417: Training

Three thousand elite soldiers of the Great Tang were finally deployed onto the battlefield!

Each of these soldiers wore lightweight yet sturdy alloy armor, with custom-made light-energy wings on their backs that allowed them to fly nimbly in the air. Hanging at their waists was a long blade that looked ordinary but was actually manufactured using high-frequency technology. In their hands, they each gripped a sci-fi style submachine gun... or rather, a submachine laser gun!

On their left ears, they wore something that looked like an earpiece; this was their communicator, specifically designed to receive orders from the commander. They could only listen, not speak, otherwise, the battlefield would truly descend into chaos.

These technological weapons were all crafted by the Great Tang Si Tian Jian, super-weapons combining cultivation technology with modern technology, and this was their first appearance on the battlefield.

The formation of these three thousand men was very strange; it looked disorganized and completely lacked any discernible pattern, which contrasted somewhat discordantly with the military formations of the Great Tang.

As General Xue Rengui gave the order, the three thousand soldiers instantly disengaged their safeties and unleashed a volley of fire.

At that moment, the bald monk soldiers, who had previously looked down on these ordinary people, were instantly stunned. Although their formation appeared disorganized, not a single person was injured during the volley, and this single round of fire had already swept most of the Heavenly Soldiers and Generals flying in the sky down to the ground.

The monk soldiers who were fighting the Heavenly Soldiers and Generals hadn't even reacted when the Heavenly Soldiers before them were instantly shot in the head, blood splattering as their corpses tumbled from the sky. Blood splashed onto their faces, causing the expressions of the monk soldiers to change instantly.

Suddenly, as if hearing a voice transmission in their ears, all the monk soldiers seemed to receive an order. They scanned the sky, nodded secretly, abandoned their current opponents, and flew toward the ground.

Aries Golden Saint Shion frowned as he watched the battle in the sky. At this moment, the remaining group of Heavenly Soldiers and Generals, numbering about two thousand, suddenly regrouped and launched a counterattack toward the sky.

"Something is wrong..." Shion said in a deep voice, "Whether in terms of combat power, weapons, or tactics, these Heavenly Soldiers and Generals are no match for them..."

Aspros said, "Then... should we release those Saint Warriors?"

"Wait a moment..." Shion said in a deep voice, "Those bald monk soldiers seem to be coming for us. The Saint Warriors must be saved to deal with them... Hmm, the Heavenly Soldiers and Generals are not our own people, after all. His Majesty the Pope said we must remember to conserve our strength..."

"So we're just letting these guys go to their deaths?"

Tong Hu said with a helpless, bitter smile, "Isn't that a bit too unrighteous!"

"Don't forget our purpose for remaining in this world..." Shion said in a deep voice.

Tong Hu was stunned, then shook his head helplessly, "Suit yourself!"

In the sky, the two armies finally clashed head-on, but... the result was highly unexpected. Logically speaking, in terms of individual combat capability, the Heavenly Soldiers and Generals were already strong, and coupled with the genetic modification and brainwashing by Darwin, their combat power should have become even more formidable. There was no way they should lose to the ordinary human army on the other side.

However, the Great Tang soldiers instantly gained the upper hand on this battlefield. Although they had only trained with these weapons for three days, they were all the elite of the elite among the Great Tang soldiers, each a martial arts expert capable of taking on a hundred. Thus, they quickly became proficient with these weapons, as if born to use them. Moreover, before setting out, each of them had consumed a Medicinal Pill refined from Flat Peaches, which made them incredibly strong and significantly improved their reaction times.

In this first head-on collision, they actually managed to scatter the Heavenly Soldiers and Generals with zero casualties.

The defensive armor on the Heavenly Soldiers and Generals was like paper; it couldn't stop the weapons in the soldiers' hands at all. In the blink of an eye, another third were wiped out, and this was even with them moving freely to avoid many attacks.

"Attention everyone, switch weapons, fire at will!"

General Xue Rengui hovered at the very top, having not yet made a move. He gave another order to the army, and all the soldiers slung their laser guns behind their backs, then drew a compact pistol from the holster at their thigh!

These pistols were all equipped with infrared aiming devices, and after drawing them, they unleashed a round of precision fire. This time, no matter how the brainwashed Heavenly Soldiers and Generals dodged, they had no chance of avoiding the attacks. The precision of the Great Tang soldiers' shooting was completely beyond their expectations, while the weapons in their own hands could not cause any effective damage to the Great Tang army. In less than two minutes, the Tang army had only a few minor injuries, while they had suffered heavy losses, almost all being shot in the head...

Three minutes later, all the Heavenly Soldiers and Generals were completely wiped out, clearing the entire sky.

"Is... is this what we did?"

A sergeant looked at the scene in disbelief, then looked at the weapon in his hand, and suddenly filled with tears, "I never expected to be able to defeat the Heavenly Soldiers and Generals in my lifetime... This life was worth it!"

The Great Tang soldiers instantly cheered, shouting "Long live!"

General Xue Rengui also smiled, but then his expression turned serious again, and he said earnestly, "Alright, it's not over yet. Form up and prepare for close-quarters combat..."

The soldiers finally came to their senses and continued to organize their formation. When they looked down, they saw those Heavenly Soldiers and Generals—missing arms and legs, and even with large holes in their heads—eerily standing up again, clutching their weapons, and charging toward the sky once more.

Inside the spaceship, Pigsy could not help but frown slightly, "These Heavenly Soldiers and Generals... why do they look so much like those things Master talked about, called zombies?"

"Hmm, indeed. The Holy Monk said that these things are like zombies; they have no souls and survive solely on the instinct to hunt and eat. Now it seems, such things really do exist!" Nezha said in a deep voice.

Pigsy picked up the communicator and shouted into it, "Brother Xue, these things are no longer human and are very difficult to deal with. You must be careful... Hmm, the best way to destroy them should be to decapitate them..."

"Understood..." came General Xue Rengui's confident reply through the communicator, followed by his orders to the army.

Swish! They drew the long blades at their waists in unison and returned their pistols to the holsters at their thighs. The high-frequency blades emitted constant high-frequency vibrations. The soldiers suddenly dispersed, forming a pocket-shaped formation. The zombie-like Heavenly Soldiers and Generals, like a disorganized mob, crashed hard into the pocket formation and were then surrounded.

The long blades swung out, heads fell to the ground, and some zombies were even dismembered. After one round of combat, the army of thousands of zombies was instantly wiped out, without even a hint of a counterattack.

On the ground, Tong Hu watched, dumbfounded: "Could the Great Leader Darwin's zombie plan just be a gimmick?"

In mid-air, General Xue Rengui chuckled and said, "Troop training, troop training; the best way to train troops is to send them to the battlefield!"