Chapter 917: Turning Tides
Translator: _Min_ Editor: Rundi
The war continued for two weeks. It was already mid-December.
The Northern Alliance Area and NAC remained in a stalemate on the two sides of Yangtze River in Wu City. As the snowfall continued to accumulate, if nothing unexpected happens, this stalemate may continue to stagnate.
If nothing unexpected happens…
The accumulated snow on the street piled up to form small snow hills, and a Northern Alliance soldier with his rifle was sitting in a bus stop. From time to time, he glanced down the street with a vigilant sight. Beside him, was a Wanderer tank that just completed resupply, and an infantry squad that was responsible for protecting the tank.
His name was Shi Wenqiang and he was the captain of this infantry squad.
Since the last time the Hunter Corps took out a Wanderer tank that was resupplying with a tactical nuclear bomb, the patrols in the area occupied by the Northern Alliance Area had visibly increased.
Snipers hid in every corner of the city, and infantry patrolled the ground. The mutated humans with leashed mutant hounds searched the streets for anyone living that was not a Northern Alliance soldier. These mutant hounds and life signal detection devices were two of the nemesis of optical illusion and caused a lot of trouble for the guerrillas of the Hunter Corps.
“To be honest, I hate working with those green idiots.” A bearded soldier said as he walked beside Shi Wenqiang. He took out a cigarette from his pocket and lit it up. He happened to see a mutated human patrol squad. “I always feel that they look at me as if they are looking at food.”
“You’d better whisper, I heard that their hearing is good,” said Shi Wenqiang, licking his lips, taking the cigarette from his comrade, and lighting one for himself. “I really agree with you. But who cares? Anyway, as long as they can take down the hard to bite NAC for me.”
Just at this moment, a gunshot came from afar.
Shi Wenqiang frowned, extinguished the cigarette he hadn’t smoked, and stuffed it back into his pocket.
In order to reduce the threat of NAC bombardment, the Northern Alliance Area troops dispersed within the urban areas, and they hardly stayed in fixed locations for too long. This meant that they had a high probability of encountering NAC guerrillas.
“About a kilometer from here.” A soldier who had been silent and squatting on the side of the road, abruptly said, “They are approaching, and there is also a vehicle.”
Everyone loaded their weapons and gathered in the direction of the Wanderer. Shi Wenqiang slammed his fist on the armor of the tank and said through the headset.
“Get up, time to work.”
The tank responded with an engine-start roar. The tank advanced two or three meters ahead and blocked the entrance of the road. Shi Wenqiang gestured to the soldier next to him and motioned for him to move to the side of the bunker and set up the light machine gun.
The gunfire across the street gradually turned intensive, and Shi Wenqiang faintly felt something odd, but he couldn’t tell what was wrong.
At this moment, the screeching roar drifted from the mall in the street. A mutated human, full of blood, stumbled into the street. But he didn’t even run two steps before he was shot by a bullet from behind.
“Using the electromagnetic pulse cannon, open fire on the first floor of the mall,” Shi Wenqiang said calmly.
“Roger that.”
The tank turned its turret, and the rapid-fire electromagnetic pulse cannon next to the Type-52 particle cannon blasted out high-speed projectiles. The doors of the mall were broken into several pieces together with the walls. The gunfire in the mall was suppressed, but Shi Wenqiang had not yet had time to breathe before a wave of bullets arrived, it almost caught his team off-guard.
Retreating behind the tank, a sneer appeared on his face. He released the reconnaissance drone from his backpack, marking the NAC riflemen across the street through the tablet terminal.
“Fool!”
The Wanderer moved the turret slowly and pointed the cannon at the NAC soldiers.
Any ground target, whether soft or hard, was a vulnerable paper tiger in front of the Wanderer. NAC didn’t have any means to win a direct engagement against the Wanderer. Against absolute technological superiority, all so-called tactics were in vain.
Shi Wenqiang firmly believed this.
However, his despising sneer quickly froze.
Directly behind the turret of the Wanderer tank, a peculiar-looking tank with a turret crashed through the wall and the daunting barrel was already pointed to his direction.
[A tank? How can there be a tank?!]
NAC destroyed all bridges in the city. No armored units could pass through the ice. Neither the Northern Alliance Area nor the defending NAC…
Theoretically, that was the case, but he obviously did not consider NAC’s airship.
“Hide!”
Shi Wenqiang pounced behind cover and roared at his comrades who leaned against the tank.
He did not think that the tank without a turret could pose a threat to the Wanderer, but for the infantry, any armored units that steered were deadly threats.
However, his blind confidence toward the Wanderer also did not last long.
Blinding white light flashed, a ball-shaped lightning shell instantly printed itself onto the body of the Wanderer tank. Heavy armor played no effect at all. The over ten thousands degrees of high-temperature plasma melted through the armored shell instantly.
The word fear was so deeply etched on his face that he forgot the sting in his eyes. Drones attached with muzzle rushed across the street like a tide, and the NAC soldiers hiding behind cover began to charge.
Long Bowman I’s coaxial machine guns suppressed them behind the bunker, and they couldn’t even look up. Not to mention return fire at the attacking NAC.
Shi Wenqiang never felt so much despair.
“Captain, what are we going to do!” said a young man who was lying behind a concrete bunker and looked at him in horror.
He took out the EMP grenade, but hesitated for a moment. Shi Wenqiang eventually put the EMP grenade back.
Even the Type-52 particle cannon couldn’t penetrate the armor of the Wanderer with only one strike.
It was clear that NAC already mastered a directed energy weapon superior to the prewar technology.
When the Wanderer’s armor was smashed through like paper, his desire to fight was lost. If they lost the armored advantage, with the supply disadvantage of the First Legion, there was no chance of winning.
“Surrender… throw the rifle out of the bunker, and the pistol too.”
After saying the word out in humiliation, he threw away his dignity and tossed out his rifle. From the polar camouflage sleeves, he cut a white strip with his dagger and attached it on the rifle.
After their leader surrendered, the soldiers behind the bunker did not have a look of despise at all. Instead, they were all relieved.
They were not PAC officers. They were not interested in the so-called orthodoxy. They followed the Northern Alliance Area just to survive on the cruel wasteland.
After the white flag was raised, the machine guns stopped shooting.
NAC’s soldiers did not give them trouble. They skillfully handcuffed them and handed them to mercenaries outside the war zone. The drone formation went into the building next to the street, and Longbow I returned to battle and continued to advance toward the hinterland of the occupied area with the infantry.
Since they entered Wu City, they already destroyed four Wanderers. Counting the one that was blown up, only eight Wanderers remained.
And on the NAC side, thirty Longbow I were still unscathed!
Although they didn’t know how long the strategy of “Infantry attracts firepower, tank fire from the back” would last, they were certain about one thing.
The offensive and defensive stance of both sides just suddenly reversed!