"Damn, damn, damn—"
Losing weapons on the battlefield felt like being suddenly naked. Hayes began to crawl around frantically among the fallen corpses nearby to find weapons. Then he met a traitor who was injured and fell to the ground before getting up again. The other party also fell to the ground. On the ground, they stood facing each other for a second.
It should be a man, with a face covered in dirt and only a pair of bloodshot eyes.
Then the opponent rushed over and grabbed Hayes' neck with both hands. The two rolled and fell to the ground, but Hayes found an opportunity to stab his fingers into the opponent's injured chest, twisting the wet flesh inside hard, forcing the opponent to let go in severe pain. Then he pressed himself against the man, and the fingers of his other hand grazed a hard object on the ground beside him, and he grabbed it.
As he lifted the object and slammed it into the man's face, Hayes was vaguely aware that he was holding the helmet of a fallen comrade, but he no longer cared.
In a frenzy of self-preservation, he raised his helmet and smashed it into the man's face again and again until it was slick with black blood.
Then, finally realizing that the man had stopped moving long ago, his face reduced to a ragged mush, Hayes stopped to catch his breath.
Suddenly, Hayes, who hadn't taken a few breaths, heard a blood-curdling war cry in the darkness. Before he could grab his gun, he saw a dozen thugs rushing towards him.
For a moment he almost turned around, not knowing whether to run away or to defend himself with a gun.
"forward!"
At the critical moment, he heard a shout, a shotgun blasted behind him, and the nearest enemy's face disappeared in a bloody explosion.
"Listen to my orders! Go forward and fire intensively!"
In surprise, Hayes saw their battalion commander striding past him, leading the soldiers to start a counterattack against the enemy. Winter also came over to help him up.
"Brother Hayes, you scared me to death. No one knew where you were, and there was no response to the communication."
Upon hearing this, Hayes patted his helmet angrily.
"That piece of shit has been broken for I don't know how long. The battalion commander keeps saying it will be replenished, but he still hasn't replenished it for me yet!"
"You're so embarrassed!"
Hashet slapped Hayes in the back of the head from behind.
"Tell you to follow closely."
"I had to pee urgently."
The support troops brought by Oranios were all commandos specially adapted to the mine environment. In view of the enemy's backward weapons, they all wore heavy explosion-proof suits similar to the armor of the Ministry of Justice. Some of them also carried explosion-proof equipment. Shield, moving forward at a slow pace, firing shotguns, cleavers, and flamethrowers at enemy hiding positions, dealing horrific damage with every step forward.
As the ambushers died screaming, Hayes stared at their battalion commander, and for some reason he felt like this man was like some long-dead saint who had returned to human form and was walking alongside them.
The Captain seemed immortal and unkillable, like the legendary hero told by the priest.
A legend who led his men to victory.
"forward!"
Under his command, the counterattack gained momentum, and all the living men gathered in the mine tunnels advanced around him.
"Keep firing! Forward, forward!"
With the help of the flamethrower, the enemies who tried to use the narrow terrain to shoot black guns were also driven out, so they turned around and started to escape.
Soon he escaped into darkness.
This is the most difficult thing about them. If they can't be beaten, they can always run away, and the soldiers dare not pursue them because they will deploy many traps, trip mines, large pits full of sharp metal fragments, and hanging holes above the mine tunnels. Falling rocks.
There was a person in Hayes's class who fell into a pit and suffered several holes in his body. Although he did not die on the spot, news of his death came shortly after he was sent to the rear field hospital.
And these people often escape through small passages with a height of less than one meter, which is what the imperial soldiers hate the most. They call it rat passages, because most of the time they cannot enter those holes while wearing armor. If they take off Remove the armor, and you only need a sharp iron rod to kill them.
So Ouranios ordered the attack to stop, everyone stopped shooting, and there was a brief silence on the battlefield.
Soon new sounds broke the silence, the wails of the wounded, and the nervous laughter and disbelieving oaths of others as they discovered they were still alive.
Hearing these sounds, Hayes' nervousness suddenly disappeared and he realized that he had survived.
He stood next to the body of the dead enemy. For some reason, he suddenly looked down at the tattered face of the thing. He suddenly felt sick and felt like he was going to vomit. He originally thought that he should have become accustomed to death and corpses.
Immediately afterwards, he saw a black shadow appear beside him, and Habri came to his side. The big man's upper right arm seemed to be injured. It was dripping blood, and his face was tightly wrinkled.
"The wounded will return to the starting point first, and the second company will continue to advance. We need to occupy an air purification station within an hour. That is a key location."
Ouranios said, turning his head to look in the direction of Hayes.
"Hayes, your squad will be responsible for bringing the wounded back to the starting point."
"receive!"
After that, Hayes and his comrades began to help the injured. Those who were slightly injured were simply bandaged, and those who were seriously injured were sent to makeshift stretchers. Everyone worked hard to go back.
The field hospital was set up in the rail transit station they occupied. It was originally a place where mine cars coming from all directions were dispatched. It was also a rare and spacious area underground. However, because of this, there were many passages around it, some large and some small. So when they were resting here, enemies kept coming out to harass them. It wasn't until they set up tarantula turrets and sirens at almost every possible entrance and exit that the place was considered safe.
When Hayes and the others trudged back to the starting point, people from other companies in the regiment also returned one after another. Outside the field hospital, the corpses of those who had died in the past 10 hours were lined up in a row, because the people transporting the corpses each There will be one in 10 hours.
Those who died had no boots on their feet and had their protective gear stripped off. Some had their faces covered with shrouds, while the rest were left naked in the biting cold with the features of death: all People are like logs ready to be burned.
Or maybe all of their lives are just like firewood, Hayes thought as he watched, people he knew before, across unimaginable distances in the void, fighting for goals they knew nothing about, and in the end... became merely a temporary landmark in this unforgiving and war-torn landscape.
for what?
Probably, as the priest said?
For, the Emperor?
To Hayes, this seemed to be the most meaningless of the many horrors he had witnessed in this dark underground, and it was also a lesson in utter futility.
(End of chapter)
