Starting from the Planetary Governor - Chapter 867

Chapter 861: The Universe is Burning (VIII)

On the battlefield of Ankachi VIII, there were no tricks involved; it was all about head-on confrontation.

This was also the battle Baiqiao and his regiment faced.

During their attack on the underground tunnel, Baiqiao faced a crisis from the outset. The narrow passage made it difficult to call in long-range firepower. Air force, orbital bombardment, and artillery positions were all of little help.

Even their own regimental artillery company struggled and was temporarily transferred by superiors to join a higher-level artillery group.

But there was also good news. His troops were reinforced with equipment such as flamethrowers, rockets, melta bombs, and even individual thermobaric bombs.

With this powerful firepower, their initial attack went relatively smoothly.

After calling in a final air support attack, they bombarded the cave entrance, inflicting a heavy blow to the few Ork soldiers stationed there. The Baiqiao regiment advanced and easily routed the Ork defenders.

Then, the human infantry, rather than rushing down, launched a high-yield thermobaric bomb.

This weapon is particularly well-suited for targeting targets concealed underground or in caves, and it proved quite effective in the current environment.

After the thermobaric bombs were fired and a while passed while waiting for the explosion to subside, the first group of the Blade Company, fully armed and masked, descended.

The tunnel wasn’t large at first, less than four meters in diameter. Its roof was reinforced with a mixture of Zerg bioshell and concrete, and the ground was covered in a sticky green fungal carpet.

But as it progressed, it widened.

The attack sequence followed standard counter-subterranean warfare: the Vanguard Company, equipped with infrared detectors, led the way, the flamethrower team formed the second echelon, and the main force followed in two columns.

The first 300 meters went smoothly, with the charred bodies of some Greenskin Orks and the occasional Greenskin sentinels hastily emerging from deeper depths. However, at the first intersection, the fungal carpet suddenly vibrated violently.

“Trap!” the Vanguard Squad Leader had just warned when three modified Ork motorcycles burst out of the left passage.

One Greenskin Ork was riding a low-riding vehicle capable of even tunneling.

However, this thing was terrifying.

The rotating chainsaws welded to the sides of the motorcycles sliced directly into the human ranks, severing the first five soldiers in half.

The flamethrower team immediately spread a fan of flames, setting the greenskin on fire. But the greenskin’s vitality was so strong that he resisted the fire for a long time. After taking more than twenty shots and finally unable to withstand it, he even pulled the cable and detonated his low-slung motorcycle.

But there was more than just this one motorcycle coming.

Bike after bike rushed to attack the human troops, followed by Ork infantry.

These waves of attacks put great pressure on the human forces.

Bai Qiao was forced to order the main force to retreat to a relatively stable curved curve.

Engineers quickly deployed concussion mines and filled the cracks with quick-setting foam. Thermal imaging revealed a large bio-heat source 200 meters ahead—over 400 greenskin units were encircling from three branching corridors.

It was not a good idea for the human troops to engage the orcs at close range.

Bai Qiao ordered his troops to use firepower as much as possible to keep the enemy at bay.

They succeeded, but at a high cost.

The flamethrowers expended a considerable amount of fuel, creating a burning belt tens of meters long along the main passage, successfully halting the greenskins’ charge.

But the orcs had other methods, such as the subsequent appearance of more motorcycles, forcing the human troops to devote more firepower and focus more on attacking these high-threat units.

Later, the orc engineering troops suddenly broke through the vertical shaft from the lower level and emerged from behind the human troops. Although the human troops reacted quickly, immediately blocking and counterattacking these orcs, by this point, more than half of the company’s soldiers had been shot and decapitated by machetes in close combat.

Baiqiao established his regimental headquarters at the cave entrance and immediately deployed two additional infantry companies to reinforce the front line. They finally defeated the Greenskin Orks coming head-on. The previously battered company, nearly incapacitated, was forced to withdraw, replaced by a new reinforcement.

But the ferocious battle wasn’t over yet; the Greenskin Orks’ numbers seemed far greater than anticipated. After repelling the initial attack of 400 Orks, the heat source unexpectedly detected a new wave of Greenskins, numbering over 600, advancing on the human defenses.

By this point, Baiqiao sensed something was amiss.

The human forces were clearly the attackers, yet as the battle progressed, they were becoming the defenders.

Baiqiao decisively deployed a second thermobaric round.

He withdrew his troops from their positions, leaving behind a delayed-detonation thermobaric round that would detonate just as the Greenskins approached.

This wave proved quite effective. The detonated thermobaric bombs inflicted heavy casualties on the Greenskins. When the human troops descended again, they found most of the incoming Orcs reduced to charred corpses. Further down the line, they discovered some severely burned but still alive.

Only after killing these critically injured Orcs could the troops continue their advance.

By this stage, however, Bai Qiao’s confidence had wavered. Before

even reaching the core of the Greenskin base, three of his companies had been destroyed, and one had been completely wiped out. Flamethrower fuel and thermobaric bombs, weapons highly effective in underground environments, had taken a heavy toll.

Continuing to fight downward… Bai Qiao sensed the outcome was uncertain.

But this was the mission, and he had to press on.

At a vertical depth of 200 meters and a total advance of 3.8 kilometers, the troops encountered structural fortifications. The Greenskins had repurposed the original nest’s egg chambers to create a three-tiered ring fortress, its outer walls constructed from hardened mycelium and scrap metal.

The crossfire was clearly set up, and even if human lives were piled up, it would probably be impossible to pass through the narrow cave.

A wave of tentative attacks was undoubtedly repelled, and the front-line troops had to consider other methods of passing.

First, they tried to use rocket launchers to launch armor-piercing warheads, but armor-piercing rockets were not effective against the thick composite walls.

Baiqiao approved the front-line troops’ request to use rock-penetrating bombs based on the battlefield conditions.

But this was not a simple matter.

The troops temporarily evacuated, and the precious thermobaric bombs were used again. After the explosion, the human troops returned to the battlefield after they were safe.

A reconnaissance team approached, and it was relatively smooth at first, but when they got close to the ring fortress, gunfire broke out and the scouts were quickly eliminated.

But instead of doing this, the front-line commander directly ordered the troops to launch a fierce attack.

Because he could sense that the firepower of these orcs was much weaker than in the first wave of attack.

The thermobaric bombing wasn’t without effect.

Having suffered several losses from thermobaric bombs, the Orks weren’t unprepared. First, the ring fortifications provided some protection against the bombs. Furthermore, before the engagement, the Greenskins stationed some of their forces further back in the ring, only returning to the ring until the battle was over, and then retreating to serve as a reserve.

Using thermobaric bombs on the surface, in open areas, would have been a minor issue. However, using these weapons in underground tunnels forced the Alliance forces to retreat further away, otherwise they would also be exposed to the bombs. This gave the Greenskins an opportunity to withdraw their forces.

Ultimately, however, the Greenskins suffered losses from the thermobaric bombs, which effectively weakened their firepower.

This presented the Human forces with an optimal opportunity to attack.

However, at this point, the Humans’ chances were slim. Simply forcing their way through the Ork ring fort in this terrain was extremely difficult.

Despite the disadvantage and heavy casualties, the human infantry engaged the Orkkins in a fierce firefight, ultimately protecting their engineers.

Amidst artillery fire and under the cover of smoke bombs, a whole squad of engineers risked their lives to advance beneath the ringfort, drilling blastholes in the side walls and injecting two concussion bombs into the rock. They then placed the rock-drilling bombs.

The concussion bombs then detonated, weakening the fort’s physical structure. The subsequent rock-drilling bombs were more easily able to penetrate the previously sturdy fortress, constructed of Hive biomass and steel, and exploded within.

As the rock-drilling bombs detonated, inflicting heavy casualties and blasting a crater in the cavern wall, the Alliance Army soldiers, shouting, launched their attack, storming the ringfort.

The remaining Orks were few and in dire condition, but they fought a desperate battle with the humans inside the fortress.

With guns, explosives, machetes, axes, and even teeth…

Meanwhile, behind the ringfort lay the Ork mushroom garden. It’s unknown how many reserves the orcs still have in the mushroom garden, or how quickly new orcs are being spawned, but the reality is that small, continuous streams of orcish young men are flooding the battlefield.

At one point, the human army was nearly driven out of the fortress they had finally broken into.

Bai Qiao, of course, couldn’t let that happen.

He threw his last remaining reserves into the fortress.

He even stopped commanding from the cave entrance and personally led his troops downward.

Within the orc fortifications, humans and orcs engaged in a fierce battle for hours, a crude meat grinder that shed the blood of thousands of humans and orcs.

Ultimately, the humans triumphed.

They ultimately completely captured the fortress.

From the fortress, thermal monitoring enabled them to discern their strategic objective—the underground ecological park.

Scouts assigned to observe the area closely, using night vision goggles, confirmed the area was quite large, with tens of thousands of glowing spore mushrooms hanging from the ceiling and cultivation tanks densely packed on the ground.

Throughout the underground biotope, newborn greenskins were emerging from the mushrooms at a rate of three to five every ten minutes, dropping into the cultivation tanks. At the same rate, they emerged from

the tanks, already fully grown.

This rate of growth was terrifying. For humans, a qualified warrior requires ten months of gestation and eighteen years of growth, training and study. But greenskins, in just one underground mushroom garden, were producing hundreds of qualified fighters in a single day. And how many biotopes of this scale, or even much larger, were there on the entire planet?

Some scholars believe the orcs were created as biological weapons of war, and this is not without reason.

At the moment, that wasn’t the key issue. Even more deadly was the crossfire formed by the numerous turrets, their firing ports hidden behind the mushroom mounds. Over four hundred orcs were guarding this area.

Bai Qiao only had a thousand men left.

The previous series of battles had nearly drained his entire regiment.

But he gritted his teeth and ordered a powerful assault.

Thermobaric bombs destroyed the two turrets in the northeast corner, allowing the assault team to break into the central control column. However, the Orkkins had set a bio-trap there—a seemingly ordinary fungal blanket that, under pressure, released a potent acid, instantly dissolving the five bomb disposal soldiers.

As the remaining flamethrowers attempted to incinerate the control column, several Squigs suddenly dropped from the ceiling, piercing their throats with their fangs.

Ammunition and manpower were depleted, and even those who remained were wounded. It was sheer willpower that kept them fighting.

Intellectually, he knew the mission was impossible, but he still fought to make a final stand.

Despite casualties, the entire army charged forward, unleashing every available explosive on the control column, the culture tanks, and the Ork mushrooms. All of this was done to protect the final few concussion bombs, placed at the cave’s weakest point.

He hoped the explosion would cause the plantation’s roof structure to collapse, completely burying it, even if it meant burying his own regiment along with it.

Sadly, they failed.

While the ecological park suffered significant damage after the bombing, the crucial plan to collapse the caverns had failed.

Over half of the underground base’s core structure remained intact, and it would likely take the greenskins some time to restore production capacity.

Lieutenant Colonel Baiqiao and his regiment had completely lost the ability to advance.

He could only lead his troops out of the caverns.

A headcount revealed only around 600 men, all wounded, some seriously. Worst of all, they were low on ammunition and lacked any heavy weaponry. And down below, there were at least 200 Orks.

Fighting a third of that number with lasguns and gauss rifles, using limited ammunition, at a range of no more than 20 meters,

was a sure death.

The orcs could even throw away their guns, braving their bullets and lasers, charging forward and hacking them all to pieces.

In fact, that’s exactly what the orcs were planning to do.

As the remnants of the Baiqiao Regiment retreated from the cave, demoralized and ready to abandon the mission and call for help from their superiors, the orcs caught up with them.

Baiqiao was almost in despair.

But then, a flash of lightning suddenly appeared. Amidst the roar of thunder and lightning, one by one, heroic, translucent blue-white warriors stepped out from the lightning. They ignored the human soldiers beside them and fought to the death with the pursuing orcs!

(End of this chapter)