PATH OF THE STAR HUNTER

337 Chapter 337 The Battle Of The Bitter Winter

BOOM!

With the sound of artillery hitting the ground, hundreds of mutated beasts turned into meat paste as the shock wave caused a large number of collateral casualties.

Followed by the roar of artillery, a rain of merciless bullets rained down on the remnants of the mutated beasts’ offensive, with this being the third wave repelled, the defending army’s morale couldn’t be higher.

But if anyone paid attention to the expression of the senior officers, they would realize that things weren′t going as well as it seemed on the surface, Desmond was no exception; he had already realized the problem.

They were cannon fodder, the battle was already in its second hour and the tide of mutated beasts had already swept through with its third wave but so far all the defending army had faced was cannon fodder.

Until now the three waves of the mutated beast tide were mainly made up of rodent-type beasts, dog-type beasts, and some cat-like beasts, none of these beasts were particularly strong but their numbers were overwhelming.

And at this rate, Green Seed Town would face a scenario similar to the one it faced in its last siege where the offensive began to weaken as supplies ran out and the artillery ran out of ammunition.

Fortunately, in preparation for the spring attacks, most of the military supplies, including ammunition, were transported in the late fall to avoid the block in the roads by snowfall; so the Green Seed Town military warehouse was full at the time.

“I still don’t think it’s enough,” Desmond spoke his thoughts out loud.

.....

“Lieutenant?” Confused by Desmond’s sudden comment, Morales asked as he concentrated on shooting.

Desmond ignored Morales’ question, he simply looked around him for a moment before giving an order that baffled everyone: “Ceasefire, stop wasting ammunition.”

Not daring to defy their lieutenant’s orders, Desmond’s squad immediately stopped firing and looked at their leader with doubt clearly on their faces.

“Keep alert for any airstrikes and hold positions, Trevstone you’re in charge until I return.” Desmond immediately gave an order before turning around with his coat billowing in the winter winds as he made his way to the command center on the north wall.

The entire squad looked at Silvia with somewhat doubtful eyes, not that they doubted Silvia’s ability to take command temporarily but that they knew that Silvia and Desmond didn’t get along so it seemed strange that Desmond left her in charge, almost everyone thought it would be more normal for Desmond to leave his girlfriend in charge; they just didn’t understand that Desmond wouldn’t be petty enough to ignore Silvia’s talents just because they didn’t get along.

Back on Desmond’s side, he had already entered the command post in charge of defending the north wall where another lieutenant was in charge, reports constantly coming into the command post keeping the lieutenant in charge up to date on the details of the battle.

“Lieutenant Astryd, how is your squad doing?” the lieutenant in charge of the command post asked as soon as he saw Desmond enter.

“Nothing interesting, so far there have been no mutant flying beast attacks, but that’s not why I came,” Desmond replied formally without much of an expression on his face.

“So you’ve noticed?” the lieutenant asked back.

Desmond smiled bitterly when he replied, “How could I not know? those bastards are sending their rats, cats, and dogs to fight us, it’s obvious they’re trying to deplete our supplies; for all we know, they could have another million rats waiting to attack”

Letting out an exasperated and helpless sigh, the lieutenant in charge of the command post dropped the documents in his hands and replied while massaging his temples: “You are not wrong, from what we have seen with the use of drones, there are many tiger-like beasts, lions and bears waiting to enter the conflict; They’re probably waiting for our artillery charges to run out. Those things are big, we have confirmed at least 4 beasts big enough and dangerous enough to take down defensive walls, but the enemy keeps sending cannon fodder”

Not wanting to dwell on the matter too much, Desmond cut right to the chase and explained his reason for being at the command post: “I have an idea to take some of the pressure off our supplies, but I’ll need your help.”

Immediately interested to hear that Desmond had some sort of solution to the problem that was giving him a headache, the lieutenant asked, “What is it about?”

“Napalm” Desmond responded with a simple but dangerous word.

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To which the lieutenant shrugged his shoulders while he said a little annoyed: “Don’t you think that if we had napalm we wouldn′t have used it by now? Unfortunately, that thing is considered too dangerous to be considered part of the standard supply deployment.”

Somewhat mimicking the attitude of the man in front of him, Desmond shrugged and replied, “Well you guys don’t have napalm, but I happen to have some in my arsenal.”

“what?”

“Hey don’t look at me like that, it’s not like I’m a pyromaniac, it’s just something I bought privately along with other things the last time they distributed the catalog of military weapons” Showing a little helplessness before the strange expression of the lieutenant, Desmond couldn’t help but comment.

Snapping out of his daze, the lieutenant still gave Desmond an odd look before replying, “I’d certainly noticed there was incendiary weaponry in the catalog but I’d never heard of anyone actually buying it unless they needed it for some particular task; To think that there would be people like you who would buy it just in case”

“Say what you want, but don’t we happen to need a little fire right now?”

“What do you need?”

“I just want you to slowly reduce the rate of fire on the artillery, keep the machine guns going but also reduce the rate of fire a little bit, make it look like we’re running out of ammunition or trying to ration our ammunition; just let those bastards get close to the wall and I’ll take care of the rest” Desmond explained with a somewhat sadistic expression.

Swearing to himself that he would never mess with Desmond in the future, the lieutenant in charge of the command post on the north wall approved the plan and fired Desmond while he made adjustments.

Not interested in wasting time, Desmond walked out of the command post and down the north wall until he found himself in the vehicle his squad had brought and pulled out a large metal briefcase before heading back to the north wall back to his squad.

“Anything to report?” Desmond asked quietly as soon as he reached the north wall.

Silvia immediately responded with a military salute: “Everything in order, sir”

“Great, I guess now we just have to wait,” Desmond commented nonchalantly as he stared coldly at the beast tide in the distance.

An air of quiet hostility filled the area little by little making Desmond’s squad slightly uncomfortable who didn’t even have the guts to ask about the huge briefcase Desmond had brought with him.

After half an hour, the rate of fire of the artillery began to give way little by little with the mutated beasts getting closer and closer to the defensive wall making Desmond’s squad a little nervous but seeing Desmond’s silent attitude nobody dared to say anything about it while they waited for further orders.

At one point the artillery fire went from being heard every few seconds to barely being heard at all for a full minute as the defensive machine guns were under heavy pressure trying to repel the endless tide of rats.

The radio on Desmond’s shoulder began to blare with all sorts of questions and curses from the commanding officers of the other defensive walls but he remained silent even though inside he was cursing the bastard who was in charge of the defense on the north wall who hadn’t reported on Desmond’s strategy.

Desmond could already get an idea of ??why, it was because if the plan failed, once that happened the lieutenant in the command post could put all the responsibility on Desmond and if the plan succeeded that lieutenant could steal all the credit.

Had he informed Desmond’s plan beforehand, the lieutenant would share responsibility for the failure with Desmond for approving the plan, and if it succeeded, Desmond would take all the credit because he planned to start and his personal arsenal was used.

Although annoyed, Desmond didn’t do much about it though a dangerous whisper reached his ears as he continued to watch over the battlefield: “This world is full of scum that doesn’t appreciate the grace of the master.”

Grinning bitterly at the unmasked killing intent in Revna’s voice that came from his shadow, Desmond replied with an incredibly dangerous smile, “Don’t worry, that bastard is still a hundred years away from taking advantage of me; Besides, now he can’t blame me for what’s going to happen.”