Super Mothership
Not far ahead was a mission marker for players in the surrounding area.
It was obvious that these allied units were heading there to rendezvous according to their orders, only to encounter stubborn enemy resistance along the way.
These allies had clearly exhausted most of their ammunition in previous battles and were now barely holding on with the rifles in their hands. Their situation was hanging by a thread.
The two sides locked in fierce combat immediately noticed Lancelot and Black Pineapple appearing at the edge of the battlefield. One of the "Chainsaw Maniacs" instantly rumbled toward them, raising its gun barrel and taking aim.
The moment they saw this, the two of them wasted no time and immediately established a "link" with the allied forces on the battlefield.
"Regional Tactical Platform connected. Tactical Assistance System activated!" As the system notification sounded, the scene before their eyes changed instantly.
Not only did the system display the threat level and combat strength of every enemy in sight, but it also calculated an "optimal combat solution" based on everyone's remaining ammunition and equipment, assigning precise combat objectives to each individual.
A few simple solid and dashed lines, arrows, and colored markers appearing on the enemies allowed everyone to instantly understand what tactical actions they should take next.
"Smoke grenades!" Lancelot shouted as he rapidly maneuvered to evade the enemy powered armor's line of fire while pulling out a smoke grenade.
However, instead of throwing it at the closer enemy in front of him, he hurled it toward the area where the enemy forces were most densely concentrated farther away. At almost the exact same moment, Black Pineapple completed the same action.
The two smoke grenades immediately covered nearly half the battlefield. The special black smoke temporarily blinded four "Chainsaw Maniacs," silencing well over half of the enemy's concentrated firepower and giving the "C4" unit, protected at the center of the formation, a precious chance to catch its breath.
Protecting the "C4" was the Tactical Assistance System's highest priority after analyzing the battlefield situation.
As an "ultra-realistic simulation game" with billions of players, Civilization Front had long since become far more than just a game. It continuously supplied Codename with an almost endless stream of combat data and tactical templates.
Every single day, Civilization Front witnessed tens of thousands, even millions, of virtual battles of all scales.
Human civilization's history had given mankind an astonishing talent for warfare, while human players possessed limitless creativity.
Using this massive collection of combat data, Codename filtered and optimized countless strategies. Afterward, the Earth Defense Force's enormous staff corps manually eliminated bugs and patched loopholes, ultimately creating an unimaginably vast "War Database."
This "War Database" formed the foundation of the Tactical Assistance System.
"Rat-tat-tat!" A metallic storm screamed past Lancelot's ears as the enemy charging toward them opened fire.
The multi-barreled Gauss weapon displayed an astonishing rate of fire, tearing apart the metal floor wherever its barrage swept.
Lancelot ducked back behind the corner at the last possible instant, narrowly brushing past death itself.
The dense rain of high-speed projectiles hammered against the wall, punching straight through it in less than two seconds. Fortunately, those two seconds were enough for Lancelot to retreat to a safer position.
While Lancelot kept the enemy's attention focused on himself, Black Pineapple wasn't idle either. Somehow, two No. 7 bombs had already rolled beneath the feet of the "Chainsaw Maniac" spewing streams of gunfire.
"Boom! Boom!" After two deafening explosions, the powered armor emerged from the smoke completely unharmed, though its originally dark blue energy shield had faded to light blue.
Just as it switched targets and charged toward the nearest Black Pineapple, one of the allied soldiers on the opposite side shouted,
"Armor-piercing rounds! Fire!"
The seven allied soldiers had already trained their Gauss rifles on the powered armor.
In everyone's vision, its entire body was now glowing with a faint red aura—the system's "Focus Fire" indicator.
"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!" One elongated armor-piercing round after another slammed into the enemy's shield, sending ripples spreading across its surface.
Relying on its heavy armor and durability, the "Chainsaw Maniac" completely ignored the incoming fire and unleashed an endless barrage in return. Black Pineapple, whose role was to lure the enemy, only managed to hold out briefly before both of his legs were torn apart by the torrent of bullets, sending him tumbling to the ground.
By then, the enemy had already closed the distance and raised the massive chainsaw in its hands high overhead.
"Bzzzt!" The high-frequency vibrating chainsaw shrieked through the air as it slashed horizontally toward the helpless Black Pineapple.
"Bang!" At that very moment, after enduring a full five seconds of concentrated fire, the "Chainsaw Maniac's" shield system finally collapsed.
An armor-piercing round shattered the shield and blew away nearly half of its head.
However, the intelligent powered armor manufactured by the Wolf Empire possessed astonishing resilience. Even after losing half its head, it merely staggered slightly before continuing its relentless chainsaw strike toward Black Pineapple.
"Damn it!" Black Pineapple cursed as he forcefully pushed himself aside with his remaining arm, rolling desperately away.
"Screech!" Amid the ear-piercing sound of metal being cut and a shower of sparks, Black Pineapple lost his right arm along with nearly half of his body, while a deep gash was carved into the floor.
But that was as far as the enemy's success went. The seven or eight armor-piercing rounds that followed punched more than a dozen holes through its body, tearing it to pieces. After sparks erupted wildly from its frame, it finally collapsed and fell completely still.
"Nice work, guys!" Seeing the enemy at close range finally eliminated, Lancelot's face lit up with delight. He immediately pulled out the only No. 5 bomb he had left from his chest compartment and threw it toward the remaining enemies.
Over there, the smoke was rapidly being sucked away by the ventilation system, gradually revealing several towering figures.
"Take cover!" everyone shouted as they hurriedly dove behind whatever cover they could find.
They all knew perfectly well how devastating a No. 5 bomb was. Despite being a cheap mass-produced weapon, its explosive power rivaled that of a ballistic missile.
"Hummm!" Suspended in midair, the No. 5 bomb began to vibrate as crimson light glowed from within. The violent energy inside was on the verge of erupting.
However, just as everyone braced themselves for the coming explosion, a swift blue sphere of light shot out from the enemy formation and struck the bomb in an instant, generating a pale blue spherical force field about half a meter wide around it.
"Boom!" The violent blast wave erupted but was completely confined within the force field. For a brief moment, it looked as though a miniature sun had appeared in midair.
Two seconds later, the tiny sun vanished completely. All that remained was a faint popping sound, as if someone had set off a firecracker. A world-shaking explosion had simply been erased before it could happen.
As the defensive force protecting the Gold Coin Pirates' base, they naturally possessed means of safeguarding the facility.
"Uh..." Just as Lancelot realized things had gone terribly wrong, four streams of bullets instantly tore his body into countless pieces.
Fortunately, his head remained relatively intact. It rolled across the floor, its red electronic eye turning toward the allied forces opposite him.
Sure enough, the "C4" unit had already disappeared.
It turned out that as soon as the smoke grenades obscured the battlefield and everyone else drew the enemy's attention, the C4 had quietly withdrawn first, slipping past the battlefield toward its objective.
Given the overwhelming disparity in strength between the two sides, the Tactical Assistance System had never intended for them to annihilate the enemy.
Its recommendation from the very beginning had been to ensure the C4 escaped safely from the battlefield.
To accomplish that, sacrificing every other robot was considered entirely acceptable.
"Brothers! Hold them off! Buy time for C4!"
The remaining allied robots roared in unison. Despite having nearly exhausted all of their ammunition, they charged fearlessly toward the four towering "Chainsaw Maniacs."
Three minutes later...
Several more robot wrecks littered the smoke-filled battlefield. However, their desperate counterattack had taken one enemy down with them, leaving only three "Chainsaw Maniacs" as the ultimate victors.
But the humans had already accomplished their objective.
On everyone's tactical map, the blue marker representing the C4 had successfully reached the mission objective.
Lancelot looked at the Black Pineapple lying not far away and smiled.
"Brother, contact me once we're back on Earth. Drinks are on me!"
"Sure! I'll bring my brothers along too!" Black Pineapple replied with a grin.
"Well... next time you'd better use your real names!" Lancelot said with a headache.
"Hahaha..."
"Boom!" A heaven-shaking explosion echoed from the distance. Moments later, towering flames and a devastating shockwave surged through the corridor, engulfing everything in their path.
"Ding! Mission complete. Based on your performance, you have earned 50 Combat Merit Points. Your Pirate class has leveled up, and you have obtained the title 'Pirate Squad Leader'..."
"Uh..."
...
When the shockwave finally passed, not a single object remained standing on the battlefield.
"Click-click-click!" Amid the deathly silence, more than a dozen tiny silver spiders stubbornly crawled out from the wreckage of the destroyed robots. They quickly gathered together before climbing onto the body of a relatively intact "Chainsaw Maniac."
"Bzzzz~" A surge of electricity coursed through the machine. The "Chainsaw Maniac" trembled for a moment before slowly struggling back to its feet. Visible streams of silver liquid flowed across its body, rapidly repairing several critical mechanical nodes and restoring its mobility.
A moment later, a crimson glow flashed within the "Chainsaw Maniac's" eyes. It turned around and slowly walked toward another corridor that had already been reduced to ruins...
TL Note- Players....
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