382: Chapter 381 The Raven's First Kiss (Part 1)

Captain Li Liancai lay quietly in the semi-darkened room, calm and without the slightest fluctuation.

The black helmet completely engulfed his vision; the screen was pitch black, with only a red dot in the lower right corner of his field of view blinking slowly.

This was standby mode.

A special mode specifically set up to minimize energy consumption for the Exoskeleton.

In this mode, Captain Li Liancai was like a lone traveler in the darkness, quietly waiting for his prey to arrive.

One minute...

Two minutes...

Three minutes...

As the voice echoing through the training ground sounded over the broadcast, Captain Li Liancai's figure suddenly rose. Streams of light appeared on the screen before him, converging into the familiar interface he had looked at countless times over the past few days.

"System self-check in progress... Self-check complete."

"Welcome back, Captain Li Liancai. Your preset content has been loaded for you."

Captain Li Liancai smiled and slightly raised his arm. It was still a silky-smooth and familiar experience—this was the configuration he had spent two days tuning to best suit his habits.

From the linkage of every joint to the smallest torque output, he had meticulously refined everything to its current limit.

All for the sake of today's exercise.

In the eyes of his teammates, today's exercise was a desperate battle wagering the honor of an elite soldier.

But in his view, this was just a test to verify the results of his two days of training and his level of compatibility with Night Crow.

Therefore, even though Night Crow's attributes in every aspect determined that it was a sharp tool for sneak attacks, he could not win by sneak attacks today.

In this kind of test, what defeats them cannot be a sneak attack; it must be an assault, an assault, and another assault!

If he could not secure a victory fair and square with lightning speed, then everything would lose its meaning.

A new era of military branches needs a stunning opening statement.

...

Meanwhile, outside the field.

Jin Weidong, leading six soldiers, was hiding behind a temporarily erected sandbag barricade. In front of them stood that solitary office building.

Due to Instructor Duan Chengwu's decision, only the top three floors of this office building had been simply renovated. Everything below the third floor, including the underground section, mostly remained in the reinforced concrete state from when it was completed.

Some floors were even piled with unused construction materials, looking very complex.

"All squads, attention. Occupy target positions according to the established plan."

Holding the walkie-talkie, Jin Weidong issued the order very calmly.

This was not a spur-of-the-moment decision but a battle plan prepared well in advance.

According to the analysis by Xiao Long and the others, Captain Li Liancai was only one person, and the rules of the exercise were very unfavorable to him. No matter how much the Exoskeleton armor on his body could withstand bullets, being hit ten times meant failure.

Therefore, Captain Li Liancai would definitely not appear outside the field where there were few shelters; he would only tangle with them indoors, where the terrain was complex and the light was dim, solving them one by one in unexpected ways.

For this reason, they carefully divided the team into five squads, each with six people, to occupy the key shelters outside the field from different directions right from the start.

However, plans could not keep up with changes.

In order to protect his parents, Wang Shuo had temporarily transferred a squad away, causing a partial gap in their encirclement. Jin Weidong had to temporarily have the other squads each split off one person to form a new three-man squad, while he himself led the still full-strength Azure Dragon Squad to act as the main attacking force.

Following the order, the five squads slowly advanced toward the main building from five directions.

In groups of three, they lowered their bodies and moved forward slowly using standard tactical maneuvers. Their muzzle fields of fire were distributed in a fan shape, and the swing range of each person's muzzle would not exceed thirty-five degrees to ensure they could respond in time within their responsible field of fire when encountering unexpected situations. As for other positions, they left them to their teammates.

Trusting one's teammates was the first lesson their instructor taught them during training.

In the control room, Zheng Yi watched this scene and turned her head to ask, "Instructor Duan, how is it?"

Instructor Duan Chengwu nodded slightly and said indifferently, "Not bad."

"Being able to formulate such a battle plan in such a short time, the tactical proficiency of this group is beyond my expectations. I originally thought they were just elite soldiers."

"If they weren't good seedlings, how could I be reassured about handing them over to you?"

Zheng Yi replied indifferently and then looked at the screen on the monitor, "I am very much looking forward to how Night Crow will cope. If he lets them shrink the encirclement, he might end up trapped to death in the building."

"Hmm." Instructor Duan Chengwu nodded gently, not denying it.

As long as the encirclement was small enough, the firepower density would be large enough. Even with only twenty-five people, they could deploy enough barrage in every inch of space. By then, no matter how much Night Crow could withstand, he would ultimately lose.

This was an open, straightforward plot: advance slowly, leaving you with nowhere to hide, and if you take a desperate risk, you have no chance of winning.

"However, their plan also has loopholes; it depends on whether Captain Li Liancai can capture them." Instructor Duan Chengwu's tone was indifferent, seemingly not worried at all about Captain Li Liancai losing the exercise.

"Loopholes?" Wang Shuo, who had been listening to gibberish for a long time on the side, was stunned. Looking at the evenly deployed teams on the screen, he asked, "Isn't this very good? Where are the loopholes?"

Instructor Duan Chengwu revealed a faint smile. Just as he was about to explain, he heard Zheng Yi on the side say, "They are too far from the building."

"What does that mean?" Wang Shuo was confused. 'Can you guys not all be so profound, okay? I haven't understood a single sentence!'

"The training ground is not large. They deliberately opened up the distance to attack from a distance. This way, the squads can take care of each other's fields of fire for support, and they can also adjust their team formations while advancing. Of course, the main goal is to attract Captain Li Liancai, luring him into launching an active attack while the teams are advancing."

"Isn't this very good?" Wang Shuo thought this plan was simply excellent; if it were him, he would definitely have gone up foolishly.

"It was originally good." Zheng Yi's tone was flat, "But they miscalculated by six people."

Wang Shuo's gaze paused slightly, as if he had thought of something, "You mean..."

"Yes." Zheng Yi looked at Wang Shuo and nodded, "Originally, if this plan were implemented by thirty people, then each squad would have six people, possessing enough manpower to ensure sufficient firepower duration and suppression. But now, they have one squad that is three people."

"The commander of this team made a wrong decision. To ensure the completeness of the encirclement, he chose to form a supplementary squad but was unwilling to sacrifice the firepower density of other squads."

Zheng Yi narrowed her eyes slightly, "Right now, their squads can still observe each other and provide support, but once they enter the projection range of the building and enter each other's visual blind spots, that might not be the case."

"The outcome will begin from the moment they enter the visual blind spots."