Chapter 861: The Universe is Burning (8)

Chapter 861: The Universe is Burning (VIII)
On the battlefield of Ankachi VIII, there is no such thing as skill, it's all head-on combat.

This was the same battle that Bai Qiao and his regiment faced.

When attacking the underground passage, Baiqiao faced a crisis from the beginning. The narrow passage made it difficult to call for long-range firepower, and the air force, orbital bombardment, and artillery positions were all unable to help.

Even their own regimental artillery company had difficulty handling the situation and was temporarily transferred by their superiors to join a higher-level artillery group.

But there was also good news. His troops were equipped with flamethrowers, rockets, melta bombs, and even individual thermobaric bombs.

With the help of this powerful firepower, their initial attack was relatively smooth.

After calling for the last air support, they bombed the cave entrance and dealt a heavy blow to the few orc soldiers stationed at the cave entrance. The White Bridge Regiment came up and easily defeated the orc defenders.

Then, the human infantry did not rush to attack, but fired a high-yield thermobaric bomb first.

This weapon is particularly suitable for dealing with various targets hidden underground or in caves, and is quite effective in the current environment.

After the thermobaric bombs were fired, after a while, while waiting for the explosion to end, the first batch of the sharp knife company, fully armed and wearing masks, went down.

The passage was not very big at first, with a diameter of less than four meters. The top was reinforced with a mixture of Zerg biological shells and concrete, and there was a sticky green fungal carpet remaining on the ground.

But towards the end, it becomes wider and wider.

The offensive sequence was carried out according to standard anti-underground combat regulations: the vanguard company carried infrared detectors to open the way in front, the flamethrower team was in the second echelon, and the main force followed in two columns.

The first 300 meters of advancement went smoothly. Along the way, we saw some charred corpses of green-skinned orcs, as well as sporadic green-skinned sentinels hurrying out from deeper inside. However, when passing the first intersection, the ground fungal carpet suddenly shook violently.

"Trap!" Just as the scout squad leader issued a warning, three orc-modified motorcycles rushed out from the left passage.

A green-skinned orc, riding a very low vehicle that can even move in tunnels.

But this thing is kind of scary.

The rotating chainsaw welded on the side of the motorcycle cut directly into the human queue, and the first five soldiers to be hit were cut in half.

The flamethrower team immediately spread out fan-shaped flames to cover the green-skinned boy, but the green-skinned boy was so tenacious that he kept fighting for a long time, until he was hit by more than 20 bullets and couldn't stand it anymore, he even pulled the pull wire and blew up his low motorcycle.

But what came was not just this motorcycle.

Motorcycles came one after another and attacked the human troops; the orc infantry followed among them.

These waves of attacks put great pressure on the human forces.

Bai Qiao had to order the main force to retreat to a relatively stable arc bend.

The engineers quickly deployed shock mines and filled the cracks with quick-setting foam. At this time, thermal imaging showed that there was a large-scale biological heat source gathering 200 meters ahead - more than greenskin units were coming from three branch channels.

It is really not a good idea for human troops to fight orc troops at close range.

Bai Qiao ordered the troops to use firepower as much as possible to prevent the enemy from approaching.

They were successful, but the price was high.

The flamethrower consumed a lot of fuel, forming a burning zone tens of meters long in the main passage, successfully blocking the greenskin charge.

But the orcs also had many other methods. For example, more motorcycles appeared later, and the human troops had to invest more firepower and focus more on attacking these high-threat units.

Later, the orc engineering troops suddenly opened up a vertical shaft from the lower level and emerged from behind the human troops. Although the human troops reacted quickly and immediately blocked and counterattacked the orc troops, more than half of the company's soldiers were shot and killed in close combat or had their heads split open by machetes.

Baiqiao established the regiment headquarters in the cave entrance area and immediately sent two infantry companies to reinforce the front line. They finally defeated the green-skinned orcs coming from the front. The company that had been severely damaged before basically lost its combat capability and had to withdraw and be replaced by the new reinforcement company.

But the fierce battle was not over yet, the number of green-skinned orcs seemed to be a little beyond imagination. After repelling the first wave of 400 orcs, the heat source detected a new batch of greenskins rushing towards the human defense line, with a number of more than 600.

At this point, Bai Qiao already felt something was wrong.

The human army was clearly the attacking party, but how come during the battle, the human side became the defending party?
Bai Qiao decisively used the second thermobaric bomb.

First, the troops withdrew from the position and left behind a delayed-detonation thermobaric bomb, which was almost ready to be detonated when the greenskins came over.

This wave had a very good effect. The detonated thermobaric bombs caused huge casualties to the greenskins. When the human troops came down again, they found that most of the greenskins that had come over had become charred corpses; when they pushed forward, they found some greenskins that were severely burned but not dead.

Only after killing these seriously injured orcs could the troops continue to move forward.

But by this stage, Bai Qiao's confidence had been somewhat shaken.

Before they even saw the core of the underground base, three of his troops were already disabled and one was wiped out. Flamethrower fuel, thermobaric bombs and other weapons that were useful in tunnels were not cheap.

Keep fighting... Bai Qiao already feels that the outcome is unpredictable.

But this is a mission, and we have to keep fighting no matter what.

When the troops reached a vertical depth of 200 meters underground and a total advance of 3.8 kilometers, they encountered structural fortifications. The greenskins used the original egg chambers of the hive to transform a three-layer circular fortress, with the outer walls made of hardened mycelium and scrap metal.

The crossfire was clearly set up, and even if human lives were piled up, it would be impossible to pass through the narrow entrance.

A wave of exploratory attacks was undoubtedly beaten back, and the front-line troops had to consider other ways to pass.

First they tried using a rocket launcher to fire armor-piercing warheads, but armor-piercing rockets were not very effective against thick composite walls.

Based on the battlefield situation, Baiqiao approved the front-line troops' request to use rock-penetrating bombs.

But this is not an easy matter.

The troops were temporarily evacuated, and the precious thermobaric bombs were used once again. After the explosion, the human troops returned to the battlefield when it was safe.

A reconnaissance team moved up and things went smoothly at first, but when they got close to the ring fortress, gunfire rang out and the scouts were quickly wiped out.

But instead, the front-line commander directly ordered the troops to launch a fierce attack.

Because he could sense that the firepower of these orcs was much weaker than the first wave of attack. The bombing of thermobaric bombs was not without effect.

After suffering several losses from thermobaric bombs, the orcs were not unprepared. First of all, the ring fortifications could more or less play a role in blocking the bombing of thermobaric bombs. In addition, before the battle, the greenskins placed some troops behind the ring fortresses until the battle, and retreated to serve as a reserve force after the battle.

If it was on the surface, in an open area, using thermobaric bombs would be fine. But in an underground tunnel, using this weapon would force the Alliance troops to retreat a little further, or they would also be bombed. This gave the Greenskin Orcs the opportunity to withdraw their troops.

But in the end, the green-skinned orcs suffered losses under the thermobaric bombs, which meant that their firepower actually became weaker.

This is actually the best time for human troops to attack.

But at this time, the human side actually had little chance. It was too difficult to simply force their way into the orcs' ring fortress in this kind of terrain.

The human infantry had to fight against the greenskins despite being at a disadvantage and suffering huge casualties, but in fact it was to protect the work of their engineering brothers.

A whole team of engineers, under the cover of artillery fire and smoke bombs, risked their lives to rush to the bottom of the circular fortress, dug blasting holes in the side walls, embedded two concussion bombs into the rock, and then placed the rock-drilling bombs.

Then, the concussion bomb exploded, and the physical structure of the entire fortress became more fragile. The rock-drilling bombs launched subsequently were able to more easily drill through the originally solid fortress built with Zerg biomaterials and steel, and then exploded inside.

When the rock-drilling bomb exploded, causing heavy casualties among the orcs and blowing a hole in the cave wall, the soldiers of the Alliance Army shouted and began to attack, rushing into the ring fortress.

There were not many orcs left, and their condition was very bad, but they still fought a desperate battle with humans in the fortress.

Use guns, explosives, machetes, tomahawks, or even teeth...

At the same time, behind the ring fortress was the orcs' mushroom garden. It was unknown how many reserve troops the orcs had in the mushroom garden, or how fast new orcs were born, but what was apparent was that the orcs continued to fill the battlefield in small groups.

At one point, the human army was almost driven out of the fortress they had finally captured.

Bai Qiao certainly couldn't let this happen.

He also threw in the last of his reserve troops.

Even he himself no longer continued to command at the entrance of the cave, but led the troops down personally.

Inside the orcs' fortifications, humans and orcs fought to the death for several hours. It was the most primitive meat grinder, and the blood of thousands of humans and orcs was spilled here.

The final result is the victory of mankind.

They finally captured the fortress completely.

Looking far away from the fortress, they could already see their strategic goal of this trip - the underground ecological park - from afar through heat source monitoring.

The scouts who were ordered to get closer for observation confirmed through night vision goggles that the area was quite large, with tens of thousands of glowing spore mushrooms hanging from the ceiling and cultivation tanks densely arranged on the ground.

In the entire underground ecological park, new green skins are emerging from mushrooms at a rate of three to five every ten minutes, falling into the culture tanks, and then jumping out of the culture tanks at the same speed.

The green skin that jumped out was already an adult.

This rate of birth is quite terrifying. For humans to have a qualified warrior, they need to be pregnant for ten months, grow up for eighteen years, and undergo training and learning. But the greenskins, with just this underground mushroom garden, can give birth to hundreds of qualified fighters in a single day. And how many ecological zones of similar scale, or even much larger, are there on the entire planet?
Some scholars believe that orcs are a kind of biological warfare weapon created, which is not without reason.

At the moment, this is not the key. What is more deadly is the crossfire network formed by several turrets, whose firing holes are all hidden behind the fungus pile. Here, there are more than 400 orcs guarding.

Bai Qiao only had a thousand or so men left.

The previous series of battles almost drained their regiment of its blood.

But he gritted his teeth and ordered a powerful attack.

Thermobaric bombs destroyed the two turrets in the northeast corner, and the assault team took the opportunity to break into the central control column. However, the greenskins set up biological mines here - seemingly ordinary fungal blankets sprayed strong acid under pressure, causing the five bomb disposal soldiers to melt on the spot.

As the remaining flamethrowers tried to burn the control column, several Squiggs suddenly fell from the ceiling and bit their throats with their fangs.

The ammunition and manpower were running out, and even those who were still alive were injured. They could only continue to fight because of their willpower.

Intellectually, he knew that it was impossible to complete the mission, but he still wanted to make one last attempt.

The entire army rushed forward despite the casualties, and blew up all the explosives they could onto the control columns, culture tanks, and green-skinned mushrooms. These actions were all to cover the last few concussion bombs that were placed at the calculated weak points of the cave.

He hoped that the explosion would cause the top structure of the plantation to collapse and completely bury the place, even if it meant burying his own regiment along with it.

But unfortunately, they failed.

After the bombing, the ecological park was indeed severely damaged, but the most important plan to blow up the cave failed.

More than half of the structure in the core area of ​​the underground base is still intact. It will probably take some time for the greenskins to restore production capacity.

Lieutenant Colonel Bai Qiao and his regiment have completely lost the ability to continue advancing.

He could only lead his troops out of the cave.

After counting the number of people, there were only about 600 people left in the whole group, all of whom were injured, some seriously and some lightly. The worst thing was that they had little ammunition and no heavy firepower. And below, there were at least 200 orcs.

Holding laser guns and Gauss rifles, using limited ammunition, and fighting against one-third of the orcs in an environment where the general combat distance is no more than 20 meters?
There is no doubt that he will die.

The orcs could even throw away their guns, withstand their bullets and lasers, rush up and kill them all with their swords.

In fact, that's exactly what the orcs are going to do.

The remnants of the Baiqiao Regiment evacuated the cave with low morale and were ready to abandon the mission and ask for help from their superiors when the orcs caught up with them.

Bai Qiao was almost in despair.

But at this moment, lightning flashed. In the exploding thunder and lightning, one by one, heroic and valiant translucent blue-white warriors walked out of the lightning. They ignored the human soldiers next to them and fought to the death with the pursuing orcs!

(End of this chapter)