Dragon Raja: Lu Mingfei's War Journey

Chapter 91 A Bizarre Situation: Corpses Hanging from Branches

Verdun in February was still very cold, with light snow falling from the sky.

Lu Mingfei opened his eyes in the cold. He looked at the time on his wristwatch; it was seven in the morning.

He had barely woken up when the earth began to shake again, and the Prussian bombardment resumed. Those two million shells wouldn't be used up in a single day.

Lu Mingfei and the others lay prone in the bunkers and trenches, watching the shells streak across the sky and land on the French positions ahead. The smoke and dust from the explosions stretched into a vast expanse in the distance, and the gray smoke columns rose up, turning the sky gray.

Two hours later, the shelling ended, and the messengers returned to their positions with orders from the company headquarters.

"Today's mission is to completely conquer this forest! All platoons, maintain contact and support each other!"

"Everyone, move out!" Upon hearing the order from the company headquarters, Lu Mingfei also began to issue commands, and then led his men out of the trench to continue the advance.

Without hesitation, everyone followed behind him. Caesar immediately activated his Word of Power and began searching for the French troops in the trenches ahead. However, to his surprise, within a radius of 800 meters, apart from the heartbeats of his own company, there was no sound of anyone else's heartbeat or breathing.

"Lu Mingfei, something's very wrong! There's no one within an 800-meter radius around us," Caesar immediately reported to Lu Mingfei beside him, opening his eyes.

Upon hearing Caesar's report, Lu Mingfei's expression immediately turned extremely serious. He did not believe that the shelling just now had wiped out all the French. If the nine-hour shelling yesterday had not wiped out the French, how could the two-hour shelling have done so?

"Everyone, be on your guard! Watch your step so you don't step into a trap!" Lu Mingfei continued to shout orders. If those Frenchmen weren't dead, then there must be some kind of scheme involved.

Lu Mingfei and his men were extremely vigilant, watching their surroundings and the ground beneath their feet, fearing some kind of trap. They walked several hundred meters to another French trench.

To their surprise, they did not encounter any attacks or traps along the way. Although the French trench they came to was not complete, the main body of the bunker was intact and could still serve as a support point for a defensive line. However, there was no one in this intact bunker.

"Judging from the situation, they must have evacuated here last night." Caesar looked around the trench. The trench was quite clean, unlike other trenches which were littered with corpses blown to pieces by artillery shells. It had obviously been cleaned up.

Lu Mingfei's brows furrowed deeper and deeper. All of this was too abnormal. With the enemy possibly approaching at any moment, these Frenchmen had actually buried their own men's bodies and abandoned an important trench.

"I remember yesterday a platoon attacked this area not far from here. Let's go take a look; they should know something," Lu Mingfei said, taking out a map and pointing to an area not far away.

Just as Otto and Caesar were about to nod, a slightly noisy sound of footsteps came from behind them.

It was von Drell, who caught up with his second platoon of soldiers. The platoon leader, who was of noble birth, said with obvious impatience.

"Hey, William Hans! What are you guys dawdling for?! The other companies have already overtaken us and are advancing deeper into the forest! If we keep crawling like turtles, we won't even get a sip of water to wash dishes, let alone meat!"

Lu Mingfei and his men were not only the vanguard of this attack, but also the vanguard of the Ninth Company. The two trenches that were captured yesterday were almost entirely taken by Lu Mingfei's Third Platoon alone, while the other platoons did not contribute much.

Von Drell and the others originally wanted to continue following behind Lu Mingfei and his group, but Lu Mingfei and his group had been advancing too slowly, and even some members of the main force that had launched the attack that day had already overtaken them.

"Something's not right here. The French have abandoned an entire defensive line and retreated without any resistance. We need to figure out what they're up to. I suggest we check out the position that our allies attacked yesterday," Lu Mingfei said.

"Something's not right?" Von Drell chuckled and pointed to the sparse gunfire from other companies exchanging fire in the distance.

"Listen to this! The others are attacking, capturing positions! Isn't it good that the French ran away? It means they were terrified by yesterday's shelling! And now you're stopping to investigate why? Don't forget we're still suspected of treason. If the supervisory team sees us standing still, we'll be the first ones shot!"

They are currently in the stage of redeeming themselves through meritorious service. If the supervisory team finds that they are not making an effort to move forward, they will be the first to be executed.

Moreover, Lu Mingfei and his men easily captured two trenches yesterday. If they don't continue their offensive now while they have such a significant advantage, are they going to wait until later to continue fighting those Frenchmen in the trenches?

"Hans, now's the time to claim credit! You won't get a chance like yesterday every day! Once the French recover, we'll have to go back to the trenches and fight them inch by inch! What are you so afraid of?" von Drell continued.

Lu Mingfei was silent for a few seconds, then shook his head: "You guys go ahead and proceed. We'll find out the situation and catch up quickly."

He understood that now was the best time to gain merit and clear his name of suspicion, but the surrounding situation was too strange. He dared not gamble with the lives of the more than forty people in his platoon. He had not come here for any glory.

Von Drell's facial muscles twitched, then gave a cold snort: "Whatever. I hope next time we meet, I won't see your corpses being executed as deserters by the supervisory team."

After saying this coldly, Von Drell did not linger. He waved his hand and led the second platoon of soldiers to quicken their pace along the forest, soon disappearing into the gray-white snow and tree shadows.

As the footsteps faded into the distance, the surroundings fell silent once more.

"He's too hasty, too eager to die," Otto muttered, spitting on the ground.

Ignoring von Drell's sarcasm, Lu Mingfei signaled Caesar and Otto to take the other soldiers and quickly move towards the nearby position marked on the map.

That position was located about four hundred meters northeast of their current trench, on a slightly higher hill.

Yesterday, a Prussian infantry platoon belonging to another company was ordered to attack the area, after which they lost contact. The battalion headquarters assumed they had occupied the area, but follow-up troops did not go to confirm.

If they had already occupied that area, they should have been able to see the French positions last night.

Lu Mingfei and his group kept their bodies low, using craters and fallen tree trunks as cover as they advanced cautiously. Caesar's sickle was always open, catching any unusual sounds in the wind.

"No heartbeat at the front line—" Caesar said with a furrowed brow. His Kamaitachi range had covered the area, but he couldn't hear any sound from the front.

That position, with its commanding terrain, was a very important point. Even though the platoon had launched another attack yesterday, some people should have been left to guard it.

"The smell of blood—a very strong smell of blood—" A gust of wind blew by, and Lu Mingfei smelled an extremely strong smell of blood coming from that position. The battlefield was always filled with the smell of blood, but this smell was too strong.

Lu Mingfei gave a hand signal, and the team immediately stopped and dispersed in a warning formation.

"Caesar, come with me to take a look," Lu Mingfei said to Caesar beside him.

Caesar nodded, and the two proceeded very cautiously. After passing through the woods ahead, their view suddenly opened up, and they soon understood why the smell of blood was so strong.

The trees in front of them were covered with the corpses of Prussian soldiers, hanging like livestock in a slaughterhouse, their uniforms torn and their bodies twisted at all sorts of bizarre angles.

Some were even disemboweled, their internal organs hanging out and freezing into dark red lumps in the cold wind. Blood soaked into the snow beneath the tree trunks, forming shocking black and red stains.

"My God—" Even after countless bloody battles, Caesar was still stunned by the sight before him and his breath caught in his throat.

Lu Mingfei's pupils also suddenly contracted. He roughly counted the corpses; there were about forty or fifty, just enough for a platoon.

In other words, the Prussian soldiers in that platoon did not occupy that position yesterday, but were instead slaughtered and hung on the trees.

"This is a show of defiance against us—" Lu Mingfei said with difficulty.

"This was definitely not done by an ordinary soldier, it was done by a hybrid—" Caesar added from the side.

Given yesterday's situation, even if the French army organized a counterattack, it would have been impossible to annihilate an entire platoon of Prussian soldiers. Not a single one of them escaped, let alone hang up all their corpses as a show of force.

Only hybrids could do this, and they even possessed offensive abilities through their words of power. Caesar had heard that World War I was a war without much interference from hybrids, but hybrids like them from later generations were drawn into this war.

He hadn't forgotten Sakurai Akira, whom he'd seen before. There were definitely other mixed-race individuals in the French army, or perhaps Sakurai Akira was also in Verdun.

"We're in trouble now," Lu Mingfei said.

Their troubles were about to get much bigger. With a mixed-race soldier in the French army who could easily kill a platoon of Prussian soldiers, the French would not make a decision to retreat on a large scale. It must have been premeditated.

"Platoon leader—" Otto's shocked voice came from behind him.

When the other soldiers saw that Lu Mingfei and Caesar had not returned, they feared that they had encountered danger, so they went forward to check and witnessed the soul-stirring scene.

Some people unconsciously tightened their grip on their weapons, some people's breathing became rapid, and some people cursed under their breath. Fear was spreading, but what spread even faster was anger, extreme anger. They could accept death but not such humiliation.

Lu Mingfei took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down, and said, "Put the body down."

Otto was taken aback: "Now?"

"Now," Lu Mingfei repeated.

"They shouldn't be hung here."

Several soldiers immediately stepped forward and carefully untied the ropes. The body fell to the ground with a dull thud, like a sandbag hitting frozen ground.

Just then, Caesar's body stiffened abruptly, and his eyes widened suddenly.

"Lu Mingfei".

For the first time, his voice showed a noticeable fluctuation. "Not just here."

"What do you mean?" Lu Mingfei was taken aback.

"Deep in the woods—there's more."

"a lot of."

The weasel brought back the echo of ropes scraping against tree bark from afar.

Lu Mingfei and his companions cautiously moved forward, their feet treading on the blood-soaked frozen earth, pushing aside the drooping branches covered in ice, and venturing deeper into the forest. With each step, the stench of blood grew stronger.

After advancing about twenty meters, the sight before them froze everyone in place.

The forest was littered with corpses; wherever one looked, every tree with thick branches was laden with the bodies of Prussian soldiers.

There were at least two hundred corpses, swaying among the branches like dried meat waiting to be air-dried.

"My God—" A soldier could no longer control himself, knelt down, and began to retch violently.

Otto's eyes were bloodshot, and he let out a beast-like growl.

Lu Mingfei felt his blood run cold. This wasn't just a platoon, but one or two complete companies that had been annihilated here and then displayed here in such an extremely humiliating way.

"Quick! Send someone to call von Drell and the others back! Immediately! Right now!" Lu Mingfei turned around abruptly and roared at Otto. Even he couldn't remain calm at the sight.

Otto snapped out of his daze and immediately called out to a few of the fastest soldiers: "You lot! Come with me!"

quick!"

Just as they turned to rush towards the direction where the second platoon had disappeared, a sudden burst of extremely dense gunfire, explosions, and shouts erupted from the depths of the forest.

Otto and the soldiers froze, their faces pale as they looked toward the direction from which the gunfire was most intense—the direction in which Von Drell's second platoon was advancing.

Lu Mingfei's heart sank completely into an ice cave.

That's too late.

The forests of Verdun opened their gaping maws, filled with thorns and death, and they were now inside those mouths that could close at any moment.