Chapter Forty-Nine: Total Collapse

Kelvin held the White Crow rifle steadily, his entire body focused as he aimed, then suddenly pulled the trigger. He saw a Sand Dweller, who had been brandishing his power atop a swift raptor, urging others to charge, collapse to the ground. Only then did he exhale the breath he had been holding.

“Hey, buddy, that’s some fine marksmanship!” Sergeant Youyou, clad in powered armor, called out loudly in praise.

To be a cowboy in New Jade Gate, one’s shooting couldn’t be too shabby—after all, the ones with poor aim were already dead. With such skill, life in New Jade Gate could be quite comfortable; plantation owners and mine bosses vied to hire you.

Yet Kelvin still longed for the days back on the galactic homeworld. After graduating from technical school, he worked as a factory worker in a small parts manufacturing plant in his hometown. The pay was modest, but with the low cost of living there, he lived comfortably. The factory manager was an old friend of his father, treated him well, and was eager to teach him mechanical repair and assembly skills.

Kelvin’s dream was simple: by the time he turned forty, he wanted to run his own parts workshop. Before that, he hoped to marry a wife who might not be beautiful but would be gentle and virtuous, have a son and a daughter, and care for his mother in her old age—thus bringing peace to the memory of his father, a rail technician who died in an aviation accident when Kelvin was just ten.

But then the state-owned machinery factory, established in the era of Marshal Li back home, shut down. Their main client, the Commonwealth Deep Space Mining Group, decided to order more efficient and cheaper autonomous mining devices from the Alliance, and the Commonwealth government ceased subsidies for heavy industry. The small factory where Kelvin worked, which had always supplied parts and maintenance to that state enterprise, was forced to close as well.

After the bank repossessed the factory buildings and equipment, the manager ended his life quietly in a remote storage room.

Kelvin found himself unemployed, and his mother fell gravely ill. He could only afford the most basic health insurance, but the company informed him that such a plan would not cover costly genetic treatments.

His mother’s illness dragged on for three years, exhausting the house and compensation left by his father. When the old woman passed away in poverty and pain, Kelvin, with nothing left, wandered the streets in a daze. Confused, he boarded an immigrant ship and arrived at New Jade Gate, becoming a promising cowboy.

Yes, perhaps there really was a future here. Because his boss was a good man. Though rough and irritable, prone to incomprehensible curses, and always calling him “Ah Kai,” compared to the polished bigwigs back home—the bank manager who seized the factory manager’s lifelong work, the insurance agent who dazzled with incomprehensible clauses, the government officials who shut down state enterprises—this man seemed genuinely humane.

More importantly...

Thinking this, Kelvin glanced back.

The woman was oiling the White Crow rifle. Her five-year-old daughter held a magazine, carefully loading each steel nail bullet into it. She said she had been a language teacher at a public school, but after her husband died and private schools mushroomed, she was squeezed out and came to the colony with her daughter to try their luck...

Such a delicate woman should be holding books and pens, not weapons.

The woman seemed to sense Kelvin’s gaze, looked his way, and smiled.

Kelvin wanted to smile back but was suddenly grabbed by the collar and pulled behind cover by a large hand.

“Pfft!” Gravel flew where Kelvin had been moments before. Before he could feel fear, Old Wang Yougui slapped the back of his head.

“This is a battle, you little brat! Don’t you care about your life?”

Here it comes again—words he couldn’t understand, yet somehow warm!

Ignoring Kelvin’s grimace as he rubbed the back of his head, Wang Yougui turned to Sergeant Youyou beside him. “Heiwa! Will your young officer return with reinforcements?”

“Hei... Heiwa...” Youyou opened his mouth, amused by the nickname, then said, “I’ve already reported the situation to the officer. What happens now depends on his judgment. He’s a good guy. If we’re really in danger, he’ll come back.”

“Oh, he’ll come back.”

“But I don’t want him to!” The tall black sergeant said bluntly.

“Huh? Not coming back?”

“Those punks can’t even break through a hundred meters!” After so many battles, all victories, the black sergeant was quite full of himself. In fact, everyone at Outpost 12 was a bit overconfident.

“Oh, they can’t break through…”

“Can’t break through! If they did, I’d be the first to smash them all to bits!” He patted the powered hammer beside him with pride.

Wang Yougui cast a skeptical glance at Youyou, then at the enemies outside the valley mouth. Drawing on his decade of militia training, he found the black sergeant’s words quite reasonable. He raised his “Mirror Box,” fired a few test shots, and saw the Sand Dwellers, after leaving behind over a hundred corpses of men and beasts, wail and retreat.

No matter how fierce a warrior people are, they can’t withstand such losses! Besides, they had come by chance and were unprepared for an assault.

Yes, they truly couldn’t break through! This side was secure! The old man breathed out in relief, feeling like a hero.

In fact, this band of about two hundred Sand Dwellers was the first and last enemy the valley inhabitants ever encountered. This ragtag patrol, having stumbled upon the valley by luck, lost contact with their commander and wandered aimlessly amid the chaos, never to be heard from again.

Heavy artillery on Archie Heights had already entered its thirtieth round of bombardment. They turned the Great Elder’s camp into a blazing inferno, shelled every warehouse and armored barracks they could find, and relentlessly pounded anti-aircraft positions within sight. The garrison air force, stifled for days inside Turon City under the Sand Dweller onslaught, could finally swagger out.

The garrison’s aerial vehicles consisted solely of the Lynx-class armored airship—a multipurpose low-altitude transport capable of carrying ten mechanized infantry in powered armor, but certainly not two tanks or four combat vehicles. Its speed and maneuverability were mediocre, armed only with two Vulcan cannons and a swarm missile launcher.

In short, though multipurpose, it was mediocre both in firepower and load capacity.

Its only virtues were decent flight stability and relatively low cost.

As for drones, these were not the heavily armed war machines carried by space carriers but civilian models about a meter long, with payloads under twenty kilograms, capable of carrying up to three small bombs or one Vulcan cannon. Yes, these Kingfisher drones, stripped of weapons, were sold openly and had become a rare star product in the Commonwealth’s “high-end” international industrial market, mainly used for city logistics and aerial photography.

The Sand Dwellers’ dual-purpose anti-aircraft guns were certainly not high-end brands but crude workshop products, yet sufficient for suppressing such forces.

However, these workshop-made anti-aircraft defenses, marking the Sand Dwellers’ first-ever air defense network, were systematically reduced to history by the Turon defenders’ counterattacks and relentless heavy artillery.

Thus, the garrison air force, long bottled up by frustration in the city, launched a full-scale sortie.

Sixteen airships formed eight standard combat units, adopting a fan-shaped assault formation, sweeping over advancing ground troops and relentlessly sweeping enemy positions. The swarm missiles screamed like giant hornets, targeting every Sand Dweller barracks, vehicle, or firing point within range, causing thunderous explosions.

Skimming past the airships were 120 Kingfisher drones launched from six drone command vehicles. One-third were equipped with Vulcan cannons; the rest carried bombs—small by aircraft standards but still formidable. Each six-kilogram miniature aerial bomb, upon ground detonation, created a shockwave over ten meters in radius, generating intense heat, vacuum, and electromagnetic disintegration effects. Lifeforms, machines, even energy beings suffered tremendous impact.

Pushed to their speed limits, the Kingfishers swept over the Sand Dweller ranks in just ten minutes, joyfully dropping their munitions before circling back to the city for rearming and repairs. The first bombing run was a success, with fiery infernos and deep craters erupting throughout the enemy camp. Chaos reigned as desperate screams and wails echoed endlessly. Drone losses were minimal—only three—likely downed by stray enemy fire.

Most Sand Dwellers either died in their sleep or awoke to witness their comrades mercilessly slaughtered in a hellish nightmare. They found no weapons, no allies, no commanders—only confusion and an inexplicable march toward death.

“Where is Elder Herson? Where is Elder Herson?” Lords and chieftains called out desperately, unable to find their guards, clinging to their last hope.

“The bombardment… several rounds… all targeted the Great Elder’s camp.”

“The Great Elder might already be…”

“No, no, no! The Great Elder is a divine messenger; he cannot die! Absolutely impossible!”

Whether their grief was genuine or feigned, even the most simple-minded lords and chiefs knew the end was near.

Hanrat, the “king” of Black Mountain City, leapt into his heavily armored off-road vehicle, becoming the first Sand Dweller leader to flee the battlefield, setting an example for the rest.

Thus, the total collapse of the Sand Dwellers began.