77: Chapter 78 The End and Supreme Glory of Shangganling

The vision was a wash of crimson.

The system warning panel flashed with a blinding light.

The words 'Extreme Danger' lay starkly before every surviving player.

Van Fleet pushed his last chips onto the table.

A full company of American troops, accompanied by the final, frantic barrage from the artillery group, surged toward Hill 597.9.

The mountainside was covered entirely in olive-green steel helmets.

Heavy artillery plowed the earth, shaving a full meter off the already low hilltop.

Scorched earth mixed with smoke completely obscured the sunlight.

Dirt churned up. A scarred hand broke through the blackened crust of soil.

Jack clawed away the loose dirt pressing him down and gasped deeply for air.

His stamina bar was flashing red, signaling near-death, and the edges of his vision were filled with snowy static.

His carbine had long run out of ammunition, and even the bayonet had snapped off during the previous close-quarters combat.

He patted himself down—not a single bullet, not a single grenade.

Nothing was left.

In the ruins to his right, Brother Bao staggered to his feet.

Half his face was blackened by soot, and he tightly gripped a broken entrenching shovel in his hand.

The shovel blade had three chips missing and was smeared with dried, dark red.

Dai Dai lay collapsed at the bottom of a nearby trench, the medical kit shattered into two pieces.

All ten of her fingernails were peeled back, oozing blood.

She didn't cry, but silently picked up a stone near her feet that was stained with the blood of her comrades.

On the entire position, fewer than thirty people were alive.

"We're out of gear," Jack spat out the sand and mud from his lips, his voice hoarse.

Brother Bao raised his broken shovel, his gaze locked onto the Americans climbing below: "We have plenty of rocks."

The mountain wind was piercingly cold. Thirty battered soldiers stood on the summit.

The American vanguard crossed the final defensive line.

They held M1 Garand rifles, wore goggles, and their leather boots stepped over the bodies of the Volunteer Army.

"Fire!" the American company commander ordered.

Bullets poured down, striking the rocks and sending sparks flying.

Jack didn't dodge.

He bent over, lifted a massive boulder weighing several dozen pounds, and charged through the hail of gunfire.

A bullet pierced his left shoulder, and a spray of blood erupted.

The real pain transmitted by the system twisted his features,

but his steps didn't falter. Reaching the Americans, he raised the boulder high and smashed it down violently onto the soldier who had fired.

The crisp sound of a skull fracturing was chilling. The American soldier collapsed to the ground.

Jack lunged forward in the same motion, opening his teeth to clamp down hard on the windpipe of another enemy.

A sweet, metallic liquid flooded his throat.

The enemy struggled frantically,

punching Jack repeatedly in the back, but Jack would not let go.

Brother Bao leaped from the side, the fractured shovel blade slicing precisely into the carotid artery of the American machine gunner.

Blood sprayed out, splattering his face.

He snatched the machine gun, found it jammed, and then simply swung the heavy gun body like a sledgehammer, crushing the shoulder blade of the next enemy.

Dai Dai hid on the flank of the trench, cupping stones in both hands,

and threw them with all her might at the knees of passing Americans.

When an enemy fell, she pounced, stabbing the man's eyes with a shard of broken glass she had picked up.

There was no tactic, no formation.

Only the most primitive instinct for slaughter.

The hilltop had become a slaughterhouse.

The surviving Volunteer Army players and NPCs abandoned all pretense of civilization.

When bullets ran out, they smashed with the rifle butt; when the butt broke, they used rocks; when their hands were broken, they bit with their teeth;

if their legs were broken, they dragged their mangled bodies to roll off the cliff with an enemy locked onto them.

An NPC young soldier had his intestines spilling out. Without a sound,

he stuffed his intestines back in,

and in return, pulled the bayonet from his waist, dragging two Americans down with him into the raging inferno.

This method of fighting, which completely violated the biological instinct for survival,

plunged the well-equipped Americans into deep terror.

The momentum of their charge stalled.

The American company commander stared at the hell on earth before him,

his hand holding the walkie-talkie trembling too hard to grip it tightly.

He had personally witnessed a blind Chinese soldier, missing an arm,

relying solely on his hearing to drive his thumb into the eye socket of one of his most elite veterans.

"Fall back... Retreat!"

These West Point elites, who ate canned beef and drank hot coffee,

finally faced that will which surpassed steel.

Their psychological defenses completely collapsed. Some threw away their heavy machine guns,

some tore off their bothersome helmets, scrambling and crawling down the mountain.

Even warning shots from the supervisory squad were useless.

The rout spread through the American ranks like a plague.

Van Fleet stood by his jeep in the distance,

his binoculars dropping to the ground.

A signalman ran over holding an encrypted document,

reporting with his head bowed: "Sir, the front line has collapsed. They refuse to execute the order to attack."

Van Fleet closed his eyes and slumped defeatedly into the car seat.

"Withdraw. Tell the Far East Command we cannot take this position."

China, Su Yun Studio.

The emotional value data on the large screen was jumping wildly, breaking historical extremes.

Su Yun sat before the optical computer, watching the few blood-soaked figures standing on the wasteland in the holographic image. He hit the Enter key.

The command was issued.

Inside the game server for the 'ice and snow world', the piercing alarm stopped abruptly.

The heavy clouds on the horizon split open with a seam,

and a ray of dawn pierced through the gunpowder smoke, spilling onto the tattered yet still bright red flag on Hill 597.9.

The remaining Americans retreated like a receding tide.

All negative system status panels vanished simultaneously.

Jack knelt down, completely drained of strength.

Brother Bao tossed aside his blunted entrenching shovel,

and lay flat on his back in the pile of rubble, breathing heavily.

Dai Dai covered her face, letting tears wash over her blood-stained cheeks.

Giant golden text slowly materialized high above the game,

accompanied by the solemn sound of a military bugle, reaching every player's ears:

["Campaign Settlement Complete."]

["Both sides' battle damage verified. Enemy has abandoned the attack."]

["Congratulations to all participating players and NPCs for successfully defending the position."]

["The system officially awards all defending personnel the special honorary title — — Heroes of Triangle Hill Regiment!"]

Every word was as heavy as a thousand pounds.

In the real world, the five hundred million viewers watching the livestream,

regardless of where they were, whether on a late-night street, in a noisy bar,

or in a quiet classroom, all held their breath.

Someone took the lead, and the young people in the internet cafes began standing up one after another.

The foreign youths beneath the giant screens in Times Square took off their hats.

A resonance of shock transcended national borders and skin color at that moment.

Everyone just silently watched the hill in the picture—piled high with corpses yet never changing ownership.

They had witnessed the limits of human light infantry, the real image of mortal bodies rivaling gods.

Jack supported himself to stand straight, looking toward the retreating Americans in the distance.

The flippancy and arrogance of his past were gone from his eyes.

Having endured this hellish baptism,

he understood what a truly hard bone meant, and what the unconquerable national spirit was.

He raised his blood-smeared right hand,

and rendered a standard military salute toward the tattered flag.

The Chinese server's network completely erupted.

Countless players who had previously looked down on domestic games and admired Hollywood special effects,

changed their personal profile signatures to that sentence from the server announcement.

Western media collectively fell silent.

Half an hour ago, they were still loudly proclaiming on the foreign internet that Van Fleet's company-level charge would end the battle.

Now, those press releases had become the biggest joke.

The sound of gunfire on the front line ceased.

But on another battlefield without smoke, a storm was just brewing.

Korea, the Panmunjom Armistice Negotiation site.

The telephone, silent for a long time, suddenly rang, breaking the oppressive stillness inside the tent.

Colonel Harrison's arrogant expression froze on his face.

He grabbed the receiver, and his face grew paler the more he listened.

The knuckles of the hand holding the phone turned white from excessive force.

The receiver slipped.

The few American negotiation representatives who had been swaggering inside the tent,

exchanged glances and dropped all their contempt.

Harrison, his face ashen, walked to the negotiation table,

pulled out the specially elevated chair, and was forced to sit up straight.

He pulled out the long-shelved ceasefire agreement terms from his briefcase, grabbed a fountain pen, and heavily signed his name on the paper.

Dai Dai sat opposite as a witness to history.

She looked at Harrison's humiliated yet helpless face,

and the satisfaction in her heart was beyond words.

That was the leverage earned by the flesh and blood of her comrades on the front line.

Only after winning would the enemy willingly listen to reason.

At the same time, US Army Headquarters in Seoul.

Public Relations Officer Jeffrey irritably tugged at his tie while looking at the battle defeat report.

Since they couldn't gain leverage on the direct battlefield, they had to save face in the propaganda war.

"Contact major overseas media,"

Jeffrey ordered,

"Release the photos of the captured Volunteer Army prisoners we took earlier. Say they suffered inhuman torture in the POW camps, and that the Chinese side ignored treaties—that they are a bunch of barbarians. This report must top the headlines within two hours!"

The news spread like a malignant tumor across the foreign internet.

Forged photos and taken-out-of-context videos were frantically reposted.

Western powers attempted to smear that great victory with this card.

Su Yun sat in front of the screen, watching the foreign public opinion data coming from the backend.

The overwhelming accusations and fabrications were entirely within his expectations.

He didn't get angry; instead, he smiled.

Traditional clarifications were useless against the propaganda warfare habitually employed by Western media.

If you want to fight, hit them where it hurts the most.

His fingers flew across the keyboard.

Lines of brand new code were input into the core library:

["Large Scale DLC Implementation Preparation"]

["Name: The Pyongtong POW Olympics"]

["Type: Casual / Sports / Life Interaction"]

["Open Area: Pyongtong Sixth POW Camp, Korea"]

Su Yun pressed Enter and stared coldly at the screen:

"You want to play the rumor game? Then let the whole world see what the hell you think this place looks like."

At this time, the snow was just beginning to melt on the front-line highway.

Large columns of captured United Nations soldiers

were walking in a long line toward the POW camps in the rear.

The prisoner Tony walked in the middle of the column,

shivering violently from the cold.

He had heard the threats from his officers: if captured, their eyes would be gouged out, and they would meet a tragic end.

He also remembered the Volunteer Army soldiers on the battlefield who seemed possessed by demons, biting them to death even with blinded eyes and broken legs!

Fear completely seized all his nerves.

His stomach cramped from hunger, and he slipped, falling into the muddy water.

A blood-stained rifle was extended toward him.

Tony screamed in terror, clutching his head,

"Don't come near me! You are all devils, devils! Help!"

It was Jack, who was in charge of escorting them.

Jack neither beat nor cursed,

nor did he fire his weapon.

He pulled out half a piece of dry ration, still warm from his body, and threw it in front of Tony.

Tony froze,

grabbed the ration, and wolfed it down,

his eyes filled with bewilderment.

The column continued forward.

Climbing over a ridge,

the gates of the Pyongtong POW Camp appeared at the end of the line of sight.

Tony shrank back and looked up,

expecting to see a gallows.

What met his eyes

was a huge, colorful poster pasted on the wooden gate.

The poster depicted a white dove.

Underneath, a large line of English text read: "Peace and Sports — The First Pyongtong POW Camp Olympic Games Will Soon Open."