Chapter 174: Chapter 141, Crumbles Upon Touch
The current state of Rubbish Town, and the many emotional entanglements that had just unfolded, were unknown to Gu Hang.
The latest news he received still came from Dennison Henry.
According to the intelligence, Jason Swan, Rubbish Town’s most important agent, should have confirmed that he would try his best to lead the entire town to submission.
There were indeed resistance forces within the town, but they would enforce martial law, locking up those dissenters within Rubbish Town until he arrived to take over.
This should be going smoothly, right?
Yet, when he led his troops to the outskirts of Rubbish Town, they encountered an adventure group of over a thousand people leaving.
They looked like an advance party.
At first, there was no exchange of fire, just a standoff from a fair distance apart.
At this moment, Gu Hang’s keen judgment told him that something might have gone wrong inside Rubbish Town.
When the frontline troops came to ask what should be done, he pondered for a moment before issuing an order, “Convey my commands to those adventurers: Rubbish Town is the territory of the Alliance, and as commanded by me, should now be in a state of complete martial law. Order everyone to immediately halt their advance and retreat back to Rubbish Town to rigidly enforce martial law.”
Soon, Gu Hang’s order was relayed to the adventurers in front by the soldiers using loudspeakers.
This statement left the adventurers feeling very hesitant.
Just retreat because they say so? What about the ruckus they had stirred up in front? A military parade?
But if they didn’t retreat, were they supposed to fight a battle with the army of the governor on the other side?
The military forces that had come this time lacked the intimidating armored troops. At least the ones that appeared before them were only ordinary infantry.
However, seeing the enemy’s uniform black and gray military outfits, combat gear, and the firearms that seemed much more reliable than the iron pipe rifles in their hands, not to mention the far greater number of rocket launchers and machine guns…
In short, the enemy was much more elite.
But the warriors of the 2nd Infantry Division didn’t care what those adventurers thought.
The troops confronting the adventurers in the very front included three companies. Other troops were still marching from behind, while some spread out to the sides.
The governor had to enforce martial law, and he wouldn’t just do it through the megaphones; he needed sufficient power to ensure that those who disobeyed orders would have a miserable end.
In fact, the entire 2nd Division was next ordered to seal off the town, making sure to fully blockade the area outside the town entrance.
And as for the three companies tasked with the most direct confrontation, they busily got to work in front of the adventurers.
Quite a few of them took out their entrenching tools and began digging foxholes on the spot.
The expansive area outside Rubbish Town was an unobstructed wasteland. With relatively close proximity to each other, the officers of the three companies were quite tense. Should there be any accidental discharge, they definitely needed some form of cover.
Given the urgent situation, digging trenches on the spot was clearly impractical, but any hole would be more useful than being out in the open. Even if shallow, as long as it allowed someone to lie down and reduce their exposed area, it would suffice.
Their actions left the adventurers on the other side even more at a loss.
Dare not fight, yet reluctant to retreat.
More crucially, there was not even one person among them who could make a decisive call.
Those group leaders and team leaders, unsure of what to do, heard Mark Ferry’s orders from the radio, commanding them to perform an armed breakout.
But…
The adventure group leaders didn’t immediately start to act.
“Who are you? Should I just listen to you? Where is my boss, Nasr?”
“You, a random nobody, are telling me to lead my people to clash with the governor’s obviously elite army; am I an idiot to heed your orders? Aren’t our lives valuable?”
Most people, in this state, still possessed some sanity.
But, well… with the crowd big enough, anything could happen.
Moreover, this group of adventurers was far from being as disciplined as regular armies.
Whether someone was truly a fool, unconsciously following whatever orders came through the radio, or perhaps someone was simply too tense in the current situation and accidentally fired…
In any case, in the wilderness, a sporadic three shots rang out from among the adventurers.
The soldiers of the governor stationed a couple of hundred meters away, however, were unharmed. The adventurers’ widely used decrepit iron pipe rifles had a maximum theoretical range that could hit beyond five hundred meters; in reality, past one hundred meters, they were hardly accurate, even for a marksman.
These three bullets did the same, merely kicking up three patches of dust in front of the digging infantry companies.
But this was a matter of principle.
When the enemy used lethal arms to launch a direct attack, a counterattack became an almost inevitable option.
Nearly four hundred soldiers from the three infantry companies began retaliation at the same time.
The most furious among them were over thirty squad machine guns.
While digging and constructing temporary simple positions, the priority task of the 2nd Division’s warriors was to get various company-level firepower deployed first. Mortars, rocket launchers, squad machine guns… all included.
And the ones that got angry first were these thirty-odd squad machine guns.
With high firing rate, large ammunition capacity, and the firepower that burst forth in an instant, combined with the shooting from the other three hundred rifles, the force inflicted significant casualties upon the adventurers right across from them in no time.