Chapter 652: Counterattack on All Fronts!

“This is a forward operating base located more than seventy kilometers southeast from Dragon City. It’s in Monster Mountain Range, at a spot shaped like fangs. It’s a research area that Agricultural University built, and it’s used to plant a batch of etherealized plants that have been genetically modified. No one expected it to become the place of the most tragic battlefield during the start of the battle. There were a total of 325 lecturers and researchers along with 198 Red Dragon Army soldiers defending the base. In the end, only 88 of them survived,” Nie Chenglong said with a dejected expression.

When he heard that his university’s forward operating base had faced such a tragedy, Meng Chao could not help but gasp. His blood vessels popped up, and spirit tattoos surrounded his arms before they reached his tightly clenched fists.

Nie Chenglong told Meng Chao that since Dragon City had been developing too quickly over the past two years and expanding its territory in all directions, it was easy for the monsters to surround the places that humans had built deep in the wild and places that bulged out from the city. They could also find gaps in the defense of two human forts that were tightly defended and attack the weak spots.

Hence, during the first twenty-four hours of the fight, humans had been in a defensive position.

However, Dragon City was different than it was in the past.

Ever since they gained full victory in the northern offense and obtained a sufficient amount of resources from Shattered Starlake up to Raging Waves, humans had fully upgraded their ammunition, equipment, and will to fight to the end.

Agricultural University’s forward operating base might have nearly been fully wiped out, but before falling, they had been like steel needles made of flesh. They had stuck to the ground firmly as they warded off the astonishing charges from the monster horde. They had destroyed monsters numbering dozens of times greater than their own and held back the monster horde beyond the precarious defense line so that the monsters could not attack the forward operating base’s fragile core.

That had lasted until the humans had finally finished mobilizing their forces and a large number of reinforcements had arrived in hundreds of armored airships.

The other defense lines had been the same.

Humans had been caught off guard, and they had suffered a major loss. Nonetheless, due to their firm will, they had used their blood and corpses to build iron walls, and they had fought the monsters in a devastating trench warfare that earned them the most precious twenty-four hours.

During those twenty-four hours, all of Dragon City’s manpower and resources had been mobilized. They had built a temporary railroad that stretched more than one hundred kilometers, and they had covered all the four cardinal directions. That had allowed them to transport a lot of war equipment, including railway guns. They could also investigate the truth of the power behind the monster hordes as well as the places the monsters had focused their attacks on so that they could build tight defenses. They could use countless crystal cannons and war fortresses to form death traps and monster grinders.

During the next twenty-four hours, the warriors and fighters, who had been fighting for a full day and night on the frontlines, could finally pull back. They had retreated to the rear in an orderly fashion to rest and reorganize themselves.

When the ruthless monster horde followed, the humans had intentionally led them into the recently built 3D nets with intersecting lines of fire. They were exposed to the optimal killing range of the railway guns as well.

When a few million fearsome monsters foolishly entered the death trap, the railway guns had been the first to fire.

The steel mammoths had muzzles that were more than 200mm wide. They were the crystallization of the killing art that humans had left behind, and these weapons marked a generation when they had first been born.

Every time they roared, they sounded like they had torn down the gates of hell and could harvest all the lives within a circular area of several kilometers.

Unfortunately, the number of enemies they killed was the equivalent of the number of bullets they had to spend.

In Meng Chao’s previous life, since the Red Radiance Jade mine exploded under Raging Waves and caused them to lose the northern offense, a few hundred thousand warriors had died, and Dragon City had also lost one of its most important crystal mines.

Therefore, more than one hundred railway guns had been reduced to huge but useless decorations because they required a lot of resources to be used, and they simply lacked ammunition. In fact, they had been damaged by the monster suicide squads that had snuck into Dragon City. Then, in an incredibly aggrieved manner, they had their short and ridiculous lives cut short.

In his previous life, whenever Dragon Citizens talked about this matter, they would feel indignant and sigh. They believed that one of Dragon City’s major mistakes in trying to conquer the Other World was that it had created so many railway guns.

If they had used the resources and fees for creating railway guns to create more light weapons or invest in the cultivation of the strong, perhaps they would have been able to stir up chain reactions that were beneficial for Earthlings.

The situation was vastly different in this life.

After their victory over the northern offense, the mega corporations had managed to mine more than one hundred crystals from under Raging Waves, including the Red Radiance Jades.

The Red Dragon Army had never faced major defeat and remained strong. So, they could also develop dozens of super ammunition that had their damage increase by several times compared to their counterparts.

For example, they installed longer, sharper, and more brutal “claws” on the steel mammoth known as the railway gun.

The fierce monster horde became the best target practice and sacrifices for the new railway gun.

With one blast, normal monsters would be reduced to dust, Nightmarish Beasts would be torn to pieces, and their limbs would fly everywhere, Hell Beasts would be swept away by the shockwaves. Even if their organs were not blown to bits and they did not die of pain, their bones and tendons would snap because of the blast, and they would be badly battered.

Even Apocalyptic Beasts had to retreat when they faced the humans’ gunfire.

It was not easy to utilize railway guns, because every time they were fired, they required a long cooldown time and an equally long time to insert a new shell. Even so, within the defense line that humans had finished setting up, the crystal cannons, railguns, and light machine guns, as well as heavy machine guns that formed the death trap, were like the scythe that the God of Death would never tire of swinging. The moment the monsters who had been knocked off kilter because of the blasts were drawn into the trap, they had a hard time trying to escape.

Their skins were tough, and they had spirit energy protecting them, thus allowing them to break through the defense line. Despite that, there were powerful fighters who had already gathered their strength and had their weapons in hand waiting for them!

In the end, during the second twenty-four hours, the number of human casualties had reduced by a large amount.

The brave sacrifice of approximately one thousand powerful fighters had come in exchange for a great reward that largely benefited humans.

Monster carcasses had piled up around the borders of Dragon City.

Their claws, bones, crystalized cores, and other materials alone were enough to make a few million citizens in Dragon City rich if they were all harvested.

Of course, Meng Chao and Lu Siya’s efforts in the lair were tightly connected to why the frontlines had been able to get such grand results.

Nie Chenglong believed that a tactical error did not lead to the monster horde’s frenzied attack on the steel defenses that the humans had already set up. Instead, they had an even more sinister strategy in play. The monster civilization hoped that with a crazed bombardment of attacks that lasted nonstop for twenty-four hours, humans would place all their attention and best forces on the borders of Dragon City. As such, the Vortex could create as much chaos as it liked in the lair.

If Meng Chao had not stopped the Vortex in time, perhaps the lair would have gone up in flames, and the fire, as well as smog, would have spread to the entire main city area. A few hundred thousand refugees would have surged out of the lair like a flood, destroying the main city area and the other carefully set up defense lines in the other regions.

Besides, plenty of monster puppets in human skin could have brought with them Deification Capsules and biochemical viruses as they rushed out with the refugees. Then, they could have added oil to the fire and turned the main city area into a burning hell.

If the warriors fighting on the frontlines had found out that their homes were on fire and Dragon City was engulfed in black smoke, they would have surely been unable to focus, and their morale would have plummeted.

Perhaps the monster horde would have really been able to break down the defense lines in one go by then.

If they analyzed things from that angle, they would not be going overboard if they gave high praise to Meng Chao and Lu Siya’s achievements.

“It’s really sinister!” Meng Chao felt cold sweat breaking out on his back.

The war situation in his previous life had seemed to progress the same way.

The fire in the lair had led to chaos in Dragon City, and the monster army had seized the chance to launch a powerful attack.

Even though they did not manage to take down Dragon City in one go, they had managed to make Dragon Citizens waste most of its fighting strength and the resources that they had only managed to gather after much effort.

Hence, the Monster War had lasted for a few more years. Humans had to practically squeeze out every drop of their blood to win, but even so, they had been badly injured from it. It was a pyrrhic victory, and their destruction during the apocalypse was set in stone.

Fortunately, Meng Chao had returned to the past.

Even though humans had spent a lot of ammunition and resources during the second twenty-four hours, all their usage could be covered by the mountains of monster carcasses around.

More importantly, humans had managed to gradually connect the defense lines from the four cardinal directions, and the defenses had grown stronger. Meanwhile, the main fighting forces, who had been waiting behind iron walls for the exhausted enemies to reach them, never suffered any injury. Instead, they had a great fighting spirit, and the belief that they needed to absolutely win the fight stirred up in them.

As for the monster civilization, perhaps they had low intelligence and were just ignorant, or perhaps they had been controlled by the mastermind through some mysterious method. That was why they just kept attacking.

However, after being blasted nonstop by artillery shells day and night, the instincts within their cells had eventually sent electrical pulses filled with fear into all their nerve bundles.

After attacking for forty-eight hours, the monster horde had finally shown fatigue and thinned out. Their attacks had also become sluggish.

In the face of fire, explosions, and torrential bullets, quite a number of monsters had turned tail and run. In fact, they had broken free of the mysterious control and started fighting against monsters of different species.

Hence, during the third twenty-four hours, humans had finally launched their counterattack and pushed five to ten kilometers forward in their respective battlefronts.

However, Monster Mountain Range was not a place suited for a large army or heavy firepower to run rampant due to its tall mountains, deep lakes, uneven paths, and thick forests.

Besides, the Apocalyptic Beasts had not all left their nests. They still relied on Monster Mountain Range to help them fight, chase, and engage in a stalemate against the Deity Realm superhumans.

Also, plenty of monsters carried a large number of viruses, bacteria, and spores in them. Even if they were torn to pieces, there was a certain chance that they would turn into the undead and deal secondary damage to humans.

That was why humans had been careful when they counterattacked.

They pushed forward today because they wanted to clean up the battlefield, harvest the monster materials that were left behind, and wipe out the undead.

“Even though the war situation is still worrying, overall, the scales of victory are gradually tilting toward our side. After three days and three nights worth of pitched battles, not only has the monster civilization been unable to gain an advantage over us, but they have also left behind millions of monster carcasses full of resources. Among them are a large number of Nightmarish Beast and Hell Beast carcasses. You can say that they didn’t manage to carry out their scheme and even suffered a major loss because of it!” Nie Chenglong grinned and said, “So, you and Siya can go ahead and rest. When you wake up, you might hear that we have already returned victorious!”

“Thank you, Vice Director.” Meng Chao stared at the smoke-filled, corpse-littered battlefield that looked like a furnace. He shook his head slowly and clearly said, “But I don’t need any rest. I need to go to the battlefield!”