77: Second round of confrontation

Immediately after, various projectiles from the opposing side flew over, with grenade shrapnel scattering and splashing, leaving deep bullet marks on the shipping containers.

"Good grief! Are they just spamming explosives?"

On this side, Di Yun was not to be outdone. After more than a minute of grenade exchanges, both sides began to get down to business.

With Leng He, who had 250,000 HP, and three other machine gunners leading the charge, Di Yun's First Platoon followed up from the left and right simultaneously.

Just as they reached a slightly more open area in the middle of the ship's hull, a hail of bullets suddenly flew in from the crane platform on the other side and the enemy's left exit.

Within two seconds, Leng He and two other machine gunners were hit by dozens of bullets, but Leng He was unfazed. He immediately raised his machine gun, aimed at the enemy machine gunner on the crane platform—who had his mouth wide open in disbelief—and pulled the trigger.

Leng He's recoil control was excellent; over a dozen rounds slammed directly into the machine gunner's chest, causing the enemy to fall from the platform onto the deck, where he lay motionless.

Seeing this, Li Xiao breathed a sigh of relief. This at least proved that the opponent did not possess a Life Pool like he did. However, the enemy seemed to have frequent combat experience; that machine gunner's HP must have been over 800, likely making him a lieutenant.

The opponent also seemed to realize something was wrong and immediately called for a large number of riflemen and snipers to focus fire on Leng He, attempting to take down this monster with abnormally high HP first.

But the opponent's deployment was clearly useless against Li Xiao. Zhao Feipeng and the other six Scouts, who had already climbed onto the crane platform, raised their rifles; they now had a view of all the enemies on the opposite deck.

Consequently, the firepower from the side and above left the enemy with no way to fight back. The scopes of Yan Yizhou and Xiao He never left the opposing cabin exit; whenever someone poked their head out, they were immediately shot, either killed or severely wounded.

Only three minutes into the battle, the opposition realized something was wrong and hurriedly retreated half of their remaining forces back into the cabin.

However, this was digging their own graves. The open-style cabin had no doors. Di Yun and his team rushed over, pulled out C4, and threw it into the three-meter-wide cabin entrance.

After a few explosions, the troops swarmed inside, only to find the place already filled with corpses.

However, the battle wasn't over yet. The opposing player took the remaining few soldiers and re-entered the crane platform via the ship's side passageway; this was essentially like trapping a turtle in a jar.

The passageway was two meters high and one meter wide, allowing only one person to pass at a time. Leng He jumped down, clutching his machine gun.

On the other end was another machine gunner. Seeing Leng He descend, he immediately opened fire. Leng He was not to be outdone; the two sides exchanged fire on opposite sides of the passageway for no more than three seconds before the opposing machine gunner was finished.

Seeing that the passageway hadn't been held, the enemy player climbed onto the crane platform, but it could accommodate at most three people.

Excluding the three people including the player, everyone else was exposed to Zhao Feipeng's line of fire from across the way.

The outcome was sealed. Li Xiao walked out of the cabin, and Zhao Feipeng was holding a grenade, ready to take them out.

Just then, a shout was heard from the platform above.

"No! No!"

"Don't kill me! Please!"

Li Xiao looked closely and saw a young blond Caucasian man above, his body and face covered in bloodstains, currently kneeling on the ground, trembling and begging for mercy.

Li Xiao shrugged: "I'm sorry. It was your choice!"

After he finished saying this, the blond youth completely broke down. He suddenly glared with malice, pulled out a large-caliber pistol from his leg holster, and prepared to fire at Li Xiao.

BOOM!!!!!!

Before the opponent could fire a shot, Zhao Feipeng threw his timed grenade. A muffled explosion occurred on the platform, and three corpses lay together.

"I already told you, this was your own choice; you should take some responsibility."

Soon, all the corpses on the ship disappeared, and Li Xiao heard a system notification.

[Congratulations on successfully advancing. You have obtained 400,000 Steel, 400,000 Fuel, 200,000 Rare Ore, 20,000 Star Coins, and 5 Random Equipment Chests!]

The system notification ended, and an interface popped up in his field of view, asking if he wanted to participate in the second round of confrontation.

The second round was a 50v50 town assault and defense battle. Players would have one opportunity to rearrange their troops, and this time, they were allowed to bring ten vehicles.

The winner's reward was quite awesome: a direct reward of 50 F-grade Recruitment Orders. Note that all players currently only receive G-grade ones from daily check-ins.

The F-grade Recruitment Orders being rewarded now meant that soldiers would be an entire stage higher in combat power than G-grade soldiers from the moment they were born.

Besides these 50 Recruitment Orders, there was also a blueprint for 75mm mortar shells.

If 50 high-combat-power soldiers weren't enough to make players take the risk, then this mortar shell blueprint was very attractive.

Of course, that wasn't all. The player with the most kills in the assault and defense battle would also receive an Armory Upgrade Blueprint. Once used, this Armory Upgrade Blueprint would directly add one production line each for equipment and vehicles, effectively doubling production capacity.

This was something Li Xiao couldn't refuse. Currently, his equipment production was too slow, and his M20S four-tube rockets couldn't demonstrate their full power at all.

If the Armory's production doubled, his support weapons would receive a massive boost, and the subsequent vehicle production could also be strengthened.

"No question! Must fight!"

Li Xiao confirmed his participation in the second round of confrontation. Only then did he notice that the number of participants had dropped to just over 40,000. It seemed the first round of confrontation had terrified many people; over 500,000 had chosen to quit while they were ahead and slip away.

Soon, he and his re-edited troops, including ten meng hu off-road vehicles, appeared in a wide open field.

The sky was incredibly dim, as if a storm were imminent.

On a plain one kilometer away, there was an isolated small town. The town was not large, with a highway running through a one-kilometer-long stretch of buildings, leading to parts unknown.

Li Xiao checked the information of Di Yun and the others and found that the HP they had lost earlier had fully recovered. Looking at the ten off-road vehicles behind him, each with over a million durability points, he felt a bit calmer.

After conquering Xi City, his durability points had accumulated to 16 million. After deducting the 4 million durability points used to upgrade the Dark Soul Mercenary Group, he could control 12 million points.

Therefore, when editing the vehicles for the battle just now, he had increased the durability of his earliest batch of ten vehicles—which generally had durability values of 400,000 to 600,000—to 1 million points each.

This was more than the HP of three tanks combined; it felt like they could even withstand a heavy aerial bomb dropped by a bomber without issue.

At this moment, several troops spawned near him, all equipped with meng hu off-road vehicles; it seemed they were all players with Level 7 bases or higher.

Within five minutes, the player troops on their side had all arrived: 50 players, 2,500 troops, and 500 meng hu off-road vehicles. This was already a formidable elite force.