Chapter 1 When the Grenade Exploded

When the first howitzer shell exploded on the battlefield, everyone, including Cage, was stunned.

According to intelligence and reconnaissance information, there was no weapon system capable of launching such heavy firepower on the Mad Sand Islands. These howitzers seemed to appear out of thin air!

Boom!

Boom!

The sound of explosions rang out frantically around them. Red-hot shrapnel flew, instantly slicing open the abdomen of a soldier next to Cage. With a muffled groan, Cage watched as the heavy sun-protective clothing was easily torn apart like paper, and internal organs and intestines flowed out of the wound, steaming and still wriggling.

"Ugh!"

Cage felt a wave of nausea surge up. He was born into a military family, and thanks to his family connections, he became a high-ranking officer at a young age.

He graduated from the Naval Academy and possessed a wealth of knowledge about war.

His family and background had provided him with great convenience, but they also exposed some of his shortcomings.

Cage had never truly experienced the harsh realities of war. His family had put an elevator in his path to promotion, so he didn't have to climb up from the bottom ranks like everyone else!

He was better at writing summary reports or doing political and ideological work in the office than he was at commanding operations. Although he had followed Nanfu to plunder resources from many cities, those cities had long been weakened by beast tides and civil wars, and had no power to resist the fleet's powerful ships and guns.

Up to this point, Cage had never truly participated in a decent war!

He had never personally experienced the blood and fire of a battlefield where artillery shells exploded around him and his comrades were torn to pieces. He also lacked experience in dealing with such situations, so when the howitzer shells suddenly rained down on his troops, his mind went blank, and he had no idea how to command his troops to escape or fight back.

If Nanfu were in command now, he would have ordered the soldiers to abandon their supplies, immediately scatter to find cover, and prepare to disengage from the battlefield.

Because the team was made up entirely of individual soldiers, even howitzer fire would have a very limited effect if they scattered widely.

However, Cage didn't have Nanfu's command ability. When he saw the soldier less than two meters away from him die on the spot, panic quickly overwhelmed him and made him irrational.

He picked up the walkie-talkie and shouted, "Rally to me, rally to me! Protect me!"

The troops obeyed the order and quickly gathered around Cage.

This action completely eliminated any chance of Cage's troops fighting back...

...

Li Tianran watched the information transmitted back from the Cruiser-class Radar Guardian and was shocked by the actions of Cage's troops.

Faced with heavy artillery fire, they still chose to huddle together...

What kind of divine tactic was this?

Did they want to use their flesh and blood to resist howitzer shells?

Even monkeys know to scatter and run in different directions when they are being hunted, but these regular troops from EU-affiliated countries didn't?

No...

Could it be that they have some other trick up their sleeve?

Li Tianran stroked his chin. After all, they were regular troops, and it was better for him, a self-taught amateur, to be cautious.

With that in mind, Li Tianran continued to observe.

But the more Li Tianran watched, the more he felt something was wrong. Cage's men had no power to resist the howitzer bombardment and fell in swathes like wheat being harvested.

"Is that it?" Li Tianran couldn't help but laugh.

If he had known that they had such combat power and military quality, why would he have been cautious?

He had even thought long and hard yesterday about how to deal with this commander, fearing that he would be bitten back...

"It doesn't matter if ordinary people are a little stupid, because they will only hurt themselves; but if a leader is a moron, then it's terrible." Li Tianran exclaimed from the bottom of his heart.

Fifteen heavy howitzer vehicles launched a frantic bombardment of Cage's landing force, guided by accurate coordinates provided by the Cruiser-class Radar Guardian.

It was not difficult for Li Tianran to bring heavy weapons here without a trace.

He himself was a walking Bug; it would not be an exaggeration to describe him as a mobile armory.

With the six-wheeled heavy howitzer vehicles firing in unison, the landing and mining team was almost completely wiped out. Even the Beast King couldn't withstand the powerful firepower of modern technology, let alone ordinary humans?

...

At the same time, on the warship.

When the heavy artillery fire rang out on the Mad Sand Islands, Lu Chi suddenly raised his head in the confinement room.

The two soldiers guarding him seemed to have heard the artillery fire coming from afar as well. They exchanged a glance, their expressions somewhat panicked.

Whoosh!

Lu Chi stood up straight.

"Sit down! Don't move!" The two soldiers raised the guns in their hands and roared in a language that Lu Chi didn't understand.

Lu Chi looked at the heavy shackles on his hands and feet, a hint of a smile appearing on his lips. He raised his hands and spread them wide!

Crack!

There was a loud metallic clang!

The electronic shackles on Lu Chi's wrists were torn apart by brute force. Bluish electricity crackled and sparked. Lu Chi roared and smashed the broken shackles directly at the soldiers in front of him.

Da-da-da!

Gunshots rang out instantly. The soldiers' eyes almost popped out of their sockets. They had never seen a prisoner who could tear apart steel shackles and ignore high-voltage electricity!

Poof!

The heavy shackles smashed directly into the chest of one of the soldiers. His chest caved in instantly, and he spat out a mouthful of blood. It was clear that he wouldn't survive.

Then, Lu Chi grabbed the barrel of the gun of the soldier next to him and twisted it with all his strength. The barrel twisted, and the parts flew out with a clatter.

Lu Chi punched the soldier in the head, and the sound of cracking bones rang out, making one's teeth ache. The soldier's body slumped to the ground.

"Woo!"

An alarm sounded inside the warship. The soldiers on duty heard the noise and rushed over.

Lu Chi tore off the shackles on his ankles and used a dagger to cut open a wound on his arm. As blood flowed, his physical abilities rapidly increased.

Lu Chi looked around, then punched open the fire cabinet next to him, pulled out a four-foot-long fire ax, and rushed out like a whirlwind, looking extremely ferocious.

This warship was the main ship, with fifty-two soldiers on duty. The communications department responsible for contacting the EU Naval Command was also on this main ship.

Lu Chi's goal was very clear. He grabbed two soldiers, asked them where the communications department was, and then slaughtered his way there.

With the blessing of Berserk God Descent (Ba zou shen jiang), Lu Chi was virtually unstoppable, and almost no one could stop him.

Aside from Li Tianran, only Lu Chi knew the details of Li Tianran's plan to seize the warship.

In this plan, none of it mattered, whether it was the battle last night, being captured, or today's artillery bombardment on the Mad Sand Islands.

The most important thing to prevent the EU Naval Command from suspecting that the warship was missing was to seize the warship's communications department.

But seizing the communications department was not to cut off the warship's communication with the command; on the contrary, he wanted to connect the warship with the naval command and send some information back to them!

Li Tianran was confident that after reading this information, no matter what happened to these warships here, the EU would not send troops to invade!