The Allied relief division arrived at the outskirts of Tianyu City and found it eerily dark and silent. To the untrained eye, it looked like a perfectly normal, deserted city that had never seen battle. However, the mangled corpses of the Allied sentries littering the highway checkpoints told a different story.
They knew a brutal battle had taken place here, and they knew the enemy was still lurking somewhere inside.
The relief division cautiously advanced, filtering into the city through several primary avenues. The soldiers kept their weapons raised, scanning the dark windows of the towering apartment blocks with deep apprehension.
Deep within the city center, Major General Hippocrates heard the rumble of approaching armor. Desperate to link up with the reinforcements, he ordered his surviving Guards Battalion to break out of their fortified bunker.
They hadn't even been outside for ten seconds before the trap snapped shut.
Pew! Pew! Pew!
Suppressed gunfire rained down on them from the high-rises several hundred meters away, followed instantly by the harsh glare of numerous flares lighting up the street.
"Break out! Return fire! Suppressing fire!" Hippocrates screamed over the din.
Rat-tat-tat! The Allied light machine gunners opened up, spraying bullets indiscriminately into the surrounding buildings. They had no idea where the actual shooters were; they simply felt completely surrounded by invisible enemies.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The answering fire from the high-rises was slow, methodical, and utterly devastating. Every single shot found its mark. The Allied guardsmen charging out of the bunker dropped one after another in rapid succession.
"Commander, it's no use! We can't break out like this! The casualties are catastrophic! Their marksmanship is supernatural; we're completely outmatched!" the Chief of Staff shouted, watching the slaughter in sheer terror.
The soldiers were dying without even knowing which direction the fatal shots came from. The sheer helplessness of the situation was paralyzing the survivors with fear.
"We have to break out! We must link up with the relief division! It's our only chance!" Hippocrates roared back, refusing to accept the reality of the slaughter.
High above, a spotter nudged the heavy sniper beside him. "See that cluster of soldiers surrounding the shrieking guy? I'll bet my next paycheck those are the command staff."
"I see 'em. Watch me turn them into mist, one by one," the sniper chuckled coldly, adjusting his scope.
BANG!
BANG!
He fired several massive 12.7mm rounds in rapid succession. Three senior officers and one hapless guardsman practically exploded. The sniper calmly ducked below the windowsill, swapped his magazine, and resumed his deadly work.
Across the entire perimeter of the bunker, dozens of Special Operations teams were executing the exact same synchronized slaughter. Any Allied soldier attempting to push outward was immediately cut down.
"Pop smoke! Use the smoke to cover our advance!" Hippocrates bellowed desperately, seeing his Guard Battalion evaporating before his eyes.
Moments later, the street surrounding the bunker was choked with thick, billowing smoke.
Rat-tat-tat!
Pew! Pew! Pew!
The Special Operations operatives, seeing the smoke deploy, immediately switched tactics. They abandoned precision single shots and began raking the smoke clouds with sustained automatic fire.
While the operatives couldn't see the Allied soldiers inside the smoke, the Allied soldiers couldn't see the muzzle flashes either. And the operatives weren't just firing from one or two positions; over a hundred distinct firing points poured lead indiscriminately into the smoke cloud. Dozens of Allied soldiers screaming within the concealment were cut down blindly.
Meanwhile, on the southern outskirts...
"Damn it! The heavy fighting is concentrated in the city center! Accelerate the advance! We need to extract the garrison immediately! Move!" the Commander of the relief division shouted, hearing the distant cacophony of explosions and automatic fire.
The armored column gunned their engines, rumbling deeper into Tianyu City.
"Target column has entered the primary kill zone. Requesting weapons free," a Platoon Commander whispered into his throat mic, watching the armored column roll perfectly into their designated ambush sector.
"Weapons free," Dong Qipeng authorized, having received a nod from Hu Hao.
"All units, weapons free! Priority targets: tank main gun barrels, APC drivers, heavy weapon gunners. After that... hehe, kill them all!" the Platoon Commander relayed the order over the tactical net, shouldering his own rifle.
Fwoosh! Fwoosh! Fwoosh! Dozens of illumination flares suddenly arched into the sky, bathing the entire armored column in blinding, unnatural daylight.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Pew! Pew! Pew!
"Damn it! Up top! They're in the high-rises! Suppress them!" Allied officers screamed as the ambush erupted.
BANG! BANG!
The heavy snipers ignored the infantry and focused entirely on the armor. Massive 12.7mm API rounds slammed into the main gun barrels of the Allied battle tanks. The specialized rounds easily pierced or severely deformed the hardened steel barrels. Unless the tank crews wanted the shells to detonate inside the breeches, their main guns were now completely useless.
The heavy snipers then systematically targeted the APC drivers, punching straight through the armored glass viewports.
Simultaneously, the Daman Marksman Rifles focused entirely on the external heavy machine gunners mounted on the vehicles and any infantrymen carrying RPGs or anti-tank weapons.
BANG! BANG!
Rat-tat-tat!
"The tanks! They took out the main guns!"
BOOM!
An Allied tank crew, failing to realize their barrel had been compromised, attempted to fire a high-explosive shell at a suspected sniper position. The shell detonated inside the deformed barrel. The catastrophic explosion instantly killed the infantry using the tank for cover and severely concussed the crew inside.
Pew! Pew!
"They're taking fire from that flank! Detach a company and secure that building line!" an Allied Regimental Commander ordered, pointing toward a row of apartments where muzzle flashes were visible.
A full company of infantry peeled off from the main column and charged toward the buildings.
However, they were completely unaware that the street they were crossing was a pre-sighted crossfire zone. The moment they broke cover, Special Operations operatives positioned on both sides of the street unleashed a devastating enfilade.
The withering crossfire instantly decimated the charging company, terrifying the survivors into diving blindly into the nearest ground-floor storefronts, too afraid to even peek outside. The same brutal scenario played out on multiple streets as the Allied forces attempted to maneuver.
"They're in the buildings! Clear those buildings! Send assault teams up the stairs! Now!" numerous Allied commanders screamed, realizing they were sitting ducks in the open streets.
"With me!" Allied platoon leaders rallied their men and charged into the lobbies of the high-rises.
Just as they reached the stairwells and began to ascend, a small object bounced down the concrete steps.
The lead soldiers illuminated it with their weapon lights.
"GRENADE!"
BOOM!
The blast violently hurled the lead elements back down the stairs, showering the lobby with shrapnel and concrete dust.
"They're holding the stairwells! Suppressing fire! Push up!" the officers screamed from the rear.
The soldiers blindly sprayed the upper landings with automatic fire. Hearing no return fire, they assumed the landing was clear and attempted to advance again.
Another grenade bounced down the stairs.
This time, they didn't even have time to yell.
BOOM! Several more soldiers were shredded by shrapnel.
"Damn it! Push through! We have to clear those upper floors or they'll pick us apart in the streets! Move!" the commanders urged desperately.
Out on the street, the situation had devolved into utter chaos. Allied soldiers taking cover from fire originating on one side of the street were being shot in the back by operatives positioned on the other side. Some were even being hit by flanking fire from adjacent buildings. The entire relief column was trapped in a chaotic, multi-dimensional crossfire.
In essence, Hu Hao's forces were surrounded by the massive Allied division, but the Allied division was simultaneously surrounded by Hu Hao's decentralized ambush teams! It was a brutal, concentric meat grinder.
The crucial difference was that Hu Hao's operatives were concealed in the darkness, occupying the elevated high ground, and firing with precision. The Allied troops were exposed on the brightly lit streets below, firing blindly. The tactical disparity was absolute.
"Bring those buildings down! RPGs, level those structures! Engineers, use satchel charges! Bring them down now!" the Commander of the relief division roared, desperation edging into his voice.
He watched in horror as his men were systematically executed by invisible marksmen. Every attempt to advance or retreat was met with lethal, pinpoint fire.
"Commander! We must order a general retreat! This is a meticulously planned trap! The Eastern Spirit forces lured us into a pre-sighted kill zone!" the Chief of Staff screamed over the din of battle.
"Contact Hippocrates! Where the hell is his breakout force?! Tell him to hurry up! Damn it!" The Commander knew it was a trap, but he couldn't just abandon the garrison he was sent to save. He needed to extract Hippocrates before he could order the retreat.
"Yes, sir!" the Chief of Staff scrambled for the radio.
Meanwhile, near the city center, Major General Hippocrates was cowering on the ground floor of a ruined commercial building. His entire Guard Battalion had been reduced to fewer than 200 men. A full battalion of 1,000 elite guardsmen, decimated in minutes. The survivors consisted primarily of his command staff and a handful of terrified infantrymen; they didn't even have enough combat-effective personnel to form a single cohesive company.
"Report! The relief division is on the line! They are demanding our location! They've been ambushed and are taking catastrophic casualties!" a staff officer reported, thrusting the radio handset toward Hippocrates.
"Tell them to abandon us! Tell them to retreat immediately! Run! We can't break out!" Hippocrates screamed, absolute despair washing over him.
In their frantic attempt to break out, they had advanced less than 300 meters from their bunker and suffered nearly 400 casualties. If they tried to push any further, they would be completely annihilated within minutes. Hippocrates realized that ordering the relief division to continue advancing would only doom another entire division.
"Commander, we have to try one more time! What if we use explosives to blow holes through the interior walls of these buildings? We can maneuver through the structures and avoid the open streets! Would that work?!" a staff officer suggested desperately.
"Mm... try it. But tell the relief column to hold their positions and secure their retreat route. Do not advance any further into the city! Start blowing the walls!" Hippocrates authorized the desperate "mouse-holing" maneuver.
BOOM! A breaching charge blew a massive hole through the interior wall of the commercial building. The surviving guardsmen pushed through the rubble, advancing into the adjacent structure without exposing themselves to the street. They repeated the process, blasting their way forward.
However, after advancing less than a hundred meters through the buildings, they reached an intersection. To continue their breakout, they had to cross the open street to reach the next block of buildings.
"Pop smoke! Run for it!" a senior staff officer yelled.
Several smoke grenades were hurled into the street. Once the smoke thickened, the lead squad sprinted for the opposite side.
The moment they broke from the smoke, a suppressed automatic weapon opened up from a second-floor window across the street. A short, controlled burst cut down half the squad. The weapon immediately fell silent.
The sheer, lethal precision terrified the remaining Allied soldiers, paralyzing them behind cover.
"Push through! If we don't cross, we die here! Move!" the senior staff officers screamed, shoving the men forward.
Driven by desperation, the soldiers charged across the street. They made it less than four meters before they were mowed down.
Hu Hao's Special Operations teams had anticipated the maneuver. Hearing the string of muffled explosions moving through the buildings, they quickly deduced the Allied forces were "mouse-holing." They simply repositioned and waited patiently at the inevitable chokepoint—the open street crossing.
(End of Chapter)