However, there are always some "stupid" and stubborn people who refuse to give in.

In the heart of the "Hundred Islands Alliance," on the largest island, "Lizard Island," the alliance's leader, Chieftain "Blackstone," gathered 100,000 of the most elite warriors, vowing to fight the "Northern Demons" to the bitter end.

"We are the children of the sea god! We would rather die standing than live kneeling!" Black Stone's roar echoed before the massive altar.

His response came from the Imperial Marines' most elite "Nightmare" mech division.

Thousands of humanoid mechs, each over ten meters tall and entirely black, descended like ghosts onto the coastline of "Giant Lizard Island" under the cover of night.

These "Nightmare" mechs are the pinnacle of Imperial technology. Equipped with optical camouflage, they blend seamlessly into their surroundings. Their power systems operate silently. Their weapons are deadly high-frequency vibrating blades and electromagnetic rifles capable of firing supersonic steel needles.

An unequal jungle hunt has begun.

The warriors of the Alliance, in their most familiar rainforest, laid countless traps: poison-coated bamboo spikes, tripwires disguised as vines, archers hidden in the treetops…

But all of this is child's play in the face of the Nightmare mech's multi-functional scanner.

"Beep! Pressure-triggered trap detected 20 centimeters underground at the 3 o'clock position ahead."

"Beep! Heartbeat signal detected in the tree canopy at 11 o'clock. Threat level: low."

Inside the mech's cockpit, a cold, synthesized voice constantly warned of danger. The Imperial soldiers, on the other hand, seemed to be playing a bloody video game.

They didn't even bother to hide.

A Nightmare mech swaggered into a trap. Sharp bamboo skewers shot out from the ground, but they couldn't even scratch the armor coating on the mech's feet.

"The target has been exposed."

The electromagnetic rifle on the mech's arm emitted a soft hissing sound. Several warriors hidden in the bushes were instantly reduced to a bloody mist.

The other mech, facing poison arrows shooting from all directions, simply raised its arm and unfolded a hexagonal energy shield. All the poison arrows turned to dust within half a meter of the mech.

Then, it pulled out the high-frequency vibrating blade from behind.

Buzz—

With a soft buzzing sound, the gleaming blade sliced ​​through the massive tree trunk, several meters thick, as easily as cutting butter. The warrior hidden behind the tree was cleaved in two, along with the tree itself.

massacre.

This was a complete, one-sided massacre.

The Alliance's 100,000 warriors, in their proud homeland, were relentlessly hunted, torn apart, and annihilated like prey by the Empire's mech forces.

Their courage, their martial arts skills, their sacrifices were meaningless in the face of an absolute technological gap.

Three days later, when the Night House mech division stormed into the central tribe of the Giant Lizard Island, Chief Blackstone, with his last three hundred personal guards, launched a desperate charge.

In response, he was met with a small-caliber plasma cannon mounted on the shoulder of the Nightmare mech.

A beam of blue-white light silently pierced the sky.

Blackstone and his personal guards, along with the altar made of giant stones beneath their feet, were instantly vaporized.

Not even a speck of ash remained.

After the fall of "Island of Giant Lizards," the entire "Hundred Islands Alliance" collapsed completely. All the remaining islands rushed to pledge their loyalty to the Empire.

Meanwhile, an even more brutal war broke out in the "Red River Kingdom".

King Nguyen Van Hung of the Red River Kingdom was a leader of great wisdom and resilience. He knew that confronting the imperial fleet head-on would be tantamount to throwing an egg against a rock.

When the imperial fleet was at the city gates, he made a surprising decision—to implement a scorched-earth policy and break up the entire force into smaller units.

He ordered the abandonment of all major cities and ports, and the dispersal of tens of millions of civilians and millions of troops into the vast rainforests and mountains of the Red River Delta.

Relying on the extensive underground tunnel system, stretching thousands of kilometers and as dense as a spider web, dug by their ancestors, they prepared to wage a protracted, relentless guerrilla war against the empire.

"They want our land, so we'll give them empty cities!"

"They want our wealth, so we'll give them handfuls of scorched earth!"

"They want our lives, so let's see if their teeth are tough enough!"

Nguyen Van Hung's order received almost fanatical support from the entire kingdom.

When the Empire's ground forces marched into the capital of the "Red River Kingdom," "Ascending Dragon City," they found it to be an empty, desolate ghost town.

Colonel Zhao Kang, the commander of the Empire's vanguard, had now been promoted to Major General Zhao Kang. He stood in the deserted palace square, his brow furrowed.

"General, we've captured some elderly, weak, sick, and disabled people who couldn't evacuate in time. According to their confessions, Nguyen Van Hung led his main force and most of the civilians underground," an intelligence officer reported.

"Underground?" Zhao Kang sneered. "A bunch of lowly ground rats. Do they think they can escape the Empire's judgment by hiding in their burrows?"

"Relay my orders!"

"Order! 'Groundhog Hunting' team, move out immediately! Find all the entrances to these tunnels, one by one!"

"Order, engineering corps, transport our newly equipped 'Shockwave' bunker buster bombs and 'Inferno' fuel-air explosives to the front lines!"

A cruel glint flashed in Zhao Kang's eyes.

"Don't they like to burrow? Then I will turn them, along with their burrows, into vast, everlasting tombs!"

Operation "Groundhog Hunt" has begun.

Using high-precision sonar detectors and infrasound sensors, the Imperial soldiers quickly located the cleverly disguised tunnel entrances hidden in villages, rice paddies, and jungles.

However, the soldiers of the "Red River Kingdom" also displayed an astonishing fighting spirit.

They laid all sorts of insidious traps at the tunnel entrance: sharpened bamboo stakes, poisoned nails, pull-button grenades... causing considerable trouble for the Imperial Army.

Some Imperial soldiers, after entering the dark and narrow tunnels, were pierced by spears that stretched out from all directions, or were shot at close range by guerrillas hidden in the shadows with silenced weapons.

In the first three days, the Imperial Army's casualties actually exceeded the total casualties of the entire "Hundred Islands Alliance".

This thoroughly enraged Lin Feng, and also the imperial commanders at the front lines.

"A bunch of damned parasites!" Zhao Kang looked at the casualty report and slammed his fist on the control panel of the command vehicle.

"Since conventional clearing operations are too inefficient, let's activate Plan B!"

Plan B is a simple yet insidious three-step scheme.

Step 1: Watering.

Imperial engineers set up massive water pumps on the banks of the Red River, frantically pumping the murky water, mixed with large amounts of chemical agents, into the discovered tunnel entrances.

Countless guerrillas and civilians hiding in the tunnels drowned or suffocated from poison gas in despair. Some survivors were forced to escape through other exits, only to run into the guns of the Imperial Army who were already waiting outside.

Step Two: Shake.

For some mountain tunnels with complex geological structures where effective irrigation was impossible, the Imperial Army deployed "concussion" bunker-buster bombs.

Huge transport planes dropped bunker buster bombs, each weighing several tons, onto the marked mountain areas. After penetrating tens of meters underground, the bombs detonated their internal infrasound generators.

Buzz—

An infrasound wave, invisible to the naked eye yet capable of destroying the internal organs of any living being, suddenly erupted deep underground.

Inside the mountain, the "Red River" soldiers, who were resting in the tunnel, suddenly felt a violent tightness in their chests. Immediately afterward, blood gushed from their eyes, ears, nose, and mouth, and their internal organs were instantly turned into a bloody pulp.

From the outside, the mountain appears intact. But inside, it has become a graveyard of flesh and blood, filled with corpses.

Step 3: Burning.

For the most stubborn, granite-constructed tunnel networks, the Empire deployed their ultimate weapon—the Skyfire thermobaric bomb.

On the USS Divine Retribution, one after another, Ghost strategic bombers with wingspans exceeding 100 meters took off silently.

They flew over the Red River Delta, opened their bomb bays, and dropped huge, silvery-white bombs.

These bombs disintegrated a second time in the air, hundreds of meters above the ground, releasing a special aerosol composed of a mixture of high-energy fuel and nano-oxidants.

These aerosols quickly mixed with the air and seeped into every crevice of the tunnels and every corner of the bunker.

Seconds later, the bomb's fuse was activated.

boom!

There was no earth-shattering roar, only a muffled rumble, as if it came from the depths of hell.

Immediately afterwards, the entire sky was set ablaze.

A massive fireball, over two kilometers in diameter and reaching temperatures of three thousand degrees Celsius, suddenly rose over the delta plain, like an artificial sun.

Inside the fireball, all the oxygen was instantly consumed, creating an absolute vacuum.

The "Red River" soldiers hiding in the tunnels didn't even have time to scream before their lungs were instantly torn apart and exploded under the immense negative pressure. Their bodies were directly carbonized by the extremely high temperature.

The terror of thermobaric weapons lies not only in their extremely high temperature and pressure, but also in their ability to deliver the explosive force into any enclosed space, leaving no opening untouched.

The tunnels were no longer fortresses, but became the best ovens.

Under the combined attack of "flooding, shock, and burning," the tunnel warfare system that the "Red River Kingdom" was so proud of was completely destroyed.

Millions of soldiers and civilians were reduced to bones and charred remains beneath the very homes they depended on for survival.

When the Empire's ground forces set foot on this land again, they were no longer met with traps and sniper fire, but with scorched earth burned to a glassy state and a nauseating smell of burning that kept emanating from the tunnel entrances.

The resistance of the "Red River Kingdom" was completely crushed.

King Nguyen Van Hung and his last guards committed mass suicide in the underground imperial city of the capital.

The Southern Expedition ended with an overwhelming and bloody victory for the Empire, after incurring negligible costs.

What follows is a harvest season that is even longer and more brutal than the war itself.