The Governor Would Step In

Pobov's heart turned cold.

He knew all too well what would happen if those monsters really broke through the wall of fire and reached them.

The Abscess Sprayers, which he had thought were extremely dangerous, were nothing compared to the ordinary Abscess Monsters.

The main problem was that there were simply too many of them.

Once the fighting turned close-quarters, the soldiers could no longer fire their guns, even though they had bayonets. When more and more monsters, seemingly endless, rushed in, how could his men possibly fight them off with bayonets alone?

It wouldn't matter if each soldier managed to kill three or five Abscess Monsters in close combat. The enemy would simply overwhelm them with even greater numbers.

In fact, the first signs of that were already showing.

Twice as many Zombie Dogs as before had charged into the soldiers' line now that the fire had slackened.

This was the first step toward destabilizing the entire defensive line.

The Zombie Dogs that broke through had to be dealt with at close range. And every extra moment the soldiers spent taking care of them weakened their firepower further. That could let even more Zombie Dogs rush in, quickly creating a vicious cycle that would soon end in a collapse.

Pobov could see the trend.

But there was little he could do.

He had already shouted himself hoarse, urging the soldiers to hold on and maintain their fire.

But it was difficult.

The soldiers under his command weren't cowards, but pain, fierce winds, and white fog were real obstacles. They couldn't just will them away.

The fog was especially bad, severely impairing the soldiers' vision. Even if they could hold their positions, all they could do was fire blindly into the surrounding mist. They could only make out vague shapes once the enemy drew closer.

Their reduced accuracy had greatly weakened the firepower of their defensive line.

At this point, the only effective thing he could do was keep the more important weapons firing.

The mortar positions under the battalion's command couldn't stop. Pobov also ordered the mortar crews to bring their shells down closer to the line.

Until now, most of the shells had landed along the edge of the woods, where they could inflict casualties and intercept the enemy's first wave. They hadn't fired too close for fear of hitting their own men. Besides, once the enemy drew closer, casualties along the way would thin their ranks and make artillery fire more effective.

But they couldn't afford to worry about that now.

The machine gunners at their various positions were also doing their best to hold on. They were faring a little better; the makeshift positions built from planks and sandbags offered some shelter from the wind. The machine gunners gritted their teeth against the pain, lay prone, and kept their fingers on the triggers. They poured bullets into the fog without worrying whether their barrels would overheat and become unusable.

At the same time, the four Striders never stopped firing.

It was because the mortars, machine guns, and autocannons—the three main sources of firepower—had remained operational that the defensive line still had some protection.

Without them, the line would already have collapsed.

However, Pobov knew that with his own command alone, this was as much as he could accomplish.

The fragile balance could only slow the line's collapse. It couldn't restore the situation to what it had been before, when every monster was kept beyond the range of their fire.

He raised his head in anger and looked through the fog at one large and two smaller Storm Eagles, dimly visible in the sky.

He knew that was where the real threat lay.

But as for those three things in the sky... Pobov truly had no way to deal with them.

He had already ordered every sharpshooter in the company to fire at them, but it had little effect. He had even drawn his sidearm and shot at the sky himself, but that was more like venting his frustration. It did nothing.

He had done everything he could, but what happened next seemed to signal that all his efforts were about to be undone.

The position had held so far because the mortars and machine-gun positions were still firing. The Storm Apostles flying overhead could see that clearly.

They didn't bother with the Strider V. Their Storm Sorcery had no way to pierce its armor and harm the driver inside.

As for damaging the Infantry Fighting Vehicle itself...

They might as well forget it.

The machine gunners and mortar crews were much easier targets.

Wind Bullets descended from the sky.

A Wind Bullet as large as a wagon wheel tore through the white fog and plunged from above, striking a machine-gun position and exploding with a roar.

It was like a shell. The sudden blast of wind pressure sent people flying, while the high-pressure wind blades scattered in every direction like shrapnel, tearing bodies to pieces.

When the machine gunner and the two soldiers beside him landed, they were already dead.

The loss of one machine-gun position had a major impact. Several Zombie Dogs immediately rushed into the area it had covered, followed by the Abscess Monsters behind them.

The pressure surged.

Seeing two more Wind Bullets descend from the sky, Pobov grew frantic.

He instinctively rushed toward where they would land, trying to block them with his own body.

But just then, a familiar voice rang out in his mind. "Don't panic. Focus on leading your troops."

"Governor?!"

Pobov recognized the voice. He looked around, but saw no one.

Only then did he realize that the voice had sounded directly in his mind.

He suddenly remembered the battle by the river valley, and the people who had died in such unusual ways.

The Governor possessed a mysterious power called Psionic Power. He wasn't helpless.

If it was the Governor, everything would be all right!

That was how deeply Pobov trusted Gu Hang.

And Gu Hang didn't let him down.

The two Wind Bullets, about to hit the ground and making Pobov want to throw himself in their path, suddenly vanished in midair.

Then the three Storm Giant Eagles flying overhead disappeared as well.

Three figures plummeted from the sky.

In an instant, the situation changed dramatically.

It was, of course, all because Gu Hang had intervened.

By then, he had climbed out of the Infantry Fighting Vehicle.

Psionic Power released through the Strider's armor to cast spells would be weakened to some degree. To make sure his attack succeeded, he had left the vehicle and gone outside.

Psionic Severance really was a useful spell.

Gu Hang hadn't used it directly on the three Cultists. All three had powerful souls, clearly visible through his Psionic Vision. Even if he went all out, he might not be able to sever their heads or destroy their souls.

Instead, Gu Hang targeted their psionic links to the Storm Eagles.

Destroying the spell that kept them flying, sending them crashing down, and then finishing them off physically was the more convenient approach.

At his side, eleven Marine Assault Team soldiers sprinted out, each heading for one of the three falling targets.

The assault troops raised their guns as they ran at full speed and fired with astonishing accuracy. Their metal spikes struck the targets as they fell through the air.

Their skill far surpassed that of their comrades.

The reason these eleven special forces soldiers could perform at such a high level was that they had surpassed the T4 level and reached T3.