Chapter 14.2 - Intercept
The sky brightened some more.
This time, what Su’s left hand looted from the corpses was not just a magazine, but also a standard Scorpions of Disaster assault rifle. With just a few seconds of work, the barrel of the rifle in Su’s hands was exchanged for the assault rifle’s one. Under the gradually brightening sky, Su’s hands moved with a graceful rhythm, the skintight tactical gloves not damaging his hands’ beauty at all. Meanwhile, the fingers that were exposed outside were like sparkling snow, white to the point where they shouldn’t belong to this world. It was unknown just how long Su fought, but even if they turned over an enemy corpse that was covered in blood and dirt, his ten fingers would still not be contaminated by a speck of dust.
It was as if war was supposed to be this clean, efficient, and spotless.
The clock was already pointing at twelve. Due to the thick layer of radiation clouds, in this month of April where flowers should have bloomed and the warmth of springtime should have arrived, the north still experienced a frigid coldness. In addition, the sky was still extremely dusky, as if the curtain of night was ready to descend at any moment.
The electronic light’s warmth gently illuminated everything in the office. The rays of light were bright and but not too strong, producing an effect similar to natural sunlight. Of course, this light didn’t contain fatal ultraviolet rays. When one bathed in this type of lighting, it wasn’t much different than sunbathing in the olden era, yet Marshal Diaster liked the rare harsh sunlight outside more, insteads loathing this type of light that was full of artificial mixtures. He actually knew that this electronic light was not much different from sunlight. The Scorpions of Disaster’s level of technology could even imitate the natural radiation waves of sunlight. In addition, after losing a larger half of his abilities, the Marshal couldn’t directly expose himself to the sunlight outside without suffering any injuries. However, the marshal just liked more natural sunlight, even though he would never admit that this was just a childish psychological effect.
It was already time for lunch. There was no lack of beautiful but forever emotionless military personnel who sent over the meal boxes. However, the Marshal suddenly felt a loss of appetite. When he saw the rows of casualty messages on the screen, his brows suddenly locked together.
In that morning alone, the casualty report showed seven troops of over 200 soldiers each. This amount of casualties had only appeared back when all four dragonriders were surrounded, and as a result used their overwhelming superiority in armed forces and firepower to destroy their army formations. What was different this time was that the death count today was excessively high, while the number of lightly injured or heavenly wounded only numbered eleven. The others were all killed!
A premonition that couldn’t be considered favorable suddenly fluttered past Diaster’s mind. He continuously tapped about on the largest central optical screen, pulling up the routes of advance of these now dead soldiers and their points of death.
Just as he was busy working, a gentle and beautiful female voice sounded from behind Diaster’s body, but it was unavoidably a bit stiff and mechanical. “Marshal, it is already time for your distinguished self’s lunch. Please take your meal promptly.”
Diaster didn’t pay this individual’s shouting any attention. Instead, his sharp eyes stared deathly at the optical screen’s information map. On the map, apart from the thirty or so casualties that occurred at the central region of the battlefield, the remaining battle losses all happened at the borderline areas, and from the scattered points, he could make out a path. The problem was that all of the reports that did contain a degree of severity happened at the battlefield’s central region, while the soldiers at the borderline region were completely dead. There wasn’t even a single individual who was severely wounded and on the verge of death!
This meant that all six small squadrons of soldiers were wiped out by someone in this morning alone, killed directly and efficiently without any sloppiness. In addition, apart from the D306 squadron that died first, the deaths of all of the other soldiers were from gunshot wounds, moreover under Scorpions of Disaster’s own standard assault rifle bullets! As for the quality difference between the Scorpions of Disaster’s assault rifles and the Black Dragonriders’ assault rifles, Diaster, who was the creator, was obviously clear on this fact. What was the point in giving these ordinary soldiers without any special abilities good guns? Assault rifles that were more powerful would instead be unusable for them. Moreover, these soldiers numbered in the thousands to tens of thousands, so manufacturing costs was an element that had to be considered.
“Marshal, please take your meal promptly.” Every minute, the military staff member would mechanically advise once. However, it was completely ineffective.
Five minutes later, the time limit was already close to this military staff member’s bottom line. She walked behind Diaster’s body, hugged him by the waist, then removed the marshal’s trousers before reaching her hands inside. In the past few days, she always used this method to make Diaster eat, and it was quite effective.
However, this method was completely useless today. Diaster suddenly lashed out, slapping the fine and pretty military personnel in the face with the back of his hand, sending her flying outwards until she slammed heavily into the wall! The military staff member’s face immediately became pale. She slowly fell weakly to the ground, leaving behind a streak of alarming blood on the metal walls. Before she completely fell down, she already went unconscious. The moment before she went unconscious, she was still urging with a weak voice, “... please take your meal promptly…”
Diaster drew out a line on the optical screen, quickly producing a route of advance from those corpses on the map. This line stretched from the southeast front almost straight towards the center of the war zone! As soon as he drew out this route, another piece of information appeared on the side of the screen of light: squadron 298 has been completely wiped out. No survivors.
The area squadron 298 covered was quickly added to the map, perfectly lining up with the route he just drew!
Diaster pressed on a blood red scorpion icon without any hesitation. Several seconds later, a sweet and pleasant sounding voice sounded in the command room. “You know my time is extremely precious.”
Diaster’s face was full of anger, but his voice had experienced clear restraint, becoming gloomy and steady. “Black Dragonriders’ reinforcements have already arrived, moreover high ranked dragonriders. It is unknown how many there are.”
“Annihilate them.” The voice issued an order that couldn’t be any clearer or simpler.
“Annihilate?” Diaster’s voice suddenly went up a notch. He coldly said, “What am I supposed to use to annihilate them? This pile of trash you gave me?”
“In your distinguished self’s reserve army, there are still 1700 trash members, while on the battlefield, there are 1100 that are fighting. Based on the calculations, this army’s fighting strength should far surpass…”
“Pandora! Don’t use your mechanical personality that doesn’t have any brain to play games with this old man! She doesn’t even have the qualifications to have me shoot on her face!” Diaster roared, forcefully slamming his fists down on the central command station. His angry voice rumbled like thunder. “War is not as simple as adding or subtracting like how your brain that only knows some calculation thinks! Several thousand piece of trash, when piled together, is still trash! Even if you stick some pieces of metal on them, they are still trash! If all the chickens of the world are added together, will they be able to break through stone? What a joke! If this really was the case, then what is the point of offering sacrifices to that dog fart apostle? If you gave this old one several tens of thousands of pieces of trash, that apostle will be piled to death! What is the point of having chosen like yourself who only know how to kiss ass?!”
The command room became silent for an entire second. Then, Pandora’s sweet and melodious sound sounded again. However, this time, there was an indescribable feeling to her voice, “Marshal Diaster, please mind your language. Disrespecting the apostle will not only bring destruction onto yourself, but also an extremely long period of suffering. It will definitely make you regret the joyous venting you did just now.”
Diaster revealed a smile of ridicule and said, “If we follow your idiotic personality’s way of thinking, not only will the two dragonriders be rescued, the entire forward operating base might be lost! When that time comes, isn’t destruction similarly waiting for me, a destruction full of endless suffering? If the result is the same either way, I might as well say whatever I want.”
“Cursing won’t solve the problem. What does your distinguished self suggest?” Pandora calmly asked, not doing anything for Diaster at all.
“Get those damn chosen here, the more, the better!” Diaster was extremely direct.