Boom, boom, boom, boom!
Deadly explosives continuously roared inside the building, shattering the silence of the small town. The player army had already infiltrated the town, dispersing into groups, occupying high positions, and operating in teams of three. They fully utilized their physical advantages as players, rapidly entering rooms and neutralizing threats within the houses.
The sudden attack completely disrupted the rhythm of the Frost Plated People who were still resting. A few well-trained agents, relying on military-grade prosthetic implants, barely survived. After rushing out of the buildings, they were t with sniper fire from the high positions and concentrated fire from soldiers lurking around the town.
"Damn it!"
A Fourth Rule Agent imdiately activated an implanted plugin, "Peak Mont Military," which was the most cost-effective choice. In an instant, she extended a series of afterimages in the air, charged in front of a soldier player, lifted a heavy pistol, and shattered the opponent’s skullcap. Then, like a tiger entering a flock of sheep, she unsheathed the implanted blades of her artificial limbs, ruthlessly disemboweling the attackers.
However, she soon realized sothing was off.
These people—they weren’t afraid to die.
Qi Energy infused into the blade could easily split a living person in two, but these defenseless mortals, ard only with standard rifles, dared to close in and shoot, threw shock bombs at her, and coldly used their bodies to block her path, allowing their teammates to concentrate their firepower.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat—clang and thud!
As bullets continued hitting the sa spot, even an implanted Martial Artist couldn’t withstand the damage. Due to the hasty counterattack, she hadn’t even had ti to don her armor and soon beca riddled with holes. Still, relying on the formidable physique of a Martial Artist, she stubbornly endured the attack.
But the female agent soon noticed sothing mysterious.
"No—how do they still have so many people?"
She had just killed seven riflen in one go, but when she turned her head, the bodies had been dragged away. Shortly after, she saw the people whom she had disemboweled, covered in blood, rise again, ready their rifles, and fiercely unleash a barrage of fire at her.
"Fuck, what kind of joke is this?! Are they the undead?!"
The female agent was horrified. Though the opponents were weak, their combat proficiency and firearms posed a real threat.
Without reaching the Alpha Stage, even Transcendents would not have the courage to fight such an army.
She imdiately felt a desire to retreat, fighting while retreating, and called for support—however, the channel was filled with cries of despair. She fled over the intestines and limbs of her allies but still couldn’t escape the pursuit of the Undead.
A soldier player took a shortcut, holding a riot shield and directly charging at her. She didn’t care that her blade pierced the opponent’s heart and lungs. The other, like a killing machine, aid the submachine gun right at her eye socket and pulled the trigger.
The artificial eye went offline in an instant, and everything before her turned pitch black.
Half an hour later, on the Frost Plated–Grante battle map, a modest town nad Domat slowly raised the volcanic national flag of the Grante.
Nobody cared about this town on the outskirts of the city, which produced nothing but milk and cheese.
Nor did anyone notice that this was the first ti the player soldiers had clashed with Frost Plated irregular military forces, and after paying the price of fifteen n dying three tis consecutively, they successfully eliminated the garrison stationed there and won their first battle on the Azure Star battlefield.
After the battle, the soldiers from Fiery Sumr returned to their base in the abandoned factory and imdiately organized a debriefing, realizing deeply that this victory was hard-won.
Despite the player soldiers having a clear information advantage, military proficiency, and the initiative, they still paid a great price to eliminate so many Frost Plated irregular soldiers.
Even including the combat commander, Captain Liu Wenzhong, 44 of the 50 well-trained player soldiers nearly died once, and 15 players were killed three tis consecutively, waiting to be redeployed.
Indeed, these were not Frost Plated regular troops, whether they were Fourth Rule agents, riot police, or mbers of the Duchy Party—they were just ard forces without battlefield experience.
Such a skewed record had to be taken seriously.
"Soldiers, now, we must acknowledge a sobering fact," said Major Liu Wenzhong in a grave voice.
"We need better equipnt and to elevate our personal levels. In this world, the advantage of individual strength is significant, enough to offset so organizational advantages—but only so. If we had more powerful artillery, it would be enough to redy these deficiencies. Even the strongest individuals fear artillery."
So soldiers agreed, but also raised concerns:
"...those unconventional Transcendents can close in quickly during combat, severely impacting us. Although firearms are still our main weapon, they are too ineffective against Transcendents. We need to upgrade to larger caliber weapons, like 12.7mm rifle bullets, armor-piercing incendiary heads, and rcury-heavy bullets. Plus, our reaction tis and individual qualities clearly lag behind. After this battle, we each gained an average of 1400 to 1800 Experience points, but it’s still not enough to close the gap with the Frost Plated People."
Thus, a significant issue was laid out. Not only the military of Fiery Sumr but armies of various nations faced this problem.
Armies from different countries could adapt quickly to environnts and purchase so military weapons with the money provided by the governnt through intelligence from the Qiqiao Network.
But their level couldn’t be helped, they could only rely on themselves to improve it.
"Does anyone have any ideas on how to level up quickly? Any suggestions are welco."
"How about completing so main quests?"
"No, we are soldiers, we can’t compete with the civilians for task resources, and it takes too long."
"Then how about hunting the beasts in the Outer World? From what I’ve read, those monsters mutate so severely, they can’t fully be eradicated."
"Unfortunately, our resources are not sufficient to support hunting expeditions."
The group of veteran soldiers felt a bit helpless at this point. They were adept at fighting and waging war, but when it ca to these matters, they weren’t necessarily better than the players.
Just when the military players were at a loss, a tester from the Qiqiao Network passed by and gave them an idea.
"Why don’t you go find Li Aozi?" the tester casually suggested. "He is a ’Sovereign’ series Professional Instructor, and he’s currently in the Grante Republic fighting against the Frost Plated People. You could cooperate with him."
"Li Aozi?"
The soldiers, especially the team leader Liu Wenzhong, expressed their doubts:
"He’s just an NPC, is he really reliable? He might get hit by a stray bullet and die in battle any second."
"Looks like you haven’t watched the conference video." The tester shrugged. "Anyway, I think he’s reliable. As a Professional Instructor, his strength should be quite good, and considering that you’re willing to fight against the Frost Plated, he should agree to help."
"I’ve seen the promotional video." A young warrior recalled the conference video in which "Mutants" manipulated unpredictable Arcane Energy and slaughtered at will, feeling sowhat tempted, "Captain Liu, shall we try to seek him out?"
Liu Wenzhong, not being very knowledgeable in this aspect and also skeptical about the ga world’s natives—who seed too vivid and real—articulated his concerns under the pretext:
"Wouldn’t this involve competing with players for resources..."
"I agree with this idea."
Vice Commander Zhao Xingzhe suggested:
"Captain Liu, we always have to interact with the natives. Harmony between the military and civilians is crucial. You have to make the locals like you, then they’ll want to support you. How about this, let’s send a few people to contact Li Aozi first. Let’s not look for any specific benefits, just test his strength and thoughts. If he really can help us, that would be great."
"All right, let’s do that then."
Liu Wenzhong reluctantly agreed. In his fixed mindset, he still believed that what soldiers most needed were equipnt, organizational discipline, and the will to combat. As for the gap in individual strength—considering that it typically takes hundreds of thousands of bullets to kill one person on the battlefield, it’s just about surviving a few more bullets. The difference between individuals might not be so exaggerated.
Not only he thought this way, but many soldiers also shared this opinion.
It seed that as long as their equipnt was in place and they upgraded their levels, they shouldn’t have to fight so intensely. Compared to wasting ti leveling up, it was better to focus on improving their equipnt standards.
Weapons decide wars, but the power of individual weapons cannot determine the outco of wars. Bringing in a few cannons is far more cost-effective than improving character strength.
Just as they were considering this, soone discovered through a terminal check that the Frost Plated’s arms embargo included various calibers of artillery and anti-vehicle missiles.
"Tsk, that’s really unlucky."
Learning that they couldn’t get firepower support weapons made the soldiers pessimistic about the prospects in Grante. According to their traditional combat concepts, fire coverage is the main thod of combat, and if they couldn’t ensure rapid and powerful fire support, all talks of individual quality were nonsense.
"Can we produce our weapons?"
"We don’t understand the local scientific formulas and chemical materials, and clearly, their armored vehicles can’t be penetrated by homade weapons."
The testing slots were limited, and clearly, they didn’t have enough soldiers.
After so discussion, Liu Wenzhong also had to admit that the hope for enhancing their combat strength had to be sought from their holand.
However, he still preferred to cooperate with the official Bemudes. He had his n start processing the license for the ard security company to see if they could apply for the rcenary Corps quota, hoping to get as much official support as possible.
As for those sent to contact Li Aozi... Liu Wenzhong was utterly indifferent to the ’Professional Instructor’ title.
Given the current situation, even the strongest Transcendent was at most equivalent to a tank, and what role could a single tank play in a war?
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