Blood Fight

Chapter 18: 1.18 Blood Fight

The total number of Wei Keng who have arrived in this plane is 1567. Currently, 1559 remain, with eight having died in the early disasters.

Therefore, taking this as a warning, the Wei Keng in the cluster began a full mobilization, meaning every person, every minute was spent preparing for victory. They utilized all available resources and prepared all possible means.

At the water source, as the Wei Keng group confronted the beast horde, several fire piles were kept burning. Dry ropes were continuously produced by roasting them at the edges of the flames, and some burning small charcoal pieces were placed in bamboo tubes. These bamboo tubes, wrapped with grass rope on the outside, were sent to other squads to provide fire sources.

Furthermore, the system support that Wei Keng had requested finally arrived.

First, the Map System was delivered. The terrain map data of Earth, combined with the information gathered by observers from high ground using the three-point method, was refined. A large brigade of Wei Keng, totaling 150 people, began a flanking maneuver towards a highland area.

Additionally, the Auto-Aim System that Wei Keng had requested was installed on the six hundred individuals responsible for shooting.

For example, when raising a crossbow or pistol, a red circle area would appear in their vision, indicating the area the projectile could hit. The reason it was a red circle and not a red dot was that their bodies were currently panicked, lacking a precise sense of the weapon, and the influence of external wind fields. The system also couldn't make more precise judgments based on personal feelings, only relying on the field of vision and probability circles indicated by arm annotations.

Why did it take an hour to equip them? Because measuring each Wei Keng's perception took several minutes. With hundreds or thousands of Wei Keng, even small issues became a major undertaking.

However, all of this was completed just in time for Wei Keng's preparations before launching the campaign.

As the sun gradually set towards the west, Wei Keng on multiple high grounds completed their terrain statistics and current wind direction data. They decided to launch an active attack at 3:33 PM.

Every Wei Keng was extremely nervous, but through their programmatic communication with each other, they understood the necessity of this active attack.

Rather than waiting to be raided by these beasts at night, it was better to seize the opportunity and attack proactively when conditions were favorable.

Wei Keng's current supplies included not only weapons and ammunition but also other provisions. Gold and the like were unimportant at this moment. Compressed biscuits were very important, as were iron pots. All Wei Keng stuffed their precious compressed rations into their stomachs, took a pot of cool boiled water, and began waiting for the countdown.

The war began with ranged attacks.

The effective lethal range of submachine guns was around 150 meters. Considering the large species on the opposing side had durability, this range was effectively only twenty meters. For this early harassment battle, Wei Keng did not use guns.

Instead, they took out small, baked Kitsuchi pots, each weighing about two hundred grams and the size of a fist. Inside, they placed a piece of big red hot charcoal.

Then, Wei Keng threaded grass rope through them and placed them in simple bamboo baskets. Fifty Wei Keng carried these baskets, ran about three hundred meters, closed within fifty meters of the beast horde, and began to swing rope throw grenades.

The range of these was eighty meters. Normally, they would lack accuracy, but Wei Keng's vision displayed a red parabolic trajectory marker. As the sling swung, the parabola continuously changed. The off-standard size and weight of the hard mud small pots fluctuated, and the system also corrected for wind direction parameters, which were reflected in the trajectory. Wei Keng only needed to grasp the appropriate timing to release!

As clusters of flames erupted from the Wei Keng positions, the beasts in the jungle became agitated. However, the first wave of strikes created immense chaos. Eighty percent of the pottery pots accurately landed on the beasts. The impact force from the sling was powerful, with kinetic energy comparable to a crossbow. However, because swinging required a lot of space, dense formations were impossible, and precise aiming was also not feasible, leading to its elimination.

But this flaw was now gone. Even when large species, like war elephants, were hit, the flesh on their bodies visibly indented. Of course, there was also a bounce back, much like being repeatedly whipped on the buttocks with a Seven Wolves belt, causing the flesh to swell.

As for the small species, like wolfdogs, they were immediately smashed to the ground, rolling around.

In addition to the kinetic energy, the charcoal also caused secondary scares and burning pain, making it difficult to stand in the area where sparks were flying.

After throwing, the beast cluster reacted and began to pursue. Wei Keng, on the other hand, immediately turned and ran. They discarded the pottery pots and bamboo baskets, as they were not valuable anyway.

The wolves behind were chasing fast, but fifty meters still took some time. Moreover, Wei Keng was not fighting alone now. The Wei Kengs who had been throwing things earlier retreated, and twenty Wei Kengs armed with submachine guns rushed forward to support. The bullets might be a bit strenuous against large animals, but against speed types, it was enough to give them a taste of their own medicine.

Actually! The Wei Kengs holding submachine guns had reticle annotations in their vision. They fired in bursts, and even if large animals like wild boars were chasing, they aimed for vital spots and took them down with three-round bursts.

As the Wei Kengs running and throwing fire pots advanced, they disrupted the already disorganized clusters of the local Gene Colony.

Then, a uniform wave of shouts came from the grass.

"One-two-one, one-two-one, march forward, one-two-one, one-two-one..." These slogans were weak at first, but they grew louder and more unified, perhaps shedding their shyness and reluctance to perform, or perhaps needing to boost their morale.

The Wei Keng cluster's front queue began its advance. This queue did not march in perfect order, mainly because the ground was uneven, but everyone maintained their battle line.

The Wei Kengs at the very front wore two layers of bulletproof vests, and their arms were bound with shields woven from bamboo. In their hands, they held long spears with bamboo handles and sabre blades.

This frontline force was mainly responsible for defending against creatures with a weight similar to their own, up to the level of a tiger. This allowed the archers in the rear to nock their crossbows and perform three-stage shots without interference. As for anything weighing over a ton, it was not their responsibility to engage; they should have been annihilated by concentrated fire from a hundred meters away.

Behind the queue were three rows of archers, responsible for the three-stage shots. On the flanks of the queue, individuals armed with submachine guns, grouped in fours, protected the hundred-meter-long queue's flanks, forming a crossfire.

With the system's reticle and trajectory annotations, Wei Keng could achieve an 80% hit rate even with a sling. With the easier-to-operate crossbows, their shots were practically every shot a headshot.

Swish, swish, swish! The strong crossbow bolts pierced directly into the monsters' eye sockets. Basically, one arrow ended the battle, and their health bars were completely cleared.

Among most of the species in the entire colony, only a small number of monsters smaller than wolves could evade the fire net. These would charge forward in a mad rush to the last layer, only to be intercepted by Wei Kengs holding bamboo poles. Their charge was too fast, and after hitting the sharp spear tip, it was difficult to shake it off.

In normal combat, viewed from high altitude, the kilometer-long battle line, with sixteen combat arrays, advanced like moving dams. This tactic of advancing with formations that could suddenly unleash a large amount of firepower did not require a fast charge.

They controlled their footsteps, stabilized the battle line, and constantly observed the possibility of the enemy's charging cluster gathering. They would counterattack.

If the direction of their charge was confirmed, other battle lines would close in to envelop their left and right flanks, simultaneously committing reserve forces to fill the gaps left in the entire battle line by the envelopment.

As the battle line slowly advanced, mad beasts were killed one by one by having their eyes poked out. Victory would undoubtedly belong to Wei Keng.

However, in this war, Wei Keng could only predict as much as possible, not be omniscient and omnipotent. Therefore, a weak point appeared on the entire battle line.

In the eastern third of the battle line, they encountered a tricky giant beast.

With a total weight of six tons, this creature had the structure of a centaur. Its base was four horse-like hooves, and its upper body was like a Naga with three pairs of arms. One pair of arms were primate-like hands, another pair was the longest, being mantis pincer limbs. The shortest pair was crab claws.

Most importantly, did this thing have armor? Although it was wearing armor made of unknown plant fibers and tiles, it offered good protection against arrows.

Although its eyes had been destroyed by Wei Keng's ranged attacks as the battle line advanced, when a Wei Keng closed in to attack its unarmored joints, its mantis pincer clamped down on the Wei Keng at a speed faster than bullets, accurately and quickly. This let the Wei Keng know that besides its eyes, this creature had another set of perception abilities.

At this moment, the system explained in the communications group: "This is a node creature of the gene colony in this area, an apex existence within the life radiation system of this region. It should have located you through the life radiation transmitted by your individual during its own life radiation process."

Wei Keng didn't have time to listen to the system's hindsight. The Wei Keng individual caught by the mantis pincer limb had its thigh bone exposed. Other Wei Kengs wanted to rescue it, preparing to rush forward with submachine guns to break its pincer limb and drag the wounded soldier away. For Wei Keng, even with a broken leg, survival was necessary, and they could contribute to the cluster by polishing tools with their hands.

But the giant beast didn't give them a chance. The shortest pair of arms, with their claws, clamped onto the Wei Keng's head. With a chilling crunch, the Wei Keng's skull was crushed. The decapitated Wei Keng twitched for a few seconds.

Hundreds of Wei Kengs on the frontline who witnessed this scene had their eyes split open.

Next, although the sounds of arrows and gunshots were incessant, and they could see that the giant beast's armor had been pierced multiple times, some sharp-eyed Wei Kengs noticed that its flesh and blood writhed like worms, repairing itself at a visible speed.

This made Wei Keng feel, for the first time since arriving in this world, that he lacked a large sniper rifle, a rocket launcher, and cluster bombs. Of course, having a recoilless rifle would be even better.

"Hold the line!"

The Wei Keng at the head of the second rank trembled as he shouted this word, clearly feeling that he might not survive. He took a deep breath, suddenly calmed down, and gave an order to himself next to him: "Provide me with covering fire." Then he shouted to those around him: "Anyone still brave, come with me and destroy it up close."

Indeed, facing something that did not rely on visual organs and had cell vitality as strong as a planarian, with no vital parts, it was impossible to wear it down with continuous long-range attacks. Wei Keng could even predict that as long as this thing came into contact with the corpses of fallen soldiers and devoured organic matter, its health recovery speed would be faster than the damage inflicted by their bullets and arrows.

This was a Node Creature.

When the Pandora Field first descended, the Carbon-based Life Information Tunneling Phenomenon was terrifyingly intense.

Back then, within a few hours, it could "turn people and any animal into a plant with only a skeletal appearance," or a large number of Carbon-based Bacterial Colonies would converge towards humans with strong willpower, directly shaping another identical person from organic matter and replacing the original one, returning to the human world.

After spreading globally, the initially horrifying phenomena of life information loss and aggregation had become less intense with the expansion of the scope. However, on the Node Creature of a regional ecosystem, this supernatural phenomenon could still be observed. This Node Creature was related to the life activities of all creatures in the region, and part of the energy from all life activities would feed back to the node. Therefore, as long as the intensity of the attack did not exceed a certain upper limit, its life recovery speed could make the attackers despair.

And Node Creatures were not devoid of intelligence.

When the giant beast discovered that its tile armor had been smashed, it immediately reached out, grabbed a handful of the shattered tile armor, and threw it towards the Wei Kengs who were attempting to get close.

Although with the system's pre-warning of danger, three Wei Kengs dodged the vital parts, their other parts were smashed and bleeding. One Wei Keng was hit in the forehead by a piece of broken tile, making him dizzy. Two seconds later, his calf was caught by a pincer.

"Son of a bitch, Ma Ge Le Ba Zi!" A Wei Keng, using a national essence curse, rushed forward, rolled to its armpit, and sprayed the armpit of a strange limb with a submachine gun. The kinetic energy of the rapid-fire bullets was fully released at close range, smashing the limb's connection into a bloody mess, eventually semi-severing the forelimb.

The elbow armpit was a blind spot. When one arm was severed, it created an additional blind spot for the monster's movement.

When the enemy is not invincible, it greatly boosts the morale of the struggling side.

"453, watch out, it's picking up stones!" Da da da, the guns started firing.

"Sixth squad, take the wounded and retreat." Other squads quickly dragged the Wei Keng with the broken leg away.

At the same time, three more Wei Kengs, under the cover of the fire team, directly "slid" into the elbow armpit. Of course, the success rate of sliding was three out of five. Two others were caught by the monster's remaining pincers, but unlike the previous ones whose heads were crushed by hand pincers, the pincers were broken as soon as they moved. These two wounded were also dragged aside.

During the fire suppression.

A squad on the left and right sides of the giant beast inserted steel pipe spears into the ground, with their tips pointing diagonally upwards, forming a barrier zone. The gaps between the spears were half a meter, enough for people to pass through, but definitely not friendly for the giant beast.

Finally, the giant beast fell onto these spears, and four or five metal barbs were inserted into its body during its roll. Blood gushed out like a fountain.

Wei Keng finally inflicted truly irreparable damage on this thing. Next, clusters of bamboo tips were stabbed into its body, turning it into a hedgehog. Then, dry firewood was piled on and thrown, adding elemental damage to it.

The repair ability of the Node Creature could not withstand such a round of attacks. Finally, its life aura began to weaken.

The participating creatures seemed to sense the disappearance of the central node of life communication and began to scatter like birds and beasts, retreating towards the west of the lake.

However, they would not have a good ending. Before the battle began, Wei Keng had flanked a large group. Now, they had received the signal and started a fire at the upwind of the fleeing beasts' route. The spread of the flames was very slow, but the smoke quickly engulfed them like water.