100: Chapter 100 Airship

On the wilderness fifty kilometers away from Shahe Town.

The wild winds of the wasteland kicked up dust that filled the sky.

A mechanized mixed formation, composed entirely of players, was advancing south at full speed.

At the very front of the column were five light tanks with rugged, perhaps even ugly, designs.

These were the latest "big babies" produced by several Liver Emperor players working day and night after the Scourge Legion had seized the mine base.

These things had no turrets; the bodies were made of steel plates forcibly welded together.

The flexibility of the guns was almost zero.

Their power source was several Solid-state Hydrogen Batteries connected in series.

Mounted crudely and simply at the front of the hull was a 150mm Smoothbore Heavy Cannon produced from level B3 of the Fire Seed Shelter!

"What does poor flexibility matter? As long as the firepower is fierce and it looks cool, that's all that counts!"

This was the only comment from the Scourge Legion Commander, Praise Ming Shen, regarding these tanks.

Following behind these five self-propelled gun platforms were ten Tracked Personnel Carriers mounted with heavy machine guns.

Behind the compartments, they even towed several large-caliber towed artillery pieces.

And circling above this ground force was an eye-catching behemoth!

It was a capsule-shaped low-altitude flying object, a hundred meters long.

This was the inflatable airship recently developed by the Galactic Empire Stormtroopers.

To show off their deterrence, the players had painted a shark face with a gaping, bloody mouth on the front of the airship.

On both sides of the airship, two red hammer and sickle patterns were also painted.

Ming Shen sat in the passenger seat of the lead vehicle, looked up at the imposing airship in the sky, and couldn't help but twitch his lips.

"Good grief! A Kirov Airship?!"

Ming Shen complained in the legion channel.

"Is that kid Ikun playing too much Red Alert? Building such a giant target—isn't he afraid of getting ignited by a single shot from an anti-aircraft gun?"

Currently, the development paths of the three player legions with bases had clearly diverged.

Aside from the Brotherhood of Steel, who stayed at the Northwest Pass and treated Greenskins like jerky every day—a bunch of pure battle maniacs.

The Scourge Legion, relying on the resources of the mine, focused mainly on producing heavy ground vehicles and individual gunpowder weapons.

Meanwhile, because the Galactic Empire occupied The Lowlands and their commander Ikun was a fanatical mechanical enthusiast, they were more keen on tinkering with various aircraft.

This airship was clearly an experimental product they had brought out for field testing.

At this moment, inside the airship's suspended cockpit.

Shushu Failed the Exam was holding a sniper rifle modified with a high-powered scope, squeezed in with a group of combat players, all of them looking murderous.

"Brothers! Remember this in a bit!"

Shu Shu gritted his teeth fiercely.

"Our mission is to first cooperate with the ground forces to charge into the town and take down the market area! Then find that fat guy who cheated me! I'm going to execute him personally!"

"You got it, Brother Shu!" The players responded with a roar, racking their bolts one after another.

Ever since being scammed by the black-hearted merchant in Shahe Town last time, Shushu Failed the Exam had been unable to eat or sleep well.

The more he thought about it, the angrier he got; the angrier he got, the more he thought about it, to the point where he even wanted to log off and hit someone in the real world.

Now that he finally had an excuse for war, he would settle both old and new scores together.

Although the Fire Seed Shelter's regulations explicitly stated that players were not allowed to kill neutral or friendly NPCs at will.

But now, because of internal suppression of uprisings and human trafficking issues, Shahe Town had been tagged with hostile red names.

To put it simply: their health bars were visible!

The group was aggressive and quickly advanced to the outskirts of Shahe Town.

It was now around seven in the evening.

The sky had turned completely dark; only in the distant Shahe Town, flames flickered towards the sky, and the sound of gunfire and artillery echoed.

"Stop the vehicles!"

Ming Shen jumped off the tank and, by the light of the headlights, shouted out tactical commands.

"Artillery, set up immediately! Prepare for test firing! Infantry and tanks, advance immediately after several rounds of suppression fire, and take control of the North Gate first!"

"Roger that!"

Miracle Walker responded, and the players immediately moved nimbly, starting to carry shells.

The outskirts of Shahe Town.

The mercenaries in the town had already seen the bad situation and fled when the civilian civil war broke out.

Those currently guarding the North Gate and building defensive fortifications were all the private armed forces of the merchant nobles.

These private soldiers were quite numerous, totaling five or six thousand people.

Their equipment could also be called sophisticated.

Almost everyone had a set of second-hand carapace armor and helmets from the Coastal City Defense Force.

Heavy machine guns, laser rifles, and large-caliber Logging Guns were set up on the positions.

Even on the scrap metal walls that were five or six meters high, several old-fashioned giant Cannons were mounted, their muzzles slowly lifting, preparing to test fire at the distant player convoy.

However.

Before the giant Cannons on the wall could even finish lifting.

The strangely shaped shark airship in the sky suddenly performed a clumsy banking maneuver!

The airship's side armor plates dropped instantly, revealing ten dark Cannon muzzles!

"Fire!" Shu Shu roared in the cockpit.

"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"

Ten Cannons fired simultaneously!

The massive recoil even pushed the huge airship horizontally in mid-air by more than ten meters!

The shells crashed down with ear-piercing shrieks.

A large area of blinding fire instantly lit up on the North Gate wall of Shahe Town!

As direct-fire artillery, although the Cannons' caliber couldn't match the smoothbore guns, firing down from an airship meant there was no need to calculate complex parabolic trajectories.

They hit exactly where they aimed!

The row of giant Cannons on the wall that hadn't even had time to fire were instantly destroyed in the dense explosions; a few even had their ammunition depots ignited, causing violent sympathetic detonations!

Fireballs rose into the sky, and screams echoed everywhere.

However, what truly broke the noble private soldiers below was yet to come.

Just as the Cannons on the right side of the airship finished their volley.

The pilot immediately pushed the control stick, and the massive airship quickly turned in mid-air.

The left armor plate dropped, revealing another ten Cannons!

"Boom boom boom!"

Another round of brutal saturation bombardment!

And it wasn't over yet.

Just as the airship's fire suppression ended, the player artillery positions on the ground in the distance also opened fire.

The 150mm smoothbore shells whistled in, plowing through the private soldiers' positions and leaving furrows of flesh and blood.

After three rounds of shelling.

The player infantry, under the cover of the five light tanks, began to charge forward with howls!

When had those noble private soldiers, who usually only dared to oppress the poor in the town, ever seen such modern fire strikes?

Within five minutes of the actual fighting, they had already suffered heavy casualties and were crying out for their parents.

The cowardly ones simply dropped their weapons and turned to run, and the defensive line collapsed instantly.

Seeing this, others also followed suit and fled, even causing serious trampling incidents.

The airship hovered over Shahe Town and lowered a long string of rope ladders.

The combat personnel of the Galactic Empire descended to the ground one after another like dumplings.

Beside a tank, Ming Shen held his gun and charged at the very front.

He roared to all players in the joint channel:

"Everyone pay attention! Ignore the warring gangs in the town for now! Control the West Gate along the outer wall! Then advance toward the southwest at full speed to take control of the refinery! That is our core strategic objective for tonight!"

The Promethium Refinery in Shahe Town covered a vast area and had an incredible oil storage capacity.

If some lunatic or desperate noble detonated the oil storage facilities amidst the chaos, most of the town would go up in smoke, and their hard work tonight would be for nothing!

Therefore, the refinery must be controlled quickly at all costs!

...

At the same time.

Southeast of Shahe Town.

The battle had been going on for a whole afternoon.

Because the people's armed forces had obtained detailed city defense maps and fire point locations from the players in advance.

The initial battle had gone exceptionally smoothly.

Under the firepower advantage of hundreds of automatic rifles and RPG Launchers, the Sand Snake Gang thugs, who were used to bullying the weak and fearing the strong, were beaten back step by step.

But there were simply too many people in the Sand Snake Gang.

Nearly ten thousand gang members, after the initial panic, slowly regained their footing.

They began to occupy tall, sturdy houses and high points, and the two sides engaged in the most brutal and bloody street fighting in the intricate blocks.

Every street and every abandoned building repeatedly changed hands, leaving bodies everywhere.

But the heavy firepower advantage of the people's armed forces remained obvious.

When they encountered buildings that were difficult to take, they didn't waste words; they simply shouldered their RPGs, blew the houses apart with a few rockets, and then continued to push forward through the ruins.

Governor Jia Mei had been struggling and killing people with a gun on the streets of Shahe Town since he could remember.

He might not be a far-sighted political leader, but he was definitely a tough warrior who was unafraid of death.

In every gang fight, he was on the front line.

If someone needed to charge against a hail of bullets, he would always be the first to leap out of cover.

Just like now.

The insurgent army stepped over the bodies of countless brothers and finally reached the luxurious villa where the Sand Snake Gang leader, Sand Snake, lived.

"Bang!"

Governor Jia Mei kicked open the villa door and raised his gun, accurately blowing off the head of a gang member who was about to fire.

He strode forward, his muzzle pressed against another core member of the Sand Snake Gang who was kneeling on the ground with his hands over his head.

"Speak! Where is Sand Snake hiding?!" Governor Jia Mei's eyes were bloodshot as he roared hoarsely.

Facing the cold muzzle, the gang member shook all over like a sieve.

Especially when he saw the head of his companion next to him, which had been blown apart like a rotten watermelon, yellow urine flowed down his pants and onto the floor.

"In... in the basement! The entrance is over there in the wine cellar!" The gang member pointed in a direction, trembling.

"Let's go!"

With a wave of his hand, Governor Jia Mei led dozens of insurgent brothers with their guns ready, charging straight toward the basement entrance.

It was an entrance similar to a cellar, sealed with a heavy iron door.

Just as they reached the stairs.

"Rat-tat-tat!"

A burst of dense gunfire immediately came from inside.

Several bullets hit the iron door frame, sending sparks flying.

Immediately after, the fearful and trembling roar of the Sand Snake Gang leader came from the basement:

"Governor Jia Mei! Are you crazy?! The usual oppression, the raising of grain and water prices—those things were forced upon me by the nobles in the High Tower! If I didn't do it, I'd be the one dead! Why don't you go to them for revenge? Why are you hounding me?! We can negotiate! I'll give you all my money!"