Mission: Morale Boils Over

Mission ④: Morale Boils Over

Preface:

Know your enemy and know yourself, and you can fight a hundred battles without peril.

—Sun Tzu

By the time the second echelon of Seventh Squad reached Mulan Heights, the battle had become increasingly clear-cut. The Bullet Squad had scouted the enemy deployments across eighty percent of the heights for the whole squad, practically lighting up the entire map.

Under these circumstances, the attack route organized by Sergeant Hitchcock was clear and natural. Their offensive swept through like quicksilver, ignoring unarmored militia and targeting only the remnants of enemy units whose morale had collapsed.

One barracks after another that could still maintain military order was hit by explosive grenades. These Fast Knife warriors, as insubstantial and elusive as ghosts, darted between the eaves. Amid the flames and sheets of rain, they fired grenades and hurled hand bombs. The moment their barrage of sound and light suppressed the enemy, the flanking fire teams erupted with astonishing firepower, trading just over two hundred bullets for fifty or sixty lives.

The chain of attacks lasted only fifteen minutes. The defenders of Mountain Character Camp watched the military flags across the hilltops fall like wheat before a scythe. The avalanche effect of fear left the thousand-strong force in disarray. Now and then, a brave warrior of Danqiu Country would work up the courage to fight back and seek glory—but amid the screams of fellow villagers and friends, even they gradually lost all will to fight.

The four-bladed aerial bomber drone circling overhead was like a magical mechanism from an immortal sect.

In the pitch-black sky, these buzzing phantoms drifted closer and farther away, occasionally dropping a ball of scorching heavenly fire.

Then there were the loitering munitions with long-range guidance. At a crucial moment, as the cavalry regrouped,