Hurry Up and Come Out

The battle intensified in an instant.

Mortars began to roar. While a few shells were intercepted by trees, the shrapnel from the explosions remained a lethal threat. Most of the shells, however, cleared the hundred-meter gap and slammed directly into the charging monsters within the forest, wiping out entire swaths of enemies with a single strike.

Overall, the woodland environment significantly hampered the range and power of the mortars. Yet, at the end of the day, they were still artillery; no one could afford to ignore their destructive potential.

Machine guns were even more terrifying killers. If the enemies stayed hidden deep in the dense forest, it was manageable—the cover and poor visibility made them hard to hit from a distance. But the moment those monsters charged out, even if they only reached the edge of the woods where the tree cover thinned, the lethality of the machine guns spiked rapidly. Once they fully emerged from the forest's concealment, the bullets unleashed by the machine guns became like a whip of steel, sweeping across the field and leaving no survivors in their wake.

Behind them, standard rifles only needed to mop up the stragglers.

A multi-layered, three-dimensional fire net ensured that those monsters could never pose a genuine threat to the force led by Gu Hang.

Bio-artillery, agile Zombie Dogs—none of it worked.

The fifty-meter range of the Abscess Sprayer? What was there to fear? The precision marksmen in the company were already locked onto these high-value targets.

Even without mentioning the sharpshooters among these T5-level troops, the soldiers of the Marine Assault Team were bona fide elites. The electromagnetic rifles in their hands boasted superior performance and greater power.

With their oversight, it was extremely difficult for those Abscess Sprayers to get within fifty meters and lob corrosive pus into the human soldiers' formation.

As for the Zombie Dogs, they were hardly worth mentioning.

Their targets were indeed relatively small, and they were fast and agile. However, under the dense fire net, these little monsters were often taken out as collateral damage. A single round of unguided sweeping fire from a heavy machine gun was usually enough; if a few bullets landed on a Zombie Dog, it would blow the dog-like Abscess Monster to pieces.

If one actually managed to break through to the front lines, it was of no real consequence.

The little things were fierce, but their estimated weight of around thirty kilograms limited the threat they could pose. Every soldier was equipped with an Alloy Plasteel bayonet; one thrust was enough to run the lunging beast through. Once tossed to the ground, a soldier could pin its head with a boot, pull the blade free, and put two more rounds into it to ensure it stayed quiet.

Throughout the battle, the most terrifying performers were the four Strider V units.

These infantry fighting vehicles, capable of holding their own in interstellar warfare, were simply not something these monsters could handle.

A few bio-shells successfully launched by Abscess Sprayers slammed into the Strider V units, yet they caused absolutely no impact.

The corrosive effect of the pus looked terrifying against organic matter. The fabric of the soldiers' uniforms offered little resistance, and contact with flesh resulted in excruciating agony.

But the armor vests worn by the soldiers alone were enough to block the corrosion.

Let alone the Strider V, whose outer armor was not only forged from solid Alloy Plasteel but also coated in a Ceramite Membrane—a material far more advanced than Alloy Plasteel.

Conversely, the twin 40mm autocannons mounted on the Strider V's weapon platform meant that anything touched by their shells died instantly. The terrifying rate of fire and overwhelming power meant that even hiding in the woods was useless. A few more shots would destroy the tree trunk along with the monster hiding behind it.

In a sense, it was truly like a long-range lumberjack.

Facing such heavy firepower, the attacking monster swarm suffered far greater losses than they had when attacking the force of Yan Fangxu from afar.

By comparison, Gu Hang's team was at a greater disadvantage regarding the terrain than Yan Fangxu's side. After all, the clearing they currently occupied had just been carved out as a result of clearing a path during their march. They were the ones being ambushed, not the initiators of the battle, and they had no choice in the location of the engagement.

However, aside from that, the team around Gu Hang held every advantage over Yan Fangxu.

The firepower was more abundant, and the soldiers were superior—though they were all T5-level troops, Gu Hang had over twenty soldiers from the Marine Assault Team with him. On this battlefield, they all functioned as expert marksmen, and their accuracy within a range of several dozen meters was entirely reliable.

This meant that the alien monsters were dying at a much faster rate.

Yet they did not retreat, continuing to pour out of the forest as if they were endless.

These mindless monsters, of course, knew no fear; their lives were worthless, serving purely as cannon fodder.

However, even cannon fodder had its value.

If the puppet master behind these monsters hoped to trade the deaths of this fodder for the ammunition in Gu Hang's hands, they had miscalculated.

Having known in advance what kind of enemy he would face, he had made preparations long before setting out.

The production line for G9 had not yet been rolled out, and bringing the Finished Product Black Box Manufacturing Machine had only just satisfied the equipment needs of the 3rd Infantry Battalion; ammunition production had not yet been scheduled. But at the very least, the ammunition reserves transported down from the starship were still sufficient.

At this moment, Gu Hang had brought out more than half of the reserves in one go, with multiple Brute Ox supply carts loaded with ammunition sitting in the center of the position.

With such an abundant supply, let alone one battle, even if the intensity were to rise, they had enough to sustain several more engagements.

Gu Hang observed the entire battlefield with a cold gaze.

He was currently in the center of the position, with a Strider V serving as his command vehicle. The range visible to his eyes was narrow, but that did not hinder his control over the overall situation. His psionic vision was active, and he was perfectly clear on the general state of the entire battlefield.

Originally, he had prepared to intervene if any particularly threatening monsters appeared—for instance, if a large number of Abscess Sprayers entered range and began lobbing bio-shells into his formation. But as it turned out, there was no need for him to act. The soldiers were performing brilliantly, rendering his contingency plan unnecessary.

Gu Hang was quite satisfied with this.

Since there were no major issues on the battlefield, Gu Hang felt at ease shifting his focus to the cultists who were likely to appear.

He did not believe that the cultists' methods were limited to merely driving these mindless monsters; that would never be enough to pose a threat to him.

They certainly had other tricks up their sleeves.

"The mindless monsters have already drawn the vast majority of my soldiers' firepower. Now it is your turn to act—come on out."