Chapter 211: Flames of War at the Chokepoint
The squad of scaled beasts that burst from the side intersection moved with terrifying speed.
Avoiding the frontal combat zone, they crept along the low earthen embankments and abandoned drainage ditches. Their bodies were coated in gray dust, blending almost perfectly with the ashen wasteland background. By the time the military police at the chokepoint spotted their distinct silhouettes, the distance was already less than thirty meters. Led by two third-tier scaled beasts, with over twenty ordinary scaled beasts close behind, their target was the narrow passage connecting the second-line position to the main city.
"Enemy attack! Side chokepoint!"
The military police captain roared, raising his rifle to fire. The few remaining officers quickly formed a defensive line behind the stone piles on both sides of the chokepoint. They were already short-handed; most had been diverted earlier to suppress the spore riots in the city, leaving only eight men. Ammunition was equally scarce. Piercing rounds whistled through the air, and a leading ordinary scaled beast fell instantly. But the two third-tier scaled beasts did not pause for a second. Lowering their bone spurs, they charged fiercely, their massive bodies slamming into the stone barricades, sending debris flying.
If the chokepoint fell, the retreat route for all second-line defenders would be completely sealed. They would be transformed into an isolated island surrounded by a sea of beasts.
On the frontal sandbag fortifications, the breach had already been smashed open by more than half.
Six third-tier scaled beasts took turns thrusting into the collapsed gaps. The soldiers formed dense melee squads, hacking and stabbing with short blades and entrenching tools. Black blood splashed across the sand and steel plates as screams, beast roars, and the clash of metal twisted into a chaotic cacophony. Seizing the panic caused by the chokepoint's emergency, the Illusion Ancient Being layered its illusions wave upon wave. Some saw the chokepoint already bathed in blood, the main city gates wide open, and countless spores spreading through the streets; others heard their families crying for help. A momentary lapse in focus, a half-second delay in their movements, and a pouncing scaled beast would sink its teeth into their shoulders.
"Do not get distracted! There are still people holding the chokepoint! That is just panic amplified by illusions!" Lin Yan's voice echoed repeatedly over the communication channel. His Sea of Consciousness was simultaneously split into two focal points: watching the rotation rhythm of the frontal beast herd, while firmly locking onto the thermal signatures of the flanking squad at the chokepoint. He also had to continuously sense the flow of consciousness of the five ancient beings in the cavern. His Sea of Consciousness endured the relentless washing of their residual waves, his temples burning with pain.
The Sharp-Sense Ancient Being's fine, dense psychic spikes did not cease.
Without the Sea of Consciousness resonance barrier to share the burden, everyone had to endure it alone. Many soldiers suffered waves of throbbing headaches, their vision occasionally going black. The paired wake-up code words were called out with increasing frequency, but as mental exhaustion accumulated, the effect of these awakenings grew weaker and weaker. A non-commissioned officer had just pulled a soldier back from an illusion when he was instantly struck by a psychic spike. Suppressing a groan, he leaned against a sandbag, unable to catch his breath for a long time.
Old Zhou supported himself against a steel plate and slowly stood up, a short blade gripped in his palm.
The soldier guarding him quickly reached out to stop him. "Captain, your wounds are too severe. You can't go up there!"
"If the chokepoint falls, none of us will survive," Old Zhou said with unsteady breaths, his face as pale as paper from blood loss. "The frontal line is temporarily held by others. I'll take two men to support the chokepoint."
There were no extra hands to spare; every sector of the second line was stretched to the limit. Two soldiers who could still barely stand gritted their teeth and followed Old Zhou. The three of them rushed toward the chokepoint along the low-lying trench behind the fortifications. Along the way, they constantly saw soldiers who had lost their minds, frozen in a daze and pinned to the ground by their companions. More and more people were experiencing a total collapse of their mental defenses.
Deep within the cavern, the consciousness of the five ancient beings steadily received feedback from both battlefields.
Seeing that the flanking squad had entangled the military police at the chokepoint and the frontal breach was continuously expanding, the Beast Commander continued to dispatch ordinary scaled beasts endlessly into the frontal gap. This pinned down the main second-line defenders, preventing them from breaking away to relieve the chokepoint. It was not eager to let the flanking scaled beasts take the chokepoint immediately; instead, it continuously drained the officers' ammunition and stamina, slowly compressing their space for survival.
The Illusion Ancient Being increased the proportion of illusions directed at the chokepoint, specifically manufacturing the false image of all the military police being slaughtered, aiming to shake the resolve of the second-line defenders to send reinforcements.
The Sharp-Sense Ancient Being redirected a portion of its psychic spikes toward the few military police at the chokepoint. Already outnumbered, they now faced an additional layer of Sea of Consciousness torment on top of the physical melee.
The Spiderweb Ancient Being continued to watch the city anchor points. A spore node in the near suburbs erupted once again. When the news reached the command hall, Scholar Su could only manage to dispatch the last few standby medical military police to suppress it. The internal security pressure within the main city was already on the verge of crushing the rear.
The supreme ruler quietly sensed the global fluctuations. It was waiting for a node of dual collapse: the frontal fortifications being completely torn open, and the chokepoint garrison being wiped out simultaneously. At that point, this outer perimeter garrison would fall into absolute despair, and their will to resist would experience a cliff-like drop.
The slaughter at the chokepoint had reached its endgame.
Four of the eight military police had fallen. The remaining four were covered in wounds, their ammunition completely depleted. They could only grip their short blades and fight desperately. A third-tier scaled beast swept its tail, and an officer who failed to dodge in time suffered broken ribs, collapsing to the ground on the spot. The remaining three pressed back-to-back, stubbornly blocking the narrowest part of the passage, using their flesh and blood to buy time.
Old Zhou and his two men arrived just in time to witness this scene.
"Hold steady! We're here!" Old Zhou gave a low shout and charged forward first. Aiming for the soft scale gap beside the third-tier scaled beast's eye, he drove his short blade fiercely into the flesh. The behemoth let out a maddened roar of pain, its massive head whipping violently. The impact sent Old Zhou staggering backward, tearing his wounds open once again. Warm blood soaked through the bandages at his waist.
The two third-tier scaled beasts simultaneously shifted their targets, enveloping the three newcomers in a pincer attack.
"Lin Yan, report to the cavern. Do they have any reserve beast herds left?" Scholar Su's voice came through the channel, heavy with suppressed emotion.
"There are still a few reserve scaled beasts in the hidden intersections, but not many. The Beast Commander hasn't deployed them yet," Lin Yan replied quickly. "The supreme ruler is watching. It wants to see if we can hold the chokepoint before deciding whether to commit its final reserves."
These words made everyone in the command hall feel a heavy weight in their chests.
The ancient beings still held trump cards, not pressing all their forces at once. They were accustomed to saving their final strength to strike when the defenders' will was at its lowest. That single blow was often the last straw that broke the defense line.
The breach in the frontal sandbag fortifications continued to expand.
Two of the six third-tier scaled beasts were wounded, but they remained ferocious, continuously forcing the soldiers to shrink backward. The battle line was pushed step by step toward the temporary medical shed behind the second line. The wounded, medicines, and supply materials were all exposed to the threat of the beast tide. The non-commissioned officer in charge of the frontal command continuously reported casualties, the numbers climbing relentlessly. There were no surplus forces left to divert to the chokepoint to support Old Zhou.
At the chokepoint, Old Zhou, his two soldiers, and the remaining three military police—six men in total—were desperately wedged in the narrow passage, locked in combat with the two third-tier scaled beasts. The confined terrain restricted the behemoths' ability to turn, granting the defenders a sliver of space to maneuver. But their physical exhaustion was extreme, and their wounds multiplied. Every block and thrust drained their remaining life force.
Illusions flashed before their eyes from time to time: at the end of the passage lay the open gates of the main city, yet they were paved with the corpses of dead civilians; whispers in their ears repeatedly urged them to abandon resistance, to fall beneath the beast claws early and be free from endless suffering.
"Don't listen! Hold this ground. There are still people behind us!" Old Zhou roared, his short blade tearing through the scaled beast's flesh once again.
Above the wasteland, two battlefields burned simultaneously.
The beast tide at the frontal fortifications continuously pressed inward, while the chokepoint passage was a scene of flying blood and flesh. Deep within the subterranean cavern, the consciousness of the five ancient beings resonated quietly, waiting for their critical threshold.
Lin Yan closed his eyes, his Sea of Consciousness continuously monitoring the thermal signatures of the last batch of dormant scaled beasts in the hidden intersections. His heart sank heavier and heavier.
Old Zhou and his five men were the final lock holding the chokepoint. Once this lock broke and the encirclement closed, there would be no hope left for the second-line position.
End of Chapter.
Avoiding the frontal combat zone, they crept along the low earthen embankments and abandoned drainage ditches. Their bodies were coated in gray dust, blending almost perfectly with the ashen wasteland background. By the time the military police at the chokepoint spotted their distinct silhouettes, the distance was already less than thirty meters. Led by two third-tier scaled beasts, with over twenty ordinary scaled beasts close behind, their target was the narrow passage connecting the second-line position to the main city.
"Enemy attack! Side chokepoint!"
The military police captain roared, raising his rifle to fire. The few remaining officers quickly formed a defensive line behind the stone piles on both sides of the chokepoint. They were already short-handed; most had been diverted earlier to suppress the spore riots in the city, leaving only eight men. Ammunition was equally scarce. Piercing rounds whistled through the air, and a leading ordinary scaled beast fell instantly. But the two third-tier scaled beasts did not pause for a second. Lowering their bone spurs, they charged fiercely, their massive bodies slamming into the stone barricades, sending debris flying.
If the chokepoint fell, the retreat route for all second-line defenders would be completely sealed. They would be transformed into an isolated island surrounded by a sea of beasts.
On the frontal sandbag fortifications, the breach had already been smashed open by more than half.
Six third-tier scaled beasts took turns thrusting into the collapsed gaps. The soldiers formed dense melee squads, hacking and stabbing with short blades and entrenching tools. Black blood splashed across the sand and steel plates as screams, beast roars, and the clash of metal twisted into a chaotic cacophony. Seizing the panic caused by the chokepoint's emergency, the Illusion Ancient Being layered its illusions wave upon wave. Some saw the chokepoint already bathed in blood, the main city gates wide open, and countless spores spreading through the streets; others heard their families crying for help. A momentary lapse in focus, a half-second delay in their movements, and a pouncing scaled beast would sink its teeth into their shoulders.
"Do not get distracted! There are still people holding the chokepoint! That is just panic amplified by illusions!" Lin Yan's voice echoed repeatedly over the communication channel. His Sea of Consciousness was simultaneously split into two focal points: watching the rotation rhythm of the frontal beast herd, while firmly locking onto the thermal signatures of the flanking squad at the chokepoint. He also had to continuously sense the flow of consciousness of the five ancient beings in the cavern. His Sea of Consciousness endured the relentless washing of their residual waves, his temples burning with pain.
The Sharp-Sense Ancient Being's fine, dense psychic spikes did not cease.
Without the Sea of Consciousness resonance barrier to share the burden, everyone had to endure it alone. Many soldiers suffered waves of throbbing headaches, their vision occasionally going black. The paired wake-up code words were called out with increasing frequency, but as mental exhaustion accumulated, the effect of these awakenings grew weaker and weaker. A non-commissioned officer had just pulled a soldier back from an illusion when he was instantly struck by a psychic spike. Suppressing a groan, he leaned against a sandbag, unable to catch his breath for a long time.
Old Zhou supported himself against a steel plate and slowly stood up, a short blade gripped in his palm.
The soldier guarding him quickly reached out to stop him. "Captain, your wounds are too severe. You can't go up there!"
"If the chokepoint falls, none of us will survive," Old Zhou said with unsteady breaths, his face as pale as paper from blood loss. "The frontal line is temporarily held by others. I'll take two men to support the chokepoint."
There were no extra hands to spare; every sector of the second line was stretched to the limit. Two soldiers who could still barely stand gritted their teeth and followed Old Zhou. The three of them rushed toward the chokepoint along the low-lying trench behind the fortifications. Along the way, they constantly saw soldiers who had lost their minds, frozen in a daze and pinned to the ground by their companions. More and more people were experiencing a total collapse of their mental defenses.
Deep within the cavern, the consciousness of the five ancient beings steadily received feedback from both battlefields.
Seeing that the flanking squad had entangled the military police at the chokepoint and the frontal breach was continuously expanding, the Beast Commander continued to dispatch ordinary scaled beasts endlessly into the frontal gap. This pinned down the main second-line defenders, preventing them from breaking away to relieve the chokepoint. It was not eager to let the flanking scaled beasts take the chokepoint immediately; instead, it continuously drained the officers' ammunition and stamina, slowly compressing their space for survival.
The Illusion Ancient Being increased the proportion of illusions directed at the chokepoint, specifically manufacturing the false image of all the military police being slaughtered, aiming to shake the resolve of the second-line defenders to send reinforcements.
The Sharp-Sense Ancient Being redirected a portion of its psychic spikes toward the few military police at the chokepoint. Already outnumbered, they now faced an additional layer of Sea of Consciousness torment on top of the physical melee.
The Spiderweb Ancient Being continued to watch the city anchor points. A spore node in the near suburbs erupted once again. When the news reached the command hall, Scholar Su could only manage to dispatch the last few standby medical military police to suppress it. The internal security pressure within the main city was already on the verge of crushing the rear.
The supreme ruler quietly sensed the global fluctuations. It was waiting for a node of dual collapse: the frontal fortifications being completely torn open, and the chokepoint garrison being wiped out simultaneously. At that point, this outer perimeter garrison would fall into absolute despair, and their will to resist would experience a cliff-like drop.
The slaughter at the chokepoint had reached its endgame.
Four of the eight military police had fallen. The remaining four were covered in wounds, their ammunition completely depleted. They could only grip their short blades and fight desperately. A third-tier scaled beast swept its tail, and an officer who failed to dodge in time suffered broken ribs, collapsing to the ground on the spot. The remaining three pressed back-to-back, stubbornly blocking the narrowest part of the passage, using their flesh and blood to buy time.
Old Zhou and his two men arrived just in time to witness this scene.
"Hold steady! We're here!" Old Zhou gave a low shout and charged forward first. Aiming for the soft scale gap beside the third-tier scaled beast's eye, he drove his short blade fiercely into the flesh. The behemoth let out a maddened roar of pain, its massive head whipping violently. The impact sent Old Zhou staggering backward, tearing his wounds open once again. Warm blood soaked through the bandages at his waist.
The two third-tier scaled beasts simultaneously shifted their targets, enveloping the three newcomers in a pincer attack.
"Lin Yan, report to the cavern. Do they have any reserve beast herds left?" Scholar Su's voice came through the channel, heavy with suppressed emotion.
"There are still a few reserve scaled beasts in the hidden intersections, but not many. The Beast Commander hasn't deployed them yet," Lin Yan replied quickly. "The supreme ruler is watching. It wants to see if we can hold the chokepoint before deciding whether to commit its final reserves."
These words made everyone in the command hall feel a heavy weight in their chests.
The ancient beings still held trump cards, not pressing all their forces at once. They were accustomed to saving their final strength to strike when the defenders' will was at its lowest. That single blow was often the last straw that broke the defense line.
The breach in the frontal sandbag fortifications continued to expand.
Two of the six third-tier scaled beasts were wounded, but they remained ferocious, continuously forcing the soldiers to shrink backward. The battle line was pushed step by step toward the temporary medical shed behind the second line. The wounded, medicines, and supply materials were all exposed to the threat of the beast tide. The non-commissioned officer in charge of the frontal command continuously reported casualties, the numbers climbing relentlessly. There were no surplus forces left to divert to the chokepoint to support Old Zhou.
At the chokepoint, Old Zhou, his two soldiers, and the remaining three military police—six men in total—were desperately wedged in the narrow passage, locked in combat with the two third-tier scaled beasts. The confined terrain restricted the behemoths' ability to turn, granting the defenders a sliver of space to maneuver. But their physical exhaustion was extreme, and their wounds multiplied. Every block and thrust drained their remaining life force.
Illusions flashed before their eyes from time to time: at the end of the passage lay the open gates of the main city, yet they were paved with the corpses of dead civilians; whispers in their ears repeatedly urged them to abandon resistance, to fall beneath the beast claws early and be free from endless suffering.
"Don't listen! Hold this ground. There are still people behind us!" Old Zhou roared, his short blade tearing through the scaled beast's flesh once again.
Above the wasteland, two battlefields burned simultaneously.
The beast tide at the frontal fortifications continuously pressed inward, while the chokepoint passage was a scene of flying blood and flesh. Deep within the subterranean cavern, the consciousness of the five ancient beings resonated quietly, waiting for their critical threshold.
Lin Yan closed his eyes, his Sea of Consciousness continuously monitoring the thermal signatures of the last batch of dormant scaled beasts in the hidden intersections. His heart sank heavier and heavier.
Old Zhou and his five men were the final lock holding the chokepoint. Once this lock broke and the encirclement closed, there would be no hope left for the second-line position.
End of Chapter.