บท 20: 20 chapters, all about geniuses
Four 'Walkers' were the first weapon Gu Hang could deploy to shatter the defenses of Valley Manor.
And the second weapon was he himself.
He had joined the battle in person.
Gu Hang sat in an armored vehicle, his eyes fixed on a bunker. There was a hole dug there and overlaid with heavy stone to construct the upper structure, leaving space for firing ports. Inside were mounted heavy machine guns, posing a significant threat to infantry.
Even the autocannons on the 'Walkers' struggled to shake the sturdy bunker.
The bunkers built by the mercenaries were three in number, forming their second line of defense.
Realizing that the simple stone walls couldn't hold any longer, a large number of mercenaries had already retreated. They planned to rely on these bunkers to continue their resistance.
Gu Hang closed his eyes; he could feel the vibrations of souls and the taste of blood. Within his psychic perception, the resisting mercenaries formed blurry shadows, detected through his Psychic Vision.
He locked onto the nearest bunker, and an unseen blade in his real field of vision slashed across the heads of two mercenaries inside, decapitating them.
In reality, the two mercenaries' bodies showed no outward signs of anomaly, but they fell backward rigidly, as if beheaded, their bodies twitching from nerve spasms.
Then, Gu Hang dealt with the machine gunners in the other two bunkers in the same manner.
He felt his spiritual consumption was manageable, at least it was less than what it took to deal with that mutant Green Skin prisoner.
The reason might be twofold: firstly, after being modified with drugs, the Green Skin's extremely robust body also resulted in an enhanced spirit strength. The energy used to sever one of its legs had been much greater than that needed to kill several mercenaries.
On the other hand, after his last upgrade, his spiritual attributes had increased slightly. This slight improvement meant that he could control 150% more spiritual energy than before the upgrade.
The value of one attribute point was enormous.
Killing these mercenaries, whose will was slightly stronger than that of ordinary people, was not too strenuous.
The simultaneous silence of the three bunkers' firepower caused a significant gap in the mercenaries' defensive line.
Under the cover of mortar fire and advancing armored vehicles' autocannons, the infantry seized this opportunity to charge forward at a fast pace.
Some mercenaries tried to re-enter the bunkers to restart the heavy machine guns, but those that tried were either torn apart by the armored vehicles' autocannons or accurately picked off by the elite Marine Corps. Those who actually made it inside were clearly visible to Gu Hang's Spiritual Vision, and with a 'Soul Severance,' decapitating the enemy was effortlessly done.
By this point, the morale of the mercenaries had completely collapsed.
They knew they couldn't escape. Leaving cover on flat terrain, they couldn't possibly outrun the pursuit of the armored vehicles on foot.
Not to mention the fearsome psychic.
A considerable number of mercenaries were laying down their arms and raising their hands to indicate surrender.
This marked the destruction of the second defensive line of Mantan River Valley Manor. The main forces of the mercenaries within the manor were almost completely annihilated.
...
Exactly how many people had surrendered, and how many had been eliminated, was not something they had time to tally up yet.
However, based on simple inquiries and confessions, the remaining enemies shouldn't have exceeded twenty, and they were all concentrated inside the central building.
This location wasn't far from the small river bay; it was the residence of the master's family. Not all of the twenty men were mercenaries, mostly they were Wohan's personal bodyguards.
Moreover, they had learned about the storage location for the supplies that had previously been looted—a few warehouses not too far from the main building.
They had just returned not long ago, and the goods had not been completely unloaded. Livestock still tied up, and wooden carts loaded with wares were all nearby.
Gu Hang had already dispatched Abandoned Cave Company's troops to sweep the warehouses. On one hand, to guard against any people that might still be inside, and on the other to inventory whether the goods were complete and exactly how many there were.
The remaining personnel then surrounded the last building that had not been conquered.
That building was built rather elegantly; the four-story western-style building had a substantial footprint. Whenever Wohan wasn't in Revival City, he would generally live here. Inside that house were his servants, housekeepers, and a series of others who served him.
As for the tillers of the entire manor's land—the serfs—they weren't allowed near this place. The serfs lived in a more out-of-the-way location, where there were some simple plank houses, holding roughly two hundred people in communal living.
That area had already been seized by the soldiers, and the unarmed serfs obediently stayed inside the houses, not daring to move.
At least twenty-or-so armed individuals were inside the main building.
The soldiers of Abandoned Cave Company had already tried to persuade them to surrender, but the soldier sent to negotiate was met only with bullets. Thankfully, the distance was somewhat far, so only two bullets hit his chest, which were stopped by the bulletproof inserts.
The young soldier, with pain in his chest, scurried back, cursing up a storm after his narrow escape.
The company commander Perbov went up and kicked the young lad a couple of times, "What's there to panic about? Could those two bullets have taken your life?"
The young soldier shrank his neck. He had dared to charge fiercely during the fight, and he wasn't afraid to go alone to negotiate up close, but he was scared of this company commander.
Logically, he really shouldn't have been. Commander Perbov was an old acquaintance, originally a local from Abandoned Cave Society, the head of an ore extraction team. When everyone was conscripted from their hometown, the leader had Perbov lead the team. After they were reorganized into the military, Perbov was also promoted to acting company commander, in charge of training.
A head of an ore extraction team, what did he know about military training or command?
Yet, during the days of training that followed, the commander miraculously acquired the skills and ability to lead and command troops. Even he found it incredibly strange, as if during those days of training, his memory, comprehension ability, and even including muscle memory were all enhanced dramatically.
He quickly became a competent officer. He knew how to train the soldiers, he knew that at times he couldn't be as lenient with everyone as before, and that the discipline and rigor essential to the military could not be lacking. But at the same time, he retained his understanding and care for everyone, because they all came from the same hometown, his kinsmen and brothers, whom he regarded as family from the bottom of his heart.
Under his training, the soldiers also, as if touching a superhuman trigger, acquired a range of skills befitting a qualified soldier. They went from initially not even knowing how to shoot to becoming proficient marksmen who could execute accurate tactical maneuvers, understand combat terms, know how to form teams, how to attack, how to retreat...
Throughout the whole process, Perbov felt it was magical but also natural. He could feel all those changes happening within himself—the process was just too fast.
Perhaps every one of these hundred or so people was naturally soldier material, all of them geniuses?
Of course, from the perspective of Yan Fangxu, an old soldier and experienced officer, this speed was downright horrifying. Perbov, when sharing these experiences with Yan Fangxu, had also heard such comments from him. Worried there might be an issue, he approached the governor, but only received this response:
"Don't overthink it; under normal circumstances, you're all geniuses."
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