Steel Is Burning!

A simmering bloodlust permeated the entire forest. Yet at that moment, the armored millennium thundering forward amidst billowing clouds of dust remained utterly oblivious. The aviation unit from West Sail Port had already scouted the entire area ahead. Barring their advance along the defensive line several kilometers out were merely a few anti-tank guns deployed in artillery pits. Aside from those, there were only some suspected foxholes and concealed positions where stragglers might be hiding. Before the Conqueror 10, a beast capable of withstanding the dive-bombing impact of a hundred-kilogram aerial bomb, such intimidating-looking contraptions were nothing more than toothpicks. At most, they might sever a track. And anticipating that the Alliance might have taught these guerrillas the tactic of flying suicide drones beneath vehicle undercarriages, they had long since taken a page from the Eastern Legion’s playbook, mounting drone-catching chains across the front and rear of their hulls. Once one of those quadcopters drew close, its propellers would tangle in the iron links and lose all lift. Not a single Wilante doubted that once their tanks rolled up to the Bolo fighters, their indestructible treads would crush those stunned faces into the dirt. This battle was going to be an effortless sweep! Inside a Greyhound wheeled armored reconnaissance vehicle on the move, Centurion Nickles of the recon century adjusted the magnification on his periscope. Checking the marked points and symbols on his map, he kept his eyes glued to the suspected artillery pits ahead. Those "rats" hiding in their burrows had clearly spotted the dust churned up by the incoming tires from afar and were beginning to scramble out of their holes. Flipping off his weapon's safety, he maintained his vigil while barking into his communicator. "...Target 2.5 kilometers ahead! Enemy towed artillery is loading! Three guns spotted so far!" A prompt reply came through the channel. "Copy that!" Nickles inhaled deeply, shifting his gaze from the periscope to the firing port. With his index finger resting on the trigger, he stared fixedly at the three artillery pieces being loaded, yet held his fire. The distance was a bit far for a wheeled armored vehicle's 20mm autocannon. Although the Greyhound was fitted with a vertical stabilizer, that did not mean it was immune to the bumps of off-road terrain. To score a guaranteed hit, they would have to halt before firing. Doing that, however, would sacrifice their main advantage—mobility—and the trade-off wasn't worth it. Nickles swiftly calculated his move, intending to close the gap to one kilometer before teaching these amateur guerrillas a proper lesson. Compared to Nickles's caution, the grunts under his command were far more cocky. In the preceding skirmish, they had already witnessed what the Bolo guerrillas were capable of. Those fools had turned an ambush into a chaotic meeting engagement, essentially throwing their lives away for nothing. The loss of their comrades hadn't put them on guard; instead, it had ignited their fury and thirst for blood. They couldn't wait to avenge the two brothers they had lost! "Two kilometers out!" "Sir! Looks like they've finished loading! Requesting permission to fire!" "Denied. Await the firing order! We hit them once we're closer!" "Yes, sir!" "Haha, do these rats seriously think that junk will do anything to us?" Hearing the banter over the comms channel, Nickles scolded them under his breath. "Don't get cocky! Those might very well be 155mms. They won't pierce a Conqueror, but they're more than enough to punch clean through us." The barrels were wrapped in straw, making it impossible to identify the exact models. They could be 155mms, or perhaps 100mms. Regardless of caliber, even if they couldn't penetrate a tank, they would have no trouble chewing through a recon vehicle with less than twenty millimeters of equivalent armor. He had already lost one recon vehicle and had no desire to embarrass Millennium Commander Rekton any further. To Nickles's wariness, Jimmy—another spotter and vehicle commander—merely sneered. "That's assuming they can even hit us—" Before the words had completely left his mouth, a series of deafening roars erupted in the distance. That wasn't just three guns firing; there had to be at least a dozen, and mingled among them were even several... mortars? "Fuck—!" "They're firing!" Shouts erupted across the comms channel, and the recon vehicles rapidly swerved to alter their course. Though they talked tough, facing incoming shells was a different story entirely, and the young soldiers began hollering in panic. Nickles stared in disbelief, wondering if his ears were playing tricks on him. Why were there mortars mixed in? Yet before he could process it, a disorganized salvo of ordnance came hurtling down on them. Without hesitation, he roared, "Brace for impact!" "Understood!" The driver seated in front of him wasn't panicked in the least. With a gentle tug of the steering wheel, he easily evaded a shell drifting lazily toward them from afar. In truth, there was no real need to dodge. A direct hit was impossible at this range, and the shell hadn't even been aimed at them. Some landed well ahead of their formation, while others cratered the tire tracks left in their wake. *Boom—!* Thick plumes of smoke shot into the sky from the explosions, billowing outward into a dense, milky-white curtain. Glancing out the small viewport behind the turret, Nickles jolted in realization. "Smoke shells!" No— It wasn't just smoke! Static washed over the comms channel, and Nickles discovered to his horror that his vehicle radio had gone completely dead! "Damn it! Electromagnetic jamming rounds!" The distant cannon fire raged on, growing denser by the second. Round after round slammed into the open plain, clearly intending to blanket the entire field in smoke. This was open ground. Their smoke trick wouldn't last long! Watching the intermittent signal flicker on the console, a bead of sweat formed on Nickles's brow as he tried to reassure himself. Yet just as they were about to punch through the signal-blocking haze, the jolting hull came to a jarring halt, as though it had smashed into a raised ridge between the fields! With a muffled grunt, Nickles crashed against the turret ring, nearly splitting his forehead open. The hull pitched forward violently! Bracing himself against the tilted handrail, he gritted his teeth and cursed, barking at the driver. "What the hell are you doing?!" The driver stomped desperately on the accelerator, shouting in panic and rage, "Visibility is zero out here! Damn it! The tires are caught on something!" "Caught?!" The faces of both Nickles and the comms operator drained of color. Grinding to a halt in a godforsaken spot like this made them sitting ducks! The only silver lining was that the enemy artillery was still continuously firing smoke shells. While the towering smoke screen blinded their vision and jammed their comms, it also shielded them in return. Nickles shoved the comms operator behind him, urging him fiercely, "Get outside and look!" "Yes, sir!" Though terror filled the operator's face, he knew this was no time to hesitate. Clenching his PU-9 submachine gun, he gritted his teeth and shoved the hatch open. The instant he pushed the door ajar, a thunderous explosion detonated nearby, followed by a crackle like string after string of firecrackers. That was the sound of an ammo rack cooking off! At the same time, the rhythmic *thump-thump-thump* of a 20mm cannon echoed through the smoke. Spooked by the gruesome fate of their comrades, one of the recon vehicles had begun blindly firing in terror, sending a frantic stream of tracer rounds slicing aimlessly through the thick white fog. A stray round whistled past Nickles's vehicle, striking the sturdy armor plating with a loud *clack* and a shower of sparks. The operator, who had just stepped out, jumped out of his skin and hit the dirt in a panic. "Are you out of your fucking minds?! Cease fire!" Nickles was terrified as well. He grabbed the communicator and bellowed into it, but it was completely useless. Blasting away blindly in this situation achieved nothing. It would only give away their position and risk hitting friendlies. It was then that Nickles made another horrifying discovery: his vehicle was not the only one immobilized. All nine vehicles in the recon century were dead in their tracks! His face turned ashen. Once the smoke cleared, they would be stationary targets left to the mercy of the distant artillery. "What the hell is going on out there?!" His composure fraying, Nickles roared out the open hatch, simultaneously grabbing the submachine gun slung beneath the turret, already prepared to abandon the vehicle. The operator scrambled up from the mud, despair etched across his face as he yelled into the open doorway, "It's a ditch! They dug a trench and covered it with straw! Our tires fell right into it!" This wasn't just any ditch—it had a raised front and a sunken rear. If only the tires had sunk, they might have crawled out. But due to the height difference between the front and back, the chassis had hung up on the ditch wall, leaving both front and rear axles suspended in midair. Nickles froze. A trench?! Out on an open plain?! How could they have pulled that off right under their noses?! No— There was a way. All they had to do was tunnel underground first, then tear off the top and cover it with straw and vegetation. Surrounded by farmland and running along the natural ridges of the fields, with a little camouflage, aircraft would never spot it from above. Realizing the gravity of the situation, Nickles's expression shifted from stunned disbelief to sheer horror. He was suddenly reminded of the hate-filled faces hidden in that forest earlier, and of those soldiers who would rather die than surrender. Only now did it dawn on him that there were two hundred thousand of those people out there, and behind those two hundred thousand stood over a hundred million more... Without realizing it, they had wandered straight into a bottomless quagmire! Planks and straw mats were thrown back from countless foxholes, and hollow-cheeked faces with prominent browbones emerged from the pits. They were short and gaunt, yet their eyes burned with the feral ferocity of hyenas. Their weapons were a motley assortment. There were Ripper rifles, Alliance LD-47s, and some were even clutching crudely made wooden stools. Spotting these crawling soldiers, the dismounted Wilante crewmen whipped out their submachine guns and sprayed lead at them, but they were quickly suppressed by return fire. Even a race bred for war could not hold out against sheer, unending numbers. Seeing they were close enough, the crawling soldiers abandoned all stealth, leaping to their feet and charging the stranded recon vehicles. Panic crept onto the face of a Wilante crewman, and he screamed to his comrades behind him, "Shit! Their infantry is swarming us! How long until our tanks get here?!" He already regretted driving so far ahead. Yet regret was useless now; all he could do was pray that friendly forces would arrive in time. "Sons of bitches! Where did these mole rats come from?!" "We need backup! Three o'clock—" "Hold your fire, you idiot! Are you trying to kill me?!" "Don't stop firing! They're rushing us!" "How many of these bastards are there?!" "Aaargh! Die!" Facing the suffocating white fog, Nickles's lips turned pale. Faintly, he heard the chattering of gunfire, along with the curses and frantic cries of his comrades. Tracers streaked through the mist, yet they could not stem the tide of roaring fury sweeping toward them. There were at least a thousand of them— "Kill them all!" ... "Enemy artillery positions are deploying smoke rounds!" "Recon century has gone dark!" Amidst the armored millennium advancing in grand formation, two sudden reports caused Rekton's pupils to contract inside his command vehicle. Smoke shells? With signal jamming, no less. What kind of tricks were these savages playing now? "Most likely supplied by the Alliance!" his adjutant's voice came over the comms channel, prompting Rekton to roll his eyes. "...That goes without saying. You think these primitives could build that stuff themselves?" Fixing his eyes on the dense haze dissipating in the distance, Rekton gripped his communicator and calmly issued orders. "First Century, assault through the center toward the smoke screen. Second and Third Centuries, envelop from the flanks. Fourth and Fifth Centuries, follow up from the rear. All other units maintain formation... Keep an eye on those woods to our east." "Understood!" A unified response came through the comms, and the steel torrent of ninety-two tanks shifted formation simultaneously! The tanks on both flanks accelerated while the center maintained its cruising speed. The original arrowhead formation gradually spread outward into an open crescent. Ninety-two tanks in total! And more than half of them were Conqueror 10s! Serving as the spearhead of the offensive, they would be an unbreakable lance in the hands of Myriad Commander Ryan! Rekton gazed ahead with composed ease, a faint, intrigued smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. He wanted to see what little tricks the enemy could possibly muster. "Charge through!" Watching the wall of smoke draw nearer, he kicked the back of the driver's seat from beneath the turret. The driver responded with vigor, "Yes, sir!" A few kilometers vanished in the blink of an eye, but what met Rekton's gaze caused his smirk to freeze instantly. Nine Greyhound wheeled reconnaissance vehicles lay stranded on the road. One of them was charred black, as if its ammo rack and fuel tanks had detonated. As for the remaining eight, their crews had been dragged out, their mutilated bodies left hanging gruesomely over the hulls and turrets. Some had their bellies slit open with bayonets, others had been riddled with bullets, and some were charred to a crisp. The ground around them was littered with corpses. Judging by their emaciated frames and shoddy gear, they clearly belonged to Bolo soldiers. Both sides had fought to a frenzy, venting their hatred upon one another in the most brutal ways imaginable. Staring at the bodies, Rekton's eyes went bloodshot with rage. He ground his teeth so hard they felt ready to shatter. "Those bastards!" The jamming smoke began to thin, and the distant artillery unleashed another round of deafening roars. Seeing the Bolo army attempting to repeat the same trick, Rekton seized his communicator and bellowed, "All units, weapons free!" "Tear them to pieces!" Hardly had the words left his lips when a thunderous explosion detonated from the northeast. That wasn't the sound of tank fire. Because the moment the sound registered, Rekton saw a pillar of fire erupt into the sky, carrying a tank turret along with it. It was their proud Conqueror 10! Watching the flickering flames and the half-wrecked chassis crackling with sparks, Rekton was utterly dumbfounded. He wasn't the only one; nearly every Wilante soldier on the field froze in place. A terrified voice belatedly came through the comms. "...This is the Third Century! We're taking anti-tank fire from an unknown target! Shit!" Before the shout could finish, another brilliant flash blossomed across the plain. This time, Rekton saw it clearly. It was a missile streaking in from the woods! It was the Alliance! Without an ounce of hesitation, Rekton poured all his strength into a roar, nearly crushing the communicator in his grip. "Third Century, pop smoke! Fifth, Seventh, and Ninth Centuries, assault the eastern woods!" "Show no mercy! Crush them into paste!" ... Turning around to flee was out of the question. The enemy clearly hadn't opened fire the moment they spotted them; they had waited for the optimal firing window. Exposing their rears would only get them killed faster. Besides, running with their tails between their legs was never the Southern Legion's style! Though the missile that had detonated the ammo rack startled Rekton, he decisively ordered an attack, sending the armored formation on the right flank surging forward. Man-portable anti-armor weapons usually had minimum safe arming distances; closing in to point-blank range was actually safer. The Legion tanks wheeled around. At least thirty tanks bore straight down on the woods, firing on the move. Explosive fire instantly engulfed a corner of the forest, toppling thigh-thick trees like dry kindling. Had this been the Bolo army, more than half of them would have been wiped out by this single barrage! Now, however, they were facing the "blue gophers" of Shelter 404. And from the elite Burning Corps, no less! The players present were no strangers to Legion tanks; they certainly weren't about to stand still and serve as target practice. After firing a missile, Lao Bai immediately cranked his power armor's output to maximum and vanished before the gun barrels could even swing his way. By the time the barrage blanketed his previous position, he had already relocated and loaded his third missile. A slender trail of white smoke darted from the woods, carving a sharp zigzag through the air before slamming violently into a Conqueror 10 desperately fleeing behind its own smoke. Without suspense, the retreating tank crumpled like a tin can under a can opener, turning into a heap of scrap metal amid swirling flames. Having scored a kill, Lao Bai didn't bother looking back at the fireworks. He swiftly relocated to his next firing point, his corps spotter confirming the kill over the link. "Direct hit! Beautiful shot!" "Hurry up and lock the next one." "Copy that!" Lao Bai was far from the only one carrying a missile launcher, and more than one "Pigeon" took flight from the woods. Five hundred Alliance players operated in pairs, fanning out across a dozen-plus-kilometer-wide stretch of woods and fields. One handled targeting and spotting, while the other managed loading and firing. Although the backblast of the missiles gave away the shooters' positions, the protection and mobility of the Xiaguang power armor left the Legion's tanks completely helpless. Short of a direct hit from an armor-piercing shell or a high-explosive round detonating at point-blank range, simple shrapnel was nowhere near enough to incapacitate these agile armored infantrymen! On the Legion's side, however, their tanks were like paper before those missiles. Successive explosions drove the three armored centuries assaulting the front into despair. They had already pushed into the shattered woods torn apart by their own shelling, yet the situation showed no signs of improvement; their casualties only continued to mount. "...Damn it! They're wearing power armor!" "What the hell kind of missile is that?!" "They're too fast! We need infantry support!" Despair didn't stop at the armored millennium's right flank; a wave of pessimism quickly engulfed the entire battlefield. Staring at the burning wrecks to the northeast and the flames drawing ever closer, Rekton sank into utter despair amid his shock and fury. How were these people doing this?! The Conqueror 10's spaced armor could defeat the shaped-charge jets of conventional high-explosive anti-tank warheads, and the armor plating itself was sturdy enough to deflect any kinetic projectile fired by conventional propellant! Not only that, but the Conqueror 10's comprehensive protection system could withstand the overpressure of aerial bombs, while offering full defense against chemical and radiological hazards! Against any survivor faction whose technology predated the early Era of Prosperity, their advantage was nearly absolute! And against survivor factions with technology from the early Era of Prosperity or higher, they could still triumph through massive numbers and unmatched cohesion. This efficient expansion model had proven infallible for the past century and a half. It was the very bedrock of their confidence! Yet this time, they had kicked an iron plate. The Alliance was like a vat of molten iron. Bound by a shared faith, they had united vault dwellers and wastelanders who once harbored bitter grievances, welding technologically advanced survivor factions together with sprawling survivor populations into a single, seamless slab of iron. The missile's propulsion design and launch system came from Boulder City; the target recognition, guidance, and micro-energy storage tech came from the Southern Sea Alliance; and the crucial plasma warhead originated from Enterprise plasma technology... These technologies were integrated at Camp 101 and mass-produced in the industrial zones of Daybreak City. A technological edge was merely the surface. Just like prosperity in economy, culture, and every other domain. To his dying breath, Rekton would never understand where he had truly lost. What they faced was not a single settlement, nor a single survivor faction. It was all the survivors of the wasteland, united as one! In less than five minutes, all thirty tanks that had pushed deep into the woods were wiped out! Only a fraction had their ammo racks and fuel tanks blown up directly; others had their power units knocked out, forcing their crews to bail out and surrender. Given the fighting spirit of the Wilante, there were naturally those who put up a desperate last stand. Yet before the Alliance's elite infantry, that feeble resistance couldn't even make a ripple before being suppressed into the dirt by a hail of gunfire from the trees. With the collapse of the right flank, this deep-thrusting armored spearhead soon resembled a rabid bull with a broken leg, losing its balance and sinking into the muddy wilderness. Of the ninety-two tanks, a full eighty were wrecked along their forward charge. As for the remaining twelve, they were destroyed in their attempt to retreat. Looking out over the field of burning steel from a distance, Ye Shi couldn't help but marvel. "Holy crap... this upgraded plasma warhead is insanely strong!" Credit where credit was due. This upgraded Pigeon was at least five times more powerful than the original model with a conventional shaped-charge warhead! Prior to this, aside from the No. 60 vehicle-mounted railgun and suicide drones crawling under vehicle bellies, they had lacked any reliable method to crack the Legion's Conqueror 10. Kuang Feng, crouching beside him, glanced at him sideways. "You think that thing comes cheap?" The technical sophistication of this plasma missile was on par with a nuclear warhead. At least as a physics professor, he couldn't fathom how those intricate mechanisms were crammed into such a tiny warhead. It was just like a savage who had barely mastered rubbing sticks together for fire trying to comprehend how a lighter worked. To him, this weapon was an "aboriginal's lighter," while they themselves were still stuck researching how to "make high-temperature plasma burn a bit more stably and sustainably." Ye Shi didn't dwell on such complicated matters, nor did he apply real-world physics to it, merely chuckling. "Cheap or not, it's gotta be cheaper than a tank, right?" "...Probably. I'm no expert on that; you'd have to ask Fang Chang." Kuang Feng glanced toward the western sky, eyeing the dark clouds rolling closer as he continued, "Still, the real trouble was never on the ground. I have a feeling the trouble in the sky will be far worse." The Southern Legion had committed five airships to this campaign. Compared to the steel torrent on the ground, those floating aerial fortresses posed the true lethal threat. The same trick rarely worked twice. Whether it was boarding actions, phase weapons, or high-power railguns, the Southern Legion was bound to be on guard. Long-term concerns aside, however, they had undeniably won this delaying action. And it was a resounding, sweeping victory! Both tactically and strategically, they had successfully stalled the Legion's breakneck offensive and dealt a crushing blow to the Wilante's arrogance. Just then, a fixed-wing drone running out of power glided down and landed near the two of them. Kuang Feng walked over, picked it up, folded its wings, and slipped it into the charging pack on his back. "...The Legion's 30th Myriad is only ten kilometers out. They already know their front teeth have been knocked in. Time for us to pull back." Patting the mud and grass off his trousers, Ye Shi stood up, righted his off-road electric scooter lying on the ground, and grinned. "Copy that!" ... Carrying the gear left behind by their allies, the victorious Burning Corps systematically withdrew from the battlefield. Over the course of the battle, they had lost only three sets of power armor and seven exoskeletons. The damaged gear could probably be patched up once dragged back to the rear, and the fallen brothers could catch a dedicated transport back to the front lines within a week at most. It was hardly a setback. All things considered, their combat losses were virtually negligible, costing them little more than a batch of expensive munitions. The Southern Legion, on the other hand, had seen an entire heavy armored regiment wiped out. For a force that possessed few armored assets to begin with, this loss was catastrophic. When Ryan, stationed kilometers away, received word of Rekton's death, he nearly coughed up blood inside his command vehicle. That was his own core force! It was also the most elite armored force under his command! Though he didn't literally spit blood, his heart was bleeding. Clenching his fists so tight his knuckles popped, the muscles in Ryan's face twisted into a mask of sheer fury. From the moment he received the report until now, he hadn't uttered a single sound, but the look on his face said everything. "...I'm going to butcher every last one of them!" Seeing their commander boiling with rage, the adjutant and staff officer seated opposite him kept their mouths shut, not daring to breathe loudly, though their hearts burned with the exact same fury. Those thousand-plus brothers could not have died in vain... Their enemy would pay for this in blood!