Hunter of Mysterious Creature-Chapter 640 - 170: Nine Extinctions
42 kilometers east of Chimera 17, "605 Artillery Position".
"Report! Command HQ just sent word: Target Zero has been attacked, the diversionary attack is temporarily halted!"
"Report! HQ issued the latest orders! Continue with the diversionary attack!"
"The first batch of special ammunition will arrive at the position in seven minutes; don't wait, start loading immediately! The transport unit will continuously supply the subsequent ammunition!"
The unit stationed at the 605 Artillery Position was a makeshift artillery division formed by mixing four artillery regiments, temporarily designated as the 605 Division. Their task during the final operation on Chimera 17 was to carpet-bomb the restricted area with saturated firepower before the PFDA's advancement, clearing as many obstacles as possible on the PFDA's thrust path.
Two hundred seventy-five guns of various calibers had been deployed across the 126-acre position according to their ranges—the front half of this position was on flat land, while the back half ascended along the foothills, with a 970mm caliber super cannon deployed atop this unnamed hill.
"Super Heavy Siege Cannon—Ninefold Cannon".
Before the "Ninefold Cannon" was created, the largest-caliber artillery in human history was the 800mm Gustav railway gun.
The emergence of the Ninefold Cannon was entirely accidental—under normal circumstances, with advanced technological standards, a nuclear warhead no larger than a fist could cause more destruction than ten Gustav railway guns combined, and with highly mature rocket and missile technology, such super large-caliber cannons like the Gustav should only exist to satisfy the romantic fantasies of big ships and big guns. Creating a monster like the "Ninefold Cannon," which would consume an enormous amount of resources, seemed completely unnecessary.
It was an extremely tough siege battle... A city originally belonging to the Hezhong States in the Alaska Region had been taken over by supernatural entities. Besides the dead, most residents and garrison inside had turned into supernatural bones and entities, even the city's buildings showed evident signs of supernatural transformation.
The best solution for such a Deceit City was a direct nuclear strike to erase the city and its entities from the map. However, this city was located right on the life supply line in the Alaska Region, and less than forty kilometers away lay a large refugee camp housing over a million people.
Twenty kilometers northeast of this refugee camp was the coastline of the Alaska Region, where construction had just begun on a large new port. Once completed, over a million people could cross the Bering Strait to the relatively safer East Siberia Region.
To ensure the evacuation proceeded smoothly, the coalition forces were tasked with utterly destroying the now fully supernatural city within three days.
Tactical nuclear warheads, napalm bombs, heavy thermobaric weapons... various humane and inhumane weapons were brought out by the coalition forces. However, under the influence of supernatural mimetics, the city became almost an impenetrable fortress. Not only did the bombardments have minimal effect, the Hunters air-dropped into the city as strike teams suffered heavy losses... The death rate was so high that there were multiple desertion incidents within the Hunters division of the coalition forces. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂
These Hunters had accepted the likelihood of dying in battle before stepping onto the battlefield; they weren't afraid of death, but feared meaningless deaths even more.
To them, the airdrop combat orders seemed nothing short of suicide letters.
In the first twenty-four hours of combat, out of over three hundred armored vehicles, nearly five hundred tactical Mechas, over a hundred Hunters, and nearly three thousand airborne troops dropped into the city, less than one percent made it out.
To be precise, they didn't fight their way out; they escaped.
Song Lin, the then head of the coalition weapons research institute's Alaska division, was tasked with developing a weapon capable of reversing the situation. But bafflingly to everyone at the Alaska division, upon receiving this task, Song Lin canceled all meetings and locked himself in his office, strictly prohibiting anyone from entering.
On the twenty-seventh hour of the siege, two high-ranking military officials visited, desperate over the front-line situation, barging into Song Lin's office despite his prohibition—only to find, to their shock, that Song Lin had already stopped breathing while sitting behind his desk.
While everyone assumed Song Lin had committed suicide out of despair for not completing the task, his secretary discovered a brand-new design blueprint on his computer.
A design blueprint for a heavy artillery named "Ninefold Cannon".
At that time, no one believed this blueprint could change the course of the battle—all kinds of state-of-the-art weapons couldn't breach the fortress-like supernatural city, let alone a design that seemed to pay tribute to war relics. But, inexplicably, those two high-ranking military officials who barged into Song Lin's office were captivated and ordered all military factories in Alaska, and even all production lines capable of metal smelting and machining, to halt all activities and start full-scale production of the Ninefold Cannon's parts.
