Several days later.

Southern Fertile Plains, Site Ten.

Boshan lay on the turret, observing the outline of the ancient city in the distance. She had seen reports of the Northern Expedition in the weekly newsletter, knowing it was once the famous witch city of Taqila in history. The devils spared no effort to travel thousands of miles to seize it, but were ultimately repelled by the First Army.

And now, they were about to defeat a new enemy here and reclaim Taqila.

One minute… thirty seconds… ten seconds…

She counted silently while plugging her ears.

“Boom boom boom boom—” The roar of artillery sounded behind her as expected. Continuous tremors transmitted through the ground to the vehicle body, and she could feel a slight numbness in her arms. It was the artillery's 152mm fortress guns pouring firepower onto the target, and its momentum was completely on a different level than the short-barreled field gun on the tank.

"Team leader, haven't you gotten used to the sound of the cannons yet?" Driver Bei joked as he turned his head. He sat cross-legged at the front of the vehicle, holding a box of instant canned food in his hand. This was also something she admired about him—even on the battlefield, where corpses were everywhere and the stench of evil beasts permeated the air, he could still eat normally. "This won't do. You have to learn to let your ears filter out those irrelevant noises so you can stay focused at all times."

"I think you just have insensitive ears." Boshan moved her gaze away expressionlessly. Although the driver and gunner were both experienced veterans, according to regulations, the team leader was the head of the team. What's more, judging from her actual age, she might be older than these two. "The only sound I need to listen to carefully is the abnormal sound of the Screaming Magic Stone—neither the sound of cannons, nor your nonsense, understand?"

"Team leader… you're really harsh." Bei smacked his lips. "I thought witch ladies were all sweet and cute, like Nana Wawa the angel..."

"Five years ago, witches were still the devils' claws, the embodiment of evil."

"Uh—no one will like you if you're like this."

"Who said that? I think the team leader is very good." Gunner Shuer interjected, "Straightforward, capable, no military experience, but able to adapt to the battlefield in a short period of time, completely the best choice for a team leader."

The two looked at Shuer together.

The latter was stunned, "What, did I say something wrong?"

"No," Boshan shrugged, "Although you missed nine out of ten shots during training, you're not entirely useless."

The gunner showed an expression of enjoyment.

"Alright, alright, let's not talk about this." Bei quickly changed the subject. "By the way, team leader, who was the person guarding outside the camp waiting for you at Site Nine before? He seemed to be wearing the First Army uniform as well, could he be your friend?"

"What are you asking this for?"

Bei said a little embarrassedly, "I saw a medal hanging on his chest, so I wanted to get to know him—anyone who can get an award is not simple, he should be a very powerful guy."

"I do know him, but he's not that great. He would have become food for evil beasts if it weren't for me." Boshan pretended to be indifferent, but her tone couldn't help but soften a lot.

"Wow, you're too strict..."

Before he could finish speaking, she covered her ears.

Another deafening barrage of artillery fire.

Bei, caught unprepared, grimaced from the roaring noise.

And this time, after the sound of the cannons, three green flares followed, which was the signal to attack.

"Looks like you're not very focused either." Boshan patted the side steel plate of the turret, "Tank Crew Twelve, move out immediately!"

Bei didn't argue, but dropped the can of canned food in his hand and slipped into the vehicle through the driver's window. Shuer also shrank back into the narrow turret, ready for battle—no matter what they were like usually, at critical moments, the two were not ambiguous at all.

Boshan raised her binoculars and saw that under the bombardment of the artillery, many evil beasts had run out of the ruins and were fleeing north. Looking back behind her, First Army soldiers were divided into dozens of small teams, steadily advancing along the tank tracks.

This formation was obviously not used to deal with ordinary mixed breeds.

The deeper they went into the plains, the more Blade Beasts they encountered—from one every two or three days at first, to several a day now. Because they were difficult to detect with the naked eye, they were much harder to deal with than ordinary evil beasts. There was no doubt that the top military's strategy was effective. "Screaming-Resonance" could detect targets beyond the range of the short-barreled guns and then annihilate them. However, the enemies seemed to be more than just wild beasts.

They would hide behind various obstacles and launch surprise attacks on the army. The bombardment could scare away evil beasts, but not them. Therefore, it took a lot of effort to reclaim those fortresses along the railway line. After paying a certain price, the First Army quickly established a set of tactics centered on armored units. The Musketeer Corps originally regarded tanks as scouts, but now they had learned to rely on them to clear fortifications.

And the ruins of Taqila in front of them were the most complex non-field battlefield to date.

Half an hour later, Tank Crew Twelve, as one of the vanguard units, drove into Taqila City, with Tank Crew Nine and Tank Crew Seventeen beside Boshan. According to the plan, they would be responsible for clearing the area from the main street to the west square and reclaiming the two fortresses set up here.

Looking at the surrounding scene, Boshan couldn't help but feel her scalp tingle. The numerous stone buildings made the situation in the city extremely complex, and also greatly reduced the detection range of the Screaming Rune—she had now detected multiple magic sources, but still couldn't locate the specific target.

"How exactly did you take this place before?"

"It's simple, just take down the Red Mist Tower and those bone skeletons, and the devils will naturally retreat." Shuer replied, "Have you found the enemy?"

"Not yet. But it's certain that there are many monsters hidden in this city." After Boshan finished speaking, she gestured to the soldiers behind her to get them closer to the tanks, while lengthening the distance from the other two tank crews.

Before long, a gray concrete fortress appeared at the end of the street—although the First Army was forced to abandon this place, these solid fortifications were not destroyed by the enemy.

It was also at this time that a scream became significantly louder.

Boshan frowned, that was not the sound a Blade Beast should make.

She looked at Amy, the team leader of Tank Crew Nine, who shook her head to indicate that she was equally puzzled.

And when passing the fortress, the buzzing of the rune was so loud that even Bei could hear it.

Out of prudence, she had the two tank crews stop temporarily, and she decided to go to the square first to take a look, and incidentally activated the Resonance Rune in her hand. Even if the target was not a Blade Beast, she wanted to see where this magic source was pointing.

Soon, a fluorescent light appeared out of thin air, pointing directly to the center of the square not far away—and there was nothing there at all.

Did she encounter a new invisible enemy?

No, Boshan quickly realized that the stone bricks on the surface of the square seemed to have been pried open by something, and there were patches of black corrosion marks around them.

That thing was hidden beneath the ground!

As soon as the thought came to her, the mud under the stone bricks suddenly arched up—a monster made of flesh and ribs crawled out of the ground, and at the same time spat out a pile of "transparent bodies"! If it weren't for the fact that those things still had some mucus on them, Boshan would not have been able to separate them from the background at all.

Almost at the same time, the Screaming Rune issued a high-pitched warning, and she suddenly realized that those things were all Blade Beasts!