All Are Geniuses

Four Striders were the first weapons Gu Hang could bring to bear to shatter the defensive line of Mantan Valley Manor.

The second weapon was himself.

He had personally joined the battle as well.

Gu Hang sat inside the armored vehicle, his gaze locked onto a bunker. A hole had been dug there, topped with a heavy stone superstructure that left a firing slit. Inside, a heavy machine gun was positioned, posing a significant threat to infantry.

Against such sturdy bunkers, even the autocannons on the Striders struggled to make an impact.

The mercenaries had constructed three such bunkers, forming their second line of defense.

Upon realizing that simple rubble walls could no longer hold, a large number of mercenaries had retreated. They intended to rely on these bunkers to continue their resistance.

Gu Hang closed his eyes, sensing the tremors in his mind and the scent of blood. Within his psychic perception, those resisting mercenaries formed blurred shadows, detected by his psychic vision.

He locked onto the nearest bunker, and a blade, invisible to the naked eye, swept across the heads of the two mercenaries inside, severing them.

In reality, the bodies of these two mercenaries showed no outward signs of trauma, yet they collapsed backward as if decapitated. Their bodies twitched due to residual nerve impulses.

Following this, Gu Hang repeated the process, eliminating the machine gunners in the other two bunkers.

He felt his psychic expenditure was manageable, certainly less than what it took to deal with that Prisoner-Dead mutant Greenskin.

The reason likely stemmed from two factors: first, that Greenskin beast had undergone chemical enhancement, and its incredibly strong physique had brought about an increase in soul strength. The cost of severing that creature's leg was far greater than killing multiple mercenaries.

On the other hand, after his last upgrade, his psychic attribute had increased by one point. This single point of improvement meant the psychic power he could wield had become 150% of what it was before the upgrade.

The value of a single attribute point was immense.

Killing these mercenaries, whose wills were only slightly tougher than an average person's, from a distance was not particularly strenuous.

The silencing of the three bunker firing points created a massive gap in the overall firepower of the mercenary defense line.

Under the cover of mortars and the autocannons of the advancing armored vehicles, the infantry seized the opportunity to charge forward in large strides.

Some mercenaries attempted to scramble back into the bunkers to restart the heavy machine guns, but those who tried were either torn apart by the armored vehicles' autocannons or precisely picked off by the elite marines. For those who actually made it inside, Gu Hang could see them clearly with his psychic vision, and another Soul Severing could easily slice off their heads.

At this point, the morale of the mercenary group finally collapsed completely.

They knew they couldn't escape. Leaving cover to flee on foot across open ground meant they couldn't outrun the armored vehicles.

Not to mention, there was also the terrifying psychic.

A significant number of mercenaries dropped their guns and raised their hands in surrender.

With this, the second line of defense at Mantan Valley Manor was destroyed. The main force of the mercenaries guarding the manor had effectively been wiped out.

Exactly how many people surrendered and how many were eliminated could not yet be tallied.

However, based on simple questioning and confessions, the remaining enemies should number no more than twenty, all concentrated in the central building.

That location was not far from Little River Bend and served as the residence for the owner's family. Those twenty people were not all mercenaries; they were primarily Vaughan's personal bodyguards.

Additionally, they learned the location of the supplies that had been looted earlier; they were in several warehouses not far from the main building.

They had only returned a short while ago, and the cargo had not yet been fully unloaded. The tethered livestock and the wooden carts loaded with goods were all in that vicinity.

Gu Hang had already dispatched men from the Waste Mine Company to clear the warehouses. On one hand, it was to guard against anyone hiding inside; on the other, it was to inventory the goods and determine the exact quantity.

The remaining personnel surrounded the final building that had yet to be taken.

The building was quite beautiful, a four-story western-style mansion with a large footprint. When Vaughan was not in Revival City, he basically lived here. Inside the house were his servants, a butler, and a series of other staff serving him.

As for the tillers of the manor's fields, those serfs were not allowed near here. The serfs lived in a more remote area, where there were some crude shacks and communal bunks housing nearly two hundred people.

That area had also been secured by the soldiers, and the unarmed serfs stayed obediently in their houses, not daring to move.

There were at least twenty armed militants inside the main building.

The soldiers of the Waste Mine Company had attempted to call for surrender, but the soldier sent to negotiate was met only with bullets. Fortunately, the distance was not too close, and only two bullets hit his chest, which were blocked by his ballistic plates.

The young soldier, chest aching, scrambled back in a panic, cursing incessantly while still shaken.

Pobov, the company commander of the Waste Mine Company, walked up and kicked the young man twice: "What are you panicking about? Could those two bullets kill you?"

The young soldier shrank his neck. During the heat of battle, he dared to charge fiercely, and he hadn't been afraid to go alone to negotiate, but he was terrified of this company commander.

Logically, this shouldn't be the case. Company Commander Pobov was an old acquaintance; he was originally a local from the Waste Mine Society and a captain of the ore mining team. When everyone was conscripted from their hometown, the leader had asked Pobov to lead the team. After they were organized into an army, Pobov was promoted to acting company commander, in charge of training.

A captain of an ore mining team—what did he know about military training or command?

Yet, over the past few days of training, this commander had miraculously mastered the techniques and abilities of leading troops and commanding. Even he found this very strange; it was as if his memory, comprehension, and even muscle memory had been "hacked" during those few days of training.

He quickly transformed into a qualified officer. He knew how to train soldiers, and he knew that sometimes he couldn't be as lenient as he was in the past; the discipline and strictness required in an army were indispensable. But at the same time, he retained his understanding and care for everyone. They were his brothers and sisters from the same hometown, and he regarded these soldiers as family from the bottom of his heart.

Under his training, these soldiers also mastered the various skills required to become qualified soldiers, just as he had "hacked" his officer skills. From not knowing how to fire a gun at the start, everyone eventually became a qualified marksman, capable of executing precise tactical maneuvers, understanding combat terminology, and knowing how to form up, attack, and retreat...

The whole process felt very magical to Pobov, yet it also felt natural. He could feel the entire process of those changes happening to him—it was just a bit fast.

Could it be that their hundred-man group was truly born to be soldiers, all geniuses?

Of course, to Yan Fangxu, a veteran and senior officer, this speed was simply a horror story. When Pobov spoke with Yan Fangxu, he had heard such an assessment from him. He was even afraid there might be a problem and asked the Governor, only to receive one answer:

"Don't overthink it. Under the circumstances, you are all geniuses."