Chen Jian stood beside a fortress at the defense line, holding an explosive gun, aiming at the small monsters ahead and quickly pulling the trigger.
"Bang, bang, bang, bang----"
The continuous shots of small grenades accurately sniped every rapidly advancing small monster, almost none could breach his defense line.
The corpses of monsters piled up on the open ground less than a hundred meters from the defense line, for a moment, Chen Jian even felt like he was playing a tower defense game.
Monsters, cannons, machine guns, soldiers...
Isn’t this the standard tower defense mode?
The only difference is, on our side, the ammunition isn’t unlimited!
"Maintain the firepower!"
"Aim before you shoot! Allocate firepower resources reasonably!"
Chen Jian shouted as he issued orders over the radio, and the Huaxia Army veterans, already largely adapted to the new combat methods, within each fortress immediately took on the responsibility of squad command.
The chaotic gunfire became orderly, and the soldiers, who no longer feared the agile mantises, calmly fired their guns. Bullets pierced through the monsters’ bodies one by one, bringing out sprays of blood.
The killing efficiency of modern weapons on monsters had been pushed to the limit, if they continued to fight in this way, no matter how many monsters came, they would simply be feeding the Huaxia Army.
----But, the defense line, tens of kilometers long, was still too loose.
Moreover, it wasn’t just one kind of monster launching the attack.
Besides the mantises, more small monsters that Chen Jian couldn’t name, even Terror Demons and Water Ghosts, recklessly charged towards Jinling New City.
By leveraging their numbers, they broke through the dense firepower of one layer of the defense line, crossed the buffer zone, and headed straight for Base 011.
"Initiate the unmanned combat cluster!"
"All Civilian Reserve Teams, prepare for battle, brace for the impact!"
Chen Jian gave the order again, and moments later, gunfire sounded behind him.
The unmanned combat corps, primarily consisting of drones and high-mobility Iron Wolves, swiftly joined the battlefield and weaved through the buffer zone behind a defense line at high speed with superior mobility on par with the monsters.
Under the joint command of Fu Xi and War Skull, the unmanned combat cluster slaughtered every monster intruding into the restricted area without dead angles, not even allowing a single monster to enter the third defense line 5 kilometers outside Base 011.
The situation seemed to have stabilized, and the only task left seemed to be the prolonged and tedious slaughter.
However, Chen Jian’s furrowed brow never relaxed.
His gaze was locked on the crater left by the bombardment of the level-1 monster.
It still wasn’t killed.
Even after being forced out of the underground by an aerial bomb, even after withstanding the close-range blast of two aerial bombs, it wasn’t dead!
At the last moment it disappeared, Chen Jian clearly noticed that its body was already shattered and almost split in two.
Such vitality... is this a level-1 monster?
At this moment, the vibration detectors buried underground had already failed massively under the artillery bombardment, leaving Chen Jian completely without control over that monster.
This filled him with strong unease, he was unsure if the monster was retreating after completing its "support mission" or brewing its next assault.
"Everyone, be prepared for impact resistance!"
Chen Jian changed the magazine of his explosive gun and then shouted:
"Lei Jie! Find a way to pinpoint the Whale Catfish’s location!"
"It’s still moving! If it pops up from beneath us, we’re dead meat!"
Lei Jie’s hoarse voice came through the radio.
"Keep moving, it can’t sense your location underground!"
"As long as you’re not stupid enough to stand still, you shouldn’t run into it!"
Chen Jian gritted his teeth, the Nezha exoskeleton adjusted to full power operation mode.
Then, along the G25 highway cutting through the defense line, Chen Jian sprinted wildly.
He wasn’t just "running away," more importantly, he had to use his firepower to assist the entire defense line in plugging gaps and mending weaknesses.
Like a moving bunker, wherever Chen Jian passed, every escaped monster was named one by one.
He gradually forgot about the threat of the Whale Catfish, or rather, became absorbed in the tunnel vision he hadn’t experienced in a long time.
Except for the hostile targets within his narrow field of vision, everything else had become irrelevant to him.
His attack efficiency improved unprecedentedly, but unknowingly, the danger had already reached its peak.
Just as he once again replaced the explosive gun’s magazine, paused in front of a new fortress, the edges of the smart visor in his helmet suddenly turned bright red.
Immediately, an alarm sounded in his ears.
"Danger! Move forward!"
The War Skull system issued an extremely brief command, and almost instinctively, Chen Jian lunged forward.
Relying on the powerful dynamics of the Nezha Mecha, he instantly pulled away a dozen meters, and at this very moment, the ground behind him suddenly emitted a thunderous crash.
Earth and stones splashed, dust and smoke arose.
The Whale Catfish, now with only half of its body remaining, emerged from the ground and then slammed down hard.
The enormous body crashed directly onto the sturdy fortress; the carefully designed stronghold ultimately couldn’t withstand this overwhelming force and collapsed into ruins.
The 152mm howitzer barrel pierced through the Whale Catfish’s body like a long spear, and the chambered shell fired at an improbably low coincidence.