369: Chapter 369 Forty-Seven Seconds: The Eruption of Mount Anlongwen

Chatchai stood inside the command vehicle's cabin, the countdown on the electronic map ticking: 05:59:45, 44, 43...

He held a pocket watch. The second hand jumped to twelve o'clock.

The countdown hit zero.

"Fire."

Seventy-two 155mm shells burst from their barrels in the same second. Muzzle velocity: 930 meters per second; ballistic apex: 23,000 meters; flight time—for the furthest targets—forty-seven seconds.

Forty-seven seconds later, Anlong Veng became a cluster of erupting volcanoes.

The first wave of shells landed on the command and communication hub of the Cambodian 2nd Brigade. Four satellite-guided shells drilled into the same impact point—the first tore open the sandbag roof, the second penetrated the corrugated steel plates, the third pierced the concrete slab of the underground bunker, and the fourth exploded inside. The shockwave, carrying concrete fragments, twisted steel beams, and human remains, erupted from the entrance, forming a dark red mushroom cloud in the morning light. The adjutant and the radio were reduced to scorched marks on the wall. Sokun was not at the command post—he had left just two minutes prior to inspect the machine gun positions on the front line, narrowly escaping this disaster.

But he could not escape the strikes that followed.

The second wave of shells blanketed the forward positions. These were not conventional high-explosive shells, but thermobaric weapons. Upon impact, each warhead released a fuel-air mixture, creating a combustible cloud with a radius of over fifty meters before a secondary detonation. Temperatures inside the cloud instantly soared to 2,500 degrees Celsius, completely stripping the oxygen. Soldiers in the trenches who hadn't made it into bunkers suffocated before they could be vaporized. Their lungs were charred to cinders in their final breath, and their bodies collapsed like crushed soda cans.

The third wave hit the artillery positions. The Cambodian 2nd Brigade's remaining six D-30 Howitzers were locked onto by counter-battery radar and destroyed one by one by guided shells before they could fire a single shot in return. Fireballs from secondary ammunition explosions rose across the position, and shattered gun barrels were stuck in the edges of craters like broken chopsticks.

The bombardment lasted for a full twenty minutes. By the time the last shell landed, the Cambodian forces on the Anlong Veng defense line had lost all command capabilities, all artillery fire, and over half of their manpower. Surviving soldiers crawled out of collapsed trenches with ruptured eardrums and the taste of blood in their mouths, staring blankly at the sky obscured by smoke.

Then, they heard a different sound.

It wasn't the sound of artillery. Artillery fire was low and dull, coming from a distance like muffled thunder from underground. From the moment the shelling began, the entire Cambodian 2nd Brigade had been dazed. Bunkers collapsed in the tremors, communications turned into elongated screams amidst electromagnetic interference, and the chain of command shattered into irreparable fragments at the first round of impacts. As the surviving soldiers crawled from the collapsed trenches, the sky in their eyes was painted dark red by smoke. Shells were still falling, but there was nothing left worth blowing up—the artillery's firing data included "re-strike damage assessment," and the computers knew better than humans which coordinates didn't need another round.

A piece of flesh had been sliced from Sokun's left leg by shrapnel. He bound the wound with a torn poncho and leaned against the edge of a collapsed foxhole, watching a staff sergeant point a trembling finger toward the north. He looked in that direction, and at the edge of the reforming morning mist, the first VT-4 Tank was emerging from a gap in the bamboo forest flattened by bulldozers—bits of camouflage leaves hung from its hull, the active protection system behind the turret was armed, and its gun was pointed due south.

It wasn't just one, but many. The roar of engines sounded like a herd of ancient beasts awakening, vibrating the water in the craters. The upgraded VT-4 main battle tanks advanced in a wedge formation, with vehicle spacing precise to fifty meters. Fine droplets of water condensed on their paint in the tropical Southeast Asian air. Their remote weapon stations remained locked on the enemy lines, and thermal imagers had already marked every silhouette below 37 degrees Celsius as a valid target. Flanking the tank formation were VN-22 Infantry Fighting Vehicles; the embarked infantry were hidden behind mine-resistant armor plates and ceramic composite layers, while the roof-mounted automatic grenade launchers were fed by belts full of high-explosive fragmentation rounds.

A few remaining Cambodian RPG-7 Rocket Launchers were propped up among the ruins. Before the gunners could pull the triggers, they were caught by the vehicle-mounted millimeter-wave radar—the laser suppression system atop the VT-4 turrets activated instantly, sweeping an invisible high-energy beam across the RPG gunners' positions. Sights were scorched, retinas were burned, and the gunners rolled on the ground clutching their faces. Three seconds later, a VN-22's grenade launcher fired a volley at a forty-five-degree angle, uprooting an entire building and tossing it into the air.

At exactly 06:30, the Thai Army's 1st and 3rd Mechanized Divisions launched a general offensive toward the northern plains of Cambodia through six breaches along the Dangrek Mountains. "Swarm" drones surged from vehicle-mounted launch modules, each capable of deploying dozens of small quadcopters within seconds. They automatically locked onto targets based on AI-assigned priorities—anti-aircraft missile vehicles, anti-tank teams, and officers attempting to retreat on foot—before diving at nearly vertical angles. The micro-warheads made dull thudding sounds as they struck the top armor plates, one after another, like woodpeckers pecking through bark for insects.

From the ruins, Sokun saw a T-55 attempting to reverse and retreat hit by three drones in succession. The first blew off its tracks, the second flipped the turret hatch, and the third dove into the engine compartment. The tank crew scrambled out of the hatches, their skin scalded by burning diesel; they hadn't run more than a few steps before being mowed down by coaxial machine guns in the distance. One man limped toward the roadside, machine gun bullets repeatedly cutting into his heels and the broken wall behind him until he stopped moving.

From Anlong Veng to Siem Reap, and from Siem Reap to the rear of the Preah Vihear Temple, the battlefield spread across a fan-shaped front stretching nearly a hundred kilometers. The remnants of the Cambodian 2nd Brigade abandoned their equipment, shed their boots, and trampled over the corpses of their comrades as they fled south. A trail of defeat composed of abandoned military vehicles, scorched gun carriages, and blood-stained bandages stretched from the southern slopes of the Dangrek Mountains to the roadbed of Highway 6, recorded from start to finish by the high-altitude cameras of "Hummingbird" drones.

Phnom Penh, Ministry of Defense Underground Command Center, 07:10 AM.

Hun Sen smashed a second ashtray. It wasn't out of anger, but because no one dared to meet his gaze. Minister of Defense Tea Banh, Chief of General Staff General Vong Pisen, and Deputy Minister of Interior Ken Sokha gathered around the sand table, where the small blue flags had been pulled up and tossed aside. Vong Pisen used a trembling finger to point out the last clear-text telegram sent by the 2nd Brigade on the electronic map—it wasn't encrypted because the cipher machines had been destroyed early in the bombardment.

The telegram contained only one line: "Defense line collapsed. Full retreat. Repeat—full retreat."

"Retreat?" Hun Sen slammed the table hard. "Where have they retreated to? How many men are left in the 2nd Brigade?"

Tea Banh swallowed hard. "The remnants gathered south of Highway 6... are fewer than four hundred men. The Brigade Commander is confirmed KIA. Two Battalion Commanders are confirmed KIA. The Chief of Staff is missing—likely buried in the ruins of the command post and not yet recovered. All heavy equipment—artillery, tanks, anti-aircraft missiles—is a total loss."