Chapter 6: Suffocation

  The air raid of the Soviet fighter planes was driven away by the defensive firepower of the garrison, but this was only the beginning of a nightmare for the German soldiers. The dark green fighter planes had just left when a large group of black dots appeared in the northeastern sky, and the air defense alarms along the entire German front line were wailing, one after another, like a mournful melody. This time, with no hopeful dawn appearing on the horizon, all that the German soldiers could rely on was their small number of anti-aircraft guns, machine guns, and their own sincere prayers.

  The black dots are approaching the defense line, and the dull buzzing sound makes people feel uneasy from the heart. The body removal team had just carried away Huang Mao's body, and Lin En didn't even know what his companion's name was after two days of being together. He stood in the trench with a sense of loss, suddenly raised his head, and saw those black Soviet planes swooping down from hundreds of meters high, like a flock of vultures rushing to scavenge for corpses.

  "Vive la France! Vive la France!"

  A deafening roar erupted, and before Lin En could react, his arm was brutally pushed, and his weak body instantly fell to the ground helpless. Lin En turned his head, only to see "Butcher" glaring at him furiously, striding past him, shouting for other soldiers to take cover.

  Linn was about to get up when he suddenly heard a strange whistling sound coming from outside the trench. Due to his slouching posture, his gaze naturally turned towards the sky, and he saw a large black bird spreading its wings and swooping over the trench. The scene was breathtakingly spectacular. Just a few seconds later, several more large black birds flew over, their altitude so low that not only could the red stars on the underside of the wings be seen, but even the rivets on the fuselage were barely distinguishable. And under their bellies and wing undersides, where bombs had been suspended just moments before, now hung empty...

  Boom! Boom! Boom!

  The explosive landslide shook the earth, with a shock that was perhaps even stronger than an 8-magnitude earthquake. People couldn't even stand still, let alone lie down, as they were almost bounced off the ground! The intense and prolonged impact made Lin feel like his internal organs were about to rupture, his hands tightly covering his ears, yet his eardrums still ached terribly. The blue sky and white clouds remained unchanged, but the view was obscured by flying dust and sand, which swirled upwards, carrying strong kinetic energy under gravity's influence, before crashing back down onto the steel helmet with a loud clang, causing direct pain that can only be imagined.

  A tsunami-like explosion lasted for four or five minutes, with dozens of Soviet planes flying over the trenches. The anti-aircraft guns on the defense line roared non-stop, but this time they didn't seem to have any obvious effect. No one could be seen moving in the trenches, and in fact, Lin En had his eyes closed most of the time, only occasionally lifting his head with difficulty during the brief intervals when the explosion intensity weakened slightly - as far as he could see, some of the trenches had collapsed, and it would take several hours to repair them. The steel helmets that could be seen were either prone or lying down, or curled up like hedgehogs.

  So stubbornly persisted, until the shock on the ground gradually weakened, Lin En was already deaf in his ears, except for the continuous buzzing sound, he could no longer hear any other sounds.

  Along the trenches, the soldiers didn't get up for a while, and when they finally did, they were all covered in mud and water, to the point where if you dried them out, they could be made into European-style terracotta warriors.

  Resisting the intense numbness spreading throughout his body, Lin En struggled to prop himself up on his knees. At this moment, a powerful hand pulled him up, and when he lifted his head to look, "Butcher" had already walked over to another soldier's side, pulling him up with the same motion, then silently continued walking forward.

  Is this weird guy wearing Iron Man's invincible armor?

  Linn muttered to himself, taking a full two minutes to shake off most of the mud on his body. The buzzing in his ears subsided somewhat, but his hearing was still not very clear. When he saw someone climbing up onto the parapet, he followed suit, but when he poked his helmeted head out of the trench, he was instantly stunned by the scene before him: the countless craters around the position had turned it into a lunar landscape, and the curved trenches were fragmented due to multiple collapses. Some soldiers must have been buried underneath, their fate unknown, but it seemed there was no time left for the defenders to clear the rubble or rescue anyone, for on the open plain opposite the position, hundreds of tanks swarmed like ants, while in the distance, tens of thousands of Soviet soldiers advanced. From afar, this black tide came even more furiously than before - would the battered riverbank still be able to withstand it?

  Lynn's heart was completely empty!

  "Notre Dame... Wake up!"

  The terrified screams spread at an incredible speed in the trenches, but there were also many soldiers who were temporarily deafened by the bombing and remained motionless. If it weren't for the soldier next to him pushing him, Lin En might not have noticed that the Soviet planes had already turned back and were preparing to strafe along the trenches. The planes spread their wings, riding the airflow from hundreds of meters high, diving down with a graceful posture like professional divers. The weak firepower rising from the ground could no longer stop them! The black birds' wings quickly appeared with flashing flames, dense bullets shooting down, as if a magnificent thunderstorm. This time, Lin En felt that he was finally doomed, but he still subconsciously shrank to the bottom of the trench wall. When countless bullets splattered into the mud or human bodies, Lin En felt like a dry leaf trembling in the wind, yet he miraculously survived, unscathed!

  Death is sometimes a relief, but the living still have to struggle for survival. Under the military officers' urging, Lin En and other lucky survivors who escaped the disaster stood up with their guns, just like the steel helmets on their heads. The Soviet tank at the head of the column had already rushed to the edge of the stream, its cannon fire forming a close-range absolute suppression, and the only anti-tank gun on the defensive position was isolated and helpless. In the trenches, the reserve soldiers also came up, and Lin En had a new face beside him, but he just turned his head and looked at him without even giving him a comforting expression.

  The frail young man responsible for distributing ammunition finally appeared, and since he spent most of his time in a relatively safe hiding place, the whole person still looked the same, not saying a word, silently handing out bullets to each soldier in the trench. This time, there were only four rows of twenty rounds placed next to Lin's hand - it was already unreasonable to distribute ammunition before the battle started, and reducing the amount of ammunition meant further deterioration of supplies. Of course, in this trench, perhaps less than half of the current number of people could survive after firing twenty rounds, and searching for ammunition on the bodies of comrades had become the most helpless choice for veterans.

  Wow!

  Shells that fell nearby and exploded swept in with a powerful shockwave, Lynn instinctively ducked his head slightly, unlike the newly replenished soldiers who shrank to the bottom of the trench. Seeing "Butcher" come up to give them a kick each, roaring for them to hold their fighting positions, Lynn didn't laugh in his heart - on the cruel battlefield, the pride of growth was insignificant. He resolutely looked forward, the first Soviet tank had already crossed the stream, and the muddy riverbank only slightly slowed down the T-34's advance.

  "God bless!"

  Lin En muttered a sentence in his heart, although it was in Chinese, but he still hoped that the omnipotent master in the legend could hear and continue to bless himself.

  Since I've been transported to this era of war and chaos, at least give me some more opportunities!

  God did not respond, but the "Butcher" appeared silently beside Lin En. He pushed Lin En's hand and said something in his mouth, but Lin En patted his ear to indicate that he couldn't hear. The "Butcher" nodded and stuffed a bullet into Lin En's hand.

  Unlike the long and pointed bullets of the Mauser rifle, the "Butcher" gave these short and round ones that looked like pistol bullets. Lynn suddenly realized: it seemed that the "Butcher" knew he had taken a Mauser pistol, so he brought some 9mm caliber pistol bullets. Thinking of this, a warm feeling surged in his heart, and Lynn quickly took out the revolver, loading the bullets into the cylinder according to his own exploration method, and indeed it was a six-shot capacity, with no difference in position.

  Looking up at the distant back of the "Butcher" who had already walked away, Lin En silently thanked him in his heart.