Chapter Sixty-Seven: The Helping Hand from Huaxia-Divine Treasures Across the Realms(Kapok Tree 2016)

The Vanguard Guards were flawless instruments of war, yet their tactical thinking was single-minded—always charging forward. They encountered the third line of defense: barbed wire. The wire couldn’t rend their bodies, but its high, tangled coils ensnared them, slowing their advance.

“Mi Long!” Long Wen Zhang shouted again.

“I'll finish you off!” Mi Long spat fiercely into his palm, watching the Vanguard Guards caught in the wire, then pulled back the bolt of his gun.

The heavy machine gun emplacements erupted.

“Rat-tat-tat!”

The dull roar of the machine guns filled the air. Intersecting webs of fire raged across the battlefield, mercilessly devouring the lives of the vanguard.

“Roar!”

The greater the brutality, the more it provoked the wild fury within the Vanguard Guards, for they knew nothing of fear.

“Brother Mi Long, the barrel’s too hot! It needs changing!” shouted Mi Long’s assistant gunner, Dou Bing.

“Change your grandmother’s leg! I’ll finish you off! Barrel change? Change the gun! There’s plenty of heavy machine guns!” Mi Long had deployed numerous heavy machine guns as backup, anticipating overheating from rapid fire and preventing any interruption of their barrage.

The assistant gunners loaded ammunition belts onto reserve guns; the main gunners switched weapons in a heartbeat. In that brief moment, the Vanguard Guards broke through the barbed wire and charged toward the first trench.

“All hands, open fire!” Long Wen Zhang’s command rang out.

Rifles, submachine guns, light weapons—all unleashed a furious roar. The hail of bullets formed an impenetrable curtain, and the Vanguard Guards couldn’t breach the four hundred meters before the lines.

Those four hundred meters were a death zone. Any Vanguard Guard stepping within was torn to shreds by the barrage, their bodies piling up into a mountain of flesh. The Vanguard Guards used these corpses as cover, advancing atop them, the mound growing ever higher and the distance to the trenches shrinking.

“Mortars!” Long Wen Zhang shouted.

“Boom!”

Dozens of mortar shells screamed down, shattering the mountain of corpses. Yet in moments, the bodies of the Vanguard Guards filled the gaps blasted open by the mortars.

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“Fire! Fire! Fire! Withdraw to the second line!” Long Wen Zhang issued his commands with calm precision.

The soldiers, upon receiving the order, pushed gasoline barrels out from the trenches, each filled to the brim. With covering fire, they withdrew slowly toward the second trench.

Flamethrower-wielding troops stepped forward. The flamethrowers, like dragons, spewed long jets of flame, igniting the gasoline barrels and forming a wall of fire.

“Krupp, white phosphorus incendiaries!”

The artillery crews swiftly switched to white phosphorus shells, setting the mountain of corpses ablaze. Thick black smoke and a stench choked the air.

“Wind Release—Grand Breakthrough!” The Huaxia ninja unit would not be outdone, unleashing their wind release techniques en masse.

Fire fed upon the wind, growing ever more fierce.

Taking advantage of the chaos, the soldiers withdrew to the second trench, rigging the first line with an abundance of booby traps as they went.

The Vanguard Guards paid dearly in casualties, finally storming into the trenches—only to trigger the traps. Explosions and anguished cries echoed from within.

Attempting to leap from the trenches and attack across open ground, they were met by the sinister faces of Long Wen Zhang’s above-ground bunkers. Black muzzles protruded, spewing fire.

“Rat-tat-tat!”

The heavy machine guns roared again, slaughtering the Vanguard Guards on the surface and driving them back into the trenches. The intricate network of tunnels slowed their advance, while hidden bunkers came into play.

These bunkers, equally complex and interconnected, were narrow—barely wide enough for the soldiers to pass. When the Vanguard Guards forced their way in, the defenders fired their bullets, hurled grenades, laid traps, and then withdrew, setting up new ambushes at each node.

The soldiers retreated and fought in an organized, orderly fashion. The Vanguard Guards' vaunted speed was neutralized, their powerful bodies unable to withstand the relentless bite of bullets. Their losses mounted.

“Is this it?” Black Panther watched as the overwhelming tide of Vanguard Guards was whittled away by Long Wen Zhang’s methodical defense and let out a long sigh.

At the outset, he had imagined a brutal war, but not this level of carnage. This wasn’t just a battle—it was slaughter: organized, systematic, planned annihilation.

“If the Vanguard Guards' commander has no tricks left, the fight is almost over. This battle is truly eye-opening,” said Tony Stark.

Tony Stark had originally planned to lend a hand, but Yang Xin vetoed the idea, saying, “It’s not the god-like enemies you need to fear, but pig-like allies.”

Fearing that these superheroes might complicate things, Yang Xin made it clear: the outcome would not be decided by the Sichuan Corps or the Vanguard Guards, but by king versus king. If they could defeat Thanos together, all would rejoice; if they failed, all would perish.

And so, the group refrained from intervening, conserving their strength for the final showdown.

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No sooner had Tony Stark finished speaking than the Vanguard Guards' reserve forces were unleashed. Massive wheeled war machines appeared, roaring forward to crush the defensive lines.

“Kataymagi magicians, it’s time to show your power!” Yang Xin shouted.

The magicians of Kataymagi stepped forward in groups of ten, tracing enormous, spark-filled portals in the void and teleporting the massive machines elsewhere.

“It’s time to end this war,” Yang Xin declared, producing a communications device, fiddling with it, and then speaking into the defense terminal: “Calling Chang Jiang, coordinates have been sent.”

“Chang Jiang received, Chang Jiang received!” came the reply.

“Who are you contacting?” asked Captain America.

“The Huaxia fleet anchored in international waters,” Yang Xin replied.

“What are you telling them?”

“You’ll see.” Yang Xin pointed into the distance.

Far away, at the edge of clouds and sky, dozens of flaming streaks shot upward. These fiery trails screamed toward the Vanguard Guards' shield tunneling machines outside Wakanda’s defensive barrier.

“Boom!”

Explosions erupted, but the shield tunneling machines remained unscathed. The Huaxia guided missile destroyers continued their relentless barrage…

“Damn, the shield! Earth’s conventional weapons can’t break it!” Tony Stark cursed.

“Then why keep attacking?” asked Dr. Banner.

“Perhaps to drain the enemy’s energy. Maintaining the shield takes power, but…” Captain America chimed in, shaking his head, clearly skeptical about the effectiveness of the missiles.

“Does Wakanda have any energy cannons?” Yang Xin looked to Black Panther.