Art Is an Explosion!

Eleven o'clock at night. The heavy snow had temporarily subsided. In the pitch-black darkness, armed players fanned out through the woods in an arc, digging foxholes and makeshift trenches with shovels, working with blistering speed. "So exciting! Barely after getting into the game, two team fights back-to-back!" "Nobody steal my kills later! I'm going for ten!" "Damn it, I'd better stay far away from you, so you don't use me to pad your body count." "Am I that kind of person?!" "Who the hell knows?" None of them were panicking; they were just pumped full of adrenaline. The game was realistic down to the bone, and the atmosphere was crafted to absolute perfection. It felt just like real combat! The rustling of the woods drowned out the players' hushed chatter. Fully equipped, Chu Guang stood leaning on his hammer, his hands resting on the end of the shaft, his dark eyes staring intently toward the north. He was gambling. Gambling that Hein stood on the side of self-interest, and had successfully persuaded the chieftain of the Bloodhand Clan to march under the cover of night, diverting a portion of their forces toward the small river to the northwest. Of course, Chu Guang was prepared for the worst-case scenario: that Hein had stood on the side of morality and chosen to help his former trading partners, forcing Chu Guang to take on the main force of the Bloodhand Clan in a frontal clash. In that event, it would be an evenly matched, grueling slugfest. Yet he wasn't worried. Even if they traded one for one, his side would come out far ahead. Just then, a Perception-type player ran over from the distance, halted before Chu Guang, and reported in an excited voice. "Respected Administrator, the Bloodhand Clan has left their camp and is marching toward our position!" Chu Guang felt a surge of joy. However, he kept his emotions off his face, instead composing his expression into stern resolve. "Are the props set up?" "Fully deployed!" "Very well. Pass along my order: all squads proceed according to plan!" "Yes, sir!" The player snapped to attention, pressed his right fist to his chest, and darted off in excitement. At the thought of the "props" prepared nearby, he could hardly contain his thrill. This was simply way too exhilarating! ... North Gate of Wetland Park. A dense crowd stood gathered in the dark. Most wore beast-hide coats, their vital areas strapped with handmade armor of metal, wood, or leather. Blood-red designs were tattooed across their arms, necks, and faces, and the weapons in their hands were an eclectic hodgepodge, every piece different from the next. Although their demeanor and attire made them look like a ragtag gang of thugs, their combat prowess was by no means as feeble as they appeared. Every single man here was a battle-hardened veteran, an elite of the Bloodhand Clan! Clad in heavy armor, Bear sat astride a mutant rhinoceros with an iron ring through its nose, slinging a double-barreled shotgun over his shoulder as he squinted into the pitch-black woods. At the entrance to the forest stood a wooden sign painted with a skull, bearing a scrawled warning: [Private Property. Strictly No Trespassing. Trespass at Your Own Risk.] A playful smirk curled on Bear's lips, and he shot a glance at a lackey beside him. Catching the hint, the marauder stepped forward with an axe, swung his arm, and split the sign in two at an angle. "Let us bring ruin upon their heads!" "Everyone, move out!" Bear let out a hearty laugh, waved his massive, fan-like hand forward, and kicked his heels into the mutant rhino, leading the column. The rhinoceros began trudging forward with heavy steps. At the same time, the fifty-five marauders flanking him pressed forward under the command of five decurions. Just then, a thought struck Bear, and he called over his confidant beside him. The man was named Ma. He had a long, horse-like face and stood a towering one meter nine, half a head taller than the lackeys around him—Bear's most ferocious decurion. Bear looked down at him and ordered, "Take your squad west and raid the brick kiln by the river. Take whatever prisoners you can; if you can't, drive them south. We'll wait to rendezvous with you there." Ma cupped his fists in acknowledgment. "Understood!" Without hesitation, the decurion picked up his pace and led his ten subordinates off toward the west. Eleven men. Under cover of night, raiding an encampment with eleven men was more than enough. Bear then turned his gaze back to his remaining men, a cruel smile spreading across his face. "We head south." "We'll wait for them up ahead!" ... Although the heavy snow had momentarily let up, the chill in the forest had not dissipated. The rustling sounds of the north wind whipping through the trees kept everyone's nerves stretched taut. Carrying an order given personally by the chieftain, Ma dared not take any chances. He hurried toward the western river while keeping a vigilant watch against threats in the woods. Fortunately, there was no ambush. Perhaps, just as that merchant had said, those barbaric survivors were holding an open-air assembly in their camp, utterly oblivious to the death creeping toward them. At the edge of the woods, the flickering light of campfires came into view. The marauders quickened their pace, advancing rapidly toward the glow. Soon, on the southwest bank of the river, they spotted a row of shanties erected along the water. The entrances were covered with plastic sheeting, hiding anyone inside, but axes, shovels, and other pioneer tools were laid out by the doorways. In the center of the shanties sat a campfire ringed with stones, scattered with freshly chewed bones. Looking upon the camp before him, Ma's lips curled into a cruel smirk. He chambered a round into his pipe rifle and fixed a bayonet onto the slot under the barrel. "We slip in quietly in a moment. Nobody make a sound." "Avoid using guns if you can." "If anyone resists, spear them dead!" With orders from their leader, the marauders fixed bayonets to their muzzles or drew maces and short spears from their waists, preparing to butcher their enemies in their sleep. The group crept forward, infiltrating the camp without a sound. Moving in tacit coordination, they split into pairs for each shanty, holding the entrance from both sides. Seeing all the shanties surrounded, Ma raised his right fist and gave the signal to strike. The men moved in unison, using their bayonets to throw aside the plastic curtains— And then, everyone froze. There was nothing inside. No, not entirely nothing. Almost every shanty held an iron drum slathered with wood tar. "Scatter!" Ma's face warped with horror. Being the quickest to react, he roared at the top of his lungs. Yet it was a step too late. Roughly a dozen flaming arrows flew across the river like locusts, raining down one after another into the camp. The plastic sheeting on the shanties caught fire, instantly shriveling into clusters of burning, dripping oil that fell onto the wood-tar-covered iron drums, igniting the drums and the gunpowder packed within. BOOM!!! The chain reaction of explosions raged through the camp in rapid succession. The scattering marauders had barely managed to get halfway out when smoke laced with shrapnel and bursts of fiery light engulfed them. Two marauders were killed on the spot! The remaining nine, if not dead, were wounded! One unlucky bastard was even splattered with burning oil. Throwing himself to the ground, he rolled frantically, letting out bloodcurdling shrieks. The shrieks grew weaker and weaker, falling silent before long. Seeing the miserable state of his subordinates and losing another man in the blink of an eye, Ma's eyes went bloodshot. Grinding his teeth so hard they nearly shattered, he roared: "You cowards! What kind of skill is ambushing people?!" "If you've got the balls, come out and fight me like a man!" "Cough—!" Smoke choked his throat. Ignoring the bloody mangled mess on his back, he lowered his head and broke through the billowing smoke, firing round after round across the river with his rifle. Bang—! Muzzle flashes flickered, and gunshots erupted into total chaos. The other marauders also opened fire toward the direction the arrows had come from. Yet after firing over a dozen rounds, they hadn't seen a single soul, only arrows whizzing overhead in every direction. Morale began to waver. It wasn't just Ma who panicked; his subordinates were completely rattled, beginning to fight and retreat at the same time. Meanwhile, the players lying in ambush to their west were rubbing their hands in excitement, just waiting for the right moment to charge in and butcher them. "They're tilting! They're tilting! Hahaha, they're panicking!" "Elite mob is heavily crippled! Looks like a decurion!" "Holy crap, a decurion! Charge, boys! Take him alive!" "Charge into the fray!" "It's kill or be killed!" "Long live Demacia!" "For Yaya's mushroom soup!" Babbling and shouting at the top of their lungs, the players charged excitedly out from the surrounding bushes—true to their ancestral gamer tradition, no two battle cries were the same. At the same time, the supporting players on the opposite bank ceased firing arrows. Drawing shovels, axes, and sickles, they waded through the ankle-deep shallows to coordinate with their allies in closing the encirclement, joining in on the carnival. There were people everywhere! Gunshots, footsteps, and battle cries resounded as one, surging forward like a tidal wave under the cover of night. It was impossible to tell how many enemies there were, let alone where they were coming from. Having just burst out of the flames and plunged into the forest, the marauders felt as if ink had been smeared across their eyes—they couldn't see a thing. Struggling, Ma struck the jammed receiver to eject the stuck casing, shouting at his subordinates at the same time: "Retreat! Retreat to the south!" The remaining sliver of rationality in Ma's mind told him that their only way out was to rendezvous with the main force to the south. However... If even he could think of this, how could a certain someone not have anticipated it? The defensive line arrayed against the main force was right to the south. If he fled north through the burning camp, he might still have had a slim chance of survival; running south was practically throwing his face directly into the trenches! Just as Ma and his squad were being battered head-on, the elites of the Bloodhand Clan marching toward the outpost also heard the explosions coming from the northwest. "What's going on?" "Sounds like it's coming from the brick kiln by the river..." "C-could something have happened to Ma and his men?!" "No way. That's Ma... I saw him tear a Gnawer apart with his bare hands!" The marauders exchanged glances, whispering in low voices. Instinct told them that these five consecutive explosions were deeply unsettling. Bear frowned as he gazed toward the northwest, his expression wary and uncertain. Ma was his right-hand man. He knew his men's gear well—not a single piece of equipment could make that kind of noise. In that case, there was only one possibility! "Damn it! Everyone head northwest!" Anxious and enraged, Bear kicked his mutant rhinoceros in the flank, urging it forward with a roar. "Start running!" "Move!" Losing Badger and Cha wasn't enough to make his heart bleed, but if even Ma died, not only would the Bloodhand Clan suffer a crippling blow, his own prestige within the tribe would plummet. At this point, formations didn't matter anymore. Marauders had never been fond of marching in formation to begin with, and once they broke into a run, the column immediately stretched out long and thin. The other four decurions felt something was amiss, but none dared voice an objection right now; they could only brace themselves and shout for the stragglers to keep up. At less than six hundred meters, reinforcing them was a matter of minutes. Even if the forest terrain was ill-suited for sprinting, it was still far better than navigating city ruins. The firelight ahead grew closer and closer. Even from a distance, the dazzling glare radiated an alarming, searing heat. "Fuck! Did none of you eat today?! Run, damn it!" Having seen no sign of Ma so far, only the rising sea of fire, Bear was incandescent with rage, cursing as he spurred his subordinates to pick up the pace. Disgruntled but powerless to object, the subordinates clutched their weapons and sprinted ahead, even though they hadn't caught sight of a single enemy. Bear leveled his double-barreled shotgun, charging at the very front atop his mount. Yet right then, in the muddy ground illuminated by the firelight, he suddenly spotted faces popping up one after another. Pairs of eyes seemed to gleam with a greenish glow, causing even the invincible chieftain to freeze for a fraction of a second. "Fire!" A sharp roar rang out. Although Bear couldn't understand what those two cadence-heavy syllables meant, combat instinct compelled him to roll off his mount, throwing his massive frame behind tree roots as thick as pythons. Thunderous gunfire instantly erupted, crackling into a continuous roar. Flashes of light seemed to surround them from all directions, like bolts of lightning shrieking through the air. Dread gripped Bear's heart. For a moment, he couldn't even tell how many guns the enemy had. He only saw his charging comrades caught completely off guard, figures toppling one after another. Whether they were diving for cover or mowed down by bullets, he couldn't tell. "Damn it! We're ambushed!" "First thing I do when we get back is butcher that bastard Hein!!!" "L-let's make it back first..." "Fuck! How many guns do they have?!" "It feels like at least two machine guns!" "Aaaagh!" Listening to the terrified cries of his men, Bear panicked just as hard. His mount, having charged straight toward the opposing position, had already been riddled with bullets and killed. Its corpse lay motionless by a tree twenty meters away; in the dark, he couldn't even make out how many bullet holes were in it. Bear didn't dare poke his head out to look—he wasn't about to bet his life against the enemy's marksmanship. Yet as he caught his breath and listened carefully to the whizzing overhead, a sliver of doubt crept into his mind. How to put it? The thunder and the lightning didn't match! In an instant, realization hit him, and he screamed in shock and fury: "Wait! That's not gunfire! Th-this is—!" Bear wanted to say what it was, but couldn't think of the word for it. In fact, he was right. It wasn't gunfire at all, merely two long strings of homemade firecrackers fashioned from scrap paper, gunpowder, and brick dust. In this era where people couldn't even fill their bellies, who had time to play with firecrackers? It was only natural he didn't recognize them. Still, one had to admit: in pitch-black darkness, lighting two strings of firecrackers interspersed with rifle shots produced a miraculously convincing illusion. The marauders had run themselves breathless, and before even seeing the enemy, they had taken a brutal blow to the face. Dazed and bewildered, how could they have guessed the enemy was pulling a trick? Crawling on the ground, they genuinely believed the enemy had brought up two machine guns, rat-tat-tatting away at them. Especially with comrades dropping to the dirt one after another around them, no one could tell who was actually hit. Every last one of them was terrified by the firecrackers mixed with gunfire, not daring to lift their heads, let alone peek out to return fire. Besides, they were fighting while looking right into the light... Just as the four squads of marauders were thoroughly dazed, the players hunkered down on both flanks of the trenches slipped out of cover. Under the din of the gunfire, they outflanked the marauders from both east and west. Catching sight of figures moving toward his flanks out of the corner of his eye, Bear let out a furious roar: "They've split up!" "Everyone, charge!" "Stop fucking lying there! That isn't gunfire! Everyone charge with me! Breach their trenches and cave their skulls in with your rifle butts!" He shouted until he was hoarse, but not a single person obeyed. Successive ambushes had pushed the morale of this ragtag mob to the verge of complete collapse. A sudden wave of despair washed over Bear. Perhaps... Leaving the city and entering the enemy's home turf had been a mistake from the very beginning. "Boss... their firepower is too heavy! Charging right now is suicide!" "Fuck their firepower! Can't you hear it?! It's fake!" Rage burned in Bear's chest; he nearly bit through his gums until they bled. Yet he also knew that no matter how loud he yelled right now, few could hear him, and even fewer cared to listen. Knowing the situation was lost, he looked east, gritted his teeth, and ordered the confidants beside him: "Staying here is suicide. We break out to the east!" His confidants nodded nervously. Yet just as Bear was about to explain his breakout plan in detail, a series of piercing shrieks suddenly tore through the air from the western position. Bear looked up. Tongues of fire sliced through the darkness, propelling fist-sized fireworks that rained down upon them from the night sky. From the distance came unrestrained laughter. Though he couldn't understand the words, he faintly made out a gravelly tenor: "Hahahahaha!" "Art—is an explosion!"