flstandardbreds Chapter 1367: Report your favor on the golden stage
Chapter 1367: Report your favor on the golden stage
Within the Guchenghu settlement, about 2 meters behind the west wall, lies the second-tier defensive position hastily constructed, relying on the residential area.
The air here is filled not only with the smoke of gunpowder, but also with a heavier, more viscous sense of oppression.
boom----
Da da da da————
The roar of gunfire and the booming of explosions coming from the west wall, after being attenuated by distance and blocked by buildings, became a continuous, muffled thunder-like background noise.
But the faint, sharp screams and some kind of inhuman, eerie hissing interspersed among them were like icicles, chiseling into the hearts of every soldier on the second line of defense.
This site was hastily converted from a relatively regular brick-and-mortar residential area.
The original street was blocked by sandbags, abandoned vehicles, and precast concrete slabs salvaged from nearby construction sites, forming a crooked but still relatively coherent barricade.
The windows of the houses facing the street were boarded up and bricked up, leaving only narrow firing ports. The roofs of some two-story buildings were reinforced and fitted with a pitifully small number of heavy machine guns.
Further away, several old infantry fighting vehicles were crammed into the crossroads, serving as fixed steel bunkers. But with their thin main armor and limited ammunition, no one knew how long they could hold out against what was coming.
The soldiers here were all reinforced from the garrison regiment, and at this moment, under the hoarse urging of officers and sergeant sergeants, they were desperately reinforcing the fortifications.
Their young faces were mostly covered in dust and sweat, and their eyes were filled with undisguised fear and exhaustion.
"Quickly! Pack up those sandbags tightly! Seal the gaps with cement!"
"Ammunition! Move the ammunition boxes inside! Store them in different locations!"
"Check weapons! Check chemical protective gear! Hurry! There's no time!"
The commands echoed through the alleyways, but could not dispel the growing atmosphere of despair.
Many soldiers in the garrison brigade were still carrying outdated Type 82 rifles or even Type 57 semi-automatic rifles, and most of their machine guns were Type 68 general-purpose machine guns. Heavy weapons were extremely rare.
Although they were also wearing protective suits, the workmanship and quality were clearly inferior to those of the First Infantry Brigade of Yezhou, which was at the forefront.
Seeing this, Brigade Commander Zhao Jie, who had rushed over, felt as if his heart was being gripped tightly by an icy hand, each beat accompanied by dull pain and a feeling of suffocation.
At this moment, he was standing in a relatively high temporary observation post converted from a residential building balcony, with a major staff officer with a similarly solemn expression beside him, and two guards holding QCQ-171 submachine guns.
Based on the intermittent intelligence reports from the front and his own battlefield intuition, he estimated that the complete collapse of the first-line city wall defenses would likely occur within... half an hour.
Then, an endless tide of fungal beasts will surge like a flood breaking through a dam, rushing over the ruins of the city walls and crashing into the pitifully rudimentary "second line of defense" beneath his feet.
Through the binoculars, Zhao Jie's gaze slowly swept over the busy but flustered soldiers below, over the crooked barricades, and over the young, slightly clumsy soldiers.
With these... can they hold off the fungal beast tide for even an hour?
No, let alone an hour, I'm afraid even half an hour... no, even fifteen minutes would be a luxury.
This doesn't seem like building a defensive line; it's more like... trying to cover up an imminent eruption of a volcano with thin paper.
A strong, almost impulsive thought suddenly crashed into Zhao Jie's mind:
Let them leave!
Before the apocalypse, most of the soldiers in these garrison regiments were just students, workers, white-collar workers, etc., with rudimentary weapons and very limited training time and intensity.
Forcing them to stay here and fill this "paper defense" that is destined to be breached in an instant... what is the point other than increasing casualties and letting these young lives be easily crushed like weeds?
I am destined to perish with this position today, but they, perhaps, still have time...
At least, I won't die so... meaninglessly.
Once this thought arose, it grew wildly like a poisonous ivy, almost breaking through the dam of reason that Zhao Jie, as the commander, possessed.
His lips trembled slightly beneath the gas mask, and several times he tried to raise his hand to issue the order that defied the war zone's death order but might save the lives of many young people before him.
However, another face appeared in his mind with unparalleled clarity and profound weight.
It's the commander!
It was the ever-calm face of Chief Gu Chengyuan, whose gaze was as deep as the sea.
At the beginning of the apocalypse, it was the commander who led the troops to pull him out of the abyss and give him a new life.
Along the way, it was the leader's unreserved trust and promotion that allowed him, a former student, to rise to his current high position as brigade commander!
He wouldn't even dare to dream of such a position, let alone after the apocalypse, even before it happened.
What merits does an ordinary college student possess?
Following the normal career path after graduation, he'd probably be a nobody being bossed around right now...
Managing a brigade, with a private car, staff officers, and bodyguards... this kind of life is something his Zhao family has probably never enjoyed for generations...
This kindness in recognizing my talent, this life-saving grace, is as heavy as a mountain!
Considering all this, even with the certain death looming, Zhao Jie couldn't bring himself to disobey his superiors or the war zone's orders...
On one side are young lives about to be crushed and a sense of meaningless sacrifice; on the other side are military orders as heavy as mountains, gratitude as heavy as mountains, and the unwavering duty and loyalty of a soldier and a commander.
Two completely opposite thoughts, like two red-hot iron pincers, were tearing and wrestling wildly in Zhao Jie's heart.
His gaze shifted back and forth between the terrified soldiers below and the increasingly ominous sky towards the west wall. His breath, filtered through the canister, produced a heavy, disordered hiss, and the knuckles of his fingers gripping the binoculars turned white from excessive force.
The major staff officer seemed to notice the brigade commander's unusual silence and tension, and turned his head uneasily, as if he wanted to say something but hesitated.
In this suffocating struggle—
"Brigade Commander! Look! The west wall! The sky!!" The major staff officer suddenly cried out in alarm, his voice distorted with extreme shock.
Before the major staff officer could finish speaking, Zhao Jie was suddenly jolted awake from his inner struggle and looked up abruptly in the direction the officer was pointing!
Above the west wall, the dark purple spore cloud that had been floating and churning seemed to be gripped and squeezed by an invisible giant hand!
It contracted and condensed violently at a speed visible to the naked eye, and the surface of the cloud was covered with dazzling dark red and eerie green fluorescent veins, like a huge, deformed heart that was beating wildly!
Immediately afterwards, the cloud cover began to drop rapidly, pressing down heavily on the western wall defense line with a destructive force like Mount Tai crashing down!
Countless viscous, tentacle-like structures emerged from the edge of the cloud layer and extended...