Volume 13 Ancient Bronze City Ruins Chapter 627: Silent Battlefield
"...I just noticed now that the sound of the fleet bombarding the tower has completely disappeared." said the commander of the mobile force.
Although the air force fleet's indiscriminate bombing did not cause any damage to the core tower, the continuous huge explosions could be heard even dozens of kilometers away from the ancient bronze city ruins, not to mention the core control area at the center of the explosion.
But now, the surroundings around them were so quiet that it seemed as if there was a ghost.
"This is a terrible feeling," Layton complained. "It feels like I'm deaf."
"Compared to other interferences, I think this is already within an acceptable range." Ivan said calmly, "At least, it's better than environments like abnormal gravity, ultra-high radiation, extreme heat or extreme cold."
"Let's keep moving forward. Judging from the current situation, the air force fleet will not be able to break through the core tower from the outside... The so-called hope can only be placed on our shoulders." Sanshisan said.
"Oh, I remembered something." Layton suddenly said in an excited tone, "Now that we have figured out the peculiarities of this place, can we assume that the airborne troops that lost contact earlier may still be alive, but their movements have been completely 'shielded' by this strange place? If we continue to go deeper, maybe we can join them..."
"No, I don't think so." The commander of the mobile force shook his head. "According to the time, if the first few batches of airborne troops were not completely wiped out, they should have entered the core tower by now. But according to the fleet's observation report, during this period of time, the core tower has not changed at all, and the frequency and density of the core control area's anti-aircraft firepower have never shown any signs of attenuation."
"Lieutenant General Linde of the General Command also thinks so." He added at the end.
Although the current status of the first five airborne troops is just "lost contact", the general command in the rear has actually conceded that their operation has failed.
Looking at the machines and armored vehicles connected by cables as thick as arms , for some reason, Ke Lan always had a sense of déjà vu of the "iron chains" in Red Cliff... But then again, vehicles made of alloy should not be afraid of fire attacks, right?
“Bang!!”
A loud sound of metal collision suddenly exploded in everyone's ears. A soldier wearing power armor and holding a shield next to Ke Lan and the commander suddenly flew up, and then fell heavily to the ground!
In front of Ke Lan, there were four thumb-thick .50 caliber armor-piercing bullets floating. Behind each of the four bullets were visible vacuum wakes. But at this moment, both the bullets themselves and the wakes caused by the bullets breaking through the air at high speed were frozen in mid-air.
Ze Luo waved her slender arms lightly, and the bullets were instantly crumpled into small metal balls and fell to the ground.
"Sniper! It's an anti-material sniper rifle!" the commander shouted immediately, "Form a formation! First defense formation!"
The mechas and vehicles of the mobile force immediately moved, surrounding the infantry tightly in the middle. The mechas equipped with solid shields stood side by side, forming a row of solid shield walls.
"Their main target is me," Ke Lan said.
He raised his head and looked in the direction where the bullet came from. However, the opponent's gun seemed to be equipped with a very advanced flash hider, and the shooting distance was also very far. He could only determine the general direction of the sniper and could not accurately locate him.
The sound can only be transmitted to the core control area 20 meters away. This is an excellent sniper killing field. No matter how large the caliber or how loud the gun is when fired, it will become a silent assassination weapon here. By the time the target hears the sound of the bullet tearing through the air, the reaction time left for him is almost negligible.
But this only applies to ordinary people. Even if Ze Luo did not take action, Ke Lan could completely rely on time stop and living armor to block the bullets flying towards him.
"How is the brother who was shot?" Ke Lan turned to look at the commander of the mobile force and asked.
"That shot penetrated the shield, but it also changed its trajectory. It didn't hit his armor at a vertical angle , but slipped past the side... Otherwise, with the penetrating power of this shot..." the commander replied.
"The first shot was just to break through the shield and create a shooting window for the subsequent shots." Ke Lan pointed to the bullets that were rolled into balls on the ground. "There is obviously more than one sniper."
"Isn't this the power of a .50 caliber armor-piercing bullet?" Ivan asked. "It can penetrate a 20mm thick composite armor shield and can also blow away a soldier wearing a full set of power armor... Is there any .50 caliber, gunpowder-driven anti-material sniper rifle that is so powerful?"
"There is only one, the 'Scorpion Tail Needle MK-III' large-caliber anti-material sniper rifle launched by Korva Precision Industries in the year 917 of the new era. Although the caliber used is the more traditional 12.7mm, the structure of the gun itself has adopted many innovations. When using special armor-piercing bullets, its actual penetration power is stronger than many 20mm or even 25mm caliber anti-material weapons in the old era. Not to mention ordinary armored personnel carriers, even the frontal armor of some light tanks is no different from a piece of paper under its muzzle." When it came to this, Layton immediately became excited and explained in a torrent of words.
“Is it that exaggerated?”
"Of course... but the cost of this thing is terrifying, and the daily maintenance requirements are extremely high. It is impossible to mass-produce and equip the troops. As far as I remember, only less than 30 prototypes were produced, and production was stopped after the K series anti-material Gauss sniper rifle lost the bid. The design drawings have also been sealed by Korva. The few samples that have survived have almost become top collections in the hands of gun collectors... Logically speaking, they should not appear in the hands of heretical sects."
"And there's more than one." Thirty-Three interrupted.
"None of this matters. What matters is finding the location of those snipers." Ke Lan interrupted their discussion. "Asano Akira, can you detect the source of the gunshots?"
"No." Asano Akira answered very straightforwardly, "Not only the sound, but my ability is also limited... In my perception, the world twenty meters away is blank."
"Where's Ze Luo?" Ke Lan placed his last hope on the most perverted person in the team - when Ze Luo blocked the sniper bullet for him, Ke Lan had just awakened the living armor in his body and had not even released it.
" Like Asano Akira, my perception ability cannot extend beyond 20 meters." Ze Luo replied, "But I can reverse the trajectory of the ballistic missile... The sniper's position should be there."
Ze Luo raised his hand and pointed to the roof of a metal building six hundred meters away.
But the roof of the building is now empty.
"The sniper probably moved away after firing the gun." Layton frowned, "We have missed the chance to fight back immediately."
"Can thermal imaging be used?" Ke Lan asked.
"I've checked, and there's nothing." Augustus shook his head, imitating human movements. "Do you suspect that guy is hiding there with the help of an optical camouflage device?"
"What's the firing rate of the Scorpion Tail Needle MK-III?" Ke Lan suddenly asked a somewhat irrelevant question.
"Uh... the Scorpion Needle series are all bolt-action guns. They pull the bolt once for each round fired, so the firing rate can't be that fast... By the way, why are you asking this?"
"Five shots were fired from that place just now, which means there are at least five snipers hiding on the roof of this building - but do you think that place can accommodate five people?"
The architectural style of these metal buildings in the core control area is the same as that of the tall tower in the center. They are all hexagonal cones. However, due to the volume of the buildings, when the height and size of these metal buildings are proportionally reduced, the platform area on the top is less than one square meter, which is barely enough for one person to stand on, let alone five people.
Ke Lan asked Ze Luo again: "Are the starting points of the five trajectories all on the roof of this building?"
Ze Luo nodded: "The distance between each trajectory is only about ten centimeters."
"The person who fired the shot was not a human." Ke Lan made an immediate judgment.
"Not a human? Could it be some kind of mutated eroding species?" Leighton was stunned.
"If it's a Seed of Corrosion, there's no need to use guns for a sneak attack." Ke Lan said, "It should be some kind of mechanical device that can be remotely controlled for aiming and shooting..."
"So this is what you're talking about?" Layton, who was sitting in the cockpit, slapped his forehead vigorously. "Oh, I know this thing too...but because the enemy is a heretic sect, I subconsciously associated it with monsters. Who would have thought that these people would use such high-tech equipment!"
"They didn't use these things much before, simply because they didn't have them." Ke Lan said, "But this place is their home base, and there are also many people in the upper class of the Ark who have connections with heretical sects, so it's not surprising that they have some stock."
"Come to think of it, compared to those strange things dug out from the ruins of the Alpha people, I would rather face these familiar things."
"Can you let your soldiers carry out a round of bombing on that rooftop?" Ke Lan turned and looked at the commander of the mobile force.
"Okay!" The latter agreed immediately, and then two "Thruster" tactical mechas walked to the front of the shield wall. The rocket launchers on their shoulders were raised about forty-five degrees, and dozens of micro rockets were fired in one breath.
A huge fireball exploded silently on the roof of the building, and the environment around the explosion point distorted. Some metal brackets and mechanical device debris flew out of the fireball - these things were not fragments of rockets, but parts of the automatic sniper device that Ke Lan had just mentioned.
This is a "quintuple-mount" sniper mount, and it is covered with an optical camouflage device from the Alpha civilization. This optical camouflage device can even perfectly cover the muzzle flame when the sniper rifle is shooting. Even if you look closely, you can only see a few extremely inconspicuous black shooting holes with a diameter of no more than two centimeters, not to mention the visual effect from six hundred meters away.
In this silent situation, surrounded by various electromagnetic interferences, without air support and drone reconnaissance, there is really no other way to find this sniper point in such a short time except to capture the trajectory.
"Report, the enemy sniper point has been eliminated."
The two Thrusters retreated, but the shield wall and defense array were not immediately dismantled - the sniper position was eliminated, but the person who remotely controlled the sniper seat was not found... Only the "tools of crime" were destroyed, and as for the real mastermind, he was still hiding in some hidden corner.
Before the two Thrusters had completely retreated behind the giant shield held up by Shield Mountain, a laser as thick as an arm instantly pierced through the chest and abdomen of one of the Thrusters - this was the cockpit of the Thruster mecha. The pilot who was hit by the laser was instantly vaporized in his seat. The Thruster, which had lost its operator, also stopped in place after completing the preset actions of the calculator program.
"We were attacked by the ruins' defense facilities?"
This was everyone's first reaction, but soon Layton shouted: "No! That's the Ark's weapon! If it was the kind of laser beam used for air defense in the ruins, it would not be able to just make a hole in the mecha, but should have evaporated the entire body and half of the shield array!"
"It's a rechargeable cluster laser cannon." Ze Luo said, "I've played with this kind of weapon in the simulation MOD of Red Alert. It's a light energy weapon specially equipped for infantry to counter mechas."
"I know that thing." Layton said, "With the ultra-small energy conversion device excavated from the Alpha Ruins, the cluster laser cannon can be reduced to the size of a shoulder-fired rocket launcher... But this thing is like a disposable rocket launcher, it can only fire one round, the cost of a single shot is extremely high, and it takes nearly half a minute to charge before firing, which is useless... At the same time, the military leaders believe that there is no need to equip infantry with cluster laser weapons, so this proposal was cancelled. Compared with the 'Scorpion Tail Needle MK-III', this thing is just a concept, there is not even an actual sample, how could the heretic sect have it?!"
"The heretic sect may not have samples of this laser cannon, but they are not short of ultra-small energy conversion devices." Ke Lan said, "The structure of that thing should not be complicated, right?"
"It's not complicated. It's just that the materials and core components are difficult to deal with..."
Before Layton could finish his words, Ze Luo suddenly shouted, "The second shot is coming, and the target is you!"
Augustus' shield instantly opened at maximum power and collided with the beam of light coming from afar. The blinding light instantly illuminated the surroundings in a snow-white color.
"You...how did you predict it?" Leighton asked in surprise.
This beam of light is a genuine laser. It can hit whatever it is pointed at and never miss its target. It is definitely not the so-called "beam weapon" in science fiction movies and TV shows that flies slower than a bullet and can be easily avoided by the protagonist through operation - unless the speed of the person being aimed is faster than the speed of light.
"Intuition." Ze Luo replied.
