The Final Battle

The Dianyuan Defense had been at a fever pitch from the very start.

At noon, the sky suddenly went dark. Wang Ji looked up and saw an endless cloud of flying monsters pressing toward the north.

Terrifying!

In an instant, heavy machine guns, anti-aircraft cannons, and surface-to-air missiles streaked toward the swarm like countless meteors, blossoming into dazzling fireworks. Blood and severed limbs rained down.

The rear command center.

"We still can't hold them back!" A lieutenant general at the command center angrily flung down his hat. "Especially the high-level flying monsters!"

"Scramble the air force!" an old but resolute voice ordered.

"Chief! Our aircraft can't go head-to-head with the monsters!" an adviser said, grief-stricken. They had lost too many aircraft and pilots lately.

The chief spoke gravely. "If we can't build the Base City, what use are the aircraft? What use are we? The entire Jiangnan region will fall! Scramble the aircraft!"

"Yes, sir!"

All 108 aircraft in the division's three air regiments were readied for flight. Every pilot wore a look of calm acceptance, as though prepared to die. They knew there was little chance of returning to the ground. Modern aircraft weren't built to fight monsters. They were fast and hit hard, but their armor was thin. Once a War General-level monster caught one, its chances of survival were slim.

"Get airborne fast! Once you're up, climb to your maximum altitude as quickly as possible! Don't get tangled up with low-level flying monsters. It's not worth it! Climb above 30,000 meters, where the low-level monsters can't reach you. Only high-level Beast General monsters can fly that high. Your mission is to kill as many high-level flying monsters as possible. Even if it means dying together!" The tower's orders were solemn and forceful, but the pilots' blood began to boil. If death was inevitable, they would die like knights—die in the sky, and die for a worthy cause.

Countless flying monsters kept dropping to the ground. Some were already dead; others still screeched and thrashed. Wang Ji and the other forty-four members of the special operations squad darted through the battlefield, finishing off the flying monsters that were still alive.

At last, the monsters in the sky began to thin out.

"Rumble..." The ground monsters were coming.

White trails streaked across the blue sky. Countless white trails split the sky into long strips. "Boom!" The earth shook!

It was a widespread ballistic missile attack. No one cared anymore about dwindling stockpiles or the impossibility of resupply. If the unfinished Base City was destroyed by the monster tide, everything would be meaningless.

After the ballistic missiles came the continuous, piercing whistle of heavy artillery shells. Tons of ammunition rained down across a thirty-kilometer-wide arc ahead.

A few minutes later, fewer than one in ten of the monsters had survived long enough to reach the defensive line.

"Get ready! Mortars, stand by! Close-in guns, stand by! Fire!" Bullets more than twenty centimeters long and as thick as eggs sprayed into the first wave of monsters charging the defensive line at a rate of 12,000 rounds per minute.

"Boom!" Flesh flew everywhere.

Even an Advanced Beast General couldn't withstand a barrage at that rate.

"Lord-level monsters! Thirteen Lord-level monsters spotted!" an adviser at the rear command center shouted. "We have only seven War God-level martial artists!"

"Send them in! All seven War God-level martial artists, engage! For the remaining six, have the supercomputer calculate their trajectories and saturate those positions with ballistic missiles! Prepare the elite War General squads at those six points. Also..." The chief paused. "Put all six Red Squads on Level One alert!"

"Chief!" the lieutenant general cried out.

"Red Squads on Level One alert! Await further orders!" the chief said firmly.

Several dozen seconds later, the earth trembled. The roar shattered the clouds overhead.

"Chief! Four of the six Lord-level monsters have been badly wounded! The elite War General squads should be able to hold them off! The other two... evaded the attacks!" The adviser's voice was low.

The chief nodded. "As expected! Lord-level monsters are terrifyingly fast! That's why, unless we use a high-yield nuclear warhead, it makes no difference whether we use a conventional warhead or a tactical nuke—they won't hit."

"That's why we need the Red Squads..." the lieutenant general sighed.

"Red Squads, move out!" The chief waved his hand, grief-stricken.

Two squads led by elite War Generals raced toward the two Lord-level monsters. Each squad leader, an elite War General, carried a large backpack of more than a hundred liters. Red warning symbols were printed on the packs. They contained small nuclear bombs—humanity's most powerful tactical weapons.

A few minutes later, two brilliant flashes erupted, followed by mushroom clouds hundreds of meters high. Everyone on the battlefield couldn't help looking that way, their hearts trembling. Those were nuclear bombs—the last resort of humanity.

Wang Ji couldn't help thinking of Nian Kai. To kill a Lord-level monster with a small nuclear bomb, you needed at least an elite War General. Only an elite War General could get close enough to a Lord-level monster. Otherwise, even a suicide attack would be useless.

"Roar!" At last, the monster horde surged forward in full force.

The heavy machine guns lowered and swept across the battlefield, while the soldiers fired without pause. The special operations squad could no longer rush to plug breaches. Every position was ablaze with fighting, and monsters had broken through everywhere!

"Kill!" Wang Ji roared.

An Advanced Warrior Level fighter was pitifully weak on a battlefield like this—no more than a slightly larger ant. Wang Ji had lost track of how many monsters he'd killed. He only knew that fewer and fewer of his comrades remained by his side.

"Boom!" A Blood-Eyed Blue Rock Bull suddenly leaped out of the trench and slammed into Wang Ji's squad. The two comrades at the front were tossed away like stalks of straw. Then Wang Ji's vision went black, and he lost consciousness.

When Wang Ji woke, he thought the instance had ended in failure again. But then a searing pain shot through his body, and he realized he was still alive.

Wang Ji shoved aside the body of a monster pinning him down. Faint cries of battle still echoed across the field, but the main fighting had stopped.

"Hey! You're still alive?" said a calm voice. Wang Ji looked up and saw Battalion Commander Li Dawei. His uniform was still immaculate, and he showed no sign of having fought. Wang Ji suddenly thought of a Nationalist army officer. All he needed was a pair of white gloves. Unable to help himself, Wang Ji asked, "Battalion Commander, you're a martial artist too, aren't you?"

"I am! I'm a Beginner Warlord-level martial artist!" Li Dawei replied, precise and earnest.

"How many of our brothers made it?" Wang Ji looked around. Not many could still stand.

Li Dawei said, "Fifty-two members of the Sharp Knife Battalion are still able to fight!"

Suddenly, a bloodied hand reached out beside them. "I'm... I'm still here!"

"Lao Bao! You're alive!" Wang Ji crawled over and helped Lao Bao out of the pile of bodies.

"That makes fifty-three!"

Wang Ji suddenly exploded. "You're a War General-level martial artist, and you just watched the men under you fight and die? How can you face the flag behind you?"

Lao Bao struggled to hold Wang Ji back. "Don't talk nonsense! The battalion commander isn't that kind of person! On the battlefield, you follow orders and obey command!"

Li Dawei ran a hand over the Sharp Knife Battalion's banner and said, "As long as I'm here and any of the Sharp Knife Battalion's veterans are still alive, the battalion still exists. Its fighting strength still exists. My standing here is worth more than killing a few monsters!"

"Worth more? That's bullshit!" Wang Ji glared.

"The battalion commander is right!" Lao Bao suddenly said.

"Position 332, reinforcements needed!" A loudspeaker blared. Supply vehicles brought in people temporarily conscripted from the rear, sending them to reinforce the various stretches of the defensive line one by one.

"The Sharp Knife Battalion needs four hundred reinforcements!" Li Dawei shouted.

A little over an hour later, the veterans, covered in smoke and blood, had reorganized the new recruits into squads, platoons, and companies. Li Dawei stood before the Sharp Knife Battalion's banner, calmly explaining battle discipline, combat coordination, and the battalion's proud history.

A combat-ready unit had been formed once again.

At dusk, the monster tide attacked again, and the slaughter began anew.

No one knew how many battles they had fought or how many times they had received new recruits. Whether they were new arrivals or lucky survivors, they fought again and again, ready to lay down their lives. No one retreated.

"Our families and our fellow countrymen are behind us. Being afraid is useless! Retreating is useless! Running is useless! The monsters won't show mercy, and they won't accept surrender! They'll just kill every last one of us. So we can only fight! Even if we die, we'll fight to the death!" Li Dawei constantly rallied the troops.

Blood, severed limbs, and fragments of countless monster corpses turned the defensive line into a muddy quagmire. One battle followed another without end.

No one knew how much time had passed. They had all lost track of it. Then, at some point...

"It's over!" Li Dawei murmured suddenly after receiving an order over the radio.

"It's over?" The surviving soldiers of the Sharp Knife Battalion stared at him in disbelief.

Li Dawei nodded with difficulty. "The wall around the Base City behind us is finished, and its defenses are in place! The defense is over! We can withdraw!"

"What? It's over?..." The surviving brothers were at first disbelieving, then burst into tears. The fighting had been too brutal. Fewer than thirty of them were still standing, and every one of them was wounded.

The members of the Sharp Knife Battalion supported one another as they began to withdraw. Their vehicles were badly damaged and broke down halfway there, so they had to abandon them. Fortunately, the newly built Base City wasn't far away.

"Hiss..."

Wang Ji was exhausted and slow to react. By the time he realized what was happening, he saw a Two-Headed Black-Striped Python ahead. It was only a few dozen meters from the group.

The Two-Headed Black-Striped Python was a mutated Intermediate Beast General-level monster. It was a meter thick and more than twenty meters long, and its combat strength could even rival that of some Advanced Beast Generals.

"Hiss... We're so unlucky. We were almost back at the Base City, and now we've run into a monster like this," a soldier beside him said. Everyone was utterly exhausted. They had left their heavy weapons behind in the vehicle that had broken down. All they had were light firearms and a small amount of ammunition.

Lao Bao suddenly said, "Concentrate fire! Aim for the heads!"

"Rat-a-tat-tat..." The bullets struck the Two-Headed Black-Striped Python, barely piercing its scales but doing it no real harm.

Instead, the Two-Headed Black-Striped Python charged at them in a frenzy. They were retreating to the Base City, and all their heavy weapons—including the machine guns—had been left behind in the broken-down vehicle. None of them had expected to encounter a monster like this so close to the Base City.

"You go on ahead. I'll draw it away!" Li Dawei suddenly shouted.

"What?" Wang Ji stared at him in disbelief.

Li Dawei turned to Wang Ji. "Earlier, my survival was more important. Now, Wang Ji, yours is more important than mine! You're only seventeen or eighteen. You're an Advanced Warrior-level martial artist at that age, and you've even mastered the Micro-Level Movement Technique. You can definitely become a War God-level martial artist! You can become a pillar who protects the Base City! Hurry and run! Lao Bao, take Wang Ji and the others and run! I'm afraid I can't hold this beast off for long!"

Wang Ji's heart shook. He glared at him and said, "What the hell do you mean, more important? You're just like Xiao Lizi—talking nonsense! What kind of bullshit logic is that?"

Li Dawei tossed a shoulder insignia into Lao Bao's hand. "This is Li An's military insignia. Take it back to my sister-in-law. Her Li An didn't bring shame on himself on the battlefield!"

Lao Bao's eyes reddened. He nodded and said, "Go, Wang Ji. The battalion commander has never been afraid of dying. We have to go—don't let him sacrifice himself for nothing!"

Wang Ji wanted to say something, but Lao Bao glared at him. "Follow orders and obey command!" As he spoke, he forcibly dragged Wang Ji away and led the others off at a run.

In the blink of an eye, the towering wall of the Base City appeared before them. It stretched like a range of mountains, capable of keeping the monsters out.

"We made it! We finally made it to the Base City!"

Ding! Instance: Dianyuan Defense, complete. Main quests: 1. Cover the retreat; 2. Hold out for 7 days; completed.