Chapter 52: Hao-ge is Here

Inside the command bunker, the Generals watched the massive screen as Hu Hao towed his washbasin into the dark water and submerged himself. They had seen men who could swim a hundred meters before, but they had never seen a man dive and swim a hundred meters completely underwater while dragging a heavy load.

“He’s almost there. He’s almost there!” Li Tianyuan muttered, his voice tight with anticipation.

“So what if he makes it across? He’s just one man. What use is that? Sure, his diving skills are impressive, but from a tactical standpoint, what good does it do? I suppose it’s a good skill to have if you’re running for your life,” a Corps Commander nearby sneered dismissively.

“You don’t know a damn thing!” Jiang Kai snapped, shooting the man a vicious glare before turning his eyes back to the screen.

On the monitor, the washbasin slowly drifted toward the opposite bank. Moments later, it bumped against the shore, and Hu Hao’s head broke the surface of the water. Moving with absolute silence and caution, he waded onto the bank. The moment his boots hit solid ground, he slung his heavy tactical backpack over his shoulders, gripped his rifle in one hand, and grabbed the sack of grenades in the other.

Staying low, Hu Hao crept forward until he reached the midpoint of the sloping flood embankment. He flattened himself against the dirt. High above, the drone continued to broadcast the feed. Even through the ambient noise, Hu Hao, pressed against the slope, could hear the faint voices of Allied soldiers conversing on the other side of the berm.

Hu Hao quietly opened his sack. He pulled out a grenade, yanked the pin, and hurled it over the embankment into the distance. His hand didn’t stop; it immediately dove back into the sack for the next one.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

A rapid string of explosions suddenly tore through the Allied line roughly 150 meters from Hu Hao’s position.

The blasts walked sequentially from the far distance closer to his location. Caught completely off guard by the sudden detonations, many Allied soldiers blindly opened fire toward the opposite bank. They had no idea where the grenades were coming from; in the initial panic, many thought they were under artillery bombardment.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The explosions continued relentlessly.

“Dammit! Those are grenades! Where are they throwing grenades from?!” several Allied officers roared, finally realizing they were taking shrapnel from airbursts, not artillery shells.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The explosions ripped through the soldiers stationed along the top of the embankment. Because they had simply used the berm as a natural defense line against a river crossing, they hadn’t bothered to dig proper trenches. They were just hiding behind the dirt slope, leaving them completely exposed to explosives raining down from above.

“Yes! Beautiful hits!” Jiang Kai cheered as the drone fed the high-altitude footage back to the bunker. They could clearly see scores of Allied soldiers guarding the embankment being shredded by the blasts.

“He’s throwing them that far? And that fast?” The Corps Commanders stared at the screen, unable to believe their eyes.

“That’s way too fast! Is he even human? The absolute furthest any of our soldiers can throw a grenade is maybe seventy or eighty meters, and that’s only the freaks of nature. Hu Hao is throwing those at least a hundred and fifty meters out, isn’t he?” an officer pointed at the screen, looking at the others in shock.

“He is. He definitely is!” the other Corps Commanders nodded emphatically.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The explosions on the far bank continued to walk up and down the line. On the near bank, Huan Xingtao and the veterans poked their heads over their own embankment, watching the fireworks on the opposite shore. The Allied forces had stopped firing blindly across the river; they finally realized the attack wasn’t coming from the opposite bank. Someone had already crossed.

“Find that man! Fast!” Allied officers screamed frantically. They still couldn’t pinpoint where the grenades were coming from. The explosives were detonating in mid-air, raining lethal shrapnel down on them. Airburst grenades were far more devastating than shells detonating on the ground, and the casualties were mounting rapidly.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Hu Hao didn’t move from his spot on the slope. He systematically blanketed the area 150 meters to his left and right with high explosives. Whenever his sharp ears picked up the sound of approaching footsteps, a grenade was instantly tossed in that direction, blowing the threat away before they even saw him.

After completely clearing a massive semi-circle around his position, Hu Hao pulled out his flare gun, aimed it at the sky, and fired. Tossing the empty flare gun aside, he gripped his rifle and charged up to the crest of the embankment.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

“CHARGE!” Huan Xingtao roared the absolute second the signal flare bloomed in the sky. He and the veterans surged over their embankment, sprinting across the sandy beach toward the waiting boats.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Flattened against the crest of the far embankment, Hu Hao laid down a deadly field of suppressive fire, picking off targets within a 400-meter radius.

“He’s over there! Quick, kill him!” Allied soldiers finally spotted Hu Hao’s muzzle flashes and began shouting.

Hu Hao would fire a few rapid shots, then immediately roll to a new position. He knew that staying in one spot while laying down suppressive fire was a death sentence.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

“Push him! Hurry! Fill the gap! The enemy is trying to cross! Plug that hole!” Allied officers screamed in panic.

But they quickly realized that any soldier who dared to charge toward Hu Hao’s position was instantly gunned down. The lone shooter’s accuracy was terrifying—one shot, one kill. And the shooter constantly shifted positions, making it impossible to pin him down.

“Hurry! Push across!” “Fast! Start the engines! Move!”

On the near bank, Hu Hao’s soldiers were frantically piling into the assault boats. The moment a boat was loaded, the engines roared to life, tearing across the water. They knew Hu Hao was holding the entire breach alone; no matter how skilled he was, one man couldn’t hold off an army forever.

Thwip! Thwip!

Enemy bullets slammed into the dirt inches from Hu Hao, showering him with soil. Forced to break contact, Hu Hao slid backward down the slope, grabbed a handful of grenades, and lobbed them over the crest toward the densest cluster of enemy fire.

BOOM! BOOM!

The return fire abruptly ceased. Hu Hao scrambled back up to the crest and resumed firing at the Allied troops trying to rush his position.

The enemy didn’t dare run along the exposed top of the embankment; they tried to flank him by running along the bottom of the slope. But Hu Hao held the high ground, giving him a clear line of sight to gun them down as they approached.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Hu Hao fired a few bursts, slid down the slope, swapped to grenades, and hurled them wherever he saw a mass of troops forming.

“They’re crossing! Our men are crossing!” Jiang Kai shouted, trembling with excitement as he watched the drone feed. Hu Hao had single-handedly pinned down the enemy and secured the beachhead. It was the perfect opportunity. As long as a few hundred men could make landfall, they could slowly tear the breach wide open.

“Faster! Faster!” The Corps Commanders in the bunker gripped the edges of the table, their knuckles white with tension. They prayed the assault boats would reach the far shore in time. This was their only ticket out of the death trap.

“They made it! A squad just made landfall! They’re moving up the embankment!” a General yelled in pure ecstasy.

The entire command bunker was vibrating with nervous energy. They had been trying to cross this river all day, and not a single boat had managed to reach the opposite shore intact. A successful landfall meant they finally had a chance—even if they were pushed back, it was a chance. Seeing one man successfully suppress the enemy within a several-hundred-meter radius had ignited a massive beacon of hope in the dark room.

“Hao-ge! We’re here!” Huan Xingtao and his squad were the first to hit the beach. Rifles raised, they scrambled up the embankment and dropped in beside Hu Hao.

“You guys lay down suppressive fire! I’ll keep throwing! Did you bring grenades?! I’m almost out!” Hu Hao yelled over the din of battle when he saw Huan Xingtao’s team.

“We brought them! Here!” He Jizhong shouted, shoving a heavy sack of grenades into Hu Hao’s hands.

Grabbing the fresh sack, Hu Hao began sprinting along the midpoint of the embankment, parallel to the river. As he ran, he hurled grenades forward, leapfrogging his own explosions to clear the Allied troops who were still firing at the incoming boats.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The rolling barrage of explosions extended outward along the embankment, completely shattering the enemy’s ability to lay down suppressive fire on the river. As more and more Imperial soldiers poured onto the beachhead and scrambled up the slope, they established absolute fire superiority in their immediate sector.

“Spread out to the flanks! Push along the embankment! Fast! We need to widen this breach to at least a kilometer! MOVE!” Hu Hao roared as hundreds of soldiers swarmed his position.

“Order the engineers! Deploy the pontoon bridges immediately! FAST!” Jiang Kai barked. Seeing Hu Hao’s forces successfully expanding the beachhead to the left and right, he knew the time had come. They had to move fast; the enemy wouldn’t give them much time before launching a massive counter-attack.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The drone stayed locked onto Hu Hao. The Generals in the bunker wanted to see exactly how this young Major led troops in combat.

On the screen, they watched Hu Hao use his grenades as a devastating spearhead. He threw them relentlessly, blasting the enemy infantry into cover or blowing them to pieces. The soldiers following him surged into the cleared areas, cresting the embankment to lay down covering fire. Once enough troops moved up to secure the line, they launched coordinated downward assaults, wiping out the surviving Allied forces on the other side of the slope.

Block by block, Hu Hao’s forces ruthlessly pushed the frontline outward.

The Allied troops opposing them were airborne units. They had dropped in with limited ammunition and light weapons. Faced with a furious, massed infantry charge and forced to defend a massively stretched riverline, their defense rapidly crumbled under the sheer weight of numbers and superior firepower.

“Hao-ge! We’ve pushed far enough on this flank! You need to get to the other side! The pressure over there is immense; the enemy’s main force is concentrated on the right!”

After fighting for nearly half an hour and widening the left flank by roughly two kilometers, Li Jingsong sprinted up from the rear and yelled to Hu Hao.

“Ah? The right flank? Do they not have enough men over there?!” Hu Hao yelled back over the gunfire.

“They have the men, but the enemy’s main strength is over there! They’re pinning the 28th Army down hard! It’s not just the 28th anymore—units from the other corps are pouring across to help, but they still can’t push the line outward! You need to get over there!” Li Jingsong explained rapidly.

“Alright! You guys hold this line! Did you bring grenades?!” Hu Hao shouted.

“Yes! We brought several sacks! And the 28th Army will definitely have stockpiles waiting for you when you get there!” Li Jingsong assured him.

“Good!” Hu Hao grabbed a full sack of grenades and sprinted back the way he came.

The breach on the left was wide enough, and the engineers were already assembling the pontoon bridges. But on the right flank, the Allied main force was dug in deep, preventing the 28th Army from expanding the perimeter. They desperately needed Hu Hao to break the stalemate in close-quarters combat. His grenade throwing was simply too devastating to counter.

Hu Hao sprinted along the embankment until he reached the intense firefight on the right flank.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The moment Hu Hao arrived, a volley of grenades soared through the air and detonated deep in the enemy lines.

“Hao-ge is here! KILL THEM!” The soldiers of the 28th Army saw the signature airbursts and instantly knew who had arrived. Their morale exploded, and they roared as they renewed their assault.