Volume 1: Empire's Last Rays Chapter 1: Battlefield of Purgatory

  "Barrage, Feuer frei..." (English: "Barrage, fire at will...")

  The shrill whistling sound had already cut through the air as soon as it started. Sometimes, they sounded like the whistle of a small boat on the river, but didn't add any color to life; sometimes, they were like naughty children blowing whistles on a quiet night, but not just playing a prank and stopping; sometimes, even if you plugged your ears with your fingers, they could still pierce through everything, violently shaking the brain, pounding the heart, and churning up people's spleen, lungs, and kidneys!

  Boom! Boom! Boom......

  Successive explosions began to pound the ground fiercely, forming a violent shockwave that swept everything with an unpredictable trajectory. The earth was shaking violently, as if the entire world had been distorted. Linen, who was unlucky, hugged his head and knees, curled up in a semi-reclined position at the bottom of the cold muddy trench, his eyelids and lips tightly closed, pretending to be a stone, a lump of frozen soil or a corpse - as long as he could avoid this damn bombardment, he would pretend to be anything.

  In this winding trench, there were many people like Lin En who wore large earflap helmets, "pea camouflage" combat uniforms, and big leather boots. They held their weapons either in their arms or placed them aside. Some of them closed their eyes calmly, some muttered to themselves, while others looked pale and expressionless, sitting, reclining, or shrinking into the corners with a dazed look. The artillery storm was fierce and dense, with sharp whistling sounds and loud explosions intertwined, rising and falling in succession. If this were a war symphony performance, even if tickets were given out for free, no one would voluntarily come to listen: it came at an unpredictable time, without warning, and had a huge psychological and physical impact on the audience!

  For those in the trenches, all of this was unavoidable. Either pray or let nature take its course. Shells fell directly into the trench shelters, and entire squads and platoons were wiped out, which wasn't a rare occurrence. Some lucky old veterans could survive a hundred shellings without a scratch.

  But the torture of being bombarded, every minute is so long, to the point where people can't help but wonder: has time frozen at this moment?

  After a long time, the sound of the landslide and tsunami finally became sparse from dense, and after a few more minutes, the last dull roar ended this powerful symphony. The night sky calmed down, and the sudden change made people experience the stimulating effect of inertia from their eardrums to their hearts, which even had a good emetic effect on those with underdeveloped cerebella. The survivors endured the torture without any cheering; the wounded moaned in pain, only to get empty sorrow. As for those who died, there was no longer any distinction between honor and shame, persistence and wavering, optimism and despair - everything had ended.

  "Attention... Attention... Prepare for combat!"

  The familiar cries of "Man the breastworks!" arose, as usual, after the enemy's cannonading had ceased, and spread rapidly from trench to trench. The steel-helmeted heads, which had been sculptured out in the previous hour, now bobbed up and down, some dashing along the communication trenches towards the front line, others rising straight up into their fighting positions. The clatter of rifles, helmets, canteens, and other hard objects scraping against each other, merged into a peculiar sound that filled the trenches, as the tense atmosphere spread rapidly.

  Lin En, the unlucky egg, reluctantly struggled to his feet, picked up his muddy rifle from the ground, and waited with a wooden expression. When the hot-tempered officer shouted "Fire!" while waving his fist, he crouched down at the edge of the trench with others and fired his weapon forward.

  This sounds incredibly stupid, but it's the cruel reality in front of Lynn, and just forty-one hours ago, he was a young man who hadn't even killed a chicken. He had just graduated from college, busy every day, looking forward to one day being able to walk into a church filled with flower petals with his bride, receiving blessings from friends and family, and living a happy and fulfilling ordinary life. This kind of life ideal is not considered extravagant, but accidentally getting electrocuted, fainting, and when he woke up again, he found himself falling into a nightmare, or more accurately, a nightmarish reality!

  Bang! Bang! Caw caw caw......

  Gunfire rang out in succession. After the artillery fire, there must be an attack, and this simple truth was also figured out by Lin En, who couldn't communicate with people around him. It's better not to mention language, just thinking about it makes Lin En feel resentful. From primary school to university, he studied hard like most children of school age, spending a lot of effort to pass the CET-4 and CET-6 exams, but when he finally had the chance to travel abroad for free one day, he found that English was not universally spoken in this world. When speaking with his comrades-in-arms who stood in the same trench as him, they would roll up their tongues, knowing they were Germans speaking German, but Lin En couldn't understand a word even when he perked up his ears, and he couldn't say a sentence when he opened his mouth. At first, Lin En didn't get away with not being scolded for this.

  When the feet are on someone else's body, it is oneself who gets kicked. Lin En quickly learned to do what others did around him. Hiding, positioning, shooting and stopping shooting, more than 40 hours passed like this. When there was food, he ate; when there was drink, he drank. Except for his head often feeling dizzy, his ears often ringing, and his body frequently feeling unbearable shock, everything else was manageable. After all, he didn't have any wounds on his body, and all four limbs were still intact, making him much luckier than those who were even more unfortunate.

  "Load! Load!" (German: "Laden!")

  A familiar hoarse voice came from not far away, in this world where people die every moment, people's temper is particularly hot, and the "Butcher" is even more so. This nickname was thought up by Lin En for his "top leader" in this world. The guy had a rough face, sparse sideburns, broad shoulders, and round arms, with an appearance and temperament similar to that of AC Milan's tough midfielder Gattuso. Taking off his military uniform and picking up the butcher knife, no one would question his skill at chopping meat and cutting bones!

  Under the urging of the slogan, the steel-helmeted soldiers stood up on the earthen steps at the side of the trenches. In order to protect the soldiers, the trenches here were dug very deep, and the two walls were reinforced with wooden bars. An ordinary person could not reach the edge even if they stood upright, and had to stand on the piled-up earth steps or empty boxes in order to stick their heads out.

  A menacing butcher approached, and Lin En hastily stood on the already icy steps. On the first noon after waking up, he carefully examined his new shell: this body was quite sturdy, about the same height as the people around him, estimated to be around 1.8 meters tall. As for his appearance... if the broken mirror hadn't been enchanted, he would have been very unfortunate in his transformation into a European with a high nose bridge, deep eye sockets, and a messy beard. His hair was disheveled, and his complexion was pale. The only comfort was that his mud-stained hair was black, paired with a melon-shaped face, making him look somewhat like the 30-year-old Raul Gonzalez, a worn-out yet handsome foreigner.

  The cruel battle didn't leave Lynn much time for "self-admiration". The trench he was in was located on a hill running east-west, about 5 or 6 kilometers northeast of which stood an ancient-style fortress, estimated to be an important supporting point along the entire defensive line, which had withstood the enemy's almost abnormal artillery fire over the past two days. To the west were large tracts of forest, where there were also guard troops, similarly deploying defense in depth, and the burnt tree stumps were still a natural barrier blocking the opponent's tanks and armored vehicles. As a result, this hill, which seemed to be relatively high, became the focus area for the enemy ground forces' assault. Since Lynn had become aware of it, there had already been four battles, with a brutality that far exceeded the war scenes in director Spielberg's films decades later.

  Under the night sky, flares shone with a fierce white or pale yellow light, casting an eerie glow over the ground. Scattered or clustered bullets glowed dark red to orange as they flew at incredible speeds from the front trenches towards the distance. In front of this hill was a relatively open plain, and further ahead was a stream more than two meters wide. On the opposite bank there were originally small woods and shrubs, but under the continuous bombardment, only a few tree stumps remained, the pockmarked muddy ground resembling the pigsty of a rural village from years ago, trampled and worn out by pigs' hooves. As the enemy's attack rolled in again, countless human silhouettes flickered on the uneven snowy ground, and some larger than human shadows could be seen - tanks with greater destructive power and intimidation!

  Rumble...

  The cannons on the side of the defensive position fired. Even in daylight, Lin could only see the camouflage covering the gun emplacement from a distance. Because he didn't speak the language, he didn't dare to go take a closer look and could only wonder if it was a 75mm ordinary anti-tank gun or the famous "88mm cannon". As a young man of the new era who had been enthusiastic about military affairs, especially World War II, since high school, Lin had always thought that his military knowledge was quite rich. However, in the past forty hours, this idea had been completely overturned. He was shocked and disappointed to find that he was not familiar with these weapons, and even felt that the Mauser rifle in his hand was more like a 98b than a 98k - pictures and real objects were still different in quality. Those paper-based tutorials and instructions were far from enough to allow someone to use a traditional manual rifle smoothly: loading was not simply putting bullets into the magazine, the action of cocking the gun was more skillful than imagined, aiming at three points seemed like something even a child could do, but the slight tremble when pulling the trigger would make the bullet fly off. As for the real feel of the recoil when shooting, Lin had also experienced it during military training with semi-automatic rifles, and the 7.92mm caliber rifle was more difficult to control due to its greater recoil.

  The early Mauser 98b was 15 cm longer and 0.11 kg heavier than the Mauser 98k, with some other detail differences; this rifle also saw extensive service in World War II with German forces.

  The sound of the cannon's gunfire had not yet faded when a burst of flames erupted on the open ground in front, apparently the shell had slightly missed its target. Before people could react, the thunderous cannon fire came again from the flank and rear of the position, and the shells that broke through the air instantly slammed into the attacker's formation. Under the light of the illuminating shells, two huge black shadows immediately ignited into fireballs, which moved forward a short distance under inertia before falling still like dead pigs.

  "Go ahead! Take them all down!"

  Lynn prayed repeatedly in his heart, but not because he had changed his faith. In the previous attack, the Soviet army's fierce attack left a deep impression on him. If their own artillery could not kill those Soviet tanks early, they would use tank guns and machine guns to kill many defending soldiers after approaching. The soldiers guarding the front trenches had to use rocket tubes, hand grenades, explosive packs, and incendiary bottles to block the enemy. Lynn witnessed that the self-injury rate of this anti-tank tactic reached a level of nine deaths and one life, and the scene was so shocking that it brought unprecedented shock to his soul.

  Four battles, the position remained unchanged, but batch after batch of dead and wounded soldiers were carried away, even around Lin En, many unfamiliar faces appeared. Although no one said anything, there was an invisible heavy burden on their minds, fearing that the next to die would be themselves.

  Lynn didn't want to die in a strange place whose name she didn't even know.