Qianyuan: My crew comes from the world of anime.

"Machine gunners, suppressive fire!"

The massive soldier picked up his RPK light machine gun. Unlike submachine guns, its heavy firepower was devastating. Once it started firing, the "rat-a-tat-tat" sound was incessant. The suppressive force brought by the 100-round drum magazine was so great that no soldier could raise his head in front of it.

After the fire suppression was completed, the armored soldiers who were coordinating with the tanks immediately stepped forward with submachine guns, jumped behind the enemy's hiding place, and pulled the triggers inside!

A series of crisp sounds as spent cartridge cases fell to the ground...

"Cleaning complete..."

"Be alert! Enemy at two o'clock...!"

"Wait, those are civilians—!"

However, it was too late; the heavy machine gun on the infantry fighting vehicle was already aimed in the direction the soldier had warned of.

Several muffled gunshots rang out, and the 12.7mm bullets instantly turned the people behind the cover into speechless, riddled-with-hole corpses.

"..."

The soldier who had just shouted that word licked his lips in regret.

But there was no time for regrets on the battlefield. The squad leader grabbed the soldier and dragged him backward, while comforting him:

“You did nothing wrong—they had no choice. If they had stayed home, this wouldn’t have happened.”

"This is just what every soldier should do..."

The soldiers remained silent.

Things like this happen everywhere:

Soldiers were shot dead by civilians dressed in civilian clothes, then blasted to pieces with heavy weapons and missiles. Grenades rained down on innocent bystanders, perhaps simply because of the mutinous soldiers stationed at their doorsteps. The corpses scattered on the ground were indistinguishable, for the dead know no good or evil.

Under the vigorous advance of the First Battalion, the hastily armed recruits were quickly wiped out, and the battlefield command was in complete chaos.

Then came the rout. The mechanized troops cleaned up the mess while simultaneously firing sniper shots at the fleeing soldiers from behind.

The result was that this road was almost entirely soaked in blood.

"..."

For Lieutenant General Laycam, this outcome is unsatisfactory given the current progress.

Reports of fighting broke out from the rear guard indicated that enemy reinforcements were arriving faster than anticipated. If they couldn't break through immediately, they would be in serious trouble if they got bogged down.

He then dispatched amphibious armored vehicles borrowed from special forces, forming a clearly superior armored front that rammed directly into the enemy, tearing a gap in the front line.

Subsequently, the infantry consolidated their positions and counterattacked the advancing enemy. The combined force of grenades and rockets from the sky shattered the enemy group, which had been cut in two.

The armored forces at the front were advancing steadily and in an orderly manner, and the defending enemy could only retreat step by step... But there was nowhere left to retreat in their rear. A large number of people had been squeezed and concentrated in this area. If they scattered, the church where the Painted Skin Cult was located would be completely undefended.

For concentrated armored forces, the ideal combat method is to advance in an arrowhead-like formation, tearing apart and dividing the battle lines and directly destroying the troops that arrive behind them.

These troops would then be gathered as remnants into new units, regrouped, and crash into the 'arrows' of the armored forces, only to be destroyed once more.

This cycle repeats itself, and although each enemy unit maintains a 10% casualty ratio, when converted to the entire battle line, the casualties can reach an astonishing 30%!

Each time troops are reorganized, the losses caused by the previous troops are subconsciously ignored, but the total number of people on the front line will not change. The armored forces give those people a false impression: 'We can use casualties to slow down the enemy's advance.'

But this is just a statistical numbers game.

-

The advance quickly approached the stronghold of the Painted Skin Cult. Some well-trained soldiers began to wage guerrilla warfare. Their main tactic was to rely on the complex compartments of the residential area to bombard blind spots that the armor could not reach from the windows, and then quickly withdraw.

Lieutenant General Laycam, annoyed by the constant harassment, immediately ordered: "All T-80s, switch to depleted uranium rounds and aim at the bunker with the most red dots!"

Armor-piercing fin-stabilized projectiles with a shape resembling steel needles were loaded into the 125mm 2A46 smoothbore gun. However, the projectiles of these armor-piercing projectiles were not made of tungsten steel, but rather a special projectile made of depleted uranium.

This type of warhead has a 'self-sharpening' characteristic, enabling it to penetrate armor defenses that surpass all others in the world.

After replacing the self-sharpening warhead, the T-80 operator immediately turned the gun around and aimed it at a warehouse with thick metal walls.

The screen showed more than forty red dots.

The soldier under the periscope nervously licked his lips... then pressed the fire button.

——!

A deafening sound suddenly filled the air as the 125mm smoothbore cannon shot out steel needles at an astonishing speed.

A burst of flame erupted where the steel needle touched, and then the needle plunged into the metal wall—leaving a hole about 8 centimeters in diameter at the entrance to the wall, but turning into a cone-shaped scattering surface about 1.2 meters in diameter at the other end of the metal bulkhead.

With a loud bang!

A sound that could be mistaken for thunder came from the warehouse, and the walls that had been bombarded were blasted into crooked, flower-like shapes.

However, the scene revealed inside was astonishing: behind the wall were more than forty civilians without any bulletproof vests.

The soldier, seeing this through the periscope, was so frightened that he fell to the ground.

At that very moment, Major Luo Tianming's voice came through the radio communication:

"All personnel—on alert! There's an ambush!"

"Beware of any unprotected civilians; they have now become parasites in the masked world. Be vigilant against infection!"

"...!"

Chapter 396 Bombing

Luo Tianming sent the BTR-90 to the front line, and with the help of the symbiotic body of the Painted Skin, he immediately realized that the civilians had been parasitized by the Painted Skin creature.

The people of the Painted Skin Cult felt they couldn't hold out any longer, so they planned to release a large number of Painted Skin parasites, just like they had done with mechanized forces before, to force the army to deal with them quickly and buy them time to escape.

He immediately turned on the radio and shouted:

"There's an ambush!"

Just seconds later, the air was filled with screams as the parasitic creature suddenly pounced out of the cabin and began tearing at the soldiers on the front lines indiscriminately.

The soldiers were terrified. They immediately pressed themselves against the BTR-90 and fired their submachine guns at the parasite clinging to their comrade.

After a barrage of bullets, the man easily pushed away the painted-skin creature that was pressing down on him. He stood up and looked at his companions... They were looking at him with astonishment... because he had been bitten on the hand by chitinous tentacles.

Before he could explain, more parasites pounced on him from a distance.

Inside the vehicle, the driver anxiously shouted to Luo Tianming, "Major, we can't move. There are soldiers all around us."

However, Luo Tianming knocked on the car door and said, "Open this."

"Major?!"

Not only him, but the other soldiers also showed expressions of shock.

At times like these, it's definitely safer to stay inside the car; they've never gotten away with anything from these cloaked creatures before.

Killing these things yields nothing but a waste of bullets, and you even have to figure out how to dispose of their corpses.

Luo Tianming emphasized again, "I said, open the door!"

"There's no need to be afraid because of the Painted Skin Parasite; let's continue!"

The car door opened, and a reinforced squad quickly formed a defensive perimeter around Luo Tianming.

He approached the man who had been bitten earlier, his body was burning with fever, and his eyes were rolling back... These were typical symptoms of the "painted skin" infection.

Luo Tianming took out a syringe from his pocket, injected it into the man, and said, "This is 'Skin Worm Remover,' take a deep breath... you're fine now."

The man quickly calmed down from his convulsions.

Luo Tianming said to the soldiers around him, "I still have a lot of medicine here. Has anyone been infected?"

The surrounding soldiers checked themselves, and even some civilians who were originally hostile rushed over.

He continued to encourage people, saying, "There's nothing to be afraid of. With medicine, we can prevent this infection. When you're treating them, prioritize targeting the thighs. Once you cause limb damage, their threat will be much smaller."

"Just stick those disfigured bodies on and execute them head-on with bayonets. If anyone gets bitten, come find me immediately!"

"...!"

Hearing his encouragement, the soldiers cheered immediately. They bravely chased after the parasitic creatures, spraying bullets from their submachine guns at the enemy as if they were free!

"..."

Only Luo Tianming himself knew that the injection he had just received contained only adrenaline.

He didn't push any drugs in at all. Instead, he consulted with the symbiote in his body and temporarily suppressed the parasitic eggs in his body.

If someone gets bitten later, he will still use this trick.

Often, people fear creatures like zombies, painted skins, and infected people because touching them carries the risk of infection and mutation.

Once their fears are overcome, the painted skin parasites are nothing more than slow-moving human targets.

The army quickly recovered from its initial shock, and the tanks charged forward again. Relying on the heavy machine guns on the BTRs, they mowed down the enemies and the masked creatures ahead. The masked creatures that had been released to slow down the advance were quickly eliminated.

The Painted Skin Cult is right before our eyes—

Luo Tianming turned on the radio and asked the lieutenant general, "This is the command vehicle. We're approaching the church. What's the situation...?"

"..."

The lieutenant general's side was clearly in chaos, with the communications filled with jumbled requests for help. Those closest to him could even hear the roars of soldiers being torn apart.

"...Damn bastard!"

The lieutenant general angrily retorted, "The sect doesn't treat the residents as human beings at all. They just want to use these people as vessels for a facade to buy us time!"

On the other end of the communication, Luo Tianming listened to the lieutenant general's roar, then said expressionlessly:

"It's time to use our last resort. If we delay any longer... something unexpected might happen."

"..."

The lieutenant general closed his eyes in pain: "Was it really necessary... to be so cruel?"

Luo Tianming: "From your current position, you can see the church entrance directly, right? Why don't you take a look at what they're doing right now?"

Outside, human soldiers who had undergone skin transformation were frantically scratching their throats, tentacles taking over their mouths... Then these soldiers joined the melee, and he saw all of this.

There were also some symbiotic beings from the Painted Skin Cult dressed in black robes. Relying on the enhanced physical abilities brought about by symbiosis, they were moving among the soldiers, launching surprise attacks and then quickly leaving.

Damn it...!

The lieutenant general bit his lip, angrily pounding the inner wall of the T-80 tank. After his fist was beaten bloody, he lowered his voice and said:

"Communications...connect to special forces."

"Beep beep beep~~"

"Sir, what's the matter?"

The lieutenant general, checking the map coordinates, said, "At the edge of area B5, 120 meters above, 5 meters to the right of the center line, begin fire... I grant you permission to release thermobaric weapons."

"Below... use napalm bombs for a saturation attack."

"..."

There was a noticeable silence on the other end of the communication line. He was clearly shocked by the lieutenant general's madness, and even more shocked when he entered the coordinates and found blue dots within the attack range.

"But the incendiary bomb is positioned directly above you..."

"Don't make me repeat myself! Do it!"

The operator nervously licked his lips, then began the operation:

"AA2...Thermobaric bomb is ready!"

"Multiple rocket launcher system ammunition replacement complete... Napalm bombs, loading."

"……emission!"

"..."

At that moment, everyone seemed to freeze.

A giant missile, carrying everyone's hopes, was launched directly into the air. The first stage of the rocket ignited successfully... After reaching its limit, the propulsion unit automatically detached, and the rest was left to the parabola.

The soldiers looked up to greet the missile, their eyes following the black dot in the sky as it glided through the air.

Thermobaric weapons, also known as 'pressure stabilized bombs', are weapons designed to target personnel and utilize a mixture of fuel and air to produce a violent explosion.

First, the thermobaric weapon will detonate over the target, and the high-calorific-value fuel will rapidly spread throughout the air.

Secondly, the internal fuse will detonate a second time before landing, causing a deflagration that results in a violent explosion in an instant.

Its lethality stems from three effects: