Counterfeit Hero

Chapter 1561: Chapter 44: Battle Standard Gone with the Wind (2)

”Understood! Watch us!” A vicious voice came through the communicator.

﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎

﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎

”Damn it!” A Chuckna Private First Class viciously kicked a stone flying at his feet, spinning in place several times like a caged fighting beast.

Beside him, countless Chuckna Mecha and soldiers had already assembled, the column stretching all the way to the far edge of the jungle.

Everyone tilted their heads to the side.

Less than ten kilometers away, Sunset Mountain was flashing in patches before the warriors’ eyes, rolling smoke billowing up like a volcanic eruption.

The crack of rifles, the roar of cannons rumbled along the ground, tore through the forest, and suddenly poured into everyone’s ears, stinging their eyes blood-red.

The entire reserve of twenty full divisions—aside from three lucky divisions that had been drawn off in batches to the Sunset Mountain Defense Line—after reaching the rendezvous point, had all been strictly ordered to stand by in place.

For these Chuckna Warriors, this was a torment beyond endurance.

Everyone knew just how brutal the fighting on Sunset Mountain was.

A regiment sent up would be wiped out in less than an hour; a position just repaired would, in a matter of minutes, be turned into a shallow, ragged trench.

The comrades defending Sunset Mountain charged out of the trenches again and again, dragging the enemy down with them. They drove their Mecha into a tangle with the enemy, rushed forward with Portable Energy Cannons to within less than twenty meters of enemy Mecha before opening fire, and hugged bundles of Fusion Hand Grenades, rolling them to the feet of enemy Mecha.

The position was stained red with blood, then shelled clean of soil, then stained red again. In the end, every shell crater that burst open was like a spray of earth, and within that showered dirt was the red that had soaked deep into the ground.

From day into night, from night back into dawn. At least three full divisions of officers and men had stayed forever on that blood-soaked height.

The carnage of Sunset Mountain had reddened and re-reddened the eyes of these warriors assembled in the rear awaiting orders.

They could not even imagine what kind of hellscape it was on that mountaintop that never stopped flashing with light.

They only knew that there, standing firm, were the sons of Chuckna born of this land, using their searing chests and young lives to shatter the enemy’s assault. So long as even one of them remained, with even a single breath, the enemy would never break through Sunset Mountain.

Besides these Chuckna Warriors, those most worthy of respect were also the Mech Knights known as the bandit army.

These Mechanical Warriors from the Leray Federation, from the Mars Free World, were the backbone of the entire line of defense! Though a full Special Forces Camp had now been fought down to fewer than a hundred Mecha, it was precisely they who had kept the arrogant Judger from crossing the thunder pool by even a single step!

They were the brightest stars on the Sunset Mountain Defense Line; their blood-drenched figures fighting amid the smoke inspired every Chuckna Warrior.

A wisp of flute music rose, faint and distant.

The old soldier playing the flute leaned back against a tree root; the sobbing notes broke and resumed in the booming thunder of the artillery.

Warriors from the same platoon silently gathered around, listening quietly. Each of them bit down on his lips, fists clenched tight.

They knew this was an ancient Chuckna funeral song.

The old soldier was not sending off travelers leaving home, but the countless heroic souls of Sunset Mountain!

The bandit army had already completed a miraculous strategic flanking maneuver; this campaign had reached its final juncture. The warriors who had been waiting in agony here were finally about to step onto the battlefield.

The officers and men at the front had bought a chance at victory with their sacrifice. The fallen comrades, at this moment, were right there on Sunset Mountain—their heroic spirits not far away.

They would grip this opportunity tight and never let it slip from their hands!

Beep—beep—... As the electronic chimes of every Mecha’s communicator rose one after another, the flute fell silent.

The warriors turned their heads and saw their platoon leader take the headset off his head.

The young platoon leader’s eyes narrowed slightly, his gaze sharp as a blade.

Move out!

﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎

﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎﹎

The position was a scene of utter ruin.

Wreckage littered the ground, crackling and sputtering as it burned, sending up plumes of black smoke. Charred craters linked one after another, nested one inside another. The metal bulletproof walls and explosion-proof sheds had been torn into heaps of twisted scrap. The corpses of soldiers from both sides lay sprawled in every direction, filling the entire position.

The body of a Suss Knight hung limply over the charred wreck of a Mecha. His lower half had been burned black, his chest a mangled mess of flesh and blood. Only his face was still recognizable. Under his golden eyelashes, his pale blue eyes stared wide open, holding a trace of emptiness and despair.

Two meters away beside him lay the wreck of a Judger Mecha.

The neck of the once-arrogant steel Spartan Warrior had been broken; the streamlined armor at its chest blown open in a gaping hole; one leg blasted off and vanished; its left arm severed at the joint, only a connecting rod remaining, bent at a strange angle.

The coffin-like cockpit had slid out through the massive hole in its chest. The green nutrient fluid inside had long since leaked dry; the Mech Knight’s pallid face was pressed against the scorched earth, mouth agape. The silvery metal skull at the back of his head made that face look grotesquely eerie.

All around, thousands upon thousands of pieces of wreckage and bodies spread out in sheets into the distance.

Some were from the Suss Army, some from the Judger, some from Chuckna, and some from the bandit army. The soldiers of both sides lay entangled, fallen together on this mountain slope less than two kilometers wide.