But by this stage, Baiqiao’s confidence had already started to waver.
Without even reaching the core of the underground base where the Green Skin Orcs were located, his troops had already seen three companies decimated, with one company entirely wiped out. Weapons like flathrower fuel and thermobaric explosives, which were effective in tunnel environnts, suffered significant losses.
Continuing the battle... Baiqiao already sensed that the outco was uncertain.
But this was a mission, and they had to grit their teeth and press on.
Upon advancing to 2.8 kiloters underground, the troops encountered structural defenses. The Green Skins used the existing egg chambers of the hive to transform into a three-layered circular fortress, with outer walls made of hardened mycelium and scrap tal.
The crossfire was set up clearly, and using human lives to pile through the narrow entrances seed impossible.
A tentative attack was undeniably repelled, and the frontline troops had to consider other ways to advance.
They first attempted to use rocket launchers to fire armor-piercing warheads, but the armor-piercing rockets were ineffective against the thick composite walls.
Based on the battlefield situation, Baiqiao approved the frontline troops’ request to use rock-drilling bombs.
But this wasn’t a simple task.
The troops temporarily withdrew, and the precious thermobaric bombs were utilized once again. After the explosion, once safe, the human troops returned to the battlefield.
A reconnaissance team sneaked up, initially progressing smoothly, but when they got close to the circular fortress, gunfire erupted, and the scouts were quickly wiped out.
However, it was this very situation that led the frontline commander to directly order the troops to launch a fierce attack.
Because he could sense that the firepower of these Beastn was much weaker than during the initial wave of attacks.
The bombing by thermobaric bombs had not been without effect.
Having suffered several thermobaric bombings, the Beastn were not unprepared. Firstly, the circular fortress structures offered so resistance against the bombings. Additionally, before engagent, the Green Skins stationed part of their troops further behind the fortress and only brought them up during engagents, retreating them afterward as reserve forces.
Had they been on the surface or in open spaces, using thermobaric bombs would have been fine. In underground tunnels, using such weapons required the Alliance troops to retreat a bit farther to avoid being caught in the explosion. This gave the Green Skin Orcs an opportunity to withdraw their troops.
But ultimately, the Green Skin Orcs did suffer losses under the thermobaric bombs, which explained their weakened firepower.
This was actually the best ti for the human troops to attack.
However, even at this juncture, the humans’ chances were slim. Simply trying to storm the orcs’ circular fortress in this terrain and environnt was exceedingly difficult.
Human infantry, at a disadvantage and sustaining heavy casualties, had to engage in a shootout with the Green Skins, primarily to cover the engineers’ operations.
An entire squad of engineers, under artillery fire and the cover of smoke grenades, risked their lives to rush forward, reaching beneath the circular fortress. They drilled blasting holes in the side walls, embedding two seismic charges into the rock layer, and then placed the rock-drilling bomb.
Subsequently, the seismic charges exploded, weakening the physical structure of the fortress. The rock-drilling bomb then easily penetrated the previously sturdy fortress made of hive biological materials and steel, exploding inside.
When the rock-drilling bomb exploded, causing substantial orc casualties and creating a crater in the cave wall, the Alliance Army soldiers shouted and began their attack, charging into the circular fortress.
The remaining orcs were few, and in poor condition, yet they continued to fight desperately against the humans within the fortress.
Using guns, explosives, machetes, war axes, and even biting...
anwhile, behind the circular fortress was the orcs’ ’mushroom garden.’ It was unclear how many reserve troops the orcs had in the mushroom garden, or how quickly new orcs were being born, but the observable situation was that orc youth continuously poured into the battlefield in small units.
The human troops almost got pushed out of the hard-won fortress.
Baiqiao certainly couldn’t let that happen.
He threw in his last reserves.
He even personally stopped directing from the entrance and led the troops forward.
Within the orcs’ defensive structures, humans and beasts fought fiercely for hours, a primal at grinder, spilling the blood of thousands of humans and orcs alike.
And the final result was a human victory.
They ultimately captured the fortress completely.
Looking further from the fortress, they could already detect, through thermal monitoring, their strategic target of this mission—a subterranean biosphere.
Reconnaissance soldiers, ordered to approach and observe, confird using night vision: the area was extensive, with thousands of glowing spore mushrooms hanging from the ceiling, and densely arranged cultivation troughs on the ground.
In the subterranean ecosystem, new Green Skins were erging at the rate of three to five every ten minutes from the mushrooms, falling into the cultivation troughs, and then leaping out of the troughs at the sa rate.
The Green Skins erging were already in adult form.
This generation rate was terrifying. To have a qualified human warrior, it takes ten months of pregnancy, eighteen years to reach adulthood, and training and education. But for the Green Skins, such an underground mushroom garden could produce several hundred qualified warriors in a single day. And on the entire planet, how many such biospheres, even larger ones, might exist?
So scholars argue that orcs are a created biological weapon of war, not without reason.
At this mont, it wasn’t the key issue. More deadly was the crossfire net ford by several turrets, with firing ports all hidden behind fungal mounds. More than four hundred orcs were also guarding this place.
And in Baiqiao’s hands, only about a thousand n remained.
The series of battles before had almost drained the blood of their group.
But he still gritted his teeth and ordered a full assault.
The thermobaric bomb destroyed two turrets in the northeast corner, and the assault team took the opportunity to penetrate the central control pillar. However, the Green Skins had set biological booby traps here—the seemingly ordinary fungal carpet sprayed strong acid under pressure, lting five bomb disposal soldiers on the spot.
When the only remaining flathrower operators attempted to burn the control pillar, several Squigs suddenly fell from the ceiling, biting through their throats with tusks.
Ammunition stocks were depleted, manpower was depleted, and even those alive were mostly wounded, forcing them to continue fighting purely on willpower.
Logically, he knew it was impossible to complete the mission, but he still intended to make one last effort.
The entire army, bearing the brunt of casualties, charged forward, planting all usable explosives on the control pillar, cultivation troughs, and Green Skin mushrooms. These actions were all aid at covering the placent of the final few seismic bombs at the calculated weak points of the cave.
He hoped the explosions would cause the plantation’s top structure to collapse, burying this place completely, even if it ant burying his own group along with it, he would not hesitate.
But unfortunately, they failed.
After the explosion, the biosphere was indeed severely damaged, but the crucial plan to collapse the cave didn’t succeed.
47% of the underground base’s core area structure remained intact, and it seed the Green Skins could restore production capacity after so ti.
Major Baiqiao and his group had entirely lost the capability to advance further.
He could only lead the troops out of the cave.
After counting the numbers, only about six hundred people remained in the group, all with varying degrees of injury, and most critically, they had little ammunition left and no heavy firepower. Below, at least two hundred orcs remained.
With laser guns, Gauss Rifles, and scarce ammunition, fighting one-third of orcs in an environnt where combat distance generally didn’t exceed twenty ters?
Certain death.
The orcs could even throw away their guns, charging through their bullets to hack them all to death.
In fact, that’s precisely what the orcs intended to do.
As the remnants of Baiqiao Group, morale low, withdrew from the cave, ready to abandon the mission and seek assistance from superiors, the orcs pursued them.
Baiqiao was near despair.
But at that mont, lightning suddenly appeared. Amidst the thunderous explosions, a valiant translucent blue-white warrior stepped out of the lightning. They ignored the human soldiers beside them and fought fiercely against the pursuing orcs!
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