Chapter 908: First Contact
Translator: Min Editor: Caron_
The cold wind ravaged the decaying walls and broken windows on the desolated streets. The apocalyptic snow was a dense fog that shrouded the entire city under its oppressive greyness.
This was Wu City.
During previous years at the same time, it absolutely wasn’t this cold, but this year, it was somewhat different.
On the streets, only zombies in twos and threes strolled mindlessly. Because their muscles and fat were all frozen, they stood in place like ice sculptures. It was unthinkable that they could still hunt living animals in the spring while frozen in this state.
No one bothered with the zombies. The X1 bacteria in the back of their necks couldn’t accumulate energy through photosynthesis. Even if they cut through the skulls of these zombies, there wouldn’t be a single crystal. Only mutant rats would desperately go bite the living dead. Their stomach was powerful enough to not worry about indigestion.
On the street, aside from the walking dead, there was only silence…
Leaning beside the observation hole in the tower, Hu Cheng clutched his rifle tightly, looking through the bulletproof glass of the hole, and carefully observing the empty icefield. The blowing, raging wind made him begin to wonder if his work served any purpose.
With such a large snowfall, would the people from the Northern Alliance Area really come?
The tower was built on the roof near the belfry, not far from the river, and it was made of wood for disguise. It looked only like a shabby shack. Behind the timber was a real concrete bunker which blocked the heat source and life signal, and it could withstand the direct fire of tanks.
It was almost impossible for enemies to discover this as an observation tower unless they were actually inside.
Hu Cheng yawned at the same repetitive scenery and set aside his rifle at the window.
At that moment, in the cold gusting wind, a dark figure gradually appeared.
Hu Cheng lifted his muzzle out of his reflex, but he soon put the gun down again. He took a few steps while rejoicing then lowered the ladder for the man who arrived.
The door clunked open. A middle-aged man with thick winter clothes, covered in ice shards, came in. His cheeks were glowing red while he carried an insulated lunchbox. He put the lunchbox on the table while ripping off his hat that almost stuck to his head. He cursed.
“…What the fu*k, next time don’t point that at me. If you misfire, you can just wait for those zombies with broken brains to bring you food.”
“Hey, part of the job?” Hu Cheng couldn’t wait to open the lid of the lunch box and set his eyes on the hot steamed pork and white rice. He couldn’t even wait to put down his gloves and started to gobble on the food.
“Fu*k the job? Do you really think that the barbarians in the northwest will make a fuss here? Do you think they ate too much?” Tossing the ammunition pack on the ground, Deng Wenjie eyed his partner and grabbed a chair. He took out a bottle of booze from his pocket, unscrewed the lid and carefully took a sip.
“Oh, if the barbarians could eat, then they wouldn’t come here…” Hu Cheng smelled the fragrance of the alcohol and his eyes were glued to the bottle. He rubbed his hands with a grin. “Ummm, brother, you see…”
“No,” Deng Wenjie waved his hand and stuffed the bottle back into his pocket. “You’re on patrol.”
“Whatever, aren’t you also on duty?”
“This is for work purposes.” Deng Wenjie stared menacingly and covered the bottle in his pocket. “Shall we change jobs? Do you want to go outside?”
“Whatever!”
Hu Cheng stuck up a middle finger at this stinky fellow and cursed shamelessly in his mind, but he eventually gave up trying to ask for a few shots.
He finished the lunch in front of him and used his sleeves to wipe his mouth full of grease. He then stood up and lifted the rifle against the table.
Standing next to the observation hole, Deng Wenjie looked in the direction of the ice with a frown.
“What are you looking at? Don’t you need to go and send supplies to the next post?” As he walked beside his comrade burping, Hu Cheng patted him on the shoulder.
“What’s that on the ice?” Deng Wenjie pointed to the Han River not far away, frowning.
“Ice?” Hu Cheng took out the binoculars from his pocket and stuck them against the window.
With one look, he immediately pressed Deng Wenjie’s head down.
“What the fu*k are you doing?”
With his head pressed, Deng Wenjie was about to swear, but he was greeted by his comrade’s widened eyes in shock.
“It’s the snowmobiles from the Northern Alliance Area! Those barbarians…they really came!”
On the ice, dozens of snowmobiles galloped and passed the NAC demarcation line in Wu City in just a few seconds.
The front ends of the snowmobiles had high-caliber heavy machine guns installed. The soldiers wearing polar camouflage teamed up as pairs on the snowmobiles to form the leading force. In the back, there were a lot of snow transportation vehicles in droves. These light armor vehicles were refitted with wide load-bearing wheels, which allowed them to move freely on the one-meter-thick ice surface.
As they were about to pass through the line of defense, a burst of fire broke out in a building on the shore.
The cylindrical projectile drew a trail of crushed snow in the air and slammed on the ice more than one meter thick.
“Boom—”
The surface of the ice shattered without suspense, and web-like cracks spread out instantly. The huge hole directly devoured the snowmobile, unable to break in time. However, NAC’s sudden attack didn’t cause these leading troops to panic. They maintained their momentum while spreading out, directly passing through the range of the electromagnetic pulse cannons.
Immediately following the formation of the snowmobiles, the transport fleet immediately slowed down, turning toward the streets on either side of the Han River. At the same time, the soldiers wearing polar camouflage jumped out of the vehicles and sprinted toward the street. Judging from their swift actions, this rapidly responding snow force was obviously equipped with strengthening armor like kinetic skeletons.
However, NAC’s soldiers weren’t rookies. As the enemy spread out, there were a series of wailing noises that appeared in the blizzard. The dense barrage covered the surface of the ice. Snowflakes and ice shards immediately shrouded the river surface. The impact of the explosion almost tore this layer of ice over a meter apart!
The intensive barrage obviously caught the people of the Northern Alliance Area off guard. These people who had escaped the shelling didn’t get a chance to catch their breath before the screaming rockets arrived.
The targets of the barrage were the streets on both sides of the Han River, which were the transporters and soldiers who landed ashore from the river.
Not far from the top of the building, Wang Zhaowu was overlooking the battle situation five kilometers away with his binoculars. He had a serious frown on his face.
Although the battle was one-sided, it was surprising that during this initial contact, the NAC with their artillery didn’t gain an advantage.
The second wave of soldiers deployed on the surface of the river blasted the ice with explosives and blocked the formation of the snowmobiles. The two sides underwent a fierce exchange of fire under the bridge across the river. The tracers almost wove a net in the air.
In half an hour, the leading troops were completely wiped out and the soldiers in the Northern Alliance Area began to withdraw.
Wang Zhaowu ordered them to stop chasing and consolidated the line of defense, ending the battle.
Putting down his binoculars, he wasn’t relaxed.
The size of this attack was only 500 people. Other than the dozens of snowmobiles, the heavy armors were nowhere to be seen at all. According to intelligence from the rear, his opponent was the First Legion of the Northern Alliance Area with a force of more than 10,000 people and a countless number of armored units.
The initial contact ended with the NAC victorious, but the real war had only just begun.
He had a hunch that this would become a gruesome and diffcult war.
