Cage

By the time Li Qingsong had finished deploying his forces and set up the encirclement, the strange birds on the Small Plains were still engaged in fervent, passionate courtship activities.

More than a million strange birds frolicked, played, and mated there, as though spring had arrived and all things were bursting with life.

Watching this scene, a cruel smile appeared on Li Qingsong's lips.

Then... open fire!

At Li Qingsong's command, all 1,000 artillery pieces spread across a front more than fifty kilometers around the Small Plains fired simultaneously.

Amid their silent roar, the ground suddenly shuddered.

Fierce flames burst from the muzzles, and in the next moment, massive shells smashed down toward the Small Plains below at twice the speed of sound.

A few seconds later.

A thousand fireballs suddenly erupted across the Small Plains, and the earth shook violently as if an earthquake had struck.

As the fireballs exploded, at least tens of thousands of strange birds were blown to pieces in an instant.

With blood and flesh flying everywhere, the strange birds that had been immersed in the joys of breeding season were stunned senseless.

Before they could recover, the second round of artillery fire arrived, along with a torrent of high-speed machine-gun bullets.

Massive ammunition belts fed into the heavy machine guns like an assembly line. Shell casings flew out and piled up beside them, while bullets streaked from the muzzles at high speed, raining down upon the flocks of strange birds alongside the artillery shells.

At the same time, the clones serving as infantry refused to be outdone.

Armed with huge submachine guns, they had long since spread through the mountains surrounding the Small Plains, occupying advantageous firing positions high above.

For a time, guns and cannons roared in unison.

Endless bullets and shells poured onto the Small Plains like a flood.

Li Qingsong realized that in merely a dozen minutes or so, he had fired at least a hundred thousand artillery shells, over a hundred million heavy machine-gun rounds, and tens of millions of submachine-gun rounds into the Small Plains!

With a heavy logistics truck carrying one hundred tons, all the cargo of fifty trucks had been fired away in just those dozen-odd minutes!

That was not even counting the fuel, food, oxygen, and other supplies he had spent to get the cargo of those fifty trucks to the front line.

A thought rose unbidden in Li Qingsong's heart.

"I'd always heard that warfare is all about logistics. I never really understood before, but now I finally do.

At this rate, with this level of consumption, even if my base and population expanded tenfold, they still wouldn't last long.

Fortunately, this battle won't take too much time."

Under the bombardment of thousands of tons of shells and bullets, the Small Plains had become a complete mess.

In those dozen minutes alone, at least five hundred thousand strange birds had been killed!

By now, the strange birds' original joy and excitement had long vanished. Faced with an attack like a natural disaster, they began fleeing madly.

Some flew upward, some flew outward, some ran outward. Everything descended into chaos.

At this point, artillery could no longer be relied upon.

The reason was simple: they had scattered, and artillery bombardment would become far less effective.

But that was fine.

The armored vehicles and tanks that had been waiting roared to life and charged down like ferocious tigers descending the mountain.

Behind them, vast numbers of infantry clones wearing specially made spacesuits charged forward as well, gripping submachine guns and carrying heavy magazines and grenades on their backs.

Whenever they spotted a cluster of strange birds, the tank cannon fired a shell. Whenever they spotted a lone strange bird, the infantry sprayed it with a burst.

When they encountered a larger number of strange birds, the infantry used the tanks as cover, pressing their backs against the armor as they poured out bullets in a frenzy. They only needed to hold on for a few minutes before nearby reinforcements would arrive and wipe out all the strange birds together.

A thousand tanks and armored vehicles rampaged across the battlefield like unstoppable beasts. Wherever they went, they carved a bloody path.

At the edge of the battlefield, the artillery and heavy machine guns could no longer fire indiscriminately, since that would risk friendly fire. But they still occasionally selected areas without friendly forces and unleashed a barrage, providing strong support for the battle.

A considerable number of heavy machine guns were aimed at the sky.

They could fire without restraint. Their own side had no ability to fly, so anything in the air was a strange bird. They only needed to shoot.

In the sky, countless strange birds flew wildly like jet fighters, trailing long exhaust plumes behind them. Some wanted to fly over and attack Li Qingsong's forces, while others only wanted to escape.

But no matter what they wanted to do, they were met with bursts of machine-gun fire.

Li Qingsong did not care how many bullets were fired. He had brought more than enough.

Li Qingsong wanted only one thing.

Whenever they saw a strange bird, they were to shoot it, period. Ideally, the clones' fingers would be welded to their triggers—keep firing, never stop!

The barrage of bullets from the many heavy machine guns formed an unbreakable cage, trapping all the strange birds within.

The tanks, armored vehicles, and infantry clones were like killers inside that cage, charging and slaughtering without restraint as they rapidly harvested the strange birds' lives.

Thus, amid the thunderous artillery fire, fewer and fewer strange birds could still move on the Small Plains, and fewer and fewer could still fly in the sky.

The battle had lasted only a little over an hour before it was nearly over.

After the final charge, Li Qingsong finally breathed a sigh of relief.

All strange birds that still possessed combat capability had been eliminated.

He did not know whether there were any left in space, but at least for now, there should no longer be any strange birds on Luoshen Star capable of fighting.

Then... it was time to clean up the battlefield.

Li Qingsong felt heartfelt joy.

So many strange birds... how much body fluid would that be? If I collected all that body fluid and used it as an additive, how many high-quality clones could I cultivate...?

Although the earlier battle had been fierce and countless strange birds had been blasted apart, it did not matter.

The temperature on Luoshen Star was too low. Even if their body fluids spilled out, they would quickly freeze into ice.

As long as he scraped off a layer of the surface here, he could collect all of it.

After that, he would only need to filter and purify it to separate out the impurities.

The heavy trucks that had been emptied began entering the battlefield. The infantry clones, meanwhile, became battlefield cleanup personnel and started clearing the field.

During the process, Li Qingsong also found many strange birds that were wounded but not yet dead.

He would not kill these strange birds. Instead, he gathered them all, intending to transport them back to the base and raise them as livestock.

It took a full three days of work before the battlefield was preliminarily cleared.

The trucks that had originally been empty were now all filled again.

A large number of valuable items still remained on the battlefield, but that was fine. They could be collected gradually later.

More than three thousand vehicles had all assembled.

Home!