41: Chapter 41 Magnets in the Terracotta Army

Don't believe those war movies.

In the movies, flares always streak across the night sky in an aesthetically pleasing slow motion, illuminating the hero's handsome face.

But in Pyeong-ni, on this night in March 1951, the hundreds of magnesium flares hanging in the air were as deathly pale as the whites of a dead fish's eyes.

The light filled every wrinkle on the snow-covered ground; the darkness was forcibly stripped away, leaving only naked, white terror.

"Charge! They only have tanks, no Infantryman cover!"

Jack roared over the communication channel.

His voice sounded somewhat cracked because ten minutes earlier, a mortar round had landed twenty meters away, and the blast wave had ruptured his eardrums.

But he didn't care.

He held the Sten submachine gun he had captured from the British army and still felt this was a feast about to be reaped.

Based on the experience of the previous two battles, as soon as the Volunteer Army blew the charge bugle, these pampered American soldiers would throw down their gear and flee, leaving behind a ground full of canned food and vehicles.

Several thousand players charged out of the cover behind him.

The snow powder crunched under their boots.

Ahead was an open field, with the circular defensive position, shaped like a turtle shell, right in the center.

Two hundred meters.

One hundred and fifty meters.

The ring of steel monsters—Shermans and Pershings—were silent, like piles of scrap metal.

Their muzzles drooped, and not even the roar of their engines could be heard.

"See! They're scared stiff!" A player whose ID was 'Rampage Rhythm' shrieked excitedly.

He was running the fastest, even half a body length ahead of Jack.

The next second, the Pershing heavy tank directly facing them spat out a storm of orange-red fire from its muzzle.

No warning.

And none of that cinematic special effect where the bullets hang in the air for a moment.

'Rampage Rhythm's' upper body instantly turned into a mist of blood and vanished into the air.

Only his two legs, still running, carried him forward another two steps due to inertia before they collapsed into a snowdrift.

Immediately following, the giant circular steel formation 'came alive'.

This wasn't random firing; it was calculated slaughter.

Between every tank, four heavy machine guns were set up, forming the most basic woven net of firepower.

And behind the tanks, four 105mm howitzers had already locked in their firing data.

The screech of the metal storm tearing through the air instantly drowned out everyone's shouts.

Rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat—

Unlike crisp, single shots, the sound of dozens of heavy machine guns firing simultaneously was like a giant electric saw cutting through bone.

Jack felt as if someone had violently shoved his chest, sending him tumbling backward onto the ground.

He subconsciously touched his chest; the system notification about two broken ribs flashed glaringly red.

"Get down! Stop charging! Everyone get the hell down!"

He rolled in the mud, trying to find a shell crater to crawl into.

But this open field had been meticulously chosen.

Ridgway didn't need to lay mines here, because the flat terrain itself was the best killing ground.

Bullets whizzed past his scalp, scraping off the red five-pointed star paint from Jack's helmet.

He lay among the dead, his nostrils filled with the nauseating smell of rust—the scent of fresh blood rapidly congealing in the extreme cold.

"Brother Bao! Brother Bao!" Jack shouted into the communicator.

"What about the flank? I told you to take men and push in, pry open their turtle shell!"

The headset was full of static.

Zzzzz—Zzzzz—

That perverted designer, Su Yun, had even applied 'realistic processing' to the communication channels this time.

Under such high-decibel artillery coverage, radio waves were severely jammed, leaving only intermittent crackling sounds.

"Can't... push through..."

Brother Bao's voice sounded like a ghost from the other end, filled with extreme terror.

"Jack... this is a trap... They aren't running... They are sucking us in..."

Sucking them in?

Jack didn't understand.

He raised his head and squinted toward the left flank.

That area should have been the junction of the American lines, the weak point.

But at this moment, the firelight erupting from that direction was even fiercer than the front.

Dozens of anti-aircraft tracked vehicles were laid flat, their quad-mounted 12.7mm heavy anti-aircraft machine guns sweeping the ground crazily.

That terrifying firepower, originally meant for shooting down planes, left no intact bodies when hitting human flesh.

All the players attempting to outflank and maneuver were pinned down by this force.

You want to run? The retreat path is blocked by artillery fire.

You want to charge? The front is an iron wall.

Ridgway was like a giant magnet, using his astonishing density of firepower to firmly suck the Volunteer Army into this meat grinder, grinding them down piece by piece.

"Damn it! This old man has no martial ethics!"

Jack fiercely pounded the ground.

Since tactical penetration was useless, they would use the old method.

"Suicide squad! Those with explosives, follow me!"

Jack's eyes turned red. He roared into the public channel.

"It's only a hundred meters away! Blow up those few broken tanks, and the gap will open!"

No one retreated.

This was the terrifying aspect of the players, or rather,

this was the terrifying aspect of this group of 'lunatics' trained by Su Yun.

Even when facing a certain death situation, over a hundred people crawled out of the piles of corpses, carrying sputtering, smoking explosive packs, crouching low and starting to sprint.

Shouts rose one after another, filled with a tragic fervor.

Jack charged at the very front.

Adrenaline surged, masking the sharp pain of his broken ribs.

He stared fixedly at the Pershing tank that had blasted him away earlier, with only one thought in his mind: Even if I die, I have to knock out a few of your teeth.

Ninety meters.

Eighty meters.

Seventy meters.

The hatch on top of the tank suddenly opened.

An American spotter poked his head out, showing no panic, no fear.

He held a walkie-talkie, pointed toward Jack's direction, with an expression as if he were ordering food in a restaurant.

The next second, a black cloud rose from behind the tank.

It was a volley from the 60mm mortar group.

Nothing could describe the density of this bombardment.

It seemed a piece of the sky had collapsed, and countless fragments exploded around Jack.

No cover.

The suicide squad of over a hundred men, like a handful of snow thrown into a furnace, instantly melted away.

Jack felt his vision go black, and his whole body was thrown up, slamming heavily onto the edge of a shell crater.

"Damn..."

Jack squeezed out a word from his throat as his vision began to darken.

Just then, a hand grabbed his collar.

It was a calloused hand with fingernails full of black dirt.

"If you're not dead, stop playing dead."

A hoarse voice sounded next to his ear.

Jack strained to turn his head.

It was the old NPC squad leader.

The cotton batting in the old squad leader's padded jacket was spilling out, his face covered in soot, only his eyes shone terrifyingly bright.

He wasn't holding a gun, but a bundle of cluster grenades.

"Squad Leader... this must be hell, right?"

Jack gave a bitter smile, pointing at the curtain of fire ahead.

"We can't get through. Those Americans are cheating."

The old squad leader ignored his nonsense, just pulled out half a potato, frozen hard as a rock, from his chest and stuffed it into Jack's mouth.

"Bite down. It's going to hurt later."

"What?"

Before Jack could react, he saw the old squad leader suddenly lunge forward.

Ten meters ahead of them was a patch of snow that was eerily flat.

A few brothers who had just stepped on it moments ago had been blown away.

It was a minefield.

Old fox Ridgway had laid down the final layer of insurance in front of the tank position.

No combat engineers.

No mine detectors.

In this barren, desperate place, the only tool for clearing mines was the human body.

"Squad Leader! What are you doing!"

Jack seemed to realize something and tried to reach out and pull him back, but his broken leg prevented him from moving.

The old squad leader didn't look back.

He didn't even shout any slogans.

He just tucked the bundle of grenades under himself and rolled into the minefield sideways, like a log.

Since they couldn't walk through, he would roll a path.

Boom!

The first explosion rang out.

The old squad leader's left leg was gone.

But his rolling speed didn't stop.

Boom!

The second explosion.

His right hand flew into the air.

Boom! Boom!

The mutilated body tumbled and leaped amidst bursts of fire.

Every explosion was like a heavy hammer striking Jack's heart.

After the last explosion subsided.

A scorched black passage appeared on the snow.

It was a 'safe path' paved with flesh and blood, leading directly to the blind spot of the tank defense line.

At the end of that path, the old squad leader, now only half a body, lay in a snow pit.

He wasn't completely dead yet; his only remaining left hand was dug deeply into the frozen earth, looking back at Jack.

What kind of gaze was that?

No blame, no pain, only an almost stubborn expectation.

His lips moved.

On this deafening battlefield, Jack couldn't hear any sound.

But he read the shape of the mouth.

He was saying: "Crawl."

Crawl forward.

As long as there was still a breath left, keep climbing up.

The half potato in Jack's mouth fell onto the ground.

Tears mixed with the bloodstains on his face, flowing into his mouth, tasting bitterly salty.

"Ahhhhhhh!!!"

Jack let out a beast-like howl.

He ignored his injuries and even forgot this was a game.

He dug his hands into the mud and snow on the ground and, like a rabid dog, desperately crawled forward along the bloody path blasted open by the old squad leader.

Behind him, hundreds of surviving players also had their eyes red.

No one spoke anymore, no one posted bullet comments anymore.

Everyone was crawling.

Even if their fingernails were torn off, even if their knees were ground raw.

That scorched path was their life.

"Brother Bao! Cover me!"

Jack shouted back while crawling.

But there was no response.

He looked around in confusion.

The light from the flares was still deathly pale, but his vision was growing increasingly blurry.

At first, he thought the smoke had blinded him, so he rubbed his eyes hard.

It was useless.

That darkness was consuming him from the edges of his vision, just like an old television's picture tube was broken, the light being withdrawn little by little.

It wasn't smoke, nor was it a system malfunction.

Jack's heart sank.

He remembered that inconspicuous footnote in Su Yun's update log:

[New Physiological Status Added: Severe Malnutrition].

Continuous long-term forced marches, severe logistical shortages, only frozen potatoes and a handful of fried flour.

The Vitamin A in his body had long been depleted.

This was night blindness.

At this moment when light was most needed, on this path bought with the old squad leader's life, their eyes could no longer see.

"What's happening... Is it dark?"

"I can't see the road! Where is the Squad Leader? Where is the road?"

Panicked cries from the players sounded around him.

Fear broke people's morale before bullets did.

The men who hadn't flinched under a hail of bullets now collapsed into despair in this icy hell because they had lost their sight.

Jack forced his eyes wide open, but before him was only a shifting gray shadow.

He reached out, trying to grope for the path ahead, but touched something warm and sticky.

It was the old squad leader's half-body.

"Don't panic..."

Jack tried to soothe everyone in a trembling voice, but his throat was parched.

Just then.

A strange sound pierced through the clamor of the battlefield.

Whir—Whir—Whir—

It was the low-frequency vibration of propellers churning the air, dull and oppressive, like a death knell rising from the depths of the earth.

Jack looked up.

Although he couldn't see clearly, he could feel that the sky above his head had changed.

The night sky, previously illuminated by flares, was suddenly obscured by a gigantic shadow.

The moon was gone, and even the pale light of the flares was swallowed up.

That wasn't a cloud.

It was the massive wingspan of a formation of B-26 Marauder bombers.

"Are we winning?"

A new recruit player behind him, probably having heard the sound of the planes, asked with a sliver of hope.

"Is our air support here?"

Jack didn't answer.

He just gripped the old squad leader's cold hand tightly,

and in that endless darkness, he revealed a smile uglier than a cry.

It was self-mockery born from the depths of despair.

"Brother," Jack said softly.

"That's not our air force."

Before the words finished falling.

Countless black dots descended from the sky.

They didn't have that sharp whistling sound, but carried a clumsy heaviness,

like iron cans filled with liquid, tumbling down toward the earth.

They were napalm canisters.

They were the hellfire capable of burning stone to ash.

Thump.

The first oil drum exploded fifty meters in front of Jack.

No shockwave.

Only fire.

Liquid flames spread out as if they were alive, instantly igniting the air.

That wasn't light; it was a red wall swallowing everything.

In front of this wall, Jack's night blindness was 'cured'.

Because the entire world was left with only red.