Chapter 55: Ultimate Move Charging Complete
The smell of overturned rain-soaked earth permeated the air. Last night's torrential rain had subsided, and the morning sky was so overcast it seemed ready to drip water.
The ground of their own camp was a muddy mess, tents scattered everywhere. On stacked ammunition boxes, groups of three to five soldiers sat smoking, cigarettes dangling from their mouths. These soldiers either had blood-and-mud-stained bandages wrapped around their heads or arms in plaster casts, suspended from their necks by medical gauze.
"Hey, do you think our supreme commander is being controlled by something like a demon or an evil spirit?"
"Controlled? I'd believe it if you said he ate a demon for breakfast today."
"Watch your tongue. You want to be thrown to the front lines wrapped in a sleeping bag?"
The wounded soldiers sitting on the ammunition boxes murmured among themselves. They had just been pulled back from the front lines—a unique privilege for the injured.
Ever since arriving in the Western Continent yesterday, wave after wave of soldiers had been sent to the front. The original establishment was seven legions, but as the fighting dragged on, the Second Legion and the Seventh Legion were nearly wiped out. Fortunately, reinforcements kept arriving.
By this morning, Su Xiao had eleven legions under his command. The First Legion, composed of Transcendents, was rarely deployed. The Third through Eleventh Legions were sent to the front in batches. Each offensive involved at least two legions, at most five.
Among all the legions, only one was no longer sent to the front: the Second Legion. It was now entirely made up of veterans, all of them gun masters. Sending them to the front at this point would be a very unwise choice.
In short, the First and Second Legions were Su Xiao's trump cards.
Whether from the Eastern Alliance or the Southern Alliance, the soldiers had decent training. But none of them had ever been on a real battlefield. That wasn't the worst part. The key issue was how brutally and horrifically the Parasite Warriors killed.
Some recruits, after witnessing their comrades being riddled with parasitic worms or gnawed down to bloody skeletons, would have their fighting spirit shatter, leading to routs.
For soldiers with insufficient willpower, the only way to make them capable of facing the Parasite Army in a short time was to keep sending them to the most dangerous front lines. Will was forged through experience, not encouragement.
This led to one result: as the one issuing orders, Su Xiao was both feared and dreaded by the soldiers. If this continued, a camp mutiny was only a matter of time.
To prevent this, the major generals and colonels of the Third through Eleventh Legions stood on the same side as the soldiers, using various methods to calm them down.
Even so, last night, the remnants of the Sixth Legion still mutinied. The moment it started, the First and Second Legions swiftly suppressed it, nipping the rebellion in the bud.
It seemed like internal strife and external threats, but that wasn't really the case. Su Xiao was filtering—filtering which soldiers could be entrusted with important tasks and which were unreliable.
He would rather the soldiers mutiny in camp than see them rout during battle.
Every time they clashed with the Parasite Army, their own front line was a continuous stretch. If even a small or medium-scale rout showed signs of starting, the trend would spread at an alarming rate, eventually leading to multiple legions fleeing in succession.
At that point, Su Xiao would lose. Unless he chose to escape the Western Continent, he would be surrounded and killed by the Parasite Warriors.
Rather than let that happen, Su Xiao chose the most iron-fisted approach: seizing control of the situation with an iron grip. After all, these soldiers were not Wolf Cavalry, let alone the Demon Insect Race.
The Demon Insect Race went without saying. As long as it was Su Xiao's order, even if only one Demon Insect remained, it would charge at the enemy without hesitation.
As for the Wolf Cavalry of the Canglong Continent, Su Xiao led them to fight for survival. For the Wolf Cavalry, as long as Su Xiao, standing on the back of the Evil Dragon Barbatos, didn't leave, they wouldn't retreat a single step.
At the start, many Wolf Cavalry had family or children who were poorly clothed and starving. Su Xiao led them to plunder a large amount of resources from the Elves, changing their families' living conditions.
That was why the Wolf Cavalry were loyal to Su Xiao unto death. But now, the soldiers under Su Xiao came either from the Eastern Alliance or the Southern Alliance. The rulers of both sides had their own agendas.
As for the soldiers, their thinking was simple: as long as they could return to the Eastern Continent or the Southern Continent, they would even participate in a mutiny. They weren't rebelling against the Alliance; they hadn't betrayed it. They were rebelling against the temporary coalition.
The current situation was that the soldiers' last shred of hope had vanished. They clearly realized that unless they killed every last enemy, the war would never end. As for resisting the supreme commander, the remnants of the Sixth Legion had tried that last night. It didn't end well.
Inside the command post, Su Xiao sat up from the simple cot. The moment he opened his eyes, he smelled gunpowder smoke.
"Baha, does the Eighth Legion still have any intention of mutinying?"
"No, we've already found the Contractor hiding in the Eighth Legion."
"Good."
Su Xiao washed up briefly, feeling much more refreshed. Last night's mutiny was partly due to the soldiers being under extreme pressure and partly because a Contractor was stirring up trouble behind the scenes.
With hundreds of thousands of people on his side, and this being a temporary alliance, it was hard for Su Xiao to detect Contractors who had infiltrated. The instigators of the Fifth Legion's mutiny last night were a four-person Contractor team. Su Xiao had never doubted a Contractor's ability to cause trouble.
Su Xiao sat in front of the sand table and picked up several battlefield reports beside it. Since yesterday, he had decided to end this quickly. The reason was simple: he suspected that the main mission had subsequent stages. The current mission regarding the Abyss Gate was only the second part of the main mission.
From the current battle situation, no matter how anyone looked at it, they felt Su Xiao was fighting a war of attrition—using the soldiers transferred from the Eastern and Southern Continents to gradually wipe out the Parasite Warriors.
But that wasn't the case at all. Su Xiao was charging up a big move. He risked mutinies in multiple legions and the deaths of a large number of Alliance soldiers, but in just 26 hours, he had completed the charge.
Su Xiao checked the data on his own faction. One entry stood out conspicuously.
Veterans: 53,760 (Elite Soldier Unit).
How did these veterans come about? The answer was that yesterday, his side had clashed with the Parasite Army 19 times. By the rainy night, less than half an hour passed before two legions were sent to the front lines.
Even the Parasite Army was somewhat stunned. All three enemy knights had shown up, and they couldn't understand: were these Alliance soldiers crazy? How could they keep fighting without flinching?
His side had lost nearly 210,000 soldiers to train these veterans. When this casualty figure reached the Alliance, the high-ranking officials were horrified.
The number of Alliance soldier deaths was too outrageous. So the Alliance's high-ranking officials jointly impeached Su Xiao, intending to appoint a new commander. What drove them even more crazy was that this was only the first day of battle! How were they supposed to fight the rest?
In the end, Kingsley vetoed the proposal to impeach Su Xiao. That's right, Kingsley had "risen from the dead."
This news surprised the Alliance's high-ranking officials, so they busied themselves with jointly impeaching Kingsley. A dead man could serve as the supreme commander of the temporary coalition, but a living one could not.
Kingsley became a scapegoat. At this point, how could the Alliance's high-ranking officials not realize they had been played? But they didn't stop sending troops to the front. Scheming against each other was one thing, but they were all part of the same interest group now. Unless they were brain-dead, they wouldn't stop sending reinforcements at such a critical moment.
Having thought this far, Su Xiao stood up from his seat and walked out of the command post. He was going to flatten the ancient royal city at the center of the Western Continent and deal with Emperor Tayatu.
Su Xiao, along with Bubu Wang, Amu, and Baha, left the command post and headed for the western camp area. As soon as he arrived at the western camp, he saw the soldiers formed into multiple square formations. Looking out, there was no end in sight.
Twenty thousand soldiers standing in formation stretched out in a vast, imposing sea. Even on the distant hilltops, soldiers could be seen standing at attention.
This was the Second Legion's 20,000 veterans. Aside from these 20,000, the remaining 30,000-plus veterans were positioned slightly behind the front lines as an execution squad.
The veterans' Gun Master ability wasn't as comprehensive as imagined, but they all had an ability called Full Firepower. This ability could be used once every two hours. When activated, the veterans' firing speed maxed out, creating a terrifying "bullet rain curtain."
The Parasite Warriors had strong survivability? Sorry, under the "bullet rain curtain," they would be torn to shreds in an instant.
"Gewei."
The moment Su Xiao spoke, Major Gewei stepped forward, one hand clenched into a fist pressed against his chest. He was the wartime commander of the Second Legion. As an old acquaintance, Major Gewei was more trustworthy.
"Pass the order: All legions from the First to the Tenth are to assemble at their wartime positions, preparing for a general offensive."
"Yes."
Major Gewei went to relay the order to the major generals and colonels of the other legions. In truth, he had no idea what was going on. A general offensive? No more attrition warfare?
Su Xiao stood on a high slope, looking out over the assembled veterans. Their aura was clearly different. More importantly, they carried an energy Su Xiao was very familiar with—the unique energy of being blessed by the "Blood·Soul Force."
Except for the Eleventh Legion, which stayed behind to guard the base camp, his side was almost fully deployed.
With thirty teleportation arrays continuously transporting soldiers to the Western Continent, his forces had become quite substantial.
For this general offensive, his side had a total of 390,000 ordinary soldiers, 34,600 elite soldiers, and 53,760 veterans.
This was the advantage of borrowing power. His soldiers might not be loyal to Su Xiao unto death, but their numbers expanded quickly.
Su Xiao chose to launch the general offensive now for a reason. The soldiers were under immense pressure. If this continued, major problems would definitely arise. Moreover, the total number of his soldiers had exceeded 400,000, giving him another trump card.
Once the number of his soldiers exceeded 300,000, they could receive the "Blood·Soul Force" ability boost. This ability wasn't a free buff; it consumed the soldiers' physical energy, converting it into soul-burning power, which added True Damage to their bullets.
With over 400,000 soldiers, each attack carrying True Damage, plus the veterans' Full Firepower, it was time to let the enemy experience what it meant that "within range lies justice."