27: Chapter 27 Pine Bone Peak, Fireman

The sky was red.

Not the warm orange-red of a sunrise, but a sickening, viscous dark red.

It was the color of napalm burning. There was no oxygen in the air, only the scalding scent of sulfur and the stench of charred human flesh.

Jack felt as if his lungs were turning into two pieces of dry, hard charcoal.

With every breath, his windpipe felt like it was being scraped by sandpaper.

"Stay down! Keep your heads low!"

The Company Commander's voice was torn to shreds by the sound of explosions.

Jack huddled in a crevice between rocks, his broken leg splinted with crude wooden boards, long since devoid of sensation.

The Maxim heavy machine gun in his arms was as hot as a branding iron. The urine in the water-cooling jacket had long since evaporated, now replaced by a mixture of snow and mud.

Below the mountain, the American tank columns were like startled rhinos, breaking out toward the north like madmen. For this escape route, they didn't hesitate to turn all of Pine Bone Peak into an incinerator.

Dozens of F-80 fighters swept past at low altitude, the silver canisters mounted under their wings falling like raindrops.

Pfft—

There was no violent explosion, only a dull sound, like a deep fryer catching fire.

Orange-red fire dragons instantly swallowed the front-line positions.

The flames seemed alive, spreading along the trenches, burning on rocks, burning in the soil, clinging to people... and once they caught, they could never be extinguished.

"Ahhh—!!!"

A shrill, agonizing scream rang out to Jack's left.

It was a young soldier from the Second Platoon, his body on fire. He instinctively jumped out of the bunker, trying to roll on the ground to put out the flames.

"Don't move! Get down!" the Company Commander roared.

It was too late.

The moment the burning man jumped up, he was riddled with bullets from the dense machine-gun fire from below the mountain.

His body twitched twice in the air before slamming heavily onto the scorched earth, becoming a still object that continued to burn.

Jack's hands were shaking.

Even through the VR equipment, the heat wave still made him feel suffocated.

The health bar on the system panel was steadily dropping due to the high temperature, but he couldn't afford to look at it.

"Machine guns! Open fire! Don't let their infantry crawl up here!"

The Company Commander rushed out of the smoke, carrying two Anti-tank grenades in his hands.

His uniform was riddled with burn holes, and his face was covered in black soot, leaving only his eyes shining with terrifying intensity.

Da da da da da!

Jack pulled the trigger. The Maxim roared, its muzzle spitting out half-meter-long tongues of fire.

Bullets lashed out like whips toward the American infantry climbing the slope.

A few American soldiers fell, but it did nothing to stop the black tide.

Two more planes dived down.

This time, the drop point was right on the main position.

Jack's vision went white as a massive shockwave flipped him and his gun into the bottom of the trench.

His ears were filled with a sharp ringing; he couldn't hear a thing.

He struggled to crawl up, spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva, and shook his head, trying to regain his hearing.

His vision gradually cleared.

But he would have preferred to be blind.

Not even ten meters away from him, the Third Company Commander was standing there.

A Napalm bomb had scored a direct hit on the bunker beside him.

Splattered gelatinous gasoline covered his entire body.

There was no scream.

Not a single sound.

Jack's eyes widened, his pupils constricting violently.

He saw the Company Commander still holding his grenade-throwing stance, his entire body enveloped in orange-red flames.

Those worn-out padded clothes turned to ash in an instant, and his skin rapidly curled and carbonized under the intense heat.

Normally, when a person encounters such excruciating pain, the body instinctively spasms and curls up; they would roll on the ground and wail.

But the Company Commander didn't.

He was burning.

But he stood ramrod straight.

Through the layer of dancing flames, Jack could still see that silhouette.

The figure was still leaning forward, those eyes—now burned down to mere sockets—were still fixed intently on the American troops setting up machine guns down the mountain.

"Company Commander..." Jack's mouth was open, but no sound came from his throat.

In the next second, the "burning man" moved.

Not to fall, but to charge.

The Company Commander used every last ounce of strength in his body and lunged forward.

Like a burning meteor, he rolled down the slope, heading straight for the American machine-gun nest that was firing frantically.

The American machine gunner was firing away when he suddenly saw a humanoid ball of fire lunging toward him.

The American soldier was terrified. He had seen Supermen and monsters in Hollywood movies, but he had never seen anything like this.

What was this?

Was this a devil?

"No! No!!!"

The American machine gunner screamed in terror, even forgetting to turn his muzzle.

Bang!

The Company Commander pounced on him.

Those arms, already burned to charcoal, tightly embraced the American soldier.

The intense fire instantly ignited the American's uniform.

The two rolled together.

One was struggling and screaming frantically, while the other remained as silent as iron.

The flames fused the two into one.

Gradually, the struggling stopped.

All that remained was a crackling lump of charcoal and a skeleton still maintaining its chokehold.

Jack lay on the scalding rocks, watching this scene through his scope.

His tears evaporated in the high heat, leaving no trace behind.

In his mind, those images that once made his blood boil—strongmen in red and blue spandex flying through the sky, a captain posing with a shield, a god wielding a hammer...

At this moment, they all shattered.

Shattered into a floor full of glass shards.

Those so-called "superheroes" appeared so pale, so ridiculous, so... hypocritical at this moment.

What "Man of Steel"?

What "unrivaled divine power"?

Before this burning mortal body, they weren't even fit to carry his shoes!

"This is the damn god..."

Jack gritted his teeth, blood seeping from his gums.

"This is the God of Fire!!!"

He pulled the trigger like a madman.

The barrel was already red-hot; the bullets in the chamber didn't even need a firing pin to ignite spontaneously.

But it wasn't over.

On this position covered in fire, more and more figures stood up.

One, two, five...

They were all on fire.

Some were missing arms, some had broken legs, and some were already blind.

But they were all charging.

Not a single person retreated; not a single person tried to swat at the flames on their bodies.

They became moving torches, became sentient cannonballs.

"Aaaaaah!"

"Don't come over! Don't come over!"

The American troops below the mountain completely collapsed.

These Marines, armed to the teeth and arrogant just moments ago, now threw down their weapons as if they'd seen a ghost, scrambling and crawling to run back.

The American commander holding the walkie-talkie had hands that were trembling violently.

"Sir... we must retreat..."

"This is impossible..." The commander watched those humanoid flames lunging toward the tanks through his binoculars, his voice filled with an unprecedented fear.

"They aren't human... Humans can't possibly do something like this..."

"This isn't a war at all... this is hell..."

The American offensive wave was forced back five hundred meters by those few balls of fire.

On Pine Bone Peak, it finally became quiet.

Only the crackling of the fire and the whistling of the wind over the scorched earth remained.

Jack released the trigger.

The machine gun was ruined. The barrel was warped and deformed, unable to fire another bullet.

He slumped in the rock crevice, panting heavily.

All around were blackened corpses.

Some were curled up, some were stretched out, and some still held a wrestling pose.

The smell of burning entered his nostrils and went straight to his head.

This was the scent of heroes.

It was also the scent of death.

"Anyone still alive?"

Jack croaked out a shout.

No one answered.

After a long time, a mound of earth not far away moved.

A blood-stained hand reached out and pushed up the frames of a pair of glasses that had long since shattered on the bridge of a nose.

It was Brother Bao.

His face was pitch black, half of his hair was singed off, and he clutched a stone tightly in his hand.

"Not dead yet." Brother Bao coughed up a mouthful of black ash and grinned, revealing a row of white teeth.

"I almost thought I was done for just now."

From a shell crater on the other side, Dai Dai also poked her head out.

Her huge first-aid kit had been blown away, leaving only a roll of mud-stained bandages in her hand.

The young girl's face was covered in tear streaks, smudged by smoke like a calico cat.

"I'm here too," she sobbed.

Three players.

Plus a few crippled NPCs with only a breath of life left.

This was the last of the strength on Pine Bone Peak.

Jack looked up at the sky.

The sun was about to set. The setting sun was like blood, casting a deep red glow over the scorched position.

Below the mountain, the American forces were regrouping.

The roar of tank engines rumbled once more. This time, they wouldn't be testing the waters anymore.

The encirclement was tightening.

Jack felt the empty ammo box, then felt his waist.

There was one last Glory Grenade.

Leaning on a crutch made from a half-burned tree branch, he struggled to stand up, resting the weight of his broken leg against a rock.

"Looks like we'll have to spend the night here."

Jack looked at the dark, dense torrent of steel below the mountain, his tone surprisingly calm.

"Scared?" he asked.

Brother Bao picked up two stones and weighed them in his hand. "Scared of what? After seeing that lunge from the Company Commander, my life has been worth it."

Dai Dai wiped away her tears and stood beside Jack.

"I'm not afraid," she said. "I'm a Medic; if I have to die, I'll die before the wounded."

The wind blew across the ridge, swirling the black ash into the sky.

Jack smiled.

There was no arrogance in that smile, only a weight and clarity he had never felt before.

"Get ready."