75: Chapter 76 A Broken Body as Eyes, Two Fatal Stars Meet

Su Yun's crisp keyboard clicks faded into the network terminal.

The light and shadow matrix in the virtual world rapidly collapsed and reorganized.

The temperature plummeted.

The thick smell of gunpowder, mixed with the stench of burning flesh, stung Jack's nostrils.

This unnamed high ground had been repeatedly plowed seven times by ammunition.

The surface was lowered by two meters, and hard rock was pulverized into dust.

Twisted gun barrels, shattered steel helmets, and dismembered limbs — indistinguishable between friend and foe — were half-buried in the soft, scorched earth.

The daylight was completely obscured by thick smoke; the surroundings were dim and sunless.

Jack lay on his back at the bottom of a two-meter-deep shell crater.

Three ribs on his left side were broken, and a shrapnel piece had pierced his lung.

With every breath, a wheezing sound mixed with bloody foam escaped his trachea.

The pain feedback engine precisely transmitted the highest level of nerve-tearing signals into his brain.

He didn't even have the strength to turn his neck, only able to survey the carnage around him with his peripheral vision.

In the upper right corner of his vision,

the system warning panel flashed with dazzling crimson characters.

[Life in critical condition.]

[Sensory functions damaged: Hearing reduced by 70%, vision blurred.]

Five meters from Jack, beside a shattered, charred rock, lay half a person.

That was NPC Squad Vice Leader Xue Zhigao.

A large-caliber high-explosive shell had directly taken off his lower body.

From his upper thighs down, it was empty, and the wound at the bottom of his abdominal cavity was tightly bound with a muddy rag.

Dark red blood dripped down the cloth strip, seeping into the blood-soaked mud beneath his feet.

Further away, in a ruined trench, a figure was blindly crawling through the loose soil.

That was Squad Leader Wang Heliang.

The white phosphorus incendiary bombs dropped by the American forces had stolen his sight.

On his smoke-blackened face,

where his eyes should have been, there were only two horrifying bloody holes.

His eyelids and surrounding flesh had melted from the high temperature and fused together.

A blind man, a cripple.

These were the only two remaining defensive units

on the entire front line of Hill 207.4.

The tremor frequency of the ground began to intensify.

Small pieces of shattered rock rolled down the edge of the shell crater, striking Jack's goggles.

The American assault had begun.

The roar of the M46 Patton Tank's diesel engine drowned out the wind.

Its wide metal tracks mercilessly crushed the bones and weapons on the ground,

emitting a teeth-grinding crunch.

Behind the tanks' steel cover,

an entire company of fully armed American Infantrymen, in a standard skirmish line,

advanced step by step up the muddy slope, M1 Garand Rifles in hand.

The leading Second Lieutenant puffed on a cigar, his eyes arrogant.

In their view, after such a terrifying barrage of firepower, the hilltop

would not have a single rat left alive. This was a unilateral takeover of the position.

A piercing system alert sounded in Jack's ear.

[Final battle node report: Unnamed high ground will be taken over. Current surviving defenders: 2/200.]

Jack's right hand tightly dug his fingers into the hard earth.

He tried to stand up, but his fractured lumbar vertebrae left his lower body numb.

His once-proud movement, footwork, and micro-management in shooting games seemed ridiculously pale in the face of these real war physics.

Watching these invaders trample the bones and blood of his compatriots to seize the fruits of victory,

this feeling of powerlessness pushed the top North American streamer to the brink of collapse.

He hated his weakness, only able to repeatedly smash his blood-stained fists against the ground, skin tearing from his knuckles.

At the edge of his vision, Wang Heliang heard the rumble of tank tracks.

He abandoned his meaningless groping, using his extraordinary hearing to determine direction,

and slowly moved towards Xue Zhigao's position.

His hands were bloody and mangled from sharp shrapnel, but he didn't even pause.

Jack's eyes were bloodshot.

He raised his still-movable right hand,

and activated the system's [Holographic Scene Recording/Audio Capture] function.

This recording would be the last trump card to tear apart the Western cultural filter.

Wang Heliang reached the rock.

He tentatively stretched out his hand,

touched Xue Zhigao's shoulder,

and felt downwards along his clothing,

encountering a sticky, severed stump.

"Old Xue?" Wang Heliang's voice was hoarse, with a heavy Sichuan accent.

"I'm here," Xue Zhigao said, propping himself up with one hand, forcing his half-body out of the waterlogged mud pit.

"How are your eyes?"

"Can't see where those sons of bitches are," Wang Heliang panted.

"Where are your legs?"

"No legs left."

Xue Zhigao gritted his teeth and pulled out the old carbine that was pinned beneath him.

He pulled the bolt, and the crisp metallic click was exceptionally clear on the suppressed battlefield.

Thirty meters.

The sound of the American vanguard's boots was clearly audible,

mixed with the casual English chatter of the soldiers.

Wang Heliang spun around abruptly,

kneeling heavily on the rocky ground,

leaving his broad, tattered back to Xue Zhigao.

"You carry me, I'll guide you."

No grand pronouncements.

No rallying cries.

Only two utterly ordinary lines of dialogue.

Xue Zhigao threw away the bandage in his hand.

Using the last of his arm strength,

he grabbed Wang Heliang's shoulders,

and clung his half-body tightly to his comrade's back.

Wang Heliang's hands folded back, supporting the base of Xue Zhigao's severed legs.

Xue Zhigao's left hand tightly encircled Wang Heliang's neck, while his right arm held the carbine level.

Wounds pressed against each other. Broken bones rubbed, screaming in agony.

Under extreme physiological damage,

two wounded soldiers, deemed combat-incapable,

assembled themselves into a perfect killing machine.

The broken body rose straight from the bottom of the crater.

Blood gushed from Xue Zhigao's severed limb,

streaming in large quantities down Wang Heliang's back,

thoroughly dyeing the already colorless cotton military uniform red.

If the pain system were set to one hundred percent, this tearing sensation would be enough to cause immediate brain shock.

But neither of them uttered a single groan.

"Eleven o'clock direction, three men, forty meters."

Xue Zhigao whispered the coordinates into Wang Heliang's ear.

The blind man began to walk.

Each step landed heavily on the scorched earth, leaving a dark red footprint.

Towards the death zone interwoven with heavy firepower, they launched the most audacious reverse charge in the history of Infantrymen.

Xue Zhigao's index finger tightened on the trigger.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The old gun barrel spewed orange-yellow flames. The recoil jolted both men backward simultaneously; Wang Heliang stepped back half a pace with his right leg, firmly stabilizing their base.

The recoil jolted both men backward simultaneously; Wang Heliang stepped back half a pace with his right leg, firmly stabilizing their base.

Three American soldiers at the very front simultaneously exploded with three bursts of blood mist from their chests.

Their bulletproof vests were penetrated at close range; they fell backward without even a scream, rolling down the slope.

The advancing American company abruptly halted.

The Second Lieutenant's cigar fell into the mud.

He stood frozen, his pupils violently constricted, his fingers clutching his sidearm spasming uncontrollably.

The smoke cleared.

What entered the sight of these G.I.s was a "monster" that completely overturned their cognitive system.

A base without eyes, carrying a gun turret without legs.

Facing a crossfire net constructed by fully automatic weapons, this combination didn't even bother to seek cover.

The blind man simply strode forward into the enemy lines, while the cripple, from his elevated position, reaped lives.

"Twelve o'clock, the one peeking out from behind the tank, get him."

Wang Heliang provided the updated coordinates with his keen hearing.

Xue Zhigao slightly lowered his muzzle.

A gunshot, and the machine gunner, who had half-exposed himself from behind the tank's armor plating, had his skullcap blown off.

Ambassador Smith's boasted industrial power and firepower advantage on Twitter,

and the tank-infantry coordinated tactics revered as gospel in West Point textbooks,

shattered into laughable debris before this blood-soaked, conjoined, mud-footed broken body.

No one gave the order to fire.

The American company, armed to the teeth,

was completely stunned by this fighting style that defied human logic.

Their long-term firepower supremacy had accustomed them to long-range, dimension-reducing strikes.

They had never witnessed such fierce determination, willing to shatter their own bones to sever an enemy's throat.

Fear shot from their gun-gripping palms straight down their spines.

Several newly enlisted soldiers were terrified, dropping their rifles and scrambling down the hill in a panic.

"Fire! Eliminate them!" the Second Lieutenant shrieked hysterically, drawing his sidearm.

A dense hail of bullets sprayed over them like water.

Wang Heliang's left arm was directly severed by a large-caliber machine gun round, half an arm dangling from his shoulder.

He didn't even break his stride, using his remaining right arm to tightly hold his brother on his back.

"Three o'clock, the one with the helmet!"

Xue Zhigao squeezed the trigger repeatedly.

Click.

The metallic sound of the empty chamber engaging echoed from the gun barrel.

The M46 tank's heavy turret slowly rotated,

its dark muzzle locking onto the lonely standing flesh and blood.

Regaining their senses, the surrounding American Infantrymen advanced with fixed bayonets,

forming a semi-encirclement.

The system log's progress bar was still recording.

Jack lay in the mud, even his breathing had stopped.

Xue Zhigao reached for his waist belt.

All four shriveled magazines were empty.

Not even a single grenade was left.

He casually threw the hot-barreled carbine at his feet.

The mechanical sound of the cannon adjusting its elevation and loading a shell reverberated across the battlefield.

Xue Zhigao extended his right hand, covered in blood and mud, and patted Wang Heliang's blood-soaked shoulder beneath him.

"Old Wang, no more weapons," Xue Zhigao said, wiping away the blood dripping from his jaw, his tone remarkably calm.

"It's time for us to go."