Chapter 791.3: Inside Job

Equipment manufactured by human engineers pushed their natural advantage in brute strength to its absolute limit!

And that wasn’t all. As more and more players broke into the bunker, the Mutant Humans holding the underground defenses finally realized that the attack was far more than a simple air raid!

The New Alliance had deployed airborne troops! They weren’t planning to hit them once and leave. They intended to seize the whole place!

This battle would determine the survival of the Flame Cave Tribe!

“Stop them! At any cost!” Deep within the bunker, Boruto roared furiously. It tossed aside the half-eaten roasted human in its hand and straightened its four meter tall body that was clad in heavy armor.

It looked exaggeratedly monstrous, like some enormous beast.

Spurred on by its thunderous roar, the greenskins fighting on the front line threw themselves into the battle with renewed ferocity, charging forward while roaring.

“WAAAGH!”

“Fuck... Why do these greenskins just keep multiplying?!” A strength type player complained after chopping off a greenskin’s head with his axe.

Wiping the blood smeared across his helmet visor, the machine gunner carrying a light machine gun cursed under his breath. “How many fucking things are there?! I’m almost out of ammo!”

Another player panted heavily. “Our company... has killed at least a thousand of those freaks already! There’s absolutely no fucking way this place only has a single battalion! Shit, there might be an entire division!”

“No way... That’d be way too ridiculous!” Listening to the chatter over the communications channel, Peepo felt his scalp tingle. “Fuck you, Ample Time!”

Although he had no idea what any of this had to do with Ample Time, he cursed that bastard anyway.

Quickly switching communications channels, Peepo yelled, “This is the first unit! There are way more Mutant Humans on the front line than we expected! We need ammunition! Drop us some more!”

After a brief pause, a response came over the channel. “Resupply is en route. Estimated arrival in 10 minutes together with the Overlord gunship.”

Hearing that the Goblin Corps’ gunship was coming back, Peepo immediately brightened. He switched back to the command channel and shouted to his teammates, “Brothers, hold on! Our air support will be back online in 10 minutes!”

“WAAAARH!”

Hearing that reinforcements would arrive soon, everyone erupted into a roar of soaring morale, startling the Mutant Humans opposite them so badly that for a moment it was difficult to tell which side was actually made up of Mutant Humans...

The raging battle finally drew the attention of the Torch Church’s underground facility. Perhaps they felt that the Flame Cave Tribe still had some value, or perhaps they had considered the consequences if the New Alliance paratroopers managed to occupy the area. Whatever the reason, Torch’s commander finally lost patience and deployed the guard force stationed at the entrance to Shelter 20.

Those were the Holy Knights. Unlike the squads from the Judgment Panel responsible for special operations, the Torch Church’s various knightly orders were organized more like Alpha Mobile Task Forces. Compared with the squads of the Judgment Panel, they were far better suited for conventional combat.

Soldiers clad in heavy exoskeletons and even exoframes formed neat ranks and advanced through the winding, twisted fortifications toward the Mutant Human positions as reinforcements.

At that moment, Peepo still had no idea that danger was already closing in around him. Though even if he knew, it probably wouldn’t have mattered. After all, their unit had been assigned to conduct a diversionary attack in the first place. Even if they failed to fight all the way to the entrance of Shelter 20 and link up with the main assault force, it would merely be a bit of a shame.

At the same time that the battle in the abandoned city entered its most intense phase, the main force of the Burning Corps had already quietly deployed near the entrance to Shelter 20 aboard Viper transport aircrafts.

They stared at a building belonging to a pre-war pharmaceutical company whose exterior had been so badly damaged that it was impossible to tell which company the building had once belonged to, but the main structure itself remained intact.

The Torch Church had installed fixed surveillance cameras along the nearby streets. And that was not all. Drones patrolled the surrounding area as well, making the security extraordinarily tight!

The Torch Church probably knew that the New Alliance possessed large quantities of thermal-imaging equipment, so they had deliberately avoided deploying visible patrols. Most of their sentries were hidden in concealed positions. However, they clearly had not expected the heavily guarded fortress to have already begun collapsing from within.

The silent street was utterly still, with only the buzzing of drone propellers breaking the quiet. Then, one of the drones silently deviated from its predetermined patrol route. Without drawing attention, it flew past the display window of an abandoned shop and into the alley behind it, before gently descending beside the foot of a suit of an exoframe.

It had flown rather quickly, almost as though excited, and nearly crashed into a rusty garbage bin nearby.

“... Help me.” As Old White raised an index finger and tapped his helmet twice, an electronic voice mixed with static entered his ears.

Hearing the pleading, Old White answered concisely, “That’s what we’re here for. Now take us inside.”

The drone slowly rose into the air, bobbing up and down as though nodding. The voice returned. “The surveillance system has been disabled. Only a single Punishment Squad remains inside the building. There are 27 people in total... Please follow me. I’ll take you inside.”

Old White glanced behind him, raised his right hand into a fist, and then swung it forward cleanly.

100 Type 6 Heavy exoskeletons and 20 Ethereal exoframes silently emerged from the shadows of the ruins. The murderous-looking armors gleamed coldly beneath the night sky, along with row after row of pitch-black gun barrels.

Although only a single company stood there, in terms of sheer combat power, those battle-hardened veterans were confident they would not lose to any regimental combat unit in their own army.

That was precisely why they were not remotely worried that it might be a trap. Even if it was, so what? They would simply flatten the place!

At that very moment, Hunter, who was leading his squad stationed inside the abandoned building, remained completely unaware of the threat right outside. He had no idea that both the external surveillance system and the patrolling drones had already been compromised by the mole inside the shelter.

The night wind was unusually restless, and as it blew across his neck, he felt a faint chill. His thoughts were still lingering on what the Chosen One had told him earlier.

Heaven in Ocean Edge Province is beyond saving, but that doesn’t mean we’ve lost... So does that mean... we’ve been abandoned?

It was difficult to interpret those words as meaning they still had other trump cards left to play. If they truly had any, they wouldn’t have waited until after the New Alliance landed on the Death Coast to use them.

Thinking of it, a bitter smile appeared on Hunter’s face. Although he knew the Pathfinders intended to leave, he did not feel betrayed. More than anything, he simply felt helpless. The poisonous legacy left behind by the Post-War Reconstruction Committee ran too deep. Faced with the encirclement and suppression of the old powers, they stood alone and without support. They had never possessed the slightest chance of victory.

Perhaps the descent of the Kingdom of Heaven had indeed been too hasty.

If only we had prepared more thoroughly...

For instance, if they had waited until the Army, the Academy, and the Enterprise were embroiled in a war against one another, or until those factions had been drawn into some even greater crisis...

At that moment, footsteps sounded behind him. Hunter’s heart jolted. He spun around sharply and saw a suit of exoframe standing there.

It was a pre-war model and if he remembered correctly, it was called a Dragon Cavalry!

But whatever its name was hardly mattered. The dude clearly wasn’t one of theirs!

Without any time to wonder how the exoframe had appeared here, Hunter immediately pulled the Gauss rifle from his back, disengaged the safety, and prepared for battle.

However, the man opposite him behaved as though he had not even noticed, or perhaps he had noticed and simply did not care. He merely took out an utterly unremarkable-looking axe.

The thing looked almost like a firefighter’s axe.

The contempt in his opponent’s attitude made Hunter feel faintly humiliated. Even so, he did not allow himself to become enraged. Instead, he stared at the man before him, carefully searching for a weakness in the suit.

“A Punishment Squad, huh... I heard the rookies in our corps had a pretty hard time because of you.” Looking at the man before him, who was likewise clad in exoframe and standing as though facing a mortal enemy, Old White laughed heartily. “How about the two of us spar a little?”

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