Chapter 58 Flames of War in Dragon City

"Long腾... received!"
"All teams, advance toward the White Tower!"
"Captain, are you insane? We only have about a hundred brothers left..."
Dai Longmei felt his head buzzing.
A familiar voice was arguing with someone.
"A five-hundred-man special operations brigade, and now there are fewer than a hundred left..."
Sets of armor, vehicles, and the air itself seemed warped.
"It's over, Captain, it's all over~"
"Most of Long City is burning."
"The gods... the gods have poured their wrath directly down from the heavens..."
"A metropolis of ten million people, and only the inner three rings are left, gasping for breath!"
"The enemy, those Yangji people tore open a gap in the sky and struck right through~"
"Their helicopters are far more advanced than ours."
"Their tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and even wheeled armored vehicles are all superior to ours~"
That unfamiliar voice was clearly filled with despair over the current war situation.
"Fight with what? Fight! Can we even win?! Huh?!"
"If you ask me, Captain, let's run for our lives, let's run for our lives, everyone!"
"Crack!"
A sharp sound of a slap echoed.
"Damn you! Can you still call yourself a soldier?"
"Can you still call yourself the deputy captain of the Long腾 Special Operations Brigade?"
Dai Longmei heard another crisp sound of a slap.
That familiar voice spoke with booming vigor.
"Major! Answer me!"
"You coward! Utter bastard!"
"What? Those pale-skinned bastards poured molten rock on us!"
"Hit you with a few missiles!"
"And you cower? You go soft?"
"Did those Yangji beasts chop off your balls?"
The voice fiercely cursed his own brothers.
Yet not a single soldier talked back.
"Damn you spineless cowards!"
"I must have been blind back then!"
"Selecting the lot of you cowards from various units."
"You all claimed to be elite soldiers? The pride of the Long腾 Army?"
"I spit on you! Disgusting!"
The voice continued to scold fiercely.
Yet still, not a single soldier retorted.
"Let me tell you!"
"Even if today I, your damn self, am the only one left with a spine in the Long腾 Special Operations Brigade,"
"I will still tear a chunk out of these invaders!"
"Damn it! Even if I break my teeth!"
"I will bite through a path to the White Tower!"
"I will bite these invaders to death!"
"I will hold and defend our Long City!"
"The capital cannot fall! Long腾 will never perish!"
With the crisp sound of a bolt chambering a round,
"Those with the guts, follow me to death!"
"Those without, get the hell out of here!"
A brief silence followed.
"Charge!"
"Charge!"
"Charge!"
It erupted into a roar of a hundred men that shook the heavens.
A single sound of chambering rounds transformed into the dying cries of a hundred men.
Accompanied by the crunch of military boots on shattered rubble,
"Hoo—ah—"
Dai Longmei snapped back to consciousness from his daze.
"Li'er! Are you alright, Li'er!"
"Mmm..."
Lily managed to open her eyes, twitching her little ears.
"I'm fine, I just blacked out somehow..."
"Wuwu~ It's happening again~"
The nine-tailed fox trembled in terror at the scene before them.
"The illusion is back~"
"The battlefield illusion is back~"
"What's going on? Little fox, what illusion?"
The nine-tailed fox was clearly frightened by the vision,
Unable to speak for a moment.
"Advance! Advance! Charge toward the White Tower!"
"Retake the White Tower!"
"Move! Move!"
"Squad leader, keep your men in check~"
"All teams advance in echelon formation, watch out for enemy Javelin strikes!"
"Keep up! Don't fall behind! Keep up!"
The chaotic noise of the assault team flooded into Dai Longmei's ears.

The desolate avenue where the three had stood had completely changed its appearance.
Across the streets previously strewn with the wreckage of war,
Hundreds of tanks and armored vehicles were now rolling forward.
The 125-millimeter smoothbore cannons of the tanks pointed high,
Directly targeting the White Tower ahead.
The turrets on the infantry fighting vehicles swiveled vigilantly,
Their 30-millimeter chain guns scanning the windows of the surrounding buildings.
"Vanguard Company! Search the surrounding buildings, you are the vanguard of the entire regiment!"
"Understood!"
Soldiers clad in fragmented green camouflage and wearing round steel helmets kicked open the hatches of the fighting vehicles and surged out in a swarm.
Led by their squad leaders, they rapidly pushed into the surrounding high-rises.
Troops wielding black bullpup rifles stormed the buildings and nearby high ground
To ensure there were no ambush forces from the Yangji army.
"Old timer~"
A good-natured Long腾 soldier walked over to Dai Longmei and Lily.
"Why didn't you evacuate to Area C3 with the other civilians?"
The soldier's pupils were orange, unlike Dai Longmei's.
"Heh~ Old timer, you even raised two foxes, quite amusing~"
"Hey, how is there even a horse here? Big brother shooting a period drama?"
"Why does this tail look like..."
"Bang!"
Before he could finish his sentence, the sharp crack of a sniper rifle echoed from afar.
A .30-caliber bullet swooped in like a swift falcon,
Piercing straight through the soldier's Type-76 steel helmet.
Fresh, white brain matter sprayed instantly.
"Sniper!!!"
"Vehicle Number Five, eleven o'clock direction! Chain gun, ten rounds rapid fire! Open fire!"
Thirty-millimeter high-explosive grenades spewed from the barrel,
Racing directly toward the window at the eleven o'clock position.
The dense barrage tore the windows of the high-rise to shreds.
"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!"
"Whoosh—Boom!"
Dai Longmei struggled to his feet,
Only to hear the distinctive launch sound of a Javelin missile system.
Dozens of Javelin missiles rained down upon the flank of the convoy from the high-rises.
"Javelin missiles! Fall back! Fall back!"
The rear infantry fighting vehicles reversed,
Their treads crushing abandoned civilian cars into iron pancakes.
But the Javelin missiles, having locked on, would not abandon their prey.
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
The older model fighting vehicles, torn apart by shaped-charge warheads, erupted in violent explosions.
Their turrets were blown several meters away by the shockwave,
And the soldiers who hadn't managed to dismount instantly turned to charcoal.
Meanwhile, from the high-rises on both sides,
A torrential downpour of bullets soon descended.
5.56-millimeter machine gun rounds and rifle rounds rained down as if they were worthless.
"Damn Yangji bastards! They must have used helicopters flying out of that rift to occupy the high-rises!"
"Where is our army aviation?"
"The army aviation airfield in the city was flattened by their attack helicopters, gone! It's all fucking gone!"
"Vehicle Seven and Vehicle Eight are destroyed! Enemy attack from ten o'clock and one o'clock directions!"
"All infantry dismount! Second Battalion search the buildings! Fourth Battalion advance along the street with the column!"
Dai Longmei grabbed Lily and dragged the nine-tailed fox, struggling to hide behind a flower bed by the street.
"What the hell is this place again?"
Lily kicked the nine-tailed fox once more.
"You seem to know the trick behind this, speak up!"
"Wuwu~ I don't know either!"
The nine-tailed fox clutched its ears,
Cowering and trembling at Dai Longmei's feet.
"I only know that whenever the ghost soldiers are active every year, massive illusions appear in the West City."
"Some just show you scenes of Long腾's past."
"But this great battle—the battle that erupted right before the destruction of Long City—"
"Is a bizarre illusion that actually drags those who experience it right inside, wuwu~"
Hot shell casings ejected from the chain gun rolled to a stop at Dai Longmei's feet.
The heavy "tat-tat-tat" of the vehicle-mounted machine gun echoed in Lily's ears.
The sounds of glass, concrete, and various building materials being shredded by explosions
Caused the nine-tailed fox to cover its ears once again.
"No... Nine-tailed doesn't want to experience that kind of battle again... wuwu..."
Dai Longmei gritted his teeth and drew his horn bow from his spatial ring.
He stood up, nocked an arrow,
Only to see streaks of fire weaving across the street.
Dense rifle fire swept through the once-peaceful street like hailstones,
Tearing apart a little girl who had been holding a red balloon,
And disemboweling a small dog carrying a basket.

The roaring machine gun bellowed like a fire-breathing dragon.
The spray of bullets smashed through concrete walls,
Chewing up the soldiers taking cover behind them.
The muzzle of the tank cannon flashed with dazzling fire,
Fires and high-explosive shells hurtled out at extreme muzzle velocity,
Biting a giant hole in a wall painted with a dove of peace.
Broken dove wings fell to the ground,
Crushing the spine of a soldier running beneath them.
"Save me... save me..."
"My legs... my legs..."
"Medic! Medic!"
"No... I don't want to die... I have little ones waiting for me at home..."
"Suppressive fire! Son of a bitch!"
"Bring up the 40-flame rocket launcher!"
"There's an anti-material rifle across the street! Watch out!"
"Clack!"
Intestines, spleens, livers, and gallbladders spilled from severed torsos across the ground,
Resembling a pot of slaughtered offal simmering in a pool of blood.
The stench of gunpowder and fresh blood surged like a flooding tide
Into the nose of Dai Longmei as he held his drawn bow.
Despite the jade-colored qi rising around his body,
Despite the qi infused into his arrows.
At this very moment, Dai Longmei, standing right here, felt utterly helpless.
Having lived through fourteen years of warfare, this was the first time he felt entirely powerless in a war.
"The warfare of immortals... truly terrifying..."
"Heh heh~"
In a high-rise nearby,
A Yangji soldier wearing a Kevlar helmet smiled,
A sinister grin identical to the Star-men.
The 84-millimeter recoilless rifle on his shoulder was primed and ready.
In his riflescope, Dai Longmei appeared, frozen in place with his bow drawn.
"Still raising two foxes, cut ~ Easterners ~"
"Whoosh!"
The rocket propelled grenade trailed exhaust straight toward Dai Longmei and the others.
"Look out!"
A figure clad in dark red camouflage rushed out from behind him,
Knocking Dai Longmei and the others out of the way.
"Boom!"
Shrapnel from the grenade burst forth like a scattering of celestial flowers.
The flower bed where they had just stood was reduced to rubble.
"Ugh—damn it!"
Dai Longmei felt that the rocket carried a trace of ethereal qi—
Weak, but seemingly similar to the yellow qi he had once seen in the black sphere.
"You alright, old timer~"
The special operations soldier who had saved them patted the dust off his body,
Clapping Dai Longmei on the shoulder and saying,
"Heh~ Old timer, were you shooting a movie in the city before the fighting started? Wearing ancient costumes?"
The soldier casually brushed the dust off Dai Longmei's battered rhinoceros-hide armor.
"Wait, that's not right. If you're acting in a period drama, what are you doing right in the center of the city?"
"And you brought two foxes?"
Dai Longmei stood frozen.
He was certain of who he was looking at, yet filled with doubt.
"Captain, let's move!"
The deputy captain nearby rubbed his reddened cheek and shouted.
"Right, Lao Xue, I'm coming~"
Long腾 Special Operations Captain, Lieutenant Colonel Long Xiang, patted Dai Longmei's shoulder once more.
Griping the Type-86 bullpup rifle slung across his back,
He checked whether his 1.5x optical scope was damaged,
Then stood up.
"Head to Area C3, they're receiving civilians there."
Long Xiang crouched down, preparing to break into a light jog,
Before turning back to give one last piece of parting advice to the stunned Dai Longmei.
"Go to C3, leave this to us."
Dai Longmei watched his retreating figure,
Feeling only a sense of surreal wonder.
"Teacher..."
Long Xiang's appearance
Was remarkably similar to his teacher, the Jade God.