Chapter 91: Close-Quarters Combat

Long activation of the heavy laser cannon inflicted a severe strain on the weapon itself, so when the second rending flyer emerged, only its wings were vaporized, leaving it lightly wounded, and the cannon was forced to shut down.

This time Lieutenant Elmer did not rush forward. The wounded rending flyer was exactly the kind of target that should be reserved for the armored soldiers to claim, and his earlier shot had only been meant to lift morale.

Five armored soldiers advanced. The foremost one, bearing a great shield, did not look down on the rending flyer merely because it had been injured and could no longer fly.

He raised a first-tier great shield that gleamed with a pale radiance, then lunged forward and slammed violently into the creature.

Because the rending flyer was a flying insectoid, its weight was not great, only around two hundred kilograms, and it had been stunned by the two laser beams. It had not yet recovered when the shield-bearing soldier sent it flying hard into a nearby structure of special alloy.

Before the rending flyer could react, the warhammer soldier behind him struck downward with a first-tier warhammer, hitting the creature squarely in the head and pinning it against the alloy fortification with overwhelming force.

At the same moment, two first-tier heavy battle axes bit into the insect’s body, carving two intersecting wounds across its carapace.

Then a first-tier spear, gleaming with a faint light, thrust out like a venomous serpent and pierced straight through the crossing wounds in the shell, driving inward to smash through the rending flyer’s heart.

In its final instant, the creature unleashed one last attack. Its two forelimbs scythed through the air, striking at the enemies before it.

The great shield appeared in time, blocking the blow. A harsh scraping shriek rang out as the armored soldier’s exoskeleton skidded twenty centimeters across the special alloy ground, leaving deep gouges behind.

But that was the rending flyer’s final struggle. Everything had been completed in scarcely two seconds, and the perfect coordination of the five armored soldiers made the battle absurdly simple.

No one cheered now, however, because more rending flyers were still pouring out of the spatial wormhole.

The five-man armored squads kept moving forward, drawing the rending flyers aside and engaging them there.

But the fight was no longer as easy as before. A rending flyer with the ability to fly and one without it were, in truth, two entirely different kinds of threat.

From Shadow Attendant’s perspective, the flyer’s movement was more like short-range teleportation. Even over three or four meters, the eye could catch only a blur; when it reappeared, it was already three or four meters away.

"Anti-air rapid-fire cannons, provide support!" Lieutenant Elmer roared.

He had no desire to see his armored soldiers fighting rending flyers to the death without any other support.

The command center received the request, and all the anti-air rapid-fire cannons opened up. As long as a rending flyer moved beyond the range the armored soldiers could attack, the anti-air guns would spew out continuous torrents of ammunition.

This was a dense barrage of one hundred thousand rounds per minute. Although the bullets were not first-tier rounds, they were enough to greatly hinder the rending flyers’ flight.

Whenever a rending flyer climbed higher, it would be showered with bullets and lose control of its body, falling from the sky.

The anti-air rapid-fire cannons could not directly kill the rending flyers, but the bullets they fired were so dense that they were the perfect counter to creatures weighing only two hundred kilograms, especially those whose advantages lay in speed and agility.

That was precisely why the anti-air cannons had been deployed. Most flying insectoids shared this weakness.

With the support of the anti-air cannons, the military armored soldiers kept scoring victories and killed five rending flyers that had fallen to the ground.

Yet the spatial wormhole continued to spew out more of them. There were already fifteen living rending flyers, and that number was quickly exceeding what this armored company could withstand.

Of course, the five military armored soldiers armed with second-tier weapons did not join the battle. Their task was to deal with insectoids that ordinary military armored soldiers could not defeat.

Even if the rending flyers broke through the military line and flew elsewhere, those five soldiers could not leave the spatial wormhole. Because if a powerful second-tier insectoid emerged, they would be the only hope.

An uncontrolled second-tier insectoid flattening a city was a commonplace thing.

It was especially dangerous when a second-tier insectoid appeared on the city wall, beyond the range where most heavy long-range weapons could concentrate fire.

"All combat units, eliminate targets outside the city!" The command rang out at every combat post.

When the spatial wormhole appeared, the insectoids outside the city also began to surge wildly toward the metropolis.

At this point the military in Pearlan City no longer held back. Just as David was adjusting to prepare his shot, Shadow Attendant’s vision showed him heavy missiles launching from openings in the yellow-marked sections of the city wall.

The missiles shot straight into the sky, then, guided by the military defense system, plunged toward the insectoids on the ground.

Even when they failed to strike a target directly, the force of the explosions was enough to heavily injure first-tier insectoids within a ten-meter radius of the blast, and sometimes kill them outright.

David saw that destructive power and understood that the warheads of those heavy missiles contained a great deal of first-tier metal; otherwise they could never have so easily pierced the shells of first-tier insectoids.

No wonder they had not used these heavy missiles earlier. Every one of them was built from piles of credit points.

David did not attack the targets outside the city. After this wave, masses of insectoids fell beyond the walls, and the ones that survived were swept away by other snipers and by the heavy laser cannon and gauss gun.

In truth, David did not know that heavy missiles were being used only in the sector before him. Because of the spatial wormhole, that section of the wall could not be allowed to bear any more pressure, and so heavy missiles were brought in to clear it.

David quickly entered a set of coordinates, and the barrel of the Number Five long-range sniper cannon swung rapidly around toward the spatial wormhole.

He did not know why the other snipers were not firing, but he understood his own ability well enough. He was fully capable of attacking the rending flyers.

In fact, it was not that the other snipers did not want to shoot. It was that they simply could not hit the rending flyers. The creatures were far too fast; with the neural reaction speeds of those snipers, they could not even lock onto them.

David aimed the Number Five long-range sniper cannon at the spatial wormhole. At that very moment, a rending flyer happened to emerge.

Just as a squad of armored soldiers was preparing to lure it away, a first-tier sniper round struck the creature in the head. In the process, David, using Shadow Attendant’s observations, discovered that when a rending flyer had just emerged from the spatial wormhole, it paused for less than a quarter of a second.

A quarter of a second. To aim and lock onto a rending flyer appearing from an unknown direction within the five-square-meter space of the spatial wormhole required reflexes beyond imagination.

Fortunately, at such close range there was no need to calculate wind, direction, temperature, humidity, or any such factors. With a proper aim and firing command, the bullet flew out almost in a straight line.

This shot also stunned the armored soldiers. One rending flyer was enough to tie down an entire squad of them, and even with anti-air rapid-fire cannon support, it would still take a fair amount of time to kill one.

"Excellent marksmanship! We’ve got a sniper this strong in our regiment!" Lieutenant Elmer’s eyes lit up as he praised him loudly.

At a time like this, having a powerful sniper on hand made the battle far easier.

As he was still praising the shot, another rending flyer burst out of the spatial wormhole, and at the same moment another first-tier round pierced its head and killed it on the spot.

This time Lieutenant Elmer fell silent. Such marksmanship, such reaction speed—this could only mean that sniper was truly a sniper armored soldier.

Yet sniper armored soldiers were extremely rare. Most of them were deployed near battle stars, making them even harder to encounter on other worlds. The number of sniper armored soldiers on Boulder Planet was especially limited.

At this moment David switched to the control system of the Number Seven long-range sniper cannon. His fingers flew across the input, and then, once more through Shadow Attendant and the sight picture before him, he waited for the next rending flyer to appear.

He understood clearly that after three consecutive sniper shots, he would need to wait fifteen seconds for the long-range sniper cannon to recover. Otherwise, in a war like this, if the cannon malfunctioned, he would not even be able to protect his own safety, much less continue fighting.