Chapter 878 - This Game Is Too Realistic

### Chapter 878: The Fall! At the western outskirts of Tian Du City, the houses lay in ruins, with sandbags piled beneath what remained of the bricks and concrete. Trenches were dug in the courtyard, and wooden stakes reinforced the walls, evidence of a hurried abandonment by the residents who once lived there. From the scant belongings left behind, one could tell they departed in great haste. Hiding behind makeshift barricades, soldiers of the Borro Nation anxiously checked their equipment and ammunition, filling the silence with the clicking of metal. The night cloaked their position in a deep, pervasive silence, yet the air was thick with an unspoken sense of bleakness. The 700,000-strong unit stationed there was commanded by Centurion Piccoliwan, Gale's father. As part of a deal for his son's admission to Mammoth University, Piccoli had volunteered to lead the charge, securing the front lines for the defense of Tian Du. In the Borro province, the first line of defense was traditionally a death sentence for many, a gate left open for cannon fodder. Despite General Dewatta's provision to "act wisely," Piccoli was well aware that his odds of survival were slim. Rumors told of artillery shells that could wipe out entire positions in seconds, especially those that split in mid-air. Even in the esteemed ranks of the Alliance, many leaders met their end in the first volleys, let alone a self-made Centurion like him. Yet, Piccoli harbored no regret. He had paved a path for his son; as long as that boy didn't squander his time at school, returning as a council member would not be out of reach, even if he never rose to Centurion himself. Standing beside Piccoliwan, his deputy peered through binoculars at a distant airship, worry etched across his face. "Damn... How are we supposed to bring that thing down?" he muttered, not privy to the deals made between his commander and the general. He understood only that their 155mm artillery was useless against it. Yet he too held no regrets standing there. Not everyone fought for personal gain; he fought for a cause he believed in. "Beats me, we'll take on these bastards with everything we've got!" Piccoli cursed quietly, adjusting his cap's brim, his eyes fixed on the five iron fortresses soaring above. How they would actually confront these aerial behemoths, he had no idea. The imbalance of power was unmistakable from the start—a battle asymmetrical in nature. As the iron fortresses drew nearer, every second felt like agony for Piccoli. Desperate pleas crept into his thoughts, hoping for a swift end to the ordeal, sparing him the torturous wait before his likely demise. Just then, the five airships suddenly lowered their anchor chains. The chunky chains smashed into the earth, furrowing the ground and kicking up clouds of dust. The deputy's eyes widened as he watched through his binoculars. "They're anchoring!" he gasped softly. The precursor to bombardment. Piccoli’s heart pounded in his chest. Grabbing the radio strapped to his shoulder, he bellowed, "Take cover, everyone!" Truthfully, they hardly needed his warning. The Borro army's communication devices were only issued up to the battalion level, while battles were fought at the squad level. Hence, decisions at the junior officer level were often more reliant on enemy actions rather than orders from the rear. The moment the anchor chains fell, soldiers at the forefront had already dived into foxholes or any available craters under their commanders' barked orders. As the 700,000 troops braced themselves, a series of radiant flares lit up the sky above. Fire rained down, momentarily illuminating the pitch-black night. The Southern Army, seemingly showing off, equipped every cannon with tracer rounds to crush the resolve, flesh, and spirit of their opponents in an overwhelming display of firepower. Buildings barely standing were instantly obliterated, strewn across the shattered streets, littered with debris. Piccoli scrambled into a bomb shelter but was still disoriented by the bombardment; dust and dirt showered down upon him. And this was just the beginning. As the first barrage concluded, the Welland artillery crews onboard the airships swiftly reloaded for a second round. Cluster bombs would clear away some "rodents," driving the rest into their burrows. The incendiary rounds followed. Oxygen on the surface would be consumed rapidly, and carbon dioxide, heavier than air, along with phosphorus pentoxide from burning white phosphorus, even denser than air, would suffocate those below ground—a far more direct approach than lethal agents. On the Horn's bridge, John lounged back in his chair, gazing out at the ground through the floor-to-ceiling windows. He toyed with a medal in his hand, a slight smile on his lips. "Nicely done," he mused. "Pity it makes no difference." Though he hadn't set foot on this land, from the sky, his view rivaled that of those in the thick of it. The murine folk, the serpentine tribes, and all the other survivors were not inherently weak; rather, they had slumbered too long through the half-century-long winter. Given time to awaken, they might pose a formidable threat to the corps. If they truly aligned with the Alliance, the threat to the corps would be unprecedented. But alas. All they had now was the courage to face the darkness. Courage alone wouldn’t change anything. Against absolute power, their desperate struggles held no weight. John's amusement turned to cold resolve as he tapped the medal against his chair's armrest, raising a calloused hand. His movement halted abruptly when he saw the medal lift from the armrest, floating upwards as if weightless. Not just the medal—mugs, notebooks, pens, pen caps, and every unbuckled officer standing in the aisles—all floated as if gravity had fled. The suddenness of the event left everyone bewildered. John froze in his chair, his mind racing to grasp the situation. Shocked murmurs filled the comms. "Dammit! We're falling!" The urgent cry was soon drowned out by Centurion Ryan's roaring inquiry. "Horn's crew! What’s happening up there?!" "I-I don't know?!" John's voice trembled in fear. Hastily switching channels, he tried to calm himself, yelling at the radio clipped to his shoulder. "Deploy the buffer systems, now!" These were designed to counter phase cannon attacks. Among known weapons, only phase cannons could fatally disrupt the anti-gravity systems of iron airships. In response, the Equipment Manufacturing Bureau of Triumph City, inspired by the Alliance's retrofit of Iron Heart, equipped iron airships with buffer airbags. Thus, even under a phase cannon attack, the airship wouldn't crash under its own weight alone. To John's horror, the airbags barely slowed their descent; they were plunging with acceleration over 1G! Wait—over 1G acceleration?! Staring at the rapidly shifting flight data on the holographic screen, John realized in a flash: they weren't falling due to engine failure; the engines were fully operational! What hit them wasn't a phase cannon but something else—a force akin to an invisible hand, gripping their airship, yanking it earthward with nearly 2G acceleration! Their anti-gravity engines were powerless against this force, akin to wheels spinning futilely in quicksand, incapable of halting their rapid descent. It was hopeless. They were going to crash. Despair crept onto John's features. Yet, as a seasoned soldier, he refused to sit idly in his chair awaiting death. With gritted teeth, he unclipped his safety harness, protected his head with an arm, and let gravity pull him towards the ceiling at less than 1G, enduring the impact like a blow to the skull. Fortunately, the bridge’s ceiling wasn’t high. Though dazed, he was still conscious, his head swimming with echoes of the impact, yet not knocked out. Beside him, his deputy struggled to stand, extending a hand to help John to his feet. "Sir, are you—" "To the escape pods..." John interrupted, clutching the deputy's arm, breathless. "The escape pods... use chemical engines! We can make it out! Hurry!" The deputy, jarred by the urgency, nodded hurriedly. Leaning on each other for support, John limped along with other remaining officers towards the escape pod adjacent to the bridge, Martin among them, albeit shaken by the unseen power that left him terrified yet able to follow John’s steps. Those less fortunate, unconscious or incapacitated, along with crew members in the engine room and artillery barracks, were doomed to perish with the doomed airship. There was only one escape pod. It could hold many, but there was no room for all. A burst of orange flames sent the pod on a wobbly flight westward. As the Horn accelerated into free fall, the same fate befell the other four airships. In a dimension hidden from human sight, an invisible “membrane” composed of "gravitons" collapsed downward, forming an abstract, vertical well. Left unchecked, its relentless collapse would deepen the well indefinitely, spreading ripples of distortion. The center would eventually spawn a singularity, a point of infinite density capable of consuming all matter around it, triggering catastrophic events. Clearly, the Tian Gong’s fusion reactors couldn't muster that level of dimensional distortion. The membrane's collapse was a mere ripple on a pond’s surface stirred by a breeze, yet potent enough to spike gravity within a specific area. Though minuscule on an astronomical scale, alongside stars and cosmic entities; for targeting airships, it was more than sufficient. An invisible hand gripped their throats, yanking them from the heights to the ground below. They fell into the well. And they weren’t alone. Trailing them were orbital debris, all caught in the gravitational snare, plummeting inexorably down the invisible well walls! Flaming wreckage rained down, streaking across the sky like a majestic meteor shower. The Welland people had reforged old starfleet weaponry into new shells for their ships, yet evidently failed to comprehend the core secret behind their flight. Consequently, they grappled, bewildered, unable to fathom why their ships began their cataclysmic descent from the heavens. Watching the five fortresses fall from the sky, Centurion Ryan's eyes bulged wide, despair etched across his colorless face. “No!!” His scream of despair couldn't escape gravity’s bounds. The iron fortresses inevitably crashed onto the muddy plains. Fractured airbags were sliced open by the jagged metal, and twisted steel shrieked as munitions racks failed under the strain. "Boom—!!!" Fiery columns roared skyward, entwining with black smoke to form mushroom-shaped clouds. The explosions’ shockwaves, barreling across the plain, obliterated sandbags and toppled tilting courtyard walls. Unable to flee in time, crew members aboard the airships perished instantly, swiftly followed by the Welland positions below. An iron girder, blazing as it careened across the plains, turned a scouting vehicle cartwheeling like a flaming windmill. A near-by truck, fleeing at speed, was flipped by the explosion’s shockwave, ejecting a whole squad of Welland men onto the muddy ground, disoriented yet unharmed. Yet fear contorted their faces, and as they scrambled to their feet, fire enveloped them, swallowing their cries. The western outskirts of Tian Du were engulfed in a roiling firestorm, munitions exploding continually like fireworks. Ear-splitting blasts rippled the plains, reaching far-flung listeners within the Tian Gong fortress twenty kilometers away. The Southern Army's 300,000-strong soldiers and Borro's 700,000-strong unit were stunned into silence. Together, they rose from the ground, gawking at the explosion’s epicenter, unable to utter a word. Among them stood the observing players. “Damn...” Staring at the inferno, Debt-Eye swallowed hard, muttering in wonder. “So, those slugs from the swamp can really pull this off?” Brick-Boy, who stood nearby, echoed with disbelief. "Might be their first direct intervention since we began." Reflecting a moment, Roller Wash mused. “Not necessarily. Didn't the Burning Legion encounter them before?” Recognition dawned on Workman’s face. “Oh yeah...that Beacon Squad incident. Feels like ages ago, almost forgot.” "And the Alpha Mobile Task Force," Laplace teased. "Odd, isn’t it? They’re unique, yet so under the radar." Compared to organizations like the Corporation, the Academy's presence was faint, lower even than the Free States, whose grand endeavors often fizzled out. To this day, no one knew if the Fire Stone Group salesman trapped by a brief-lived tyrant was still alive and well. Sideline Sinner grinned, speaking up. “Shows that, compared to front-line battles, they thrive better scheming in the shadows.” Thankfully, these were allies. Debt-Eye glanced at Sideline Sinner. “What’s next?” "Next... Let's end this fight." As he spoke, Sideline Sinner unhooked a bugle from his belt. Nearby players eagerly strapped on gas masks, chambering rounds into their LD-47 assault rifles. In truth, it was already over. The Southern Army's lines were in chaos. Though only two divisions were caught in the blast, the airships' fall resonated far beyond the explosion itself. Those five airships weren't just firepower strongholds; they were symbols of faith for countless Welland soldiers. And now, without even knowing their adversaries' strategy, they witnessed their symbols crash, disintegrating in flames. Alongside the airships fell their pride, courage, and their indomitable spirit and resolve. Rather than losing their will to fight, they were simply at a loss for how to continue this war. How could they continue this battle?! Whether they huddled in trenches or sat, crestfallen in command vehicles, soldiers shared the same hopeless despair. In stark contrast, the Alliance forces—155mm howitzers and rocket artillery hidden in the suburbs—took aim. Joining them were the First Mechanized Division from Jinchiling Port, the newly arrived Second Mechanized Division, the First Armored Division of Black Tiger, and the First Armored Division of Black Panther. Allied with Brother Mole's Skeleton Corps. Four divisions and an additional regiment encircled the Corps' eastern forces, while Borro's fifteen divisions awaited them on the front. They hadn’t been defeated by the Academy. Ultimately, they fell to their own arrogance… As Sideline Sinner raised the bugle to his lips, a resonant horn echoed from the distant ruins, followed by waves of rallying whistles. At the fortress of the Borro Nation's 700,000-strong unit, Commander Piccoli stood at the entrance of the bomb shelter, his face alight with the red glow of the distant inferno. Like many of Borro's officers, with origins in grassroots, he drew his sidearm and planted one foot on a toppled sandbag. "Brothers! The time for vengeance is upon us! Follow me!!!" With a rallying cry, his personal guard and all armed Borro soldiers roared into action, charging toward the Southern Army's positions under the cover of 155mm howitzers and rocket artillery. "Charge!!!" The charge was not limited to just the 700,000 strong force. Nearby, the 710,000th and 720,000th units also joined the fray, including the ever-alert Skeleton Corps. A full-scale assault unfolded! Gunfire punctuated the night, tracer bullets painting streaks of light across the sky. Facing the relentless offensive, the Conqueror X tank fired while retreating but was soon obliterated as its turret was blown off by a 60-megajoule shell. A Welland soldier, pinned behind a machine gun nest, clung desperately to his trigger, terror etched across his face in the muzzle flash. Before he could exhaust his magazine, a rocket landed nearby, launching both him and his position skyward. With the airship threat eradicated, the goblin artillery corps unleashed their full barrage of fire! Propeller planes joined the chaos, as severed limbs from rocket explosions smoldered on scorched earth, trampled by fearless soldiers surging forward. The Southern Army's defensive lines crumbled swiftly under the onslaught. Assaulted by Death Corps and the 700,000-strong unit's charge, the frontline 300,000 troops were driven from suburban fields back to the Eternal River's edge, joined by hastily reorganized units 340,000, 360,000, and 370,000th. They faced setbacks far exceeding those in Akale County, overwhelmed by a tide of aggression that left no room for resistance. Inside the command vehicle, Centurion Ryan listened to the grim reports and pleas for reinforcement with dim, lifeless eyes, stripped of earlier arrogance and defiance. It was over. The war... Engulfed in his own defeat and despair, Ryan’s deputy shook him hard, snapping him back. "General! We must retreat now! While the Alliance hasn’t reached here! There’s still a chance!!" Tian Du seemed lost, Akale County would likely follow, but Lion City and the entire Lion State remained in their grasp! They still had colonial conscripts. They still possessed ample ammunition and artillery! As for the steel airships... The demise of five airships was indeed a heavy blow, but not the entirety of the Southern Army’s assets. Plus, airships weren’t their only trump card! They still had the 902mm cannons! Nuclear weapons. And the "death agent" under development. As long as they refused to admit defeat, nothing could stop them from claiming ultimate victory. Shaken by his deputy's urgency, the word "retreat" finally surfaced on Ryan's stiff face—half bitter, half a feeling he couldn't quite identify. Ultimately, he faced reality, grasping the communicator to force out "retreat" from his parched lips. At least he couldn't fall into Borro hands… Truth was, even without Ryan's retreat order, the frontline units teetered on collapse. Whether termed “strategic withdrawal” or “utter rout,” it was but a semantic distinction. Meanwhile, over twenty kilometers away, aboard a certain research vessel— Yang Kai reclined, observing the distant flames with undisguised scorn on his face. "...I wonder how many units were aboard those five airships. They sure burn impressively, heh." Just then, the door behind him swung open as Jiang Xuezhou, clad in protective gear and clutching a tablet, entered. "Professor, the data collection is complete. Should we shut down the instruments now?" “Oh, save it to the database. I’ll check it later—busy at the moment.” Yang Kai replied offhandedly, redirecting his focus outside. Suddenly, another thought occurred to him. "Actually, keep the cameras rolling until the end." He’d need to forward this footage to their allies. “Understood.” Witnessing the meticulous, almost petty nature of his mentor, Jiang Xuezhou couldn’t help but feel resigned, nodding slightly before exiting the research vessel's cockpit. To be continued.