Chapter 285: Beginning of The Battle!
Chapter 0285 – Beginning of The Battle!
Translated by: Kun
Edited by: Ulamog, Dedition, TheNo1Fan
[Book 2: The Sea of Zombies]
When the various Enhancers of the army made their move, those soldiers under attack were saved. However, while the 5 battalions of the Army had crushed over 60,000 zombies (the bulk of it through the rockets), it had cost them over 300 people who were clawed, leaving them either dead or severely injured. Those who were slashed by the S2s were definitely dead. Adding the 20 armored vehicles that had been destroyed by the H1s, their losses were already huge.
Yue Zhong’s side was extremely cautious, he had commanded his men to make use of the mortars and blast the zombies from afar, making use of the opportunity to train up the mortar team.
The mortar team was a specialized unit in some sense, and Yue Zhong’s troops were considered professionals, while those from the army were considered to be semi-proficient. This time, Yue Zhong had brought his troops with the aim to shape them up as well. Regardless of how well-trained and well-equipped a unit might be, they could not be considered experienced or elite, until they were forged through war.
Other than the mortar team, Yue Zhong assigned his elite snipers to engage in picking off the zombies from afar. None of the other units were deployed, as he knew without tanks, facing the zombies in an open area was tantamount to suicide.
The army having suffered such heavy losses from the get go was due to their separate command of the 5 battalions. There was no organization, furthermore they had underestimated the threat of the horde.
The horde continued their pursuit of the soldiers, chasing towards their posts.
The artillery of the army was constantly firing without stopping, each time their attacks landed, it would pulverize a huge number of zombies. The soldiers on the battlefield also took turns to fire, and they finally managed to stop the advance of the horde.
After maintaining 15 minutes of constant firing, the artillery all started to overheat and turn red, they could only wait it out and let them cool down. The non-stop firing of the artillery was terrifying, and it had destroyed over a hundred thousand zombies. However, the sea of zombies still seemed endless, as though there was no reduction in their numbers, and it gave birth to a sense of helplessness within the soldiers’ heart.
Right at this time, the zombies stepped over the corpses of their comrades, and continued their advance towards the soldiers. Seeing the zombies that were seemingly endless, even many of the veterans of the military had fear in their eyes.
It was simply too terrifying, the sea of zombies was too terrifying. Within a short span of 2 hours, the military had used loads of heavy artillery, and countless ammo to kill over 180,000 zombies. However, right in front of their eyes, the sea of zombies seemed endless. Furthermore, as they had to fire the artillery continuously, the weapons would heat up easily and during the downtimes, they could not support the soldiers. This battle had become hard to fight.
The military soldiers maintained their stand at their various stations, making use of their rifles, guns, grenade launchers and any other weapons they could get their hands on to strike out savagely. The moment their weapons overheated, their comrades would provide assistance to swap out the guns. At the same time, grenades rained from the skies onto the zombies, blasting numerous zombies into pieces.
The battle was increasingly intense, but without the support of the heavy artillery, the zombies were surging forward, with the deaths of their comrades not fazing them in the slightest. They continued to charge forward, engaging in an all out slaughter with the soldiers.
Under the rush of the sea of zombies, the various sites that were not reinforced or aided by any form of construction were instantly swallowed by the horde. Other than the few experts that managed to extract themselves from the danger, most of the soldiers died, or became part of the ranks of the zombie horde.
A few of the experts were entangled with a few of the S2s, and one of them died after killing a few S2s, before being pounced on immediately and devoured.
Seeing the different positions facing crisis and being decimated one by one, the 5 heads within the command centre had ugly expressions.
“Send out the tanks!!”
Following Shen Hongyang’s orders, 10 tanks immediately set off and joined the fray. On top of that, they were joined by 20 IFVs and 1 battalion of soldiers.
The moment the tanks entered the battlefield, they were like tigers amongst sheep, directly obliterating everything in their paths. They flattened the zombies into meat paste, and used their cannons to unleash fearsome balls of fury unto the zombies, incinerating them. At the same time, their mounted machine guns fired heavy round after round into the horde, killing off numerous zombies.
The 20 IFVs following behind were also utilizing their ZPT90 and firing wildly, lobbing grenades into the groups of zombies, blasting them out of the way and turning any zombies who blocked their paths into spraying waves of meat paste.
The battalion of soldiers followed the fleet of armored vehicles, picking off those zombies that did not die or slipped the net.
All of a sudden, the horde parted, and 300 L2s with their immense strength appeared, as they rushed towards the 10 tanks in a frenzy.
One of the L2s managed to crash into a tank viciously, causing the entire tank to shudder. By the next moment, the tank had knocked the L2 down, and was crushed mercilessly into meat paste.
The remaining L2s that had charged over faced the same fate, a single fist of theirs could punch a huge hole in those small armored jeeps, but against these thick armored tanks they did not possess too much of a threat.
The 300 L2s that had charged forwards were either knocked down and crushed beneath the tanks, or were directly blasted by the heavy rounds of the Type 69 Tanks. These fearsome L2s that had evolved and become stronger, were absolutely nothing in front of the kings of the battlefield.
The 300 L2s had just been annihilated by the fleet of tanks, when 400 S2s emerged from the group of zombies, after paying a painful price, they managed to jump onto the Type 69 Tanks, and were currently using their sharp claws to assault the weaponry. One of the mounted machine guns was immediately destroyed by the S2s, however they could not break past the tortoise-like armor surround the tanks.
The battalion of soldiers using the tanks as cover were currently firing wildly at those S2s, killing those zombies as they were crawling on top of the tanks.
The 20 IFVs behind the tanks were also making use of their Type 25 ZPT90 to fire crazily, killing off many S2s.
In the midst of the horde, some patches started squirming before 200 H1s appeared at about 200m away from the tanks.
The moment those 200 H1s appeared, the 20 IFVs started firing at them, causing tens of them to directly explode.
The remaining H1s opened their huge mouths, as fireballs landed on the 10 tanks. It was obvious that the Z-Types within the horde has determined the tanks to be the most dangerous weapons.
Fireballs landed on the 10 tanks one after another, before exploding into huge gouts of flame.
The flames had not yet scattered, when the 10 tanks burst out from the fiery inferno, and charged towards the direction of the 200 H1s, firing their weapons, and a huge explosion occurred, directly blasting most of them into pieces. The battalion of foot soldiers were also firing their guns, riddling the remaining H1s full of holes.
Yue Zhong looked on as the tanks exhibited their prowess and advanced forward without a care for its surroundings nor being hindered by anything, and he could not help but sigh in his heart: “As expected, the tank is the king of the battlefield. If I had 100 tanks, even a million zombies would not be able to amount to much.”
The 5 military heads looked on as the 10 tanks proceeded to crush everything in their path, seemingly invincible, and their eyes lit up in delight.
However, their joy was cut short. While the tanks were indeed effective against the zombies, the number of zombies was simply overwhelming.
After the tanks had rolled over and crushed god knows how many zombies, causing them to become meat chunks. After so much killing the total number seemed to decrease only by a little, and their positions were soon filled by others.
Furthermore, the zombies were still advancing in their assault on the soldiers of the military, the 10 tanks and 20 IFVs could only become a fleet that helped save some of the soldiers, travelling everywhere and crushing any zombies that came in their path.
With the assistance of the 10 tanks and 20 IFVs, the soldiers of the army managed to catch a moment of breath, and got rid of those zombies who were filling in the empty spaces.
After another 10 minutes, the artillery of the army had finally cooled down, and the 10 tanks and 20 IFVs made their way back to rest the equipment as well. Earlier, under the attacks of the H1s, one of the tanks suffered a damaged launcher, and had to change the barrel.
Similarly, a few of the mounted machine guns had been damaged by S2s, and required some swapping out there as well. The ammunition and fuel that were expended had to be refilled too.
The artillery of the military started their relentless firing again, shooting rockets into the horde, directly exploding huge patches of zombies into ash and cinders. With the support of the heavy artillery, the soldiers were in a better shape.
On the other side, Xu Zhengang had gotten his snipers to lure the zombies over. The moment they were in range, the soldiers immediately retreated back to the traps and constructions set up in Tiger’s Mouth Gorge.
The densely pack horde soon advanced towards the Tiger’s Mouth Gorge.
The light machine guns that Xu Zhengang had ordered to be mounted on both sides of the small hills started firing, as the barrage of bullets cause the nearby zombies to be shot full of holes.
At the same time, Xu Zhengang activated the command to fire the artillery, as round after round of rockets landed in the midst of the zombies, blasting them into pieces. Under those conditions, Yue Zhong’s artillery team also grew quickly.
As the valley of Tiger’s Mouth Gorge was extremely narrow, combined with the support of Yue Zhong’s artillery team, the defence was relatively easy. A huge number of the zombies that went through the gorge would be immediately killed off, or blasted into ashes.
Xu Zhengang observed the battle for a while, before ceasing fire immediately, and deployed Ning Guang County’s 3rd Battalion forward with their Tang Replica Swords, as they began their close combat fight against the zombies at Tiger’s Mouth Gorge.