Counterfeit Hero

Chapter 1537: Chapter 37: Blitzkrieg (20)_2

A moment later, as the assistant gunner joined in, the Heavy Mecha squatting on the dirt slope like a black bear began its storm-like barrage of fire.

All six main barrels, four auxiliary barrels, and four missile launch racks opened up at full power.

That airtight curtain of fire pinned every Suss Mecha it hit completely in place.

In the darkness of night, only the glow of energy shields kept flashing and shifting in the blackness; moments later, several Suss [Madman] Mecha exploded simultaneously, and the whole hillside seemed as if a chain of pre-buried charges had been detonated, the Fierce Fire linking into a crimson ocean.

”Nice work!” Liu Cheng gave the two gunners a thumbs-up.

He had just turned back when suddenly the Mecha’s radar let out a string of alarm beeps. Below the slope, a missile pierced through the drifting smoke and shot straight at the front of Black Night’s lower hull armor.

Liu Cheng’s pupils contracted sharply; he pressed his back tightly against the seat, bracing for the missile’s impact.

Suddenly, right in front of him, a green figure flashed into the air and lashed a kick at the missile’s tail.

Under their stunned gaze, the missile spun wildly, tracing a messy streak of white exhaust in the air before tumbling behind the hill and exploding violently.

The blast lit up the entire hilltop as bright as snow.

In that light, the Green Mecha leapt forward. Beside it, countless identical Green Mecha were streaking like the wind, like tigers bursting from their pens, pouncing down the slope.

”Boom!”

A thunderous blast rolled in from afar.

Liu Cheng turned his gaze to the northeast.

That was the fan-shaped plain below Maple Slope; there, countless mushroom clouds were rising in layers, countless light-balls flared and vanished, countless shells crisscrossed in blazing lines.

In the surging flashes of explosions, the dense mass of Suss Mecha looked like a tidal sea!

”Madmen!”

The dumbstruck copilot finally spat out a single word.

This was the first time Liu Cheng and the others had operated together with the bandit army.

As members of the Chuckna Army 10th Army First Armored Division, the CT-13801 Black Night Ninth Generation Heavy Fire Support Mecha they piloted had originally been deployed with their unit at a rear base thirty kilometers from Frenso Town.

When they heard that Frenso Town had been taken by the Western Alliance Army, their Armored Camp was rapidly assembled and rushed to Half Cloud Ridge, preparing to join the Half Cloud Ridge blocking battle.

Because Division HQ was in Phoenix City and most of the forces were there, their 2nd Regiment First Battalion could only be temporarily folded into a brother unit’s order of battle, and things were a complete mess for a while.

But just as they hastily formed up and reached Half Cloud Ridge, the fight there was already over.

After asking around everywhere, they finally learned that the bandit army had been in action for less than half an hour before the arrogant, wave-like enemy assault was driven all the way back to the outskirts of Frenso Town; over a thousand Western Alliance Knights were captured or surrendered, and the burning wreckage lining the road meant the CT-13801 crew barely needed road signs or maps.

Before anyone could figure out which powerhouse this heaven-sent unit actually belonged to, the long march began.

From Frenso to the Dorai River West Bank. From Saint John Town to Billy Town. From the south bank of the Tulun River to the north bank... none of them had the faintest idea how this war was actually being fought.

All they did was march, endlessly. They watched units with different designations merge into the long column. They kept hearing inspiring news filtering back from the front line dozens of kilometers ahead.

This wasn’t a war; even a Flying Car sprint race couldn’t match this pace!

Because they weren’t main force and Heavy Mecha move slower under normal march, CT-13801 had been trundling at the back, guarding the logistics and supply elements.

So it was almost always half an hour after the fighting ended up front that they passed through the battlefield.

Every time they crossed a combat zone, they stared unblinking through the long-range viewer and the side ports.

The towns almost razed to the ground, the Mecha wreckage scattered everywhere, the burning fireballs, the rolling black smoke, the bustling medics, the columns of prisoners, the corpses sprawled in every direction—all of it told of the ferocity of the fighting.

On this road alone, they had seen more than in an entire lifetime.

It seemed that no matter how solid a defensive line was, it couldn’t halt the march of that mysterious unit.

More and more units along the route joined in; in the end, even marching along the mountains, they could see neither the head nor the tail of the column.

Everyone just kept their heads down and pushed on. From time to time they would pick up scraps of intel about the front from different brother units, their hearts racing as they listened to the rumbling cannonade.

Not until the forces punched through Billy Town and annihilated all Western Alliance Army units in the Billy Town sector did the CT-13801 Heavy Fire Support Mecha crew finally lay eyes on the unit known as the bandit army.

The more than twenty hours of marching since Half Cloud Ridge had already made them intimately familiar with the bandit army’s name and everything about them.

Not just the chain of battles up front, but the origins of this unit, the legend of their Leray Lieutenant General, their way of fighting, the performance of their Mecha, even their faces and uniforms—everything had spread.

Rumors inevitably distort as they travel.

A woman brushed by a bicycle and scraped her skin; by the time the story went two streets over, it turned into a dinosaur being flattened into paste by a landing Transport Ship.

Even within the same formation, a distance of a few dozen kilometers was enough for the CT-13801’s young crew to imagine the bandit army as a bunch of cloak-wearing figures with faces hidden in shadow, scythes in hand, gliding along without their feet touching the ground, drifting to and fro.

When the troops finally halted to rest and reorganize, they followed the follow-up supply train forward.

The first time they saw the bandit army, to be honest, they felt their idol collapse.

Those weirdly shaped green Fatty Mecha, those Mech Knights in blue uniforms who didn’t look much like orthodox iron-blooded soldiers at all.

Some were old, some very young. Some were fat, some skinny.

The oldest were over thirty-five; the youngest probably weren’t even eighteen. The fattest one was as big as three men; three of the skinniest put together only made one.

When they arrived, the bandit army was eating and resting during a resupply lull. Seeing this ragtag band of Militia, they simply couldn’t connect these people with the invincible War God they’d built up in their hearts.

Even in the next few hours, when this unit used supernatural small-unit strangulation tactics to smash the ferocious Jiepeng 25th Army Group, they still couldn’t quite accept it.

Not until the CT-13801 Heavy Mecha was reassigned to the bandit army’s Second Armored Division 1st Regiment, which was critically short of Heavy Mecha; not until they followed these Green Mecha in a lightning advance of several dozen kilometers, seized Maple Slope with a single regiment, and brazenly launched an attack on the numberless Suss Armored Forces, did they finally understand.

Out of their Mecha, they were a rabble. But the moment these bandit soldiers stepped into a Mecha cockpit, these Militia became kings of this world!

Who else would dare meet four Suss Armored Division head-on with just one regiment?

Who else could casually kick away a missile streaking in like lightning?

From Frenso Town onward, they should never have viewed this unit with ordinary eyes.

They were Madmen!

A band of Madmen worthy of every Chuckna person’s respect!

From the hilltop, looking down, they could see the broad fan-shaped slope of Maple Slope, the level valley at its base, and the bend at the mountain foot farther out, all aflame with constant bursts of explosions.

The two battalions of the bandit army’s Armored Group had already driven deep into the two flanks of the Suss Armored Group, one on the left and one on the right.

These Green Mecha showed not the slightest sense of being outnumbered.

They formed into sharp assault wedges at the platoon level, hacking deeper and deeper into the enemy. Rank after rank of Suss Mecha were knocked flat as if they were nothing but vegetables on a chopping block. Armored groups were repeatedly sliced apart into chaotic fragments by their crossing thrusts.

They cleaved through this sea of steel; before their terrifying killing skills, the Suss Armored Forces crashing into them were nothing but shattered spray!

”Move!” The usually taciturn Liu Cheng shoved the control stick forward.

The comrades beside him exchanged a grin.

This was a battle destined to be written into the histories.

They were fortunate to be part of it!

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.(To be continued. To find out what happens next, please visit www.qidian.com. More Chapters available—support the author, support legitimate reading!)