Chapter 197 - 138: A Revolution in Warfare, Dignity, and Awarding a Rank
Chapter 197: Chapter 138: A Revolution in Warfare, Dignity, and Awarding a Rank
Lin Feng wasn’t surprised at all by the visit from the Thirteenth Division. After all, the Invincible Fleet had put on quite a spectacular performance in the Wu City East District earlier today...
Anyone could see it.
Lin Feng had grown strong enough to take on a thousand enemies alone.
His company of barely a hundred men was fiercer than the more than ten thousand soldiers holding the defensive line.
Their willingness to take the initiative and attack was, by itself, something no one else could match.
But what Lin Feng hadn’t expected was for the Thirteenth Division’s high command to come in person.
For them to swallow their pride and personally seek out a mere Sergeant Major like himself, it definitely wasn’t for some trivial matter.
Perhaps Qin Hu had told them something.
Something that changed their minds and opinions.
At this thought, a slight smile touched Lin Feng’s lips. He turned and walked into the rest building, leaving Li Ran to handle the situation.
As the supreme commander of the Invincible Fleet, there was no reason for him to be the first to speak.
Especially when they were the ones who needed something from him.
The Thirteenth Division’s high command, stopped at the entrance of the service area, were all Tier One Awakened—many having already reached Tier One Late Stage Perfection. They naturally saw Lin Feng in his distinct attire, deliberately ignoring and snubbing them...
...as he walked into the building, feigning indifference.
A few of the younger colonels and lieutenant colonels bristled with anger.
Fortunately, the senior officers in the lead silenced them with a single look before turning to Li Ran with a smile.
"We need to see Sergeant Lin. It’s extremely urgent."
Li Ran’s brow furrowed. He glanced at the soldiers beside and behind him raising their shotguns and found himself in a difficult position. He could only try to defuse the situation, saying:
"I’ve already sent someone to inform him. It’s late. If the Sergeant Major is willing to meet, he’ll have someone let you through."
He then looked at his own soldiers behind him and gestured for them to lower their muzzles.
Li Ran was well aware of their anger toward the Thirteenth Division. As new recruits, they had no loyalty to Division HQ; they had, at most, heard a few speeches before being thrown onto the front lines.
When they first arrived at the outpost, there were hardly any Enhanced People among them. It was no different from sending them to their deaths.
Their current growth and improvement were all thanks to the leadership of one man: their Sergeant Major, Lin Feng.
Furthermore, during the battle at the outpost, if the Thirteenth Division hadn’t ordered a bunker-buster missile strike on their own fortress, they wouldn’t have had to make a desperate escape, risk charging out of the base, and then be surrounded and hunted down by the Zerg Race.
They had come a hair’s breadth away from ending up in the bellies of the Zergs.
After being repeatedly screwed over by the Thirteenth Division, their hatred was only natural.
If Li Ran hadn’t come over to de-escalate things and prevent the powder-keg atmosphere from deteriorating further...
...a single accidental discharge could have resulted in the "accidental" annihilation of the Thirteenth Division’s entire high command.
Now, under Li Ran’s repeated orders, the new recruits finally relented. They dispersed, keeping their distance but glaring fiercely at the group of what they considered cowardly, high-and-mighty officials.
Only a few veterans remained, guarding the camp entrance.
Seeing this, the Thirteenth Division’s leaders had their own guards—Tier One Late Stage Awakened—return to their vehicles. They then approached Li Ran alone to talk.
The senior commander pulled a pack of cigarettes from his belt.
Seeing his former commander-in-chief personally offering him a cigarette, Li Ran, whose highest rank had only been captain, was overwhelmed and accepted it with both hands.
Of course, he was well aware that his current standing was entirely due to the unit Lin Feng had assembled.
The senior commander took a drag from his cigarette and let out a bitter laugh.
In truth, ever since the anti-invasion war started, they had been wary of the Enhanced People. The massive boost to their Physique gave them combat abilities far beyond those of ordinary people. Every Enhanced Person above level seven was equivalent to a one-in-ten-thousand super-soldier of the past, and even more formidable in terms of raw Physique and Power.
A small squad of Enhanced People could easily eliminate a conventional force several times its size.
But with the emergence of the Awakened and the birth of Superpowers, the very standard for measuring status within the organization was completely overturned.
The Awakened were simply too powerful. While they might still seem weak in the eyes of the Zerg Race, struggling to fight Zergs of an equivalent level...
...killing ordinary humans was as easy as lifting a finger for an Awakener.
With explosive power measured in tons, speed rivaling a race car, and the enhancements of their Superpowers, each Awakener was like a mini-Superman from the movies.
Moreover, most of them were low-ranking officers and soldiers from the front lines.
This posed a serious threat to the division’s command structure, and the positions of the high command became precarious.
So, they resorted to centralization, establishing the Awakened Camp. Then, using a mix of threats and inducements, they promoted Major Qin Hu—who was loyal to the high command—in order to sow discord and create an internal rift among the Awakened.
This was to ensure that orders from Division HQ could still be carried out without question.
The justification for all this was the belief that these new Awakened lacked the strategic ability to see the bigger picture and had no idea how to win the war.
Their command ability was limited to localized battles—killing a few Black Spine Zergs, or maybe leading a squad or a platoon.
If the Awakened were to seize command of the entire division, the already strained defensive effort would collapse even faster due to the chaos in the command structure...
...and they wouldn’t even be able to hold the line until the great Jin City evacuation was complete, resulting in total strategic failure.
This was the very scenario the Thirteenth Division’s high command had been trying to avoid, and they had used this reasoning to persuade a number of Awakened who could see the bigger picture to side with Division HQ.
But now, Lin Feng’s meteoric rise had demonstrated the true potential of an Awakener—the ability to single-handedly halt a Zerg army, even launch a counter-offensive to suppress and repel the Mother Empress’s assault, and reclaim occupied land...