Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei's War Journey

Chapter 73 Turning the Tide

"Otto! Put him down! He has PTSD!" Lu Mingfei shouted as he rushed over and grabbed Otto's wrist, which he raised again.

He noticed Herman's abnormality; the empty eyes and unconscious babbling were not signs of weakness, but typical symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Clearly, Herman had very severe PTSD, which explained why he had previously said he was unable to command the battle.

Hearing Lu Mingfei's words, Otto was somewhat unwilling. He didn't know what PTSD was, but he still obeyed Lu Mingfei's order and threw Herman on the ground.

"Everyone back to your posts! I will now act as platoon leader and command the next battle!" Lu Mingfei shouted, knowing that he could only rely on himself now.

Hearing Lu Mingfei's words, the other soldiers felt as if they had found their backbone. They stopped running around like headless flies and subconsciously obeyed orders, picked up their weapons, ran to the remaining firing positions, leaned against the trenches, and began to frantically aim and fire.

Caesar remained kneeling beside Rudolf's body, motionless.

Lu Mingfei walked over and, without the slightest hesitation, slapped him hard across the face several times!

"Caesar Gattuso! I, as acting platoon leader, am ordering you back to your post! Do you want to wait here to die?! Hold back your tears! If you want to cry, wait until we're fucking alive!"

Caesar raised his head, and for the first time, something almost bewildered appeared in his icy blue eyes, but it was quickly replaced by surging anger.

He stood up abruptly, glanced at Kleiner and the seriously wounded soldier being carried away, and turned to walk towards his own defensive zone.

"Hoffmann's class! How many people are left? Count them out!"

Lu Mingfei also began to take stock of the situation in his squad. Fortunately, no one in Hans's squad was killed. Only three people were injured by flying shrapnel or gravel, none of which were fatal. However, the morale of the entire platoon had been severely damaged. Hermann's performance had been a huge blow to them.

But there was no time to boost morale.

He immediately lay down on the trench to check the situation outside. Two platoons next to the defensive line also organized some sporadic fire, but the French skirmish line, under the cover of artillery fire, had advanced to about two hundred meters and was using shell craters and morning fog to get closer step by step.

"Fire! Fire!" With Lu Mingfei's order, the surrounding soldiers opened fire at the same time, and a dense barrage of gunfire erupted on the battlefield.

Although the French uniforms are usually very conspicuous, at this moment their sky-blue uniforms blended into the surrounding morning mist, making them look like evil spirits in the fog. Moreover, their numbers were enormous, definitely exceeding five hundred.

Lu Mingfei's side only had less than two hundred fully-trained fighters.

"Machine gun! Machine gun! Fire now!" Lu Mingfei shouted.

Soon, the only Maxim rifle in their defensive zone began to roar. Otto gripped the trigger tightly, the gun trembling violently under his strong arm. The scorching bullet belt transformed into a steel storm, lashing fiercely at the blue wave that was faintly visible in the morning mist.

7.92mm bullets pierced the human body, making muffled thuds, and the French soldiers in blue uniforms began to fall.

The machine guns in the adjacent defensive zone also began to roar, but with five hundred against two hundred, the absolute numerical disadvantage could not be made up for by just a few machine guns, not to mention that the other side was not without machine guns as well.

A sharp whistle rang out from the rear of the French army, signaling the start of the attack.

Despite the constant fall of soldiers, the follow-up troops pressed forward without hesitation, stepping over the bodies of their fallen comrades. Their machine guns also began to return fire, bullets whizzing against the sandbags and the edges of the trenches, pinning the Prussian soldiers down.

Lu Mingfei pulled the bolt and fired the trigger at the same time. Each time he pulled the trigger, he could hit a French soldier, but the G98's rate of fire was too slow, and the magazine could only hold five bullets.

"Squad leader! The machine gun is malfunctioning!" Otto shouted, and their most important firepower was silenced.

"Damn it!" Lu Mingfei cursed. The machine gun had to stop firing at this crucial moment, and the rifles alone were completely insufficient to withstand the French attack.

Just then, he felt something suddenly appear at his waist. He quickly looked down and saw that his small revolver with the ability to fire unlimited bullets for one minute had suddenly appeared.

He didn't know why the gun was here, but now was not the time to think about it. Without hesitation, he gripped the handle and activated the skill on it.

He felt himself being bitten by the gun again, the ghost within it greedily sucking his blood.

But he didn't care. He frantically pulled the trigger, making up for the missing heavy firepower. Lu Mingfei completely abandoned aiming and just poured bullets at the direction where the French troops were most concentrated, relying on his senses.

That small revolver seemed to be connected to an arsenal from another dimension. It didn't need to be loaded or ejected from its shell. The endless bullets it fired were not ordinary bullets, but strange bullets with small ghost faces on their red tips.

The first rank of soldiers was swept away as if by an invisible scythe, falling down in unison. Before the others could react, a deadly hail of bullets continued to rain down.

"That—what kind of gun is that?!" Otto stared dumbfounded at the weapon in Lu Mingfei's hand as he futilely tried to repair Maxim.

Other soldiers also noticed the unusual firepower. At the edge of the trench in front of Lu Mingfei, the soil was shaken down by the recoil of the dense fire, and he himself was like a rapid-fire turret, single-handedly suppressing the enemy's charge in an area dozens of meters wide in front of him.

For a moment, the battlefield situation became a strange stalemate or even a reversal. Lu Mingfei single-handedly held off the most dangerous front, giving the other soldiers a chance to catch their breath and regroup.

But Lu Mingfei knew that this was only temporary.

The French rear sounded urgent whistles. After their frontal assault was thwarted, they began to change tactics. Mortar shells whistled down again, this time more accurately covering the area where Lu Mingfei was located and the machine gun positions on both flanks.

Although Lu Mingfei retreated back into the trench in time, the scorching heat and shrapnel still made his cheeks sting and his ears ring.

Meanwhile, small groups of French troops began to use shell craters and smoke to maneuver from the more distant flanks, attempting to bypass this elusive firing point.

"Watch out for both flanks! Prevent infiltration!" Lu Mingfei shouted a warning, while simultaneously sweeping his revolver fire at the French squad attempting to flank. However, this weakened the frontal pressure, and the main French force began to stir again.

Moreover, the one-minute time limit is almost up!

"Otto! Is the machine gun ready yet?!" Lu Mingfei roared.

"Almost there! There seems to be a problem with the firing pin!" Otto was covered in sweat.

As Lu Mingfei watched the blue wave approach once again, he fired his last few bullets, and one minute was up.

"No time! Fix bayonets! Prepare for close combat!" Lu Mingfei threw away his revolver and drew his entrenching tool.

Without the sustained suppression of heavy firepower, rifle fire alone was no longer sufficient to stop the charge of hundreds of men. The French troops clearly noticed the disappearance of machine gun fire and their charge speed increased significantly.

The soldiers were pale, but their survival instinct and muscle memory honed by days of training made them carry out orders subconsciously. They drew their bayonets and engaged them in the locking mechanism.

Otto also discarded the malfunctioning machine gun, picked up a rifle with a bayonet fixed, and stood beside Lu Mingfei like an enraged bear.

Karl, Bruckner—the Hansband soldiers who were still able to move gathered together, leaning against the broken trench wall.

The same was true for Caesar. Survivors from Hoffmann's squad gathered around him, bayonets gleaming like a forest. Although they were fewer in number, their eyes also revealed a resolute determination.

The first wave of French soldiers roared as they jumped into the trenches!

The cramped space instantly transformed into a meat grinder, filled with roars, the clanging of metal, the dull thud of bayonets piercing flesh, and the snapping of entrenching tools against bone.

Lu Mingfei dodged a vicious thrust to the side, and then swept his entrenching tool horizontally, severing the French soldier's lower leg.

Without pausing, he swung his shovel again, striking another French soldier who was trying to flank him from the side. The sharp blade embedded itself deeply, almost splitting the entire shoulder blade, and hot blood splattered all over his face. Otto, on the other hand, relied entirely on brute force, smashing a French soldier's rifle away with the butt of his rifle, followed by a thrust that pierced the man's chest with his bayonet. Then, with a roar, he lifted the man up and flung him toward the enemy charging behind him.

The battle on Caesar's side was equally fierce. His eyes were already shining with brilliant golden light, and in the blink of an eye, two French soldiers fell to his bayonet.

At this moment, they were no longer thinking about anything else; they only had one thought in their minds: to tear all the Frenchmen in blue clothes around them to shreds.

Lu Mingfei also unleashed the beast within him, unleashing deadly sword techniques from the Yagyu Shinkage-ryu, Hokushin Itto-ryu, and Shinto Munen-ryu styles within the narrow trench.

He seemed to have transformed into a killing machine, and wherever he went, blue figures fell one after another.

Lu Mingfei didn't know how long he had been hacking away; all he knew was that the trench was filled with corpses, some of them Prussian soldiers, others of French descent.

When he pulled the entrenching tool from the chest of the last French soldier, all was quiet, and it was fully light.

A ray of sunlight pierced through the lingering morning mist and fell on Lu Mingfei's face, which was covered in blood and mud. He was breathing heavily, his chest heaving like a bellows, and his arm holding the entrenching tool trembled uncontrollably, his muscles spasming from overexertion.

The trench was filled with an overwhelming stench of blood and the putrid smell of ruptured entrails; the corpses were piled up in layers, almost filling the entire section of the trench.

The grey of Prussia and the blue of France were mixed together, soaked in dark red blood, making them indistinguishable.

The surviving soldiers either slumped on piles of corpses or leaned against broken walls, each one looking as if they had been pulled from a pool of blood, their eyes vacant, filled only with the bewilderment of surviving a catastrophe.

They appeared to have won, but no one cheered, no one celebrated.

>