics.
That wasn't entirely untrue.
Ever since Brother Fang Chang opened up the bionic prosthesis market in Boulder City, plenty of inner-city nobles had indeed equipped themselves with high-end merchandise from the East Coast.
Kakarot: "Pfft..."
Commander Spring: "I see. That actually explains everything."
Battlefield Atmosphere Group: "Explains what?"
Commander Spring: "Now that they realize the Enterprise's reinforcements have pushed into the desert, they're most likely being recalled to reinforce the rear. That General Griffin is probably the theater commander for the Legion's garrison in the Sunset Province. Otherwise, I doubt Maclen would leave without finding an excuse to shell Boulder City first."
Although the players had secured some tactical victories lately, Commander Spring knew those gains were nowhere near enough to compel the Legion to cut its losses and retreat.
Unless their strategic deployment had shifted.
Viewed from that angle, the allied column advancing deep into the desert had indeed made a significant impact. Otherwise, the Heart of Iron wouldn't be in such a desperate rush to redeploy.
He had originally assumed those twenty suits of power armor wouldn't accomplish much.
In hindsight, he had underestimated the power of technology.
Battlefield Atmosphere Group: "By the way, if that world boss slips away... will our new expansion pack still launch?"
I'm the Darkest: "Holy shit?! If you hadn't brought that up, I would've forgotten! Wasn't the unlock condition destroying that airship?"
The group chat was instantly flooded with messages.
They had spent all of yesterday discussing the server announcement, and before twenty-four hours had even passed, they were suddenly facing the prospect of losing the expansion pack entirely?!
Commander Spring: "That's what worries me most. Setting aside the possibility of the devs trolling us, I foresee two outcomes: either the expansion gets delayed, or the escaped Heart of Iron becomes one of the bosses in the new expansion."
Battlefield Atmosphere Group: "If it's the latter... doesn't that mean it won't affect anything?"
Commander Spring: "No, the latter is the worst-case scenario."
I'm the Darkest: "Huh?"
Commander Spring: "Think about it carefully. A single airship is already this hard to deal with. If it regroups with their main army, crushes the trouble in the desert, and marches back here, the difficulty will spike straight from Hell to Nightmare!"
The forces aboard the Heart of Iron were primarily light infantry and light armor. Heavy assets like Conqueror-series tanks hadn't shown up yet.
To say nothing of heavily armored infantry fighting vehicles, self-propelled artillery, and waves of cloned light infantry specializing in human-wave assaults.
Commander Spring was certain the Legion possessed all of those assets.
Once the Heart of Iron linked up with the Legion's ground forces and forged an integrated air-ground combat system, the resulting force multiplier wouldn't be as simple as one plus one equaling two.
When that day came, the Alliance wouldn't just be facing a battleship in the sky, but the full might of the Legion itself!
Seeing that no one was responding, Commander Spring continued typing.
"Worst of all, if the Heart of Iron's intervention tips the scales on the western front, we might be forced into a direct confrontation against the Legion."
"This is our last chance, and our only chance. Before it pulls out of River Valley Province, we must pin it down here."
"At all costs!"
If they lost, the server would reset.
And everything they had gained from the game would be wiped away along with the server shutdown.
While most players enjoyed the game with a casual mindset, their fates had long since intertwined with this world.
Even if they joked behind the scenes about the damned dev team being ruthless, most players couldn't deny that Wasteland OL had given them things they could never bear to part with.
Be it friendship, love, money, knowledge, status, or something else entirely.
At this moment, every player in the chat turned deadly serious.
Battlefield Atmosphere Group: "Do you have a plan?"
Commander Spring paused for a moment before typing.
"I do."
"But our numbers alone won't cut it!"
"I need the cooperation of other corps... No, not just players in the corps system, but also unaffiliated solo players, and even life-profession players. We need at least five thousand people to ensure our plan goes off without a hitch."
Kakarot: "Five thousand people... Wasteland OL only has five thousand players across the entire server, doesn't it?"
Catching Ghosts at Graves: "Counting the newbies, we might scrape together a little over five thousand, but rookies who just logged in struggle to kill a cockroach... Looks grim to me."
Battlefield Atmosphere Group: "And we have a week at most..."
Watching the messages scroll rapidly down his screen, Commander Spring moved his thumbs and typed his reply.
"Indeed."
"The time has come to test our mobilization capabilities."
Chapter 399