Chapter 507 Scorched Earth
This is a wasteland of ashes. The endless desolate red soil and sand beneath the crimson background make the whole land seem even more eerie, as if only the color of blood remains between heaven and earth.
The hurricane roared across the land, carrying crimson frost, cutting through scorched earth, past burning and torn trains, half-buried armored vehicles, and disintegrated warships. Corpses littered the ground, and the stench of gunpowder and blood was nauseating. Frost scraped against the frozen human corpses, making eerie whistling sounds, and tiny scarlet worms emerged from the cracks in the broken power armor and quickly burrowed into the sand.
Click~
The charred train carriages lay askew on the crumbling track foundation. A mutated, rotting foot crushed a bloodstained Phoenix Society badge into the ashes and ran away with a low growl. In the mist, three scythe-shaped skeletal limbs burst through the flesh and danced wildly in the gale.
The horizon was boiling. Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of crimson zombies, like a vast army from hell, roamed through the blood mist and strode forward. On the ground, there were all sorts of bizarre and unpredictable corpse worms and crimson centipedes, densely packed together.
Above the crimson sky, hundreds of translucent tentacles, as thick as oil pipelines, hung from the clouds. Their chrysanthemum-shaped suction cups suddenly split open, sweeping across the earth and stirring up waves of sand. With each swirling motion, countless beams of energy flickered and resounded across the vast land ahead in the crimson mist.
This is the Colorado Canyon region of Arizona, North America. From the Hemlock Basin in the west to the Black Rock Plains hundreds of kilometers away, the ground is trembling. The deafening storm of war extends to the Red Rock Rift Valley dozens of kilometers to the south, and the Hemlock Basin on the east wing has been turned into a purgatory furnace.
Amidst the thick blood mist, a winding apocalyptic train slowly moves forward amidst the crimson tide. The blood mist obscures the view in the distance, making the train appear like a giant steel dragon in the fog, with no end in sight.
No one knows how long the battle line is. Hundreds of battlefields, large and small, are converging in all directions within this region. Fire is being fired from every direction, and every battlefield is experiencing a retreat!
As the crimson horde of zombies charged closer, the dense artillery fire gradually became deafening, and the sky was almost torn apart by the barrage of fire, just like the Battle of Kursk in the crimson!
Located 140 kilometers east of the Colorado Red Rock Rift Valley in the Hemlock Basin region, artillery fire extends from the Grand Canyon into a black valley filled with fossilized black trees. This area was once an extension of Arizona's Petrified Forest National Park, and now these black, dead trees make the place look like a hellish wasteland.
On the winding railway tracks, a specially modified three-story intercontinental train, like a mobile city on the tracks, is filled with dense arrays of firepower, including long guns, short cannons, and energy weapons. Like a long, thorny serpent in crimson light, it slowly glides along the tracks whose foundations have crumbled. Some carriages are engulfed in flames. Monsters fly in from the crimson fog, breaking through the defenses amidst a hail of bullets, biting and killing a group of survivors from the broken carriages, eliciting screams of agony. Then, one grabs a person and tries to fly away, but is blasted apart by the resisting fire and falls to the ground. A large number of drones arrive to provide support, and the burning flames illuminate the graffiti on the armored carriages.
The Utopia, a doomsday train that travels across Eurasia!
The flames of war stretched onward, the train's end completely obscured by the intense crimson light. Flocks of warships flew low overhead, guarding the train's defensive line, while fighter jets roared through the storm clouds. Behind them, on the plains, a line of thousands of heavy tanks and armored vehicles held off the endless horde of corpses emerging from the crimson light, their mighty advance resembling two tsunami waves colliding, exploding with smoke and fire.
Beep beep beep!
Inside a large mobile base vehicle, the command center of the Second Intercontinental Force was filled with a tense atmosphere. Battle information was being frantically transmitted from the reconnaissance units' information consoles, and alarms were constantly sounding.
One of the officers, dressed in a general's uniform and overcoat, had gray hair and a somewhat weathered face, but he was nonetheless sharp-witted as he stared intently at the battle situation on the combat screen.
"Report!" An official at the information desk turned around.
"Frontline 4 and 5 report a strong crimson wave, which is concentrated in the H direction of Blackrock Plains."
The old man, named Luo Shaokai, was the Chief of Staff of the Second Intercontinental Force. He looked at the information station in another direction and asked, "What about the east?"
"Report! The Dragon Kun Fleet on the east side is running out of firepower and requests ground support!"
General Luo's eyes sharpened, and he immediately issued the order:
"Notify the 2nd and 3rd Battalions to move towards the left flank, making sure no gaps are left. The 4th, 6th, and 7th Battalions and the two mech companies to speed up. The 13th Iron Guard Brigade must retreat through that pass. They must capture the Hemlock Basin 2713 rock position within 20 minutes. Also, have the Firestone Fleet increase its altitude and suppress the AF area..."
Rumble!
Dozens of miles away on the Blackstone Plain, thousands of apocalyptic vehicles sped along, kicking up clouds of dust as they followed the slowly moving trains, engaging in guerrilla warfare. On the outer perimeter were two mech battalions and a drone corps from the 22nd Iron Guard Brigade, responsible for assault and defense. Hundreds of Vulcan mechs formed a long line like an iron wall amidst the smoke and fire, with Vulcan cannons and flamethrowers constantly spewing destructive flames at the crimson horde of monsters. Behind them, countless soldiers in power armor used various tanks and mechs as cover to fire at the attack line.
"Battalion Commander, we've been ordered to advance and provide cover for the 95th train depot, advancing at least 12 kilometers!"
"I see."
On a battlefield beside the moving train, Leng Shaoxian, clad in reinforced Iron Hunter power armor, stomped a scarlet worm to death. A barrage of fire from his Vulcan Gatling gun swept towards a bizarre flying monster in the sky. As flames sprayed, a dark shadow rapidly enlarged within the scarlet mist before precisely crashing down in front of him. The monster attempted to open its maw and extend parasitic tentacles to attack, but Leng Shaoxian casually tossed a fragmentation grenade into its gaping maw. The next instant, boom! The monster's head shattered into a cloud of blood mist.
"Listen up, everyone! Don't underestimate those crimson worms that burrow into the power core. Crush them immediately. These things can disrupt the power armor's energy system within seconds. Nobody can afford to be careless!"
"Yes, Battalion Commander!"
With a whoosh, as soon as he finished speaking, hundreds of fully armed power armor warriors behind him marched forward with firm steps.
Leng Shaoxian glanced at the dead flying monster on the ground. Just then, his dark energy detection radar suddenly made a loud bang. He immediately looked up at the sky, and the Gatling gun in his hand immediately started spinning.
"Watch out, there's someone..."
Before the words had even finished, a bizarre, gigantic shadow with four wings suddenly tore through the sky from the clouds hundreds of meters above the ground. It rapidly magnified in everyone's eyes, reaching a size of several dozen meters. In an instant, countless gunfire burst forth towards the black shadow. The next moment, a hurricane swept away the blood mist, and a twisted monster with a pure black body, resembling tar, charged straight down. Its bio-force field, shimmering with a ghostly green, blocked the dense metal storm and overturned a heavy truck carrying an anti-aircraft gun.
boom!
The explosions sent more than a dozen people flying, and a heavy truck was ripped apart, crashing into a slowly moving railcar. The side armor plating of that car was immediately torn off, causing the train cars to tip over. Sparks flew from the rails and wheels, and the truck, stuck at an angle in the ground, made a creaking, metallic sound.
"Class A Crimson Bodies, load heavy artillery!"
As Leng Shaoxian shouted, he sprinted towards the train at high speed. The thrusters on his legs ignited, and he rammed the truck with his shoulder, knocking it off its tracks. At the same time, the black asphalt monster, with its four wings braving the dense artillery fire of its subordinates, its bio-field rapidly shattering and being torn apart, still frantically climbed towards him. It opened its mouth and spat out a broken red laser beam, slicing open one side of the roof of the three train cars, along with the cannon barrels above.
"Damn it!" Leng Shaoxian ducked to avoid it, but when he turned around, he couldn't help but curse angrily with red eyes: "Zhang Zijian, Wang Lin, where the hell are you?!"
"They're here!!"
boom!
In the line of fire, two 6-meter-tall Guardian-X Assault Types rapidly advanced, their anode particle cannons on their left arms emitting a high-temperature howl. Instantly, the two anode cannons exploded, blasting the four-winged monster, which was about to fire its second shot, into six pieces, head and tail. Even the ground was scorched and burned by the high-temperature ionization impact.
"Quickly, move the carriages and prepare to haul them away!"
In the adjacent joint train, inside a carriage with its roof armor severed, Zhou Hongqu, the captain of the Red Rose team, decisively ordered her men to begin evacuation: "Everyone move forward! Li Long, disconnect the dark energy potential device here!"
Knock knock knock!
The artillery barrage, stretching for tens of kilometers, felt like thunderous roars. Outside, the troops surged forward, their heads disappearing into the crimson mist. Zhou Hongqu watched the dense ranks of the Iron Guard Brigade soldiers advance on foot. The grotesque, flying monster's remains, still emanating a chilling blood mist, continued to shout:
"Take good care of the children, only take supplies, weapons and ammunition, don't worry about anything else, and don't hinder the march!"
Beep beep beep!
Suddenly, alarms blared throughout the Iron Guard Brigade outside. Zhou Hongqu and her teammates immediately saw that the troops outside were firing into the sky, and they instantly realized something was wrong.
"careful!!"
Ugh!
Like a typhoon, a large patch of blood mist swept across the gloomy sky, and dozens of the previously seen black, four-winged, scarlet creatures blocked out the faint light and roared in with terrifying force.
Seeing this, Zhou Hongqu felt a chill run down her spine. She looked at her teammates, who were frozen in shock, and instinctively shouted.
"Run!"
Faced with the overwhelming aerial attacks, the people on the train had nowhere to retreat, not to mention that these monsters possessed laser beams that could even cut through armor.
Suddenly, at that moment, a dazzling white, fiery sword swept across the battlefield from thousands of meters away like a laser beam. A piercing sonic boom erupted in the air, followed by a burst of brilliant light and a wave of intense heat that swept across the battlefield and rushed straight in from the train's cut. The intense heat instantly melted the frost on the battlefield and even dispersed the stench of the battlefield.
The group of A-level crimson bodies that swooped down from the sky transformed into a charred mountain of corpses and a rain of wings, crashing down into the Iron Guard Brigade's position below, raising a cloud of sand and gravel.
"They're from the Infinite Alliance!"
Gunfire abruptly ceased. Leng Shaoxian looked up and saw a man clad in nano-powered armor standing in mid-air amidst the smoke and clouds above. A golden bracelet floated on his right hand, and a massive, blazing white flame wheel spun rapidly behind him, making him appear like a god descending to earth.
rub!
Before the scorching waves had subsided, another bolt of azure lightning in the sky created a sonic boom, piercing a huge hole in the fog. After the sonic boom, a girl with a high ponytail and a gun blade accelerated rapidly using the power armor's propulsion system and dark energy burst, leaving only a blur. After she appeared, a group of severed crimson monsters fell from the clouds with a buzzing sound.
Lu Xingchen looked at the figure. Xiao Qing gripped her gun blade tightly and exchanged a cold glance with Lu Xingchen in mid-air. The two then turned around and rushed off to other battlefields without stopping for a moment, bursting into a violent air explosion.
The southern Red Stone Rift Valley is the frontmost area of the railcar, where a hellish meat grinder battle is taking place.
The 22nd Iron Guard Brigade, with 19,000 troops, deployed its forces in four directions, while at the same time, a resistance line of up to 100,000 survivors and other reinforcements was also established here.
Buzzing!!
A convoy of thousands of modified armored vehicles kicked up a crimson dust storm, frantically weaving through several lines of the Iron Guard Brigade. At the forefront, atop a monster truck, Lei Zhen, holding a wired communicator, popped half his body off the roof, cursing and shouting...
"It's been six hours already, is this never going to end? Jiang Yun, my car's almost out of gas and battery, where are you?!"
Lei Zhen's Common Alliance originally followed the Dawn Center across the ocean to retreat south. After the railcar ran into trouble during the Colorado campaign, he directly led his nearly 30,000-strong combat force to join the rescue and support efforts. Meanwhile, the remaining tens of thousands of civilians carried supplies and continued to advance with the main force. Now, including the Common Alliance, more than 30 support convoys with a total of more than 100,000 people are all trapped in this desolate land.
Buzz!
Amidst the intense artillery fire, another convoy of vehicles surged forth from the crimson darkness.
"Team Leader Lei, Team Leader Jiang is on his way from the direction of Shigu Mountain, about 5 minutes away from us."
The speaker was He Linqiu from the Burning Phoenix team. As a member of the Infinite Alliance, her team naturally followed Jiang Yun all the way to provide support.
"5 minutes?"
Lei Zhen sat back in the passenger seat and looked at the several small computer screens in front of him. He pressed a button, and the screen displayed the surveillance footage of the battlefield behind the lines. Thunderclouds rolled in the sky, and a strange tide surged into the valley like a tsunami. The surging crimson zombies and endless array of insectoid creatures were terrifying to behold.
"Captain, this is bad! There's a predator, and more than one. Xu Jin has lost contact with six or seven vehicles."
"Damn it!" Lei Zhen cursed angrily, immediately grabbing the communicator: "Don't be afraid of running over the wheels, the entire convoy is moving closer, with the heavy armored vehicles outside. If the superpowered team sees any hunting targets, just give me a heads-up. Wang Feng, Liu Fujun, Wang Shuang... aren't you guys all experts with over 20,000 crystal evolution points? Keep a close eye on them, and the support will be here soon!"
"Boss, the hunting creatures might be Super A-grade. If several of them attack at the same time, it'll be hard to stop them. These things specialize in ambushes!" the driver said nervously.
"I know."
Lei Zhen glanced around and suddenly saw a giant storm in the rearview mirror. The air pressure dropped sharply, the hurricane was howling, and it stirred up the crimson blood mist in the sky, quickly forming several giant tornadoes on the plain, like an apocalyptic scene.
"Holy crap, boss, look!"
"What's there to be afraid of!" Lei Zhen suddenly mustered his courage upon seeing this scene: "Tornado, Jiang Yun has finally arrived!"
(End of this chapter)
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