Chapter 41: Chapter 41, Encircle the Point to Reinforce?
The appearance of the Pus Spewer posed a rather tricky problem for Yan Fangxu.
The pus that spewed from these monsters would land on the defensive position and create a pool of pus, corroding the ground with a hissing noise.
No one could stand on that ground anymore.
If one was unlucky enough to get sprayed, the spattered pus that hit individual armor was okay, since it wouldn’t eat through; however, if it landed on an arm or leg, it would quickly penetrate the clothing and cause extensive corrosive burns, rapidly incapacitating the soldier.
The unluckiest were those who got a full-body spray and died screaming.
What kind of biochemical artillery was this?
If they let these monsters spray at will, chances were they might be wiped out altogether.
Fortunately, there were not many Pus Spewers to begin with, and secondly, their spraying distance was very short at only fifty meters, not nearly as far-reaching as real artillery.
Within a fifty-meter range, even if there were lots of other pus monsters covering them, they were still easily hit.
After witnessing the threat brought by the Pus Spewers, the soldiers would prioritize their fire on these monsters.
The 3rd Battalion, though a newly formed unit, was the first to be equipped with G9 Gun Family weapons produced by the camp. The firearms, powerful and stable, were the soldiers’ best companions. Especially the G9 machine gun version, with greater power, faster rate of fire, larger magazine capacity, and more sustained firepower. Against these monsters, they were like lawnmowers.
Bullets were poured out like water, and the monsters standing in front of the Pus Spewers were mowed down in swathes, their bodies even shot to pieces. Then the bullets would shred the Pus Spewers as well.
At a certain cost, they repelled the monster attack once more.
The surroundings of the forest became eerily quiet.
After two rounds of assaults, the monsters had left behind at least a thousand corpses.
Before this, Yan Fangxu had never discovered such a large-scale congregation of monsters in this dense forest.
The event was unusual in itself, but what happened next gave him a strong sense of a sinister plot.
It seemed that the monsters also realized that maintaining their previous fierce offensive was pointless and merely led to needless casualties. They stopped their large-scale attacks, but didn’t leave altogether.
The soldiers, including Yan Fangxu, could see shadows moving about deep within the forest from their current position. The monsters hadn’t departed; instead, they were hiding behind the trees in the forest, and even from a distance, one could feel their malicious intent.
The soldiers, Yan Fangxu among them, tried firing into the depths of the dense forest.
The effect was poor.
The area they occupied was originally a monster’s hatching nest; to clear the nest, they cut down and burned many trees that were parasitized by the hatching eggs, resulting in a small clearing. When the monsters attacked, they had to approach within a hundred meters of the soldiers’ defensive positions, a distance with no cover.
However, beyond a hundred meters out in the forest, the power of the bullets diminished significantly.
These soldiers, indeed, had become qualified warriors after brief training. But even qualified warriors aren’t always sharpshooters. At a hundred-meter distance, with the enemy hidden in the dimly lit forest and largely obscured by trees, hitting them was indeed very tricky.
Yan Fangxu, with his superb military skills and the powerful performance of his electromagnetic rifle, could ensure a hit with every shot, immediately taking out any target he saw. But after firing two shots and killing two suspected Pus Spewers, he stopped shooting.
He didn’t just stop firing himself, he also ordered his men to cease fire.
He had now realized a problem: the enemy numbers were too large, and they might run out of bullets without being able to kill all of the monsters.
Ammunition was limited.
Originally thinking that they were just entering the forest to carry out the task of destroying the hatching nest, not going to war, they hadn’t brought too much ammo reserve.
Plus, even if they were actually going to war, the ammunition reserves would still need to be delivered by the logistics team. In field combat, how much could they carry on them?
Despite being cautious, when Yan Fangxu led his team out on a mission, he had commandeered a buffalo flatbed wagon, pulling a cart full of food and ammunition supplies.
But even that is not unlimited.
Holding out would only result in exhaustion of ammunition and supplies.
He led an attempt to break through, but it ended in failure.
Once the troops entered the dense forest, their firepower advantage was significantly reduced, and the threats they faced increased.
Not only were the “bioweapon soldiers” harder to eliminate and more likely to cause casualties among the warriors, but even the ordinary Pus Spewers became more threatening. After all, there was no telling which tree would suddenly produce such a monster.
And a bigger problem was that no one knew how many monsters were hiding in the dense woods around them. If they insisted on breaking through, the casualties would be significant.
After an initial attempt and realizing the difficulty, Yan Fangxu ordered the troops to retreat before actual casualties occurred. They continued to hold their ground and sought reinforcements from headquarters.
Soon, he received a reassuring reply.
“Hold your position, hang in there, the governor will lead the 2nd Infantry Battalion and the Land Assault Team to rescue you.”
Receiving such a response indeed brought relief.
The governor would not abandon them.
But as more time passed, Yan Fangxu’s sense of unease gradually magnified.
He sensed intelligence in the behavior of these monsters.
The first two attacks were quite mindless, akin to the style of these monsters. They would blindly charge upon encountering other species, displaying a complete disregard for death.
But now, utilizing the terrain of the dense forest to encircle them without attacking was by no means a decision a mindless creature would make.
Either intelligence had emerged among these monsters, or someone was manipulating their actions.
Yan Fangxu was more inclined to believe the latter.
So why would these monsters choose to surround without attacking?
To starve them out?
Clearly implausible.
Then their goal…
Did they anticipate reinforcements?
Was this an ambush—a conspiracy to attack the rescue forces?
Were they after the governor?
A series of thoughts flooded his mind, throwing Yan Fangxu’s thoughts into chaos.
The path of the rescue would mostly pass through dense forest terrain. If the governor’s forces were attacked by a large group of monsters while marching, the outcome would be unthinkable!
He immediately activated the communication device again.
This time, he successfully contacted Gu Hang and reported his suspicions to the governor.
But after hearing his report, Gu Hang simply said,
“Don’t worry, I have a plan. Take your time.”