RPAGF Chapter 1350 The Battle of Gucheng Lake (Part 1)
Chapter 1350 The Battle of Gucheng Lake (Part 1)
The next second, everyone gasped, their pupils contracting sharply from extreme shock and fear!
To the southwest, on the horizon of that vast wilderness, whose outline had been barely discernible by the beams of searchlight…
An endless, slowly rising "coastline of light," formed by billions of wriggling points of ghostly light, is "surging" toward the city wall at a speed that seems slow but is actually heart-stoppingly fast!
That was no longer a faint, distant glimmer of light.
A mixture of nauseating colors—ghostly green, pale white, dark purple, scarlet—fluided and flickered, resembling a living, glowing sea of pus exuding a rotten, sweet, and fishy stench!
On the surface of this "sea of pus" are countless terrifying outlines, surging wildly, trampling each other, yet vaguely maintaining a certain unity:
There are swift individuals that dart close to the ground, as fast as ghosts, and resemble skinned hounds but are covered with luminous fungal spots;
There are bloated, mountain-like monsters that slowly writhe and constantly spew fluorescent slime or spores from their body openings;
A multi-segmented assault unit, resembling a centipede and spider hybrid magnified a thousand times, that meanders swiftly along the "crest of the tide."
Even larger shadows, seemingly cobbled together from several corpses or various creatures, exuding an even stronger sense of oppression, could be seen looming in the depths of the "tide."
They didn't roar or howl, only the sound of millions of limbs rubbing against the ground, the churning of mucus, the collision of carapaces, and a deep resonance that converged into a "shush-swish-swish" sound, like the crashing of ocean waves!
The sound was faint at first, but it quickly amplified, like the background noise of death, overwhelming and drowning out everything!
What's even more despairing is their sheer number!
As far as the eye could see, from the southwest to the west, and even further north... the entire land seemed to be covered by this glowing, writhing, and malicious "tide"!
It seemed endless! It was as if all the twisted life forms in the entire city of Jinling had poured out at this moment, ready to completely submerge and digest Gucheng Lake, this last isolated island of civilization!
The suffocating sense of oppression brought about by sheer numbers is far more destructive to the will than any single, powerful monster.
Many new recruits, and even some veterans, began to tremble uncontrollably with their hands holding guns, and their breathing behind their gas masks became heavy and labored.
Gu Chengyun felt a chill run from the soles of his feet straight to the top of his head. All the chaotic thoughts he had just had about retreating, about the future, about whether it was worth it, were shattered by the terrifying scene of the world's destruction, leaving only the most instinctive, soul-freezing fear.
He could even feel his legs going weak, and he almost couldn't stand up.
"Hold on—!!!"
A thunderous roar erupted beside him!
It's Gaocheng!
The reconnaissance battalion commander, far from being intimidated by the sight before him, suddenly took a step forward, almost leaning his upper body out of the barricade, raised his right hand high, and roared into the communicator with all his might, his voice drowning out the approaching "tide":
"All battalion—prepare for battle—!!!"
"Listen to my command—!!!"
His voice was like a shot of adrenaline; though it couldn't dispel the fear, it forcibly pulled the soldiers back from their initial shock!
Almost at the same moment that Gao Cheng's roar ended—
"Fire—!!!"
"Free fire—!!!"
"Give me the damn thing—!!!"
Along the entire western city wall, from south to north, the roars of the commanders of each defense zone rose and fell, merging into a desperate howl!
"Thump thump thump thump thump thump—!!!"
Before the words had even finished, a deep, majestic roar, as if the earth itself was roaring, impatiently and suddenly exploded from the artillery positions behind the city wall!
That was the roar of a large-caliber artillery piece!
"Whoosh—whoosh—!!!"
A sharp, chilling whistle, seemingly capable of tearing the soul apart, suddenly ripped through the night sky filled with the sounds of gunfire!
Not one shot, not ten shots, but dozens or hundreds of shots!
Several kilometers behind the city wall, in the direction of the pre-arranged artillery positions, streaks of orange-red, blazing light, like angry fire dragons breaking free from their restraints from the earth, tore through the darkness with long tails of flame, carrying a destructive will and rising with almost vertical, steep trajectories, piercing straight into the sky!
That was a salvo from 122mm howitzers! It was the most formidable ground firepower trump card in the hands of the Jinling Military Sub-district!
The trajectory of the tracer bullet was crystal clear in the night sky, briefly illuminating the billowing smoke and low-hanging clouds. Then, it traced a deadly parabola, reached the highest point of its trajectory, hovered briefly, and then, like a javelin hurled by death, plunged fiercely into the boundless, glowing sea of pus outside the city walls with an increasingly shrill shriek!
Time seemed to stretch out at that moment.
The soldiers on the city wall could even temporarily forget the swarming fungal beasts below, and subconsciously looked up, following the trails of light that represented destruction and hope.
Gu Chengyun froze on the spot, looking up, his mouth behind the gas mask unconsciously agape.
This scene... told him more directly than any mobilization or slogan—the most naked and direct collision between the violent aesthetics remaining in human industrial civilization and the twisted biological catastrophe opposite!
The next second—
"boom!!!!!!!!!"
The first 122mm grenade, like a meteor, crashed into the central area, about 800 meters from the city wall, where the horde of fungi and beasts was most concentrated!
The explosion's flames were not ordinary orange-red; instead, upon impact with the ground, a massive fireball burst forth, a mixture of blazing white, dark red, and eerie purple!
That wasn't a simple explosion; it was the explosive energy released when the internal explosive charge of a high-explosive grenade was detonated instantly, enough to tear apart steel and shatter concrete!
The shockwave spread wildly in a circular pattern, visible to the naked eye. Wherever it passed, the ground was ruthlessly plowed up, and a column of dust several meters high, mixed with soil, gravel, and the remains of fungal beasts, rose up!
Within tens of meters of the blast center, the fungal beasts, whether swift hounds, bulky spitting creatures, or multi-segmented centipede monsters, didn't even have time to struggle before being instantly vaporized, carbonized, or torn into the finest fragments under the high temperature and pressure exceeding several thousand degrees!
Those fungal beasts further away were violently swept away like garbage by the raging shockwave, their shells shattered, their limbs broken, and their viscous fluorescent fluids splashed into patches of tragic light rain in the air.
However, this is just the beginning!
"BOOM ...
Immediately afterward, before the aftershocks of the first shell had even subsided, a second wave, a third wave... and more 122mm shells, like thunderbolts hurled down by the wrath of the gods, rained down one after another, almost without pause!
The target is not a single point, but an entire area!
The artillery positions were clearly the result of meticulous calculations and rapid adjustments, with the shells creating a wide, all-encompassing barrage of death!
Starting from 500 meters away from the city wall, and extending all the way to 1,500 meters or even further, the entire frontal area where the fungal beast tide was surging was instantly covered by a series of violent explosions!
Huge clusters of death flowers, mixed with deadly fragments and high-temperature flames, bloomed in a frenzy among the sea of glowing fungal beasts!
The flames stretched out in a continuous line, illuminating almost half of the night sky as if it were a daytime inferno!
The explosion was no longer a single boom, but rather a continuous, overwhelming, and dull rumble that shook the city walls and caused dust to fall from the cracks in the bricks.
Under this devastating barrage, the seemingly endless "tide" of the fungal beast horde was subjected to unprecedented and extremely brutal containment and dismantling!
Large swaths of fluorescence were extinguished instantly in the explosion.
The once surging "tide" seemed to have crashed into an invisible wall of death made of flames and steel, and its momentum came to a halt.
Broken carapace, torn tentacles, shattered chunks of flesh, and soil mixed with a viscous, fluorescent liquid...
As if stirred and scattered by an invisible giant hand, it formed nauseating clumps of a burnt and sweet-smelling mixture in the blast wave.
The beam of the searchlight pierced through the billowing smoke and dust, illuminating that repeatedly cultivated, deadly zone.
The scene was shocking.
The once densely packed swarm of fungal beasts was blasted into several huge, charred, and slime-covered "blank areas."
Some of the fungal beasts that were lucky enough to escape being directly hit were also shaken off their feet by the shockwave, their shells cracked, their movements slowed, and the fluorescence on their bodies dimmed considerably.
The fungal beasts further back also seemed to be affected in some way, and their momentum of charge was briefly disrupted.
"Well done!!!"
"Artillerymen are awesome!!!"
"Blow these sons of bitches to death—!!!"
A burst of fervent cheers erupted atop the city walls, a mixture of catharsis, shock, and the exhilaration of surviving a catastrophe!
Many soldiers excitedly pounded on the battlements, their eyes wide open behind their gas masks as they gazed at the hellish scene outside the city, ravaged by artillery fire.
This extremely violent barrage of firepower acted like a powerful stimulant, temporarily dispelling the fear of the infinite number that lingered in everyone's hearts.
Human weapons can still cause such horrific destruction!
Gu Chengyun was also deeply shocked by the scene.
He watched the rising flames and plumes of smoke, listened to the continuous, ear-shattering explosions, and felt the slight tremors coming from the city walls beneath his feet…
The despair that had risen in my heart due to the boundless tide of fungal beasts seemed to have been blasted open with a crack.
So... we have such power!
It turns out that what fights against that distorted natural disaster is not just the cold rifle in one's hand and the flesh and blood of one's comrades!
And then there are these silent war gods in the rear, whose voices, once spoken, shake the very earth!
However, the brief excitement was quickly dampened by reality.
The shelling began to extend, covering the rear of the fungal horde further away.
Meanwhile, the edge areas below the city walls, which were not directly hit by artillery fire, and the fungal beasts that circled around the shelling-free areas or crawled over the shattered corpses of their comrades, continued to surge forward!
The number is still terrifyingly high!
Furthermore, it seems that due to the heavy firepower, some new changes have occurred in the fungal beast tide.