124: The Ambush

Although the height of summer in September had not yet passed, it was no longer so hot in the mountains.

But the autumn dryness weighing on those who had come from Jian City was getting worse by the day. They had been trapped for half a month in a battlefield that felt like a "swamp filled with glue."

At that moment, on a stretch of road in the mountains suited for an ambush, Beast Tamers Zeng He and Fang Hong huddled beside their Mechanical War Beasts, dressed in woolen coats and hiding from something. In front of the Mechanical War Beasts, another Dragon Horse lay on the ground.

The Dragon Horse's head had been blown completely apart. The kinetic energy of a Sniper Rifle round had torn through the head of this carbon-based creature. It had only just been killed and was still twitching, its anal muscles out of control as feces spurted out.

A few seconds later, apparently deciding that the surroundings were no longer dangerous, the two Beast Tamers ordered their accompanying soldiers to drag the dead Dragon Horse over.

Once the Dragon Horse's body had been retrieved, the Mechanical War Beast opened its mouth and swallowed it. Its belly, protected beneath iron armor made of Lobster Ring Shell Structural Steel, swelled up.

Half an hour later, this Mechanical Monster spat out a fleshy egg. When the egg split open, a new Dragon Horse emerged. Its legs were still trembling, but the newborn Dragon Horse couldn't wait to devour the eggshell and the surrounding plants.

Seven hundred and fifty meters away, Wei Keng, with dried green grass hanging from his clothes, observed the Beast Tamer convoy through the 4–9x variable-zoom scope of his Sniper Rifle. He had no intention of firing again.

Two hundred meters to the left of the sniper position, another Wei Keng was using Flag Signaling to communicate with the Artillery Position four or five hundred meters behind him. In other words, if the sniper ran into trouble, they could send the mortar team the coordinates for a strike right away.

So far, though, the fighting hadn't been intense enough to warrant bringing the artillery into play.

The purpose of an Outpost Operation was to slow the enemy down, constantly wasting their time.

In response to the enemy's advance, Wei Keng's main force had already scouted several passes and made preliminary preparations. Under normal circumstances, the enemy wouldn't blunder straight into this pocket formation. But what if they did something stupid? For example, one French Roller enthusiast might send an uncoded order to retreat. So, as long as there was time to prepare, they would make the most of it.

As for the front line, its job was to keep watch and see which route the enemy took.

Wei Keng's Strategic Brain had reasoned that if the enemy didn't take a pass and chose to advance through an area at least a thousand meters wide, this small Combat Cluster of only twenty Horse Carriages would have to take a winding route of three or four hundred kilometers. So the Harassment Team was right to focus on killing the officers' horses.

The right tactics depended on the kind of enemy you faced. If the enemy were a military force with strong fighting spirit and quick artillery retaliation, Wei Keng's Sniper Team would fire from multiple positions at once, aiming directly for the enemy commander or other high-value targets. After a single shot, they would immediately relocate to avoid having their positions pinpointed by the sound and covered by mortar fire.

But now?~

There was a joke about a soldier reporting to his officer: "There's a sniper over there, but he's a terrible shot. He's been missing us for days." The officer asked, "If you've spotted him, why not take him out at once?" The soldier replied, "What if they send someone who can actually shoot?"

The situation in that joke was exactly what Wei Keng was dealing with, except that the "terrible" sniper was on the other side. Wei Keng was keeping Fang Hong and Zeng He's advance to less than five kilometers a day. For an army tasked with going on the offensive, that was a disaster.

Anyway, Wei Keng's time in this plane had already been extended to three hundred days. He could afford to wait.

Like meat simmering over low heat, he was taking out their means of transport while still leaving them enough mobility to gather water and find firewood. He had to keep the heat under control, so they wouldn't lash out in desperation.

As an ordinary person, Wei Keng knew all too well what it was like to fall into a cycle of procrastination. You started out saying, "I'll improve my rank on the next exam," then ended up thinking, "I'd better take the exam later," and "I hope the results come out later."

If you spent your time waiting without a plan, you would accomplish nothing.

Meanwhile, Wei Keng's new Steel Smelting Furnace was already melting Rail Steel, the brine by the sea was drying, and the tasks on his schedule were moving forward every day.

Back on the battlefield, the enemy was so inept that it was easy to hold them up. They couldn't get anywhere near Wei Keng's territory without taking some important passes. At the rate they were moving, if they did take a pass, Wei Keng could give them a pocket formation to walk into.

So, if he kept waiting, he could create an opportunity where none had existed before. Wei Keng deliberately let a few chances slip by at the edges and settled into a contest of patience with them.

At the observation post,

Wei Keng was also very interested in these Mechanical War Beasts. He had originally thought they were simply a fusion of machinery and biology, with powerful regenerative abilities.

But when he discovered that they could swallow corpses, he was astonished by the sight.

According to the system's explanation, this wasn't resurrection. They were making a new individual from the remains.

The Dragon Horse that emerged wasn't in good condition, either. As soon as it came out, it started gobbling up the surrounding plants.

And because it had been regenerated under the Mechanical War Beast's Life Radiation, the Mechanical War Beast had expended energy in the process. In other words, every time it "recast" a Dragon Horse, it became as listless as someone who'd masturbated seven times in one night.

Once he understood the details of the process,

Wei Keng thought, I kill a horse, you make another. I kill it, you make another. We can keep this up in perfect harmony. I spend a few bullets, and you spend time and energy.

But it would be strange if the people of Jian City really followed that pattern and slowly walked toward defeat like a Computer AI.

People tended to make one last jump while they still had cards in hand!

That afternoon, when the newborn Dragon Horse was barely able to pull the carriage, the two Beast Tamers didn't continue onward.

As the sun sank slowly, the two of them held a heated discussion.

They were too far away for him to make out what they were saying, so Wei Keng assumed they were debating whether to "advance or retreat."

After their discussion, they seemed to reach some kind of conclusion.

Zeng He went over to his Dragon-type War Beast, closed his eyes, and established a life resonance with it.

A few minutes later, the enormous Mechanical Dragon Beast produced an egg from its tail. When the shell opened, a carrier pigeon flew out. The two tied a letter to its leg and released it.

The little target shot through the air too quickly for Wei Keng to aim at, so he had to let it go. But he notified the Wei Keng keeping watch near Jian City, and the Combat Decision Circle brought out its Reinforcement Attack contingency plan.

The plan called for sending an elite team to slip behind the enemy and scout which route the reinforcements would take. That would give the main force time to move into a suitable position and intercept them.

But as Wei Keng was calculating how many troops Jian City would send out, events took another turn.

The outpost keeping an eye on Zeng He and Fang Hong's unit spotted something new.

At eight that evening, Wei Keng was on watch with his Night Vision Goggles when he suddenly noticed the two Beast Tamers making a move.

Ten minutes later, he confirmed that the entire convoy seemed to have fed the Dragon Horses something. They were moving quickly. Wei Keng was certain: those two were going to make a major push under cover of darkness.

Well, well, well. Wei Keng immediately felt like a mobile game player who'd stumbled onto a money-farming exploit. He used the system's communications network to call up his Reserve Force, which had been standing by.

Forget about waiting for the reinforcements. They could have a feast tonight!

At the rear camp, Wei Keng's two-hundred-man force immediately struck camp.

Where were the enemy headed? Wei Keng didn't even need to look at a map. Traveling at night, and in Horse Carriages no less, meant they'd roll right off a cliff if they took the mountain roads. If they weren't fleeing, there was only one road ahead.

So Wei Keng reached the area two hours early and set up an ambush.

Zeng He sat inside the Horse Carriage. Outside the window lay the stillness of night. The Dragon Horses' eye sockets had all widened as the bones around their heads shifted, allowing them to take in more light. Every person in the convoy moved in silence, a wooden pellet in their mouth.

The mountain ranges slithered away behind them like crouching beasts in the night, while new ranges appeared ahead. As they advanced, the mountains drew closer, and the convoy gradually entered their midst. The dark slopes on either side hemmed them in like the open jaws of a giant beast.

For some reason, Zeng He felt uneasy. She had pushed for a rapid advance during the day's debate, but that didn't mean she was entirely confident. Ever since the night march began, her heart had been pounding.

Fang Hong spoke first. After studying the terrain around them, the Beast Tamer said in a low voice, "This is no safe place."

Zeng He stuck her head out the window and looked around, then agreed. "If we'd arrived here during the day, there'd certainly be an ambush on these slopes. We have to get through quickly."

She signaled to a soldier outside. He put his fingers to his lips and imitated the call of a night owl. The convoy began to pick up speed.

At the same time, on the mountain, Wei Keng watched the convoy start to accelerate and plunge recklessly into the pocket formation. His already anxious heart climbed to new heights.

Anything that wasn't safely in the bag yet made Wei Keng's heart beat faster the closer he got to the outcome.

Wei Keng couldn't imitate a birdcall to send a signal, but he had the system's communications network.

Back when they were slowing down Fang Hong's unit, Wei Keng's Brigade had dug trenches on both sides of the slopes at several important ambush sites along the route. Once the message came in, they could march there ahead of the convoy and join the fight at once.

With Jian City's adventurers now completely caught in the trap, Wei Keng—the "steady dog"—finally played the "big card" in his hand.

More than thirty old rubber tires stuffed with dry grass were set alight and rolled down the slopes. Their flames illuminated the convoy in the valley, and the sight plunged Fang Hong and Zeng He's troops into despair.

"Bang, bang, bang, bang..." Twenty gunshots rang out. Every draft animal in the convoy fell once more. This time, it wasn't just one or two. Given the terrain, Wei Keng felt he could capture every one of them at minimal cost.

"Fight back!" Fang Hong shouted out an order before Zeng He could recover from her shock.

The water-cooled Heavy Machine Gun inside a Horse Carriage opened fire. Bullets struck the positions on both slopes, kicking up clouds of smoke. Of course, wherever the machine gun swept, Wei Keng ducked. Wherever it moved on, Wei Keng popped up and fired.

A water-cooled Heavy Machine Gun was heavier than a general-purpose machine gun, but it could sustain fire longer. If not for their advantageous position on the heights on either side, Wei Keng really wouldn't have been confident about keeping casualties under control.

The 60 mm mortar on the mountaintop opened fire. According to the trajectory marked by the system, its shell landed precisely on the first Horse Carriage and punched through it. Then the entire carriage exploded in a burst of flame, and the Heavy Machine Gun mounted on it was blown to pieces. Its scattered parts and the wreckage flew twenty meters away.

The fire sweeping the slopes abruptly weakened, and the other machine gunners grew flustered, peering around to find out where the artillery had come from.

Then Wei Keng's voice rang through the valley. It sounded perfectly clear to him, but to the people there, it was obviously in a northern accent: "Our forces have secured a commanding position and possess artillery capable of destroying you. Lay down your weapons and surrender now. It's your only chance. If you keep resisting, you'll be wiped out."

Zeng He looked up at the torches flickering all over the mountains and felt that her force of a hundred and fifty men was tiny.

In reality, Wei Keng's ambush force consisted of only two hundred people. But spread out across the mountain slopes, they made the encirclement look enormous. And Zeng He wasn't wrong, either. Even several thousand men couldn't have charged up those slopes.

After Wei Keng's call to surrender, the troops' will to fight visibly crumbled. Gunfire grew sporadic.

With a rumble, the enormous Mechanical War Beast charged forward. A person's will to fight could vanish, but a Mechanical War Beast under a Beast Tamer's control never would. Faced with defeat, Fang Hong couldn't accept it, so he played his last card.

Watching the steel behemoth charge through a hail of bullets, Wei Keng felt a measure of respect for it.

If the people in the valley still had the will to fight and coordinated their infantry with this heavy semi-mechanical biological unit, Wei Keng might have had some trouble. But now, this lone thing charging forward posed no threat.

The snipers fired first, and their rounds blinded the giant. Of course, given its formidable vitality, the blindness would only be temporary. Wei Keng knew it could repair its eyes.

[Actually, if the giant were dissected, it would turn out to have several layers of eyes beneath its eye sockets, like a bunch of grapes. When the outermost eye was damaged, another would roll into place within ten minutes. Nerves would then sprout out from it, wormlike, and connect to the brain's nervous system. It took about half a month for a new eye to grow, so it couldn't regenerate on the spot as Wei Keng had assumed.]

Wei Keng didn't expect Sniper Rifle rounds to take down this giant with its maxed-out regenerative ability, and he certainly didn't expect Submachine Gun bullets to wear away its hide bit by bit. All of the beast's vital points were protected by its steel shell.

Wei Keng realized he hadn't planned carefully enough. When he got back, he would have to study double-base propellant and shaped charges. He still needed a rocket launcher.

For now, the Wei Kengs on the slopes first opened fire all at once, suppressing the few machine guns at the foot of the mountain.

Then several Wei Kengs ran down through the trenches and followed the communication trench around to the giant's flank. They hurled Pottery Pots fitted with burning strips of cloth straight at its head.

Molotov Cocktails. A fine vintage that every armored force had to taste.

After throwing the firebombs, Wei Keng ducked into the corner of a Z-shaped trench. Flames engulfed the giant from head to toe.

A few minutes later, the intense heat disrupted the mechanism that let the giant flex its muscles, open its mechanical panels, and pull the trigger. The metal armor also conducted heat well. As the flames continued to burn, oil seeped out through gaps inside the iron plates, sizzling and spitting.

At last, the armored monster stepped into empty space on the third line of defense along the slope. Its mechanical claws flailed, scraping away a few clods of earth at the trench's edge before it toppled into the pit and lay there, unable to rise.

Below the slope, Fang Hong and his soldiers had put their hopes in the War Beast as their decisive weapon. When they lifted their heads amid the suppression fire and saw it defeated, their last hope vanished, and their morale collapsed. A white flag was raised high above the carriage.

Meanwhile, in the City Lord's room in Jian City, the potted kumquat had ripened. One fruit had fallen, but there wasn't much flesh inside—just something like cotton.