We promised to develop a game called Candy Crush, what the hell is the Third Reich?

Chapter 140 [Battle of Xiajin] - An Infinite Replay, August's [Station Battle] (6.2k combined)

Shen Yan, whose vision had been plunged into darkness, was still in a daze.

The words "[3 seconds]" appear before your eyes.

From charging a few steps into the story, to a sudden, explosive shout, the screen instantly plunges into darkness.

Shen Yan, the modern-day 'Lu Bu' of the Republic, only survived for [3 seconds].

In the previous storyline, Shen Yan followed this legendary warrior, learning and exchanging ideas, which greatly improved his melee combat skills, and he killed countless Japanese soldiers.

I originally thought I had passed the test in melee combat.

But only now, when I truly face this "Lu Bu" of the Republic, do I realize how vast the gap is.

The stab from the 1.9-meter-tall man was far beyond what the 1.6-meter-tall Japanese soldier could match.

In the instant he blocked the attack, Shen Yan felt as if he had been hit by a car. He almost dropped the rifle from his hand, but before he could react, he was struck by a tremendous force.

He was thrown into the air.

It's worth noting that Shen Yan is 1.8 meters tall, and with his muscles honed through years of training, he weighs at least 170 pounds.

But being picked off and sent flying like that made Shen Yan question his very existence.

If Zhao Ming knew what Shen Yan was thinking, he would definitely laugh.

Where is this?
If Shen Yan were to play a Japanese soldier inside a bunker, firing a machine gun, only to be dragged out of the bunker by this guy, along with the machine gun, and hacked to pieces, perhaps he would then know what the 'Taihang Mountain Giant Spirit God' really means.

The modern-day "Lu Bu" of the People's Republic of China is no joke.

The screen went dark and the word "[3 seconds]" appeared.

next moment.

Swish!
The scene before my eyes suddenly brightened, and the screams of the Japanese soldiers rang out behind me again, followed by a sudden shout from the front:
"kill--!!!"

Shen Yan's scalp tingled instantly:

"Again?!"

"Infinite start???"

The thought flashed through my mind, but there was no time to think about it further!
Shen Yan's charge couldn't stop, so he could only keep moving forward while raising his rifle to block.

Clang!
The moment he blocked the attack, Shen Yan grunted, then tried to fling the bayonet away from the person in front of him with all his might to the left. Due to inertia, the bayonet that was slashing at Shen Yan's rifle did indeed deflect to the left.

Shen Yan rolled to the right at the same time, trying to break free.

But just as he flipped to the right, the whistling sound of a blade slicing through the air followed closely behind him.

Puff——!!!
Shen Yan had just rolled halfway to the side when his movement was abruptly stopped, and then a bayonet was pressed against the ground.

Click!

The head was suddenly struck, and the screen instantly went dark.

【4.7 seconds】

Shen Yan was still in a daze.

There was no time to rest, or even to savor the moment.

Swish!
The screen lit up again, and a loud shout followed in an instant.

This time, Shen Yan learned his lesson and stopped immediately upon entering the scene, intending to have the Japanese soldiers behind him block his way.

However, Zhao Ming's plan had a distance of thirty meters, and the target was other Republic soldiers.

Shen Yan stopped in his tracks.

However, the Japanese soldiers behind him did rush to both sides instead of rushing over to block his way as he had expected, but the Republic's 'Lu Bu' was already charging straight at him from not far in front of him.

Shen Yan was on edge, raising his rifle.

I wonder if this time it was due to acceleration and inertia.

The rifle that had just been able to block him suddenly broke inexplicably under the immense force, and then a silver light flashed above Shen Yan's head and swept downwards.

Click!

The sound of a skull cracking.

Darkness descends again [4.3 seconds].

The screen lit up again.

After being killed several times, Shen Yan's anger was building up. He forced himself to calm down the moment the screen lit up, but the shout from the other side rang out again.

Shen Yan's movements were swift; he immediately turned to the side to anticipate and dodge, while simultaneously charging up his bayonet.

A familiar flash of blade light came from the front. Shen Yan dodged it by turning to the side in advance, but before he could exert force with his bayonet, the bayonet suddenly stopped and then turned to slash horizontally!
Shen Yan felt his hair stand on end.

A feint?

Darkness descends again [4.3 seconds].

Zhao Ming (I'm a ***) —!
Predictions are useless. The characters in the story are not static.

Just a few minutes.

Considering the settlement and the charge, assuming an average of eight or nine deaths per minute.

Shen Yan and the men of the Special Battalion were utterly humiliated.

The record of others dying dozens of times in one night was broken by Shen Yan and his group in just a few minutes.

He was tortured for only five minutes.

Shen Yan was stunned. Although he managed to withstand the attack from two moves to five moves, this method of attacking was a bit outrageous.

I wanted to check on what happened to others, and finally, in the brief moment of restarting after death, I managed to catch a glimpse.

It turned out that other people were also training.

As a brigade commander, he couldn't be inferior to his soldiers. So Shen Yan gritted his teeth and began to persevere, constantly training in hand-to-hand combat against the Republic's "Lu Bu".

Liu Feng, Fang Hui, and their subordinates clearly thought the same thing.

If even your own boss is practicing, wouldn't it be too embarrassing for you to step down?

Needless to say, the soldiers of the Special Battalion below are in even worse shape. Their squad leaders are still training; if they were to leave, they would surely be promoted to officers.

No one dares to take on the responsibility of being the first to quit.

It was in this kind of 'atmosphere'.

Shen Yan led the men of the Special Forces Battalion in a rigorous training session that lasted for more than three hours.

It was Zhao Ming who noticed something was wrong and kicked these people out from the backstage; otherwise, they would have been beaten senseless.

Zhao Ming was scrolling through the backend data records:
"These guys are a bit simple-minded."

The training lasted for more than three hours, with the fastest progress in the first hour. Shen Yan and Liu Feng both managed to last for 20 seconds.

However, as the number of deaths increased, the effects gradually diminished, and he slowly became mentally confused.

It went from 20 seconds to more than 10 seconds, until the third hour, when it returned to being killed in seconds.

Zhao Ming's expression was strange; strictly speaking, it was his problem.

I didn't think about it.

This intensity should be set for a time period.

Doesn't any of these guys think about quitting?

But looking at the backend data...

Basically, every time a game starts, someone wants to quit, but they never press the quit button.
This intensity is so high that it takes three hours to die, and I'm seeing hundreds of restart records.

It's also a cow.

This dungeon is absolutely hellish in difficulty, mainly because the buffs are fully stacked.

The melee combat in "Battle for Central Station" mainly involves two sides suddenly encountering each other in a corridor or room and trying to kill each other.

This sudden burst of killing intent could never compare to the Battle of Xiajin.

Firstly, in the storyline, Zhao Ming's side is given the identity of a Japanese soldier in the Northern Army, so the Japanese soldiers charging at the forefront are the targets of the Republic's 'Lu Bu'.

Compared to sudden contact in the room's hallway.

Fueled by national and personal hatred for the Republic's 'Lu Bu', and by the combined buffs of being the target, he stared intently for a few seconds before leaping out to kill.

The soldiers of Blue Star battled against the Republic's 'Lu Bu,' whose killing intent had reached its peak.

The extent of the tragedy can be imagined.

But progress has also been rapid.

Being able to last 20 seconds is already quite impressive. Zhao Ming lowered the threshold for the dungeon by half, so lasting one minute is enough.

A time limit was also added.

Judging from the results, the first 40 minutes show the fastest progress.

I will feel mentally exhausted later.

This way, you can train your melee combat skills to the maximum extent.

Given the intensity of the Battle of Central Station, ammunition was basically depleted within the first hour. The hand-to-hand combat skills honed in the Battle of Xiajin will prove invaluable.

After all, no matter how strong the soldiers of the Empire were, they were not as strong as the Republic's 'Lu Bu' that Shen Yan and others were facing, which was recognized by the entire army.

After completing the single-player story mode of the [Battle of Xiajin]...

Zhao Ming switched back to the game's backend big data, which showed the player growth of each federation.

The game originally peaked at 5000 million players worldwide when it ended.

With the promotion over this period, the total number of players in the game has now grown to 7300 million.

Among them, the Antarctic Star Federation and the Golden Moon Federation, which have agents, have experienced the fastest growth.

The Golden Moon Federation joined the game because many people followed the trend of the Golden Moon Federation's eldest prince.

On the other hand, the Antarctic Star Federation is dealing with a father and son who are both livestreamers.

The streamer originally wanted to bring his father along, but the father became completely engrossed, enthusiastically following the workers at the Dzerzhinsky Tractor Factory as they built tanks, attracting a large audience.

Then I got caught up in the addictive world of mechanical manufacturing and couldn't get out.

In a short time, the sounds of tank manufacturing factories and machinery began to spread across the South Star, and a retro trend began to take hold.

Retro mecha merchandise featuring 'tanks' and 'armor' designs from Polaris is completely sold out.

Shen Qinghan is contacting the contract manufacturer to speed up production.

Zhao Ming found the live streaming platform on Nanjixing and registered an account to access the platform.

at this time.

Yuanxing Live Streaming Platform.

Inside Theodore's live stream room, as soon as you enter...

The clanging and banging sounds then came, and what came into view was red-hot steel gradually taking shape under the constant hammering of the workers.

The camera angle in the live stream will also shift from time to time.

One moment we were in the assembly workshop, the next in the smelting workshop, and a retro, vintage feel washed over us.

These are scenes that even many elderly people in the Federation have never seen.

Because the industrial age was skipped within the first hundred years of the meteor shower, the world was filled with new energy sources and technological manufacturing. Where had anyone seen such a retro industrial style?

At this moment, everything in the game was new and exciting for the netizens of Blue Star.

Zhao Ming, watching the live chat, also noticed this.

Thoughtful.

Come to think of it, most of the games on Earth these days are just about piling on data, with fancy mechs, mythical beasts and all sorts of other things. It seems like we haven't seen a retro-style game like this for many years, and it's so realistic.

However, this retro industrial style is just an add-on to World War II: Rise of Empires.

After all, things compiled using photonic supercomputers can never be as captivating as real history.

This is also why the 'industrial style' from World War II is so popular in the Antarctic Federation.

Because Earth's industrial history was short, no one cared about it. But this industry, this atmosphere, became an instant hit in the Antarctic Federation because of the father and son's performance.

The Federation, which already has a fondness for armor, finds this primitive and wild industry quite novel.

From this perspective, this applies to Earth, which lacks a history.

History-themed games are becoming more and more interesting.

While Zhao Ming was pondering, Theodore in the live stream was feeling somewhat emotional.

Standing before a furnace filled with molten iron, watching the glowing red-hot iron being poured out, Theodore exclaimed, "Damn it."

"I never thought I would like machines in my life."

"I didn't expect to get used to it now."

All around him were noisy clanging and banging sounds, the sounds he hated most as a child, because his father, who often came home late from get off work, would not sleep but instead tinker with machinery.

This kept him awake, so their relationship was never very good.

It wasn't until I grew up and became more sensible that I came to understand some aspects of my father.

But I still have a strong aversion to machines.

He just never expected that this game would make him fall in love with the place and with the machines.

Theodore was also happy to see his father, who had been idle after retirement, regain his youth in the game.

Of course, this is just wishful thinking.

"Theodore! Theodore!"

The moment Theodore heard his father's familiar voice, his self-pity vanished instantly.

Even with a headache, he rushed over:

"Dad, how many times have I told you?"

Not finished yet.

Seeing his father about to start the engine, Theodore quickly dodged:
"Alright, alright, what is it?"

As I get older, I've become more stubborn.

Theodore thought to himself.

Father Theodore instructed him:
"Go and call the other engineers over quickly; I've made some modifications to this tank again."

Theodore looked helpless and quickly said:
"Ok."

But his identity was that of a soldier.

But there was no other way; they had to rely on the other engineers' reputation. Theodore went to call the other engineers.

He was also showing off in the live stream.

During this period, my father was at the factory repairing and modifying the details of the tanks.

While ensuring production, the tank's performance was also improved significantly. All of these improvements were due to the details that Old Man modified. The skill of the senior armor repairman was truly remarkable.

The Dzerzhinsky Tractor Plant in this [Stalingrad Campaign] instance has a significantly higher production capacity than in other instances.

However, Zhao Ming did not intervene.

Because these changes will not affect the overall battle situation.

the other side.

In Mo Xiaomo's live broadcast room.

It was also inside the huge machine shop of this factory.

Hearing the older man call out "Theodore," Mo Xiaomo instinctively looked over, and the viewers in the live stream also became interested.

As the figure came into view, the uncle raised his leg to kick, and Theodore ran away, the live stream audience went wild with laughter.

[This guy restarted it again?]

How many times has this happened? Five times?

[Not only that, I've been waiting here for so long, and this guy named 'Theodore' has already driven it 7 times.]

[That's a streamer from an outer federation; you can check them out if you're interested. They just became popular a few days ago.]

[I was wondering why this was so entertaining; turns out he's a streamer too.]

[But he's probably a newbie, hahaha.]

[Indeed, this guy doesn't seem to understand the game at all.]

Mo Xiaomo also noticed the comments and realized that the person was also a streamer.

Although I was curious, I didn't pay much attention to it.

While watching the machine tool in front of her operate, Mo Xiaomo also brought up the 'real-time map' in the live broadcast room.

The current situation remains unclear.

The offensive momentum of the Axis powers has not weakened at all. Although the offensive in Moscow has been repelled, Mo Xiaomo searched for live streams in Moscow.

The empire is still on the offensive, but it has turned into a protracted war.

Both sides were locked in a battle of attrition.

At this moment, Stalingrad is like 'Moscow' at the end of last year.

They were caught in the empire's frenzied offensive.

Thousands of planes bombed her every day, and the tractor factory where she worked was a prime target. Every day she would see the workshops destroyed by the bombing.

However, it will be repaired quickly. If it cannot be repaired, the usable parts will be taken out and the work will continue.

This resilience is beyond the imagination of netizens on Earth.

This is also why many people are attracted to watch.

The empire's offensive was frantic.

Meanwhile, Leningrad was under an eerie, tranquil siege.

Although imperial troops attack from time to time.

However, due to the environment, they were unable to break through. Meanwhile, Mo Xiaomo searched for Leningrad's live streams, and the most popular one was Duan Yu's, because this guy's survival challenge had reached its peak.

[267 days / 100 days]

It far exceeded the initial target.

Moreover, the environment in Leningrad is well-known. Although some streamers have tried to imitate it, they generally can't last more than 10 days. Duan Yu's live stream is unique in the Leningrad region.

Mo Xiaomo didn't go into Duan Yu's live stream, mainly because she was still traumatized by what happened last time.

Looking at the current battle lines between the Empire and the Soviet Federation.

Having been locked in a stalemate for more than half a year, if Stalingrad cannot be breached, netizens on Earth can already foresee what will happen next.

Such expenditures are beyond the empire's capacity to bear.

They had all witnessed the empire expand to such a vast area, even though its original territory wasn't much larger than Poland's.

If a million people die in the Soviet Union, and another million die, and another million die, we can still muster a million-strong reserve force in the Far East. But the Empire's native population is limited; if several million die...

Are we really expecting the people and military in France, Poland, and other places under our control to fight for the empire?
Perhaps that's the reason.

Therefore, the Empire's offensive against Stalingrad was exceptionally fierce.

The brutality was so extreme that even the players on Earth couldn't take it anymore.

Mo Xiaomo then looked towards other battlefields. In the North African theater, the Empire was amassing troops, and Rommel, a renowned general in the Hall of Fame, seemed to be preparing for a major battle with the British Commonwealth.

In the Pacific theater, Japan, having lost two major naval battles, is currently unable to retaliate against the United States.

Meanwhile, the United States Freedom Federation is continuously amassing troops, seemingly preparing to launch another naval attack on Japan.

Looking at the current time, it's already early August.

However, it's impossible to tell who will win or lose.

[European battlefield] Stalemate.

[North African Campaign] The Empire is assembling its forces to prepare for an attack on the British Commonwealth and its allies.

[Pacific Theater] The United States Free Commonwealth is assembling troops to prepare for an attack on Japanese-occupied islands.

These three battlefields.

It feels like the outcome on any battlefield will affect the overall global war situation.

Mo Xiaomo watched for a while, then turned off the 'real-time map' and returned her attention to the game, unloading the parts she had made from the machine tool in front of her.

Sudden.

Suddenly, Stuka's 'death whistle' rang out in the sky.

The sound kept ringing out.

Clearly, another Stuka bomber squadron was approaching. The air raid alarm suddenly sounded in the factory, and Mo Xiaomo's team quickly sprang into action.

The workers, who had practiced and fought countless times, worked together seamlessly.

The semi-finished parts were quickly piled up and covered with sandbags. The blueprints and documents in the engineers' hands were placed on the back cover of the iron cabinet buried under each machine tool.

One by one, fake tanks were pushed out to confuse the Stuka bombers in the sky.

Mo Xiaomo also hid the parts nearby and took cover in a corner of the bunker.

Through the broken glass, the 'death whistle' grew louder and louder, stimulating everyone's nerves, followed by a series of small black dots falling.

Boom boom boom boom——!
In addition to the disguised 'fake' tanks, the factory area was also bombed.

Some buildings and factory chimneys were also subjected to dive bombing, and the shockwave from the explosion spread out, shattering the already scarce glass into fragments.

At this point, the counterattack within the factory also began.

As the Stuka dived past, soldiers stationed throughout the factory strafed the Stuka bombers with anti-aircraft guns.

The Stuka's "death whistle" hovered over the Dzerzhinsky Tractor Plant, engaging in combat with ground-based air defenses. The battle lasted less than 20 minutes before the Stuka's whistle disappeared.

Mo Xiaomo stood up from the cover.

Thick smoke billowed from all parts of the factory, and flames shot dozens of meters high from one workshop, whether from fuel explosion or something else. Some workers rushed toward it with shovels in hand.

The other workers, however, did not slack off at all and immediately got to work.

They worked non-stop, manufacturing tanks.

This collective atmosphere is what attracts Blue Star netizens the most.

Mo Xiaomo's workshop was undamaged, so it immediately resumed production. However, while pushing the parts out, Mo Xiaomo discovered the corpse of the streamer named 'Theodore'.

This guy is really unlucky.

He was hit on the head by a piece of iron that was launched from behind the cover and died.

Mo Xiaomo smacked her lips, then quickly pushed the cart full of parts away.

Someone will collect the body.

the other side.

Inside Theodore's live stream.

Theodore leaned back in his chair, speechless, while his father cursed the Empire beside him, completely absorbed in it. Everyone in Theodore's live stream burst out laughing at the old man's rant.

Zhao Ming, who was watching the live stream, also found it interesting.

Theodore, on the other hand, was used to it. After making a few complaints, he started the game again.

The live stream screen flashed.

Theodore was somewhat surprised, because the game was no longer about the tractor factory.

Rather, it was a Soviet Federation army on the move.

Theodore wasn't surprised, though, since he'd already started almost 10 times and hadn't gotten to the tractor factory two or three times.

They were just about to leave the marching group and head to the tractor factory.

He had just stepped outside when a large hand pulled him back, scolding him:
"What are you going for?"

"Follow!"

"Destination: Central Station."

"quick!!!"

Theodore was pulled back and forced to run with the team. He helplessly told the live stream:
"There's no other way, we have to go to Central Station first."

"Let's open the tractor factory in the next round."

Zhao Ming, who was watching the live stream, checked the time.

It's already August 2nd in the game.

The tractor factory is the focus in July, but it won't be open in August. Experience the initial battle for Central Station.

Completely unaware of the situation, Theodore followed the group and rushed towards Central Station.

(End of this chapter)