I, the prince in distress, send money

Chapter 434 The plan cannot keep up with the changes

On the edge of the temporary camp near the starting point of the drainage ditch, on a cleared open space, the atmosphere was both frenzied and grim, forming an eerie contrast with the still-roaring steam pumps and the rushing toxic water ditch not far away.

In the center of the field stood a wooden cross, roughly made of logs, so rough that even the branches and leaves hadn't been cleaned off, but sturdy enough.

Above the cross, Shua Er Da Ji was firmly bound.

His Death Legion overcoat had been stripped off, leaving him only in thin undergarments. His signature gas mask with thick glass goggles was also gone, revealing a face that was now filled with panic, frustration, and a forced composure.

Sweat mixed with mud slid down his forehead and dripped onto the ground beneath the cross.

Beneath the cross, there was a mound of dry firewood.

Surrounding the stage where the execution was about to take place was a dark mass of players, their emotions running high.

The number of people involved far exceeds the scale of previous battles, indicating that the news has clearly spread.

Those players who were accidentally burned to death by the frisbee stood at the front, their eyes bloodshot and their fists clenched.

Most of them were players who had participated in the battle at the edge of the swamp. They were covered in mud and blood, and their faces were a mixture of anger, fear, and strong disgust for this indiscriminate killing.

The air was thick with the smells of sweat, mud, and a faint, almost imperceptible, burnt odor—the marks left by the previous battle, now stimulating everyone's senses even more.

It's unclear who started it, but a deep, oppressive sound began to converge, eventually transforming into a unified, soul-stirring roar that struck the heart of Hua Erdaji like a war drum, and reverberated throughout the entire camp.

"Burn...burn...burn!!!"

The sound waves acted like a solid wall, squeezing out the slippery and ridiculous living space of the man.

He struggled desperately, the rough ropes digging deep into his flesh, and the cross creaked under the weight.

"Listen to me, brothers, listen to my explanation!

Hua Er Da Ji screamed at the top of his lungs, trying to drown out the deafening roar, his voice distorted with fear and urgency.

"The fog, the fog was so thick, and with the snake-men swarming from all directions, I couldn't see anything at all. And the recoil of that flamethrower was ridiculously strong... Really, I didn't mean to, I was fighting for my life,"

He tried his best to justify his behavior, attempting to elicit a sliver of approval.

"More than fifty snake-men! I burned more than fifty of them to death. Without the fire I set, the defense line might have collapsed, the water pumps would have been destroyed, and the project would have been a complete waste. This was a necessary sacrifice!"

It was friendly fire; casualties are normal on the battlefield. You can't do this!

However, his explanations appeared weak and powerless in the face of irrefutable facts and overwhelming anger, and even carried a repulsive sense of sophistry.

"Bullshit! I saw you shouting 'our own people' into the thick fog with my own eyes!"

"My brother was eight feet away from the snake-man when you swept him up with a tongue of fire and burned him to a skeleton. You owe me my brother!"

"Tactical friendly fire? You're an arsonist, you did it on purpose!"

"Burn him alive, avenge our fallen brothers!"

"Burn! Burn! Burn!"

The players' roars grew even more ferocious, and several of the most emotional players even raised torches. The orange flames danced in the darkening evening sky, reflecting their angry and distorted faces, as well as Hua Er Daji's pale complexion.

"No, wait! I've made contributions! I've shed blood for Chris! I've served the Holy Expeditionary Force! You can't treat me like this! I want to see Diunerem! I want to see the Commander!"

Hua Erdaji panicked completely, screaming incoherently. His previous "death legion" chuunibyou (adolescent delusions of grandeur) demeanor vanished, leaving only the most primal survival instinct.

"No, brothers, I can compensate you. Equipment, money, anything, please don't do this..."

But no one paid any attention. The player responsible for lighting the fire was already holding a torch, with a solemn expression that mixed with a sense of revenge and ritual, and he walked step by step toward the pyre.

The time for revenge has come!
Don't blame Swallow for being so afraid of death; it's just that if he were to be killed now, it wouldn't be just one death.

Because of the fact that Hua Er Da Ji is currently in a red-name status.

Chris didn't want players to be enthusiastic about PVP content, so he set up many rules to prevent players from maliciously harming others.

For example, if someone accidentally injures another player on the battlefield, they will receive a red name status. If they accidentally injure one person, the red name will be slightly red. If they accidentally injure multiple people, the red name will be darker depending on the number of people involved.

Once a player enters the crimson state and is killed by another player, they will lose their character and cannot revive; they will have to create a new character... This means that everything a red-named player has worked hard for will disappear, and they will have to start all over again.

Furthermore, newly created characters will also have negative reputation points, making it extremely difficult to make a comeback.

Of course, to prevent special situations, such as to achieve a certain tactical effect, like a very powerful boss that players cannot easily defeat, they adopted a strategy where some people would entangle the boss while another person would bring an explosive charge and throw it into the crowd, blowing up both their companions and the boss.

Therefore, Chris also set up a red-name player system, which would be lifted if the player who killed him forgave him after the battle.

That's why it's so ridiculous and laughable.

Being labeled as a "red name" (indicating a negative reputation) isn't scary; what's scary is being unable to undo the mistakes you've made.

Hua Erdaji still really likes this game and doesn't want to quit.

Right on the edge of this place where fervor and despair intertwine, under a half-withered old tree.

Lydia, the former high priestess of the Church of the Goddess of Agriculture, stood silently, watching the farce unfold.

She looked at the young man on the cross, struggling in terror and desperately trying to defend himself, at the pile of dry wood at his feet, and at the players around her, who were filled with righteous indignation, shouting "burn!" and burning with the flames of revenge in their eyes.

She had a hard time understanding what she was seeing.

"You don't need to look at or think too much."

A voice suddenly came from the side, interrupting Lydia's observation. She turned her head and saw a large white pig standing next to her, with a girl even younger than her riding on its back.

A girl with chestnut hair, wearing a leather armor, was also looking at the burning cross in the distance. She was calm and composed, as if she had never seen anything like it.

After Lydia saw the girl clearly, she quickly bowed and greeted her. After bowing, she was in a dilemma because she found that she did not know how to address the girl.

Call me by my name?
No.

Call him High Priest?

Not good either.

Lydia was caught in a dilemma.

At the same time, she was also troubled by the question of whether she should also show respect to another person if she had already saluted one.
Mia seemed completely oblivious to Lydia's embarrassment; she simply watched quietly for a while. Flames had already engulfed Slippery Daji's lower body; his screams grew weak and intermittent, his twisted figure resembling a tormented demon in the firelight and smoke.

The players' shouts gradually subsided, replaced by the crackling sound of burning flames, and the air was filled with a kind of silence that followed the completion of revenge, tinged with the smell of burning.

"Let's go, Elsa, I'm hungry."

Mia patted the pig's neck lightly, her tone as calm as if she were saying that the weather was nice today.

Aisha snorted, turned around without hesitation, and with light, quick steps, carried Mia on her back, jogging slowly towards the canteen... where the aroma of food wafted from the camp. Lydia was left alone, standing frozen beneath the withered tree.

The longer Lydia stayed in the Holy Army, the more ignorant she realized she was, and the more mysterious His Majesty Chris became.

……

After Hu Lai's ridiculous antics were dealt with, no other imitator emerged in the days that followed.

The steam pump was intact and continued to work diligently, drawing out the toxic water from the swamp and directing it towards the sea.

The snake-men in the swamp did not sit idly by; they continued to attack the drainage ditches and steam pumps, and small-scale raids and counter-raids frequently broke out, both at night and during the day.

The snake-man was getting anxious.

Hua Erdaji's death was well-deserved, but his performance in using a flamethrower to fight against many opponents was a pleasant surprise for the entire Holy Expeditionary Army.

The flamethrower has a high chance of causing friendly fire, but it performs exceptionally well when dealing with snake people.

Snake people are naturally faster, stronger, and more agile than humans. In small-scale skirmishes, even if players have better protective gear and the advantage of flintlock muskets, the casualty ratio in battle is often very poor.

However, with a flamethrower, the situation is different.

You are stronger than me; you can cleave a person and shield in two with a single strike?

Eat my fire dragon!
You are very agile; you can change position three times in a second to dodge the lead bullets fired from my flintlock pistol.

Eat my fan-shaped flame cover!

There are so many of you, you've surrounded me. The next second, six knives will chop me into mincemeat.

Take this flamethrower self-destruct attack!
Looking at it this way, the Death Legion and the Flamethrower are a perfect match!

Diu Ni Rem immediately drew all of the hundred experimental individual flamethrowers from the armory and gave them to the players at the front lines to distribute and use as they saw fit.

Without hesitation, Diu Ni Rem immediately dispatched all one hundred of the experimental, single-soldier steel canister flamethrowers in his inventory to the front lines.

These items were jokingly referred to as barbecue grills by the players and were quickly distributed among those who received the "Death Legion" set.

With the Death Legion suit protecting them, and the barbecue scepter in their hands, the players guarding the canal and water pump instantly straightened their backs.

Passively take a beating?

Counter-attack?

That's all in the past!
The restless gene in players' bones—that having good equipment and not being reckless is like giving away free kills—quickly gained the upper hand.

A group of audacious and well-equipped members of the Death Legion began to deviate from merely guarding the fortifications.

They formed tactical squads of five or ten people, like bulky but impregnable black fortresses, and began to actively set foot on the partially drained swampy beach, heading deeper into the fog.

The Death Legion sweeping tactic was thus developed.

In this tactic, the best-equipped and fastest-reacting players usually act as scouts, carrying flintlock rifles or short-barreled shotguns, and walk at the front to keep watch.

The thick Krieg coats, along with the breastplates worn over them, gave them the confidence to withstand several stray arrows or snake-men's scimitars.

The player carrying a steel canister flamethrower weighing tens of kilograms is the core combat force of the team, although the heavy equipment will leave deep footprints in the mud and slow down his movement.

However, once a gathering point of snake people is discovered, a suspicious entrance to their lair is found, or a large-scale counterattack is encountered, the raging fire dragon will be a proclamation of destruction.

The eyes behind the thick glass goggles were filled with a passion for the barbecue business.

Players wielding heavy axes, hammers, or spiked maces are responsible for protecting the flanks and rear of the flamethrower soldiers. They are the guardians of the squad, tasked with clearing out snakemen who have been burned by the flames but are not yet dead, or risking their lives to buy time for the flamethrower soldiers when snakemen attack.

In addition, there will be one or two observers in the team. They carry signal flares and are equipped with binoculars to observe the environment. When necessary, such as when it is confirmed that a large-scale snake-men attack is coming nearby and there is no chance of survival for their side, they will send a signal light into the sky.

Green flares signal nearby people to move closer, while red ones are warnings to retreat.

These sweeping squads moved slowly, trudging through the mud like clumsy penguins, but their advance carried an unstoppable, industrialized sense of destruction.

Once a target is spotted, the flamethrower's signature "hiss...boom" sound becomes the snake-man's death horn.

Where the orange-red fire dragon swept, the poisonous fog was briefly dispelled, the slippery mud was dried and cracked, and the rotten wood burned fiercely. The snake-men hiding in it were either instantly carbonized or screamed as they turned into rolling fireballs. The acrid smell that filled the air became the footnote to victory.

The snake-men attempted to fight back. They used the remaining venomous mist and the complex terrain to launch surprise attacks. Their sharp claws and tail strikes left deep scratches on their thick protective suits, and the venom sizzled as it corroded the leather, but it was not quick to kill.

Once their whereabouts are exposed, they will be met with the flamethrower soldiers' grinning nozzles and a raging storm of flames capable of incinerating everything.

They also tried to concentrate their forces on attacking the flamethrower soldiers, but the heavy steel canisters and protective suits provided considerable protection, and the close-combat cover from the side was exceptionally fierce.

Deep in the swamp, the snake-man priest let out an angry and desperate howl.

Their habitat is being drained, and their usual ambush tactics are becoming less effective against those death messengers who are not afraid of poison or bites and can spew destructive flames.

For every inch the waterline drops, the area players can explore increases by one foot.

They seemed to see a huge net woven from flames and steel, tightening step by step with the roar of the water pumps, about to completely burn and flatten their last living space.

At the beginning of the drainage ditch, the steam pumps continue to work tirelessly, sending more toxic water into the sea.

In front of it, on the gradually drying swampy land purified by the players' flames, moving black fortresses, like the Empire's most ruthless cleaners, proclaimed the accelerated arrival of the snake people's doom in the most fiery and direct way.

While his absurdity may be undeniable, the barbecue route he inadvertently ignited became the sharpest blade for the Holy Expeditionary Army to cleanse this poisonous land.

Once again, Rem discovered that plans on paper often fall short of reality.

The original bulldozer plan was no match for the power of the Death Legion suit plus flamethrowers.

At this rate of advance, the Holy Expeditionary Army will be able to push the front line to the vicinity of the city center of Suvano before winter even arrives.

(End of this chapter)