Chen Lun stood quietly by the Benavides River, the waves reflected in his eyes.
He slowly put his hand down, thinking:
'The most critical part of the Battle of Hercule Bridgehead is the explosives buried in advance by the United Kingdom of Anlong... As expected, according to the feedback from the Desire of Decay, there are indeed a large number of explosives, but at this moment they are already in a 'decayed state' and cannot be detonated.'
Chen Lun let out a long sigh, turned around and prepared to leave.
However, at this moment, a compassionate thought involuntarily arose in his mind:
'Why do humans kill each other? Why do they develop all kinds of weapons and tools just for killing... like flintlocks, cannons, and the explosives buried under the bridgehead? Is killing one's own kind the only way for human progress?'
A flash of sadness passed through Chen Lun's silent eyes.
He then thought of his own identity: a church member accompanying the army on the expedition and who would also participate in fighting, and he couldn't help but shed tears.
"I actually climbed to a high position in the Council of Ministers for such a foolish purpose, and participated in the war so enthusiastically. It is truly unforgivable..."
Chen Lun looked at his hands, as if he saw endless blood and wailing. He even had the urge to commit suicide, wanting to end his sinful life.
But soon, his high mysterious resistance and strong willpower made him realize that something was wrong.
'It's a side effect of the weirdness... my desires have become corrupted.'
A thought flashed through Chen Lun's mind and his eyes narrowed slightly.
He gently wiped away the tears from the corners of his eyes and lowered his eyes.
The next second, a cruel smile broke out on his face, and the Balag necklace on his chest began to wriggle, "growing" strands of iron wire with rusty spikes, wrapping around his chest and neck.
"You think you can corrupt my will and desires?"
Chen Lun raised his left hand and sneered at the moldy gloves.
The murderous intent in my heart is like the hot lava erupting from a volcano, which is difficult to suppress.
"I don't care about the success or failure of the Battle of Hercule Bridgehead, and I don't care whether the Imperial Army will be blown to ashes... All I want is for everything to develop according to my script, and no one can stop me from killing people. Only by killing can I quickly accumulate experience points, meet the conditions for promotion, and break free from the control of that damn fate!"
He clenched his fists suddenly, and the gloves were held tightly in his hands, even making a creaking "howl". Chen Lun took out Jingzhe again, and suddenly released the vigorous vitality. Circles of years and rings climbed up the desire for decay. The gloves even squirmed consciously, as if frightened, constantly avoiding the spread of the rings.
"Behave yourself. If you dare to influence me again, you will rot away completely."
Chen Lun muttered something fierce and withdrew his strength.
This time, the moldy gloves didn't move at all.
He took it off, put it in his pocket, turned around and left.
*
*
*
Woo—
The charge horn sounded on the Benavides River and reached the sky.
The rumbling of artillery fire and dense gunfire followed closely behind.
"kill!"
“Charge! Charge!”
"For the Empire!"
“Long live Trishul!
”
The Imperial Army broke the blockade of the Hercule Bridge at an extremely fast speed, pushed down the broken iron fences and various obstacles in an orderly manner, and immediately began a charge on the bridge, aiming directly at the bridgehead at the end.
Bullets began to rain down from the high walls of the bridgehead. The evening light had begun to dim, and the flashes of gunfire seemed somewhat dazzling, like golden flowers glittering on red satin.
The Imperial Army suffered the first round of fire suppression.
However, just like the previous encounters on the Kerr Plain, the Imperial Army quickly reacted and took countermeasures. Chen Lun saw from afar that the Imperial Army, under the command of the officers, took out the metal cubes from their backpacks.
Almost every soldier had one metal block in his hand. After being operated by the soldiers, it unfolded into iron sheets in a few breaths and formed a rectangular shield half a person's height.
The sound of clinking was heard continuously, and bullets hit the shields, creating bright sparks. However, the imperial army forced themselves to withstand the strafing, without slowing down, and charged forward selflessly.
stop-
Peng!
Finally, the cannons on the walls of the Hercule bridgehead began to fire concentrated shells, and the heavy weapons, which were far more deterrent than bullets, began the second round of suppression.
Accompanied by fire, smoke and dust, rubble and debris flew everywhere. Some imperial soldiers were blown to pieces by shells, leaving charred pits with blood and flesh on the bridge.
The other side seemed to not care at all whether the Hercule Bridge would collapse during the bombing. They only wanted to inflict maximum casualties on the Imperial Army. The cannons fired non-stop, smoke filled the air above the Benavides River, and the sound of gunfire formed a cruel symphony of war.
Chen Lun walked slowly to the entrance of the bridge and found that it had been occupied by the imperial army. They had built a temporary defense facility with sandbags, wooden stakes and stones. Many assembled troops boarded the bridge one after another and began to charge.
The headquarters tent was a little further back, but General Vance sat on a folding chair at the door, keeping an eye on the situation through a telescope. The clergy of the Moon Church and the Hailing Group sat near the general, but there was no communication between them.
At this moment, Chen Lun was suddenly stunned.
He found a prompt box popped up on the panel—
The circus player "Neggotty Gold" killed an enemy soldier, and you gained 50 experience points!
The circus player "Dongyang" killed the enemy player "Long and Thick Radish", and you gained 100 experience points!
Circus player "Pumpkin" kills enemy soldiers...
Chen Lun was overwhelmed by the series of prompts.
'I can actually share the kill rewards of my players? ! '
He was immediately surprised.
Although these experience value rewards are not much, their frequency is high!
There are more than two thousand circus players, even if you leave aside some slackers, there are dozens of prompts appearing almost every second, and the experience points on Chen Lun's panel are jumping rapidly.
But as he looked at the panel, he soon became confused.
'Why hasn't this happened before?'
Whether it was the Bloody Battle at the end of the previous version, or the arrival in Vulture City in the deserted country some time ago, when Polaris and others were asked to hunt down enemy players who were harassing at the border, no experience points were gained. But this time something was different.
'Could it be that the update to version 2.0 secretly changed some of the panel mechanisms?'
Chen Lun had some sudden ideas.
He shook his head, thinking it unlikely.
"Anyway, this is a great thing for me. I'll figure out the specific principles when I have time... Now what I need to do is to encourage them."
A gleam flashed in Chen Lun's eyes. After thinking for a moment, he calmly operated on the panel and issued another task to his players.
Side quests: Western War/Battle of Hercule Bridgehead/Kill the enemy bravely!
Mission Description: Circus leader Jackspeter is watching the battle at the front line. He is very satisfied with your performance. He will give extra rewards to the undead strangers who fight bravely!
Mission objective: Kill as many enemies as possible! The top ten players with the highest points will receive special rewards! (1 point for killing an enemy soldier, 2 points for killing an enemy officer, 3 points for killing an enemy player, 5 points for killing an enemy player in sequence 9, and 10 points for killing an enemy player in sequence 8)
Mission rewards: 4th to 10th place, one copy of Sequence 8 Extraordinary Knowledge (any way); 3rd place, the above reward and a C-level weird item; 2nd place, the above reward and a letter of support from the circus cadres (random); 1st place, the above reward and a chance to teach Jack a skill (precious).
After Chen Lun issued the task.
The players who were fighting under the bridgehead were suddenly in an uproar.
"Fuck!"
“There are extra rewards!”
"Free Sequence 8 Transcendental Knowledge? And C-rank Trickster! Can anyone tell me what the support letter is?"
"It means you can summon the circus officials to help... That's the prize for second place, don't think about it, it's not for you!"
"The first place winner can actually learn Jack's exclusive skills?! How can this be so incredible?!"
"Kill, Zhuo, I'm going to destroy this broken bridgehead!!"
In the nearby channels and faction channels, various communications flashed quickly, filled with the excited words of the players.
The most obvious thing was the notification box that Chen Lun received, which popped up several times faster than before... This made his head full of dinging sounds, and he had no choice but to quickly set it to "Do Not Disturb Mode".
After doing all this, Chen Lun moved a chair and sat behind the command center with a smile on his face.
"Very well, fight on, warriors from a foreign land..."
He clapped his hands and cheered for the players in the distance.
General Vance, senior military officials, and clergy from the Moon Church's Hailing Group turned their heads to look at him, mistakenly believing that he was admiring the Imperial Army's fearless charge.
"The soldiers of Trisur are never afraid of death. Even if there is hell ahead, they will charge forward bravely... This is also the reason why our empire can dominate the continent."
General Vance said with a smile.
Chen Lun raised his eyebrows, and then realized that the other party seemed to have misunderstood something, but he did not explain, but nodded in agreement.
"Indeed, General."
Seeing that his experience points had skyrocketed by tens of thousands in just a few minutes, Chen Lun was quite satisfied and relieved, and couldn't help but say a few more words:
"But the defense of the Hercule bridgehead is a bit strange. Since they don't care about the integrity of the bridge and bomb it wantonly, why don't they blow it up and evacuate in advance?"
General Vance was not surprised to hear him say this, but said calmly:
"Of course, they want to use the bridgehead as bait to lure the Imperial Army into the fortress... They know the strategic significance of this military fortress better than we do, and they know we won't give up easily, so they probably set up traps inside and planned to ambush us."
The general chuckled and shook his head.
"But Anlon had no idea how powerful their enemy was."
He seemed to be prepared and his face was full of confidence.
Chen Lun sighed secretly.
He guessed that a considerable part of the reason why the imperial army suffered losses here in the previous life was due to this "confidence".
"This was not a trap at all, but a devastating explosion that reduced the fortress and the Imperial Army to ashes..."
At this time, several scouts came down from the makeshift wooden tower, trotted to the command post, and stopped beside General Vance.
"General, the enemy seems to be moving a large number of explosive barrels!"
"Um?"
General Vance stood up from his chair, picked up the monocular telescope on the table and looked towards the bridgehead.
Soon, he frowned.
"You would rather blow up the bridgehead than give it to us?"
General Vance snorted.
He immediately ordered the army to use "alchemical stimulants" to increase the speed of the attack, and also ordered the "mechanical falcon" team to shoot the enemy troops carrying gunpowder barrels from the air.
"Priest Kuni, can you mobilize the water flow of the Benavides River to impact the gunpowder barrels on the high walls of the bridgehead?"
General Vance turned to the clergy of the Hailing Regiment, asking for help for the first time.
Chen Lun could see that the general was a little anxious. Otherwise, given his character, he would never easily ask for help from clergymen like them.
"Um... okay."
Priest Kuni thought about it, and finally nodded calmly in agreement.
He and the people of the Hailing Group around him stood up and left the command center without wasting time. They went to the entrance of the bridge. A group of Sequence 5 deep-sea transcendents used the sequence ability of deep divers to directly summon waves of more than ten meters.
Boom…
Even the clouds in the sky couldn't help but grow a little darker.
Chen Lun watched this scene silently, recalling what happened on the Pearl Bamogo. Those deep-sea extraordinary beings of the "Hand of Boleyn" seemed to have caused the weather, causing the ship to encounter a storm.
"However, Sequence Five alone should not be able to directly create a storm. Most likely, it will be a catalyst... The current weather does not look like it will rain. I am afraid that these people from the Hailing Group will need some external help."
As expected.
Priest Kuni and others took out a palm-sized fish skull. After activating it, the high waves around it began to rotate on their own, and huge whirlpools appeared on the surface of the fast-flowing Benavides River.
Whoosh!
A strong wind came out of nowhere, and the waterspout grew higher and higher, even connecting to the sky.
With a loud bang, lightning flashed across the clouds.
Such a strange sight attracted the attention of everyone on the battlefield. Whether it was the Anlong army on the bridgehead or the imperial soldiers, they all saw that the environment had become darker.
But compared to the indifference of the imperial army, Anlong's side became a little flustered.
"It seems that they also realized that the plan was going to fail..."
General Vance looked through the monocular and chuckled twice.
Suddenly, in the next second, a strange stream of light twinkling with starlight shone from the highest point of the bridgehead, like a beam of light from a lighthouse, heading straight towards where General Vance was.
General Vance was stunned for a moment, and his expression changed slightly the next second.
"It's the enemy's extraordinary person!"
"Protect the General!"
Following a few shouts, the tall guards trained by the military immediately protected the general on both sides. However, the dazzling light penetrated the bodies of several people, leaving them frozen in place like withered sculptures.
The middle-aged nun of the Moon Church stood up with a stern face, raised her hand and a black circle of light blocked the flowing light.
Buzz!
The invisible contest lasted only a moment. The next moment, the middle-aged nun held her head and wailed, then fell straight to the ground.
Finally, she only had time to scream:
“The Saint Incarnate!
”
The black circle of light shattered quietly, and the stream of light was about to fall on General Vance.
At this critical moment, everyone only felt a flash before their eyes.
General Vance disappeared, and the light only shone on the empty chair. The metal folding chair was deformed after being illuminated. In just a few breaths, it became a marble chair covered with patterns, like a work of art.
Chen Lun grabbed General Vance's arm with one hand and brought him to an open space more than ten meters away. The latter let out a long breath and thanked Chen Lun softly.
After a brief silence, General Vance said in a deep voice:
“Hmph… They couldn’t help but send out extraordinary people to attack the headquarters. It seems that they have hit the opponent’s pain point! Herald, keep urging them! Speed up the attack!”
However, Chen Lun glanced at the general's shadow calmly.
Just before he rescued General Vance, he noticed that the latter's shadow moved slightly, as if something was hidden.
"It seems that the high-ranking officials of the imperial military are not just the protection forces on the surface... Maybe even if I hadn't saved him just now, he wouldn't have gotten into trouble so easily."
At the same time, heavy rain began to fall from the sky, covering the entire battlefield.
However, the area one kilometer away was still dry, as if the Hailing Group's casting range had an upper limit.
Chen Lun glanced at the bridgehead from afar. With his powerful eyesight, he saw a short-haired woman in military uniform looking at him indifferently at the top of the high wall.
The moment their eyes met, both sides seemed to have seen through each other's identity.
"Commander Jack, do you have a good countermeasure for the attack just now?"
General Vance turned to look at Chen Lun and asked seriously.
Chen Lun glanced at him and nodded slightly.
"Just kill her."
The general was slightly stunned.