The four Striders were the first weapon Gu Hang could bring to bear to smash the defenses of Mantan Valley Manor.
The second weapon was Gu Hang himself.
He joined the battle in person.
Inside the armored vehicle, Gu Hang fixed his gaze on a bunker. A pit had been dug there, then topped with a stone structure, leaving a firing slit. A heavy machine gun had been set up inside, posing a serious threat to infantry.
Against a sturdy bunker, even the autocannon mounted on a Strider would struggle to make a dent.
The mercenaries had built three bunkers, forming their second line of defense.
Once they realized the simple rubble walls wouldn't hold, the bulk of the mercenaries had already fallen back. They planned to use the bunkers as a base for continued resistance.
Gu Hang closed his eyes. He could sense the tremor of minds and the taste of blood. Through his psychic perception, the resisting mercenaries appeared as blurred shadows, visible to his psionic sight.
He locked onto the nearest bunker. A blade invisible to the naked eye swept through the heads of two mercenaries inside and severed them.
In reality, there was nothing visibly wrong with their bodies, but they toppled straight backward as if beheaded. Their limbs continued to twitch with nerve spasms.
Then Gu Hang did the same to the machine gunners in the other two bunkers.
He felt that the drain on his spiritual energy was manageable—at least, it was less than what it had taken to deal with the mutated Greenskin from the Prisoner-Dead.
There were probably two reasons for that. First, the Greenskin beast's body had become extremely strong after being altered by the drugs, and its soul had grown stronger along with it. Severing one of its legs had cost him far more than killing several mercenaries.
The other reason was that, after his last level-up, his Spirituality attribute had increased by one point. That single point had raised the amount of Psionic Power he could wield to 150% of what he could manage before the level-up.
One attribute point was worth a great deal.
Killing these mercenaries from a distance wasn't too difficult. Their wills were only slightly stronger than those of ordinary people.
The firing positions in all three bunkers fell silent at once, leaving a major gap in the mercenaries' overall firepower.
Under cover from the mortars and the autocannons mounted on the advancing armored vehicles, the infantry seized the opportunity and charged forward.
Some mercenaries tried to climb back into the bunkers and restart the heavy machine guns. Anyone who tried was either torn apart by an armored vehicle's autocannon or picked off by an elite Marine. Those who did make it inside were still clearly visible to Gu Hang's psionic sight. Another Soul Severing could easily slice off their heads.
At that point, the mercenaries' morale finally collapsed completely.
They knew they couldn't escape. If they left cover, there was no way they could outrun the armored vehicles on foot across open ground.
And then there was the terrifying Psyker.
A significant number of mercenaries dropped their guns and raised their hands in surrender.
With that, the second line of defense at Mantan Valley Manor was destroyed. The bulk of the mercenaries guarding the manor had been all but wiped out.
There wasn't time yet to count exactly how many had surrendered or how many had been killed.
But based on a few quick questions and statements, there should be no more than twenty enemies left, and they were all concentrated inside the central building.
It stood not far from Little River Bend and was the home of the owner's family. Those twenty weren't all mercenaries; most were probably Vaughan's personal bodyguards.
They also learned where the goods they had been robbed of were being stored: in several warehouses not far from the main building.
The mercenaries had only returned recently and hadn't finished unloading everything. The livestock were still tied up nearby, and the wooden carts were still loaded with goods.
Gu Hang had already sent men from the Waste Mine Company to secure the warehouses. They had to make sure no one was hiding inside, and check whether all the goods were there and how much there was.
The rest of the troops surrounded the last building, the only one they had yet to capture.
It was a handsome four-story mansion with a large footprint. Whenever Vaughan wasn't in Revival City, he usually lived here. His servants, butler, and other staff were also in the house.
The people who worked the manor's fields—the serfs—weren't allowed anywhere near it. They lived farther away, in some crude barracks with communal sleeping quarters for about two hundred people.
The soldiers had already secured that area, and the unarmed serfs stayed obediently inside their barracks, afraid to move.
There were still at least twenty armed men in the main house.
The Waste Mine Company soldiers had already tried to negotiate a surrender, but the soldier sent to do so had been greeted with gunfire. Fortunately, he hadn't been very close; only two bullets struck his chest and were stopped by his armor plate.
The young soldier, his chest aching, came running back in a panic, swearing furiously as he went.
Waste Mine Company Captain Pobov kicked the young man twice. "What are you panicking for? Are two bullets enough to kill you?"
The young soldier hunched his shoulders. During the battle, he'd charged fearlessly. He hadn't even been afraid to approach the enemy alone and ask them to surrender. But he was afraid of the captain.
That probably wasn't how things should have been. Captain Pobov was an old acquaintance. He had originally been from the Waste Mine Society and had led a mining crew. When everyone had been conscripted from their hometown, the leader had put Pobov in charge of them. Then, after they were organized into an army, Pobov had been promoted to acting company commander and put in charge of training.
What would a mining crew leader know about military training or command?
Yet during the past few days of training, the captain had somehow mastered the skills of leading troops and giving orders. Even he found it strange. It was as if, during those few days of training, his memory, comprehension, and even muscle memory had all gone into overdrive.
He had quickly become a competent officer. He knew how to train soldiers. He knew that he couldn't be as lenient with everyone as he had been before; the discipline and strictness expected of an army were essential. But he had also held on to his concern and affection for every one of them. They were all his countrymen, from the same hometown, and in his heart, he thought of them as family.
Under his training, the soldiers had likewise picked up the skills needed to become competent soldiers, just as he had somehow mastered the techniques of an officer. At first, none of them had even known how to shoot. By the end, every one of them had become a capable marksman. They could execute tactical movements accurately, understand combat terminology, and knew how to form up, attack, and retreat...
The whole process felt incredible to Pobov, but somehow also perfectly natural. He could feel the changes taking place in him as they happened—everything was simply happening faster.
Maybe all one hundred of them really were born to be soldiers. Maybe they were all geniuses?
Of course, to a veteran and seasoned officer like Yan Fangxu, that kind of progress was downright horrifying. When Pobov had spoken with Yan Fangxu, he had heard him describe it that way. Worried that something might be wrong, he had even asked the Governor, only to get a single answer:
"Don't overthink it. This is normal. You're all geniuses."
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