Warhammer: Hail to the Void Lords!.

Chapter 722 07.721: "Underground Surprise"

The entire Carpathian Central Hive Cluster covers a vast area of ​​1.3 square kilometers. The spires on top of the hive cluster are like sharp swords, piercing straight into the sky.

Between the intricate buildings, anti-aircraft artillery is as dense as the stars in the sky. Whether it is a hidden turret or an openly deployed one, Hydra anti-aircraft guns and psychic-guided missiles are installed on various roofs and between city walls.

The rows of gun barrels are like alert steel guards, always vigilant to threats from the sky.

Facing such a heavily defended and impregnable fortress, the Imperial Navy Air Force found it difficult to cause substantial damage.

Dropping bombs in broad daylight, facing thousands of artillery shells spewing flaming tongues, was undoubtedly like flying into a flame, seeking one's own death.

Although high-altitude bombing at night is relatively safe, its accuracy is extremely low. The hit rate on strategic points is even lower than that of attacking civilian hydropower facilities.

Although anti-radiation bombs can achieve certain results, their implementation is still fraught with danger. Moreover, faced with such a large base of anti-aircraft firepower, the effect achieved by anti-radiation operations cannot meet the "deadline" requirement that is like a sword of Damocles slowly hanging over the heads of the Imperial Army.

At this time, there was less than half a month left before the ultimatum issued by the Black Hammer Inquisitor.

In the first two and a half months, the Krieg Death Corps launched a fierce attack regardless of casualties. In such a short period of time, they achieved results that would normally take two years to achieve.

However, the cost behind this was also extremely significant - more than 470 million Krieg soldiers sacrificed their precious lives for this radical offensive plan.

The Ministry of Military Affairs estimated that it would take 800 million men to capture the Carpathians.

However, if this number of casualties is reached and the place is still not captured, then the entire senior command of the 15th Siege Army will be executed for the crime of "betraying the God-Emperor".

The Krieg people have never feared death. What they really fear is betraying the God-Emperor.

Now, the critical moment has arrived to demonstrate the fighting prowess of the Kriegs and the powerful computing power of their top staff.

Countless data were placed on the military's desk, which calculated in detail the manpower and materials that might be consumed in breaking through each key point.

At this moment, there are only 330 million casualties left.

Although 330 million may seem like a huge number, the ultimate goal of the Kriegs is a giant surface structure covering an area of ​​1.3 square kilometers.

This area is equivalent to the size of a larger prefecture-level city in Horatio's memory of his previous life.

From the upper nest to the lower nest, there are intricate, maze-like street fighting zones, and a large number of fanatical rebels.

It seems that 330 million reserve manpower is actually not sufficient. After all, once street fighting breaks out, the number of casualties will rise exponentially like a rocket out of control.

After carefully constructing the encirclement, the Kriegs used tight trenches to surround the entire central hive group 40 kilometers outside the city wall, making it airtight and watertight.

But apart from occasional artillery bombardments, they did not launch any large-scale attacks.

But at this moment, even if the Krieg people did not make any offensive moves, everyone knew very well that the Death Legion was quietly accumulating strength and preparing for the final general offensive.

The atmosphere on the battlefield was so depressing that it made people breathless. On the towering city walls, the rebels looked nervously at the dark Krieg front from time to time.

The haze was like a heavy curtain, covering the Krieg's position, silently emitting a terrifying and chilling atmosphere.

During the day, there were no obvious signs of movement from the Kriegs; and in the pitch-black night, it was impossible to get a glimpse of their movements.

Occasionally, the rebel artillery would fire a flare at the Krieg positions in an attempt to detect the enemy's situation.

However, their actions will soon lead to more intensive and fierce counterattacks.

Those homemade reconnaissance planes made by the rebels would often be accurately intercepted by the fighter planes of the Imperial Navy Air Force before they could fly high for long, and turned into a pile of scrap metal.

On the third day of the siege, the water supply system of the hive group was cut off, and water resources became a limited reserve material. On the sixth day of the siege, the last strategic reserve ration warehouse outside the hive group was declared lost.

In desperation, the rebels had to use the corpse starch recovery device.

In the sky, dark clouds seemed to be pressing down on the top of the city, and the atmosphere was so heavy that it seemed as if water could be squeezed out of it.

This extremely depressing atmosphere caused those traitors who were not mentally strong enough to collapse one after another.

They huddled under the battlements, some yelling in sharp, desperate voices; others trembling with their heads in their hands, muttering incomprehensible words.

In the pitch-black night, deep underground, unknown to the rebels in the city, a secret operation was quietly unfolding.

While the rebels on the ground were still nervously craning their heads to try to spy on the whereabouts of the Kriegs, 60 meters underground, the Krieg engineers had already dug out an intricate network of tunnels.

The reinforcements of the assault regiment were equipped with an advanced device called "Pluto Breakthrough Drill".

This is a large-scale earth-digging machine, like an underground steel behemoth, capable of efficiently digging tunnels to break through enemy walls.

These specialized equipment can dig tunnels up to 10 kilometers long and discharge cubic meters of soil every day. The tunnel excavated by a drilling rig is wide and high enough for a company to pass quickly.

The distance from the Krieg positions to the enemy walls was only 40 kilometers.

At this rate of excavation, in just four days, the Krieg Death Army would be able to suddenly rush into the city from the collapsed underground, just like Tuxingsun in the myth.

However, the military also prepared a special "gift" for the traitors.

The plan, of course, was Horatio's.

He suggested burying thousands of tons of high-explosive plastic explosives underground that could be detonated manually.

When the explosives were detonated on the day of the attack, based on his accurate estimate of the power of the explosion, detonating 50 tons of high-intensity explosives 300 meters underground would be enough to instantly blow a section of the city wall about meters long, along with the garrison stationed on it, to pieces.

Therefore, the 1313th Infantry Regiment, as the regiment that proposed the blasting plan, naturally assumed the important responsibility of the underground offensive.

But during the excavation, Horatio received an urgent report from the soldiers.
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Now on the battlefield, he could no longer wear Krieg's uniform - after all, no guard could have such a tall and burly figure as him.

He could only wear the Imperial Navy Captain's uniform that Lina and Yin Shuyao had urgently sewn for him according to his new body shape. This was his only choice at the moment.

Horatio took big strides along the wooden steps, heading into the dark and deep underground.

The tunnel was built very neatly. Apart from the lack of quick-setting concrete reinforcement, it looked like a spacious civil air defense passage. A company of soldiers could pass through it quickly without any hindrance.

"What have we discovered ahead?" Horatio asked seriously to Staff Officer Clausewitz beside him.

"A door." Staff Officer Clausewitz frowned slightly, obviously trying to find some precise words, and answered with a hint of uncertainty in his tone.

Horatio couldn't help but frown when he heard this.

Whether from the perspective of his previous life's cognition or the situation in the world he lives in now, the fact that he dug out a door while digging in the ground gave him a bad feeling no matter how he thought about it.

But even so, he continued to move forward resolutely.

Recently, he hasn't received much news from Lati and Thei, which makes him feel a little worried.

(End of this chapter)