118: Blades join the ranks

Thirty-five infantry fighting vehicles and thirty-five main battle tanks directly wiped out Li Xiao's nineteen million durability.

When Li Xiao took the golden Star Coins card that Xiao Xu handed over with both hands, Li Xiao's hands and feet were trembling.

"9.6 million Star Coins... Is this the profit from arms dealing?"

Looking at the seven-digit figure on the card, Li Xiao felt as if he were dreaming.

"Uh, Xiao Xu, please help me make out an order. I want twenty-three of these unupgraded Ranger wheeled infantry fighting vehicles! Also, I need ten basic units of ammunition for each vehicle. Could you check how much that will cost?"

"Um, you want twenty-three at once?" Xiao Xu said with some concern, "For such a large shipment, I need to report to the CEO. After all, you are an Outworlder, and the risk is simply too high..."

"You're not going to back out, are you?" Li Xiao frowned. Could it be that this Nangong Yan was just a braggart?

"Of course not..."

Xiao Xu quickly dialed the satellite phone. When Nangong Yan heard that Li Xiao wanted twenty-three infantry fighting vehicles at once, she also felt a bit panicked. Such a large shipment would be really difficult to hide from the Black Hawk Empire.

However, thinking of the impending flood of orders, Nangong Yan steeled her heart and gritted her teeth, saying, "Damn it! Ship it! I'll risk it today!"

They say war is a test of financial strength; sometimes you can afford the guns, but not necessarily the ammunition.

Li Xiao spent 5.75 million to buy twenty-three Ranger infantry fighting vehicles, but just equipping each vehicle with a reserve of ten thousand rounds of ammunition cost him 1.15 million Star Coins.

This didn't even include the smoke grenades and ammunition for the coaxial machine guns. However, Nangong Yan did have some conscience; she threw in three basic units of smoke grenades and coaxial machine gun ammo for free, and also gave a discount of 300,000 Star Coins.

The deal was finalized at 6.6 million Star Coins. The vehicles would be delivered to the location specified by Li Xiao by a mercenary group they arranged that specialized in weapons transit.

Sitting in the helicopter arranged by Nangong Yan, Li Xiao looked at the gold card in his hand and shook his head. He was about to become a millionaire, but in the blink of an eye, his assets had shrunk by two-thirds.

With the remaining three million Star Coins, Li Xiao planned to go all-out on purchasing resources, basic ammunition, and food to ensure the stable operation of the base.

Two days later, in the middle of the night, the twenty-three Ranger infantry fighting vehicles entered Li Xiao's base, accompanied by dozens of pickup trucks fully loaded with ammunition.

This professional transport mercenary group was formidable. He took a quiet peek and saw that these mercenaries were even equipped with several man-portable air-defense systems; their defensive work was done quite well.

Once the infantry fighting vehicles arrived, Li Xiao immediately expanded his troops again. His current force had reached 401 people. Excluding separate departments like logistics, communications, reconnaissance, and special forces, he had about 310 to 320 combat personnel left.

The two existing companies under Yang Chao and Di Yun remained unchanged, and he promoted the Captain machine gunner Leng He to be the commander of the Third Armored Company.

For these three companies, Li Xiao configured each with eight Rangers and two AMXs. Since Di Yun was the main force, he was allocated one extra AMX, which had more flexible firepower.

Naturally, the corresponding number of Rangers was reduced by one.

As for the five meng hu off-road vehicles with three million durability originally under Yang Chao, they were distributed to Zhao Feipeng's reconnaissance platoon and the special forces.

Li Le's communication squad inherited the few remaining all-terrain vehicles.

However, although he now had the strength of three armored companies, their true combat capability had yet to be cultivated; this would require some time to wait.

In fact, the greatest gain from occupying the three cities was the increase in HP and durability brought to him by a large number of players.

Although the main force of the Black Hawk Empire had been annihilated, imperial troops from higher-level cities were still dispatching reconnaissance units to the various small towns under their jurisdiction.

These reconnaissance units basically used vehicles like military off-road vehicles. Many players relied on encircling and annihilating these imperial patrols to obtain ammunition and Star Coins. As a result, Li Xiao could gain several hundred thousand to a million in durability and HP every day.

After handling these matters, Li Xiao finally had a day or two of rest. He took Du Ziteng and ran into the western mountains to go hunting.

If there was one thing Li Xiao admired most, it was the ecological environment of Hanhai Star. Human society was riddled with holes from fighting, but the primeval forests were thriving.

All kinds of wild beasts roamed, and insects and birds chirped.

If not for the fact that these mountains were too difficult to traverse, he would have liked to go to the other side of the mountain range to see what was out there.

Time passed quickly. In the blink of an eye, Li Xiao and the others had been in this world for three months, and countless players were still trying to find a way back.

Unfortunately, no one could find a single clue. Every day when Li Xiao opened the chat channel, all he saw were complaints and worries. The number of players was constantly decreasing due to internal strife.

Some estimated that within these three months, over 100 million transmigrators might have died, and more than half of them died in conflicts between players.

This also meant that after players gradually gained a foothold, their desire for mutual conflict decreased, and the conviction to stick together increased.

However, Li Xiao believed that this brief peace would likely not last long. Humans have desires, and the system would probably come up with some new trick to incite people to "compete" against each other.

On the night of the last day of the third month, Li Xiao finally welcomed the rollout of the first blade ifv.

He personally watched in the military factory as a sharp-edged steel war machine drove to the handover platform.

Jungle camouflage paint, modular turret and chassis reactive armor, twin 25mm autocannons, twin four-shot thunder serpent anti-tank missiles, and a 12.7mm coaxial heavy machine gun.

These terrifying firepower configurations all highlighted the battlefield advantages of the blade ifv as the only special model infantry fighting vehicle.

Li Xiao stepped forward and stroked the sharp edges of the turret. He seemed to understand a little why it was named "Blade." Besides its fierce and sharp appearance, it was also determined by its combat capability.

Although the blade ifv's main weapon damage was the same as the AMX, it had two more ready-to-fire missiles. Moreover, its tracked off-road chassis allowed it to overcome many terrain restrictions and launch attacks from many unexpected positions.

More importantly, the technological level of the blade ifv was far higher than that of the AMX. The autocannon came with a fire control system that could automatically lock onto enemies and fire, without needing to be operated by a gunner.

And the thunder serpent anti-tank missile that Li Xiao had learned about before adopted a thermal imaging focal plane array guidance head; once it locked onto a target and was fired, it didn't need manual control like the missiles carried by the AMX.

The damage was also significantly higher than the AMX—100,000 for light armor and 80,000 for heavy armor. If it encountered the Black Hawk Empire's active-duty infantry fighting vehicles, it would be a one-shot kill.

Li Xiao prioritized allocating this blade ifv to Di Yun. Anyway, now that the military factory had completed its upgrade, two infantry fighting vehicles would be produced every two weeks.

However, the ammunition for the blade ifv was a rather troublesome matter; he had to use both equipment production lines entirely for manufacturing autocannon shells and missiles.