Even though he hadn't shown his face on the front line for over a week, Chu Guang had been quietly keeping an eye on his little players from the rear.
And after watching the series of outrageous stunts these players pulled, Chu Guang couldn't help but laugh and shake his head.
"Good grief... they've truly figured this 'game' out."
Cannon fodder training was one thing.
It helped Pangolin farm kill counts and also cleared out the old surplus gathering dust in their allies' warehouses.
This way, Pangolin gained military merits, the rookies gained combat experience, the allies got modern equipment, and the Alliance secured arms orders... Calculating it all, he had won at least three times over, and he had done it lying down without lifting a finger.
Which genius came up with this idea!
Sitting on the desk, Xiao Qi tilted her little head, observed the expression on Chu Guang's face, and asked in a small voice, "Master, it feels like the undercover agent you placed in the Legion is in danger... Should I remind them not to take things too far?"
"No need. Let them be," Chu Guang chuckled, shaking his head. "That fellow won't die so easily. Showing mercy on the battlefield would look too fake; this makes it much more believable."
It would be even better if he got injured.
Sent back to the rear to recuperate as a war hero, he might even be able to scout the western part of the Mid-Continent on Chu Guang's behalf and see what things were like back in the Legion.
He was always hearing Vannus talk about how majestic and imposing Triumph City was, but without a single photograph, it was rather difficult to write up lore entries for the official website.
Xiao Qi nodded, only half-understanding.
"Okaay."
Although she didn't quite get it, since Master had said so, there shouldn't be any problem.
Scrolling the mouse wheel with his index finger, Chu Guang continued browsing the forum posts.
Right around the time players usually logged off, a certain mole popped up in the group chat named [No Traitors].
Battlefield Atmosphere Group: "Bros!!! Massive insider scoop!"
Brother Edge: "What scoop?"
I'm the Darkest: "Did the rookies carry you out on a stretcher?"
Battlefield Atmosphere Group: "Piss off! Serious business here. Weren't our front lines short on ammo? At first, the ammo here was being scraped together and transferred from other sectors within our defense zone, but today they suddenly started reallocating ammo from other defense zones!"
Brother Mole: "Holy crap?!"
Brother Edge: "For real?"
Commander Spring: "Can you confirm which defense zones?!"
Battlefield Atmosphere Group: "Heh heh, that's exactly what I was gonna say. The ammo crates delivered today were marked G40 and G41. Unless something bizarre happened, they were transferred from those two sectors!"
Brother Mole: "Badass!"
Commander Spring: "Make sure you log every shipment of ammo that comes in! Then we can calculate the remaining stockpiles in each sector and fine-tune our attack routes for Plan No. 3 accordingly!"
As he typed these words, Commander Spring was so excited that his palms were practically sweating.
If everything went smoothly, by the time next week's operation formally commenced, they would be facing a garrison starved of ammunition and suffering from plummeting morale.
Such a defensive line would be as brittle as an eggshell—cracking at the lightest tap!
As long as they could tear open a gap in their line, the Skeleton Corps' armored units could thrust deep into Oasis No. 3, coordinating with the follow-up divisions advancing from the rear to carve up the battlefield and completely shatter the enemy's defenses.
Wiping out this army of a hundred thousand would be well within their grasp!
Battlefield Atmosphere Group: "Heh heh, what class of merit do I get for this? (smug)"
Commander Spring: "Special Class Merit, hands down!"
Brother Edge: "6666!"
...
In just one short week, the 7th Century led by Pangolin had wiped out an entire thousand-man force from the Alliance.
The consecutive victories over the past days not only boosted the frontline troops' confidence by leaps and bounds, but also allowed officers at every headquarters level to breathe a collective sigh of relief.
Before deploying to the front, all they had seen were terrified deserters, and all they had heard were rumors of how savage and ferocious the Alliance's soldiers were.
Seeing it firsthand now, the Alliance was nothing special.
It was likely just clumsy retainers making excuses for their own failures.
By now, under Griffin's instructions, the legendary exploits of Sector G53-7 had spread like wildfire throughout the entire Legion.
The morale boost provided by such legendary tales was akin to that of ace snipers or fighter pilots.
While one or two elites couldn't change the course of an entire war, they could instill confidence in the masses, making them think, "If they can do it, so can I."
As for why the Alliance stubbornly clung to Sector G53-7 without committing larger forces, opinions within the Legion were divided.
Some believed Position G53 might be the strategic focus of the Alliance's next operational phase, intending to use it as a breakthrough point for the campaign.
However, the majority leaned toward a different explanation.
Namely, that internal divisions had arisen within the Alliance regarding whether to continue the war.
Such occurrences were far from rare on the Legion's path of conquest.
Despite its colossal size, not every unit of the Legion secured crushing victories in every engagement.
Especially in conflicts not driven by the Legion's unified collective will, local survivor factions occasionally managed to outmaneuver them.
Even so, out of sheer dread of the Legion's immense scale, those survivor settlements ultimately chose subjugation.
Of course, a minority believed the cause was far more direct than ideological disputes: the Alliance was, in a very literal, physical sense, running out of steam.
War was an expensive game.
The Enterprise's aid to the Alliance was genuine, but the continuous losses resulting from that aid were equally real. If the Alliance had to shoulder all logistical expenditures alone, its modest economic scale and fledgling industrial capacity probably wouldn't last even a week.
This intelligence had all been supplied by their business partner, the Bugra Free State in the northern part of the River Valley Province.
If that were the case, it wasn't hard to explain why the gear of the soldiers launching "suicide charges" at Sector G53-7 seemed to get shoddier and shoddier with every wave...
Camp G53-7.
Looking at the bundles of rifles piled on the ground and a heap of ammunition in varying calibers and lengths, the officer who had come to salvage the spoils couldn't help but scoff.
"Did they dig out whatever old junk was collecting dust in their attics?"
Equipment captured on the battlefield had high malfunction rates, so before being used, it usually had to be sent to the repair unit under the legion for maintenance and refurbishing.
This repair unit was roughly equivalent to a divisional maintenance company.
According to the Legion's military regulations, barring exceptional circumstances, combat units at any level were prohibited from privately retaining captured gear; it had to be sent to the maintenance unit for servicing first, then forwarded to logistics for standardized distribution.
However, this rule was not strictly enforced.
After all, whether a situation was "exceptional" was entirely at the discretion of frontline commanders. Given that supplies could run dry at any moment, most officers preferred hoarding goods for themselves.
Especially now, with supply lines clearly experiencing hiccups, even if captured weapons had terrible failure rates, having something was still better than nothing.
Pangolin, however, was an exception. This pure and honest war hero "generously" handed over all the materials captured from the Alliance.
Was he joking?
He wasn't an idiot!
What kind of trash rifles that bastard Commander Spring had handed out to the rookies—the newbies might not know, but how could he not know?
This was the Beta version already; even a dog wouldn't touch a pipe rifle!
"Looks like the Alliance's logistics have hit a massive snag," Battlefield Guy whistled, chiming in casually. "Maybe victory won't take long at all."
The officer smirked.
"I really don't get how those greenhorns who fled from Oasis No. 9 were fighting."
Battlefield Guy quipped, "Just in time for us to teach them by the hand."
"Haha!"
The officer let out a hearty laugh.
Although this Pangolin wasn't a Wilan, his talk was surprisingly entertaining.
And whoever he was, as long as he gave the Alliance a sound thrashing and vented some spite on their behalf, he was a good friend.
He was even growing rather fond of the guy.
Just then, a woman with dark brown hair hopped down from the passenger seat of the truck at the tail of the convoy.
The sudden appearance of a woman in an all-male military camp naturally drew the eyes of the decurions, and even the dim-witted clones looked over.
She was certainly good-looking.
Yet upon seeing the high bridge of her nose, the officers who had been about to whistle and catcall deflated like punctured balloons, drifting away to mind their own business.
A Wilan would never look at them twice.
Though they were fortunate enough to have transferred from the Retinue Army into regular units, mere luck wasn't enough to let them reach above their station.
They knew full well those big-noses would never fancy them, and would more likely whip them twice for feeling insulted.
Battlefield Guy sized up the woman.
She had blue eyes, dark brown hair woven into a braid, and the characteristically high nose bridge of a Wilan... along with even higher peaks on her chest.
The Legion wasn't devoid of women, but almost all were "alien races" employed as servants; this was his first time seeing a pure-blooded Wilan woman.
And he also discovered for the first time that those big noses weren't always ugly—it really depended on what face they were attached to.
The woman walked straight up to him.
"Greetings, Mr. Pangolin."
"You are?"
"Penny, a correspondent for the *Triumph Gazette*. Pleased to meet you." The woman smiled slightly and offered her right hand, showing off the notebook and voice recorder tucked against her chest. "Headquarters sent me here to get an understanding of the situation... Would now be a convenient time for an interview?"
The *Triumph Gazette*, as the name implied, was a newspaper published in Triumph City and the most widely circulated publication within the Legion. However, due to communication delays and other factors, editions printed in different regions varied considerably.
For example, in Triumph City, the *Triumph Gazette* primarily covered local news, while frontline updates were generally relegated beyond page three.
On the front lines, however, the *Triumph Gazette* steered clear of topics like home and family as much as possible, focusing instead on victories, beautiful women, thrilling escapist tales, and anything that could get soldiers' hormones pumping, along with riddles and crosswords to kill time in the trenches.
Most low-ranking officers were literate and could read them aloud to the common soldiers, and radio broadcasts also read articles at scheduled hours.
To maintain the soldiers' enthusiasm for conquering new territories, officers needed someone flexing their muscles on the battlefield, someone living lavishly like an emperor in a survivor settlement, someone striking it rich through war... and even if none existed, they could embellish and invent them.
Like bread, alcohol, and tobacco, these newspapers didn't cost soldiers a dime; they were part of standard logistical provisions.
The moment he heard the *Triumph Gazette* wanted to interview him, Battlefield Guy remembered what Korwei had mentioned yesterday. Delighted, he immediately shook her hand.
"It's my honor to be at the service of a beauty. Ask whatever you'd like."
Flattery regarding appearance might be a cliché, but it never went out of style.
Sure enough, the corners of Penny's lips curled up slightly, revealing a pleased expression.
"So as not to take up too much of your time, I'll get straight to the point."
Flipping her bangs aside with a light shake of her head, she practicedly switched on the recorder, checked the questions pre-written in her notebook, and spoke.
"First question, then... Do you have a family?"
Battlefield Guy replied without hesitation, "I'm an orphan. Officer Korwei, who took me in, is my family."
Penny looked at him in surprise, a touch of sympathy welling in her eyes as she continued, "I heard you are an Awakened?"
"That's right."
"You must have gone through terribly grueling training, haven't you?"
Battlefield Guy gave an embarrassed chuckle.
"Uh, not really. It actually happened out of nowhere... To this day, I still haven't figured out what went on."
Penny blinked, then broke into a gentle smile.
"Fair enough. Most Awakened only realize by chance that they've gained abilities beyond ordinary people... Even among survivors outside the Wilans, there is always a certain chance of being one of the lucky ones."
Pausing, she went on, "Then may I ask... what makes you invincible on the battlefield?"
Battlefield Guy answered almost without thinking: "My loyalty to the Grand Marshal, of course!"
Penny froze momentarily and asked subconsciously, "But... aren't you from Jinchuan Province? You must never have seen the Grand Marshal in person, right?"
"That doesn't matter," Battlefield Guy stated shamelessly with an earnest look. "Though I have never laid eyes on His Excellency the Grand Marshal, nor set foot in Triumph City, that great man's philosophy has captivated me deeply. This chaotic world needs order! And only when noble blood flows through every vein can this world welcome eternal order!"
Hearing this impassioned declaration, Penny was visibly moved.
What...
What incredible loyalty!
"Then how do you view your commanding officer, Korwei—"
Before she could finish, her words were cut short by a sudden explosion.
A deafening roar erupted from the frontline positions not far off. Shattered stones and dust shot more than ten meters into the air, some even raining down near the convoy.
Soldiers of the maintenance company raised their arms to shield their heads and ducked.
With his officer's cap blown away by the violent blast wave, Battlefield Guy's face changed in an instant.
Holy shit!
This isn't the time we agreed on!
The rookies bent on revenge gave him no time to hesitate.
After a brief pause, whistling shrieks suddenly tore through the air.
Propane gas tanks with steel pipes shoved into their tails spun wildly through the sky, unleashing explosions and flashes of fire that bloomed across the defensive positions like scattered petals.
"Hit the dirt!"
Seeing an enormous gas tank hurtling right toward them, Battlefield Guy's expression twisted into terror. He grabbed Penny's arm and hauled her down to the ground.
This woman can't die!
Otherwise, wouldn't all that badass posturing he'd done be completely wasted?!
*Boom—!*
The moment they hit the ground, the colossal detonation blasted out practically simultaneously.
A turbulent shockwave swept outward, flipping a truck on the spot and nearly disintegrating the maintenance officer who had been shooting the breeze with him moments earlier.
It took half a minute for the dust to settle.
Confirming there were no further explosions, Battlefield Guy finally released Penny from beneath him and scrambled up.
"Damn it! *Pbbbt—*"
Spitting out the sand in his mouth, Battlefield Guy wiped the grit from his face, cursed under his breath, and looked down at the petrified war correspondent.
"You all right?"
She's pretty soft.
Her first day on the job?
Penny didn't answer. Her face was deathly pale as she remained pinned flat against the dirt, too terrified to move. Her eyes brimmed with lingering panic, and her pants were noticeably damp in one spot.
After a long time, she squeaked in a trembling voice, "Wh-what... was that just now?"
Judging by that sound...
How could it be louder than a 100mm cannon?!
Battlefield Guy chuckled dryly.
"Gas tank bombs. Pack quite a punch, sure, but terrible accuracy and short range... Not the first time we've run into them."
Penny swallowed hard.
Gas tank bombs?!
How... how utterly barbaric!
"Do you... endure shelling like this every day?" Her voice shook, though she still remembered to locate the recorder on the ground and pick it up.
"Standard operating procedure for those guys... See? That's all the Alliance is capable of. Looks terrifying, but the results are mediocre. Nothing to worry about!"
Battlefield Guy grinned, picking up his dropped rifle and cap. "Wait here a minute. I'll go reap those bastards."
With that, before Penny could reach out to stop him, he turned and marched into the smoke-choked battlefield.
These rookies are completely drunk on battle.
They've even broken out "saturation bombardment"!
Shock aside, he was also panicking on the inside.
If he didn't head up there to carry those clone morons, these crazy bastards might actually overrun the position!
Plan No. 3 was entering a crucial phase. Sector 53 was not a primary objective for the Alliance; when the time came, Storm Corps and Skeleton Corps would even leave them an escape route to pull back.
Overrunning his position right now wouldn't help the overall war effort at all, and might even ruin the bigger picture over a petty gain.
For the Alliance!
For His Excellency the Administrator!
No matter what, he had to butcher these brain-dead newbies.
While Comrade Pangolin charged toward the front, Penny, left behind where she was, felt her mind tangling into a ball of yarn.
When Pangolin had seized her arm just now, a sudden jolt had struck her heart, though her racing pulse had almost stopped for half a second under that near-miss explosion.
Now her heart was beating again, thumping wildly against her ribs.
His sturdy chest and protective embrace lingered stubbornly in her mind.
Especially the sight of his back as he walked away...
It wasn't merely loyalty.
What... what breathtaking heroism!
A hint of infatuation gradually surfaced in her dazed eyes, but soon dissolved into regret and pity.
What a shame.
So loyal and so brave, yet an alien.
Even if he achieved the highest honors and amassed great wealth, he could ultimately only marry an alien. No matter how much his superiors recognized his talent, he would never be accepted into mainstream society.
Thoughts swirled in chaos within her mind.
Right then, Penny suddenly felt dampness, and her entire face flushed bright as an apple.
Having never ventured this deep into the front lines, it was her very first time experiencing artillery fire up close. The earth-shaking blast had rattled her internal organs so violently that she hadn't been able to hold it in.
Mortified to the point of wanting to drop dead on the spot, she quickly stripped off her coat and tied it around her waist. She reflexively glanced in the direction Pangolin had disappeared, biting down on lips red enough to bleed.
He probably...
...didn't see, right?
...
In the distance, about one kilometer from Sector G53-7.
Over a dozen tripods stood beneath the slope of a sand dune, empty steel pipes aimed directly toward the Legion's positions.
With the backing of "veterans" like Spring, Edge, Mosquito, and others, the newcomers who had entered the game in Beta 0.4 had not only launched "mass training drills" on the front line, but also kicked off "mass production," even setting up a makeshift munitions workshop using local materials.
As it turned out, the working masses possessed boundless creativity. Left unchecked, let alone flying thunder cannons, they could probably invent a Heartless Katyusha.
After a single ranging shot, twelve propane-tank rockets had produced the momentum of a full rocket artillery barrage, lending the scene quite an authentic battlefield atmosphere.
"Awesome! Now this is what I call fighting a war!"
A'nie pumped his fist excitedly.
"Exactly! Isn't this way more badass than some dinky mortar!"
Holding the Chessboard clicked his tongue grudgingly.
"Too bad the accuracy is trash."
True, the enemy position now had an extra row of craters and scorched earth, but how many enemies had actually died was hard to say. The only consolation was that the machine gun nest had at least been wiped out.
The safest approach now was to pull back, haul another cart of shells over, and fire another salvo into the opposite position, or lay down some smoke grenades for cover.
Unfortunately, those veteran players were heartless bastards who had dumped them here and walked off without looking back.
Without food, water, or a guide, trying to trek two hundred kilometers across the desert back to the rear was far less efficient than just shooting yourself.
"Anyway, let's dig trench—"
Before he could finish, Laid to Rest beside him had already fixed his bayonet beneath the barrel, hoisting his rifle and howling with excitement.
"Brothers! Strike while they're reeling! Charge!"
With that, he produced a whistle from who knew where, clamped it between his teeth, and blew with all his might.
*Fweeeeet—!*
The shrill whistle echoed across the sands.
At the sound of the charge whistle, battle cries erupted across the position. Every single rookie surged forward as if pumped full of adrenaline, storming the smoke-shrouded enemy lines.
"Charge!"
"Make 'em drop their damn coins!"
"Awoooo!"
"Silver coins!!!"
"Gimme that loot!"
...
Bearing the Administrator's mission, the turncoat engaged in a bloody, brutal brawl across the shattered position with the rookies who had discarded all martial etiquette.
Both sides fought until their eyes were red.
One side couldn't afford to die, while the other simply didn't want to die too quickly.
If both sides couldn't respawn, it surely would have been an epic, tearful tragedy.
Meanwhile, as the front line burned with raging combat, Dawn City—over a thousand kilometers away—enjoyed peaceful calm.
Compared to the raging battles at the front, life in the rear felt like retirement.
Due to overhunting by players and the popularity of delicacies like crab cakes, mutant steaks, salt-roasted hyena meat, and buttered mushroom baked rice, mutant organisms near Dawn City had become scarce—so long as one didn't venture deep into city sectors infested by the slime mold.
One couldn't even catch egg-laying split-claw crabs in the nuclear craters of Yumu District anymore.
Without a doubt, these monsters had been eaten to local extinction. Anyone wanting to hunt delicious mutants had to travel north to the forested mountains above Qingshi County.
Or alternatively, advance toward Jinchuan Province with its dense jungles and sweeping plains.
To enrich the culinary repertoire of Dawn City's citizens, a certain lizard and rat had recently organized an expeditionary force, taking along a few rookies and restless veterans to head toward Jinchuan Province.
Their ultimate objective was the southernmost Death Coast!
Reportedly, that was the territory of the Church of the Torch, where high-tech exoskeletons frequently dropped.
For instance, Spring's "Blastoise" suit had allegedly dropped from Torch zealots.
Not only that, a traveling merchant named Zhou Nan had bragged that there was also a "glowing sea" there.
That sight had to be infinitely cooler than Silver Moon Bay!
Luo Yu had originally wanted to tag along and take a peek.
Unfortunately, he was currently saddled with a burden.
According to the Administrator, clearing the obstacles on Floor B6 seemed to require Xiao Yu's "Devour" trait.
While he was thrilled that the god-tier pet the bastard developer compensated him with came with a hidden quest, babysitting was undeniably tedious.
His daily routine was now like walking a dog: taking Xiao Yu on a stroll through the northern outskirts, slaughtering a couple of Crawlers or Butchers, and watching it feast heartily.
After that, he would walk it around the settlement to burn off its boundless energy, and incidentally ease the neighbors' wariness toward this polite child.
In truth, the latter was secondary; the former was the real priority.
If he didn't drain the creature's energy, it couldn't sleep at night and would act like a cat, doing everything in its power to wake him up. And if it couldn't wake him, it would do bizarre things to his incubation pod.
For example, the last time he woke up, he saw a bloody, gaping maw pressed against the transparent pod door, almost scaring the piss out of him.
It had looked as though it wanted to swallow him whole.
Yet as soon as it saw him awaken, Xiao Yu quickly reverted to its well-behaved, adorable demeanor, swimming around him like a lively little dolphin and chirping happily with "yi-wu, yi-wu" noises.
As if nothing had happened at all.
To domesticate the little beast and integrate it into human society, Luo Yu taught it the Human Alliance language—which he wasn't even fluent in himself—and occasionally tried feeding it human food.
Although it still resisted cooked food, it had quite a fondness for things high in sugar.
Especially the stat-buffing lollipops sold at the NPC shop; after eating one, it would not only emit noises of sheer bliss, but would even swallow the plastic stick without spitting it out.
Aside from that, after a period of nurturing, another development occurred with the little guy that filled Luo Yu with immense joy.
It had finally learned how to hunt!
Chapter 461