novelSusiti Chapter 24 Blood for blood, tooth for tooth
Chapter 24 Blood for blood, tooth for tooth
Arthur casually waved away the flashy reward effects on his retina.
It seems that this system, which has been playing dead, is not mute; it is more like an extremely opportunistic "history auditor" who only cares about KPIs.
Before this, he had taken out a few German scouts on the road or destroyed one or two half-track vehicles. Such insignificant tactical harassment was nothing more than background noise in the eyes of the system, not even worth a fart.
But Leparadis is different.
This is a crucial juncture in history, a deep scar on the original timeline.
Perhaps it was because he brutally reversed the fate of 99 lives here, or perhaps it was because this action combined with his previous actions, such as delaying the 6th Armored Division's attack on Kassel, that the quantitative change finally led to the qualitative change.
He dragged those whose names should have been engraved on tombstones back to the world of the living, and prematurely kicked the executioners who should have faced trial or even escaped justice after the war into hell.
This alteration of the "life and death ledger" is the only key to activating the system upgrade.
"I see. So you'll give a reward if we cause a big enough scene, is that right?"
The logic is simple and straightforward.
As for the specific formula for judgment, is it based on the number of people saved? Or on the satisfaction of executing war criminals? Or is it simply because he terrified the SS?
Arthur had neither the time nor the inclination to delve into it.
On this rainy night, with the ground covered in mud and the Skeleton Army's main force threatening to crush them into mincemeat at any moment, all he needed to know was the outcome.
As long as it allows him to live, he would sign his name without hesitation, even if the system rewarded him with a "devil's contract".
He closed the interface and turned his attention back to the harsh reality.
After the battle, the farm fell into an eerie silence. Only the occasional rumble of thunder in the distance and the low, rumbling sound of several B1 tanks idling, like the panting of giant beasts.
Arthur stood in the middle of the mud, his boots resting on a broken SS license plate.
Although the RTS system interface was closed, the red warning cursors still flashed in his mind. Guderian's main force—the steel torrent of the 19th Panzer Corps—was assembling a few kilometers away. This enraged behemoth was searching for this small unit that dared to pluck teeth right under its nose.
They had to retreat; the gunfire and fleeing soldiers would attract more Germans, including SS and Wehrmacht soldiers. But before that, there was still some trash to clean up.
……
Three Skull Division soldiers were dragged out of the deformed command half-track by several burly Scottish soldiers like dead dogs.
Sergeant McTavish didn't even bother using his hands; he simply kicked them in the back of the knees with his spiked boots, forcing them to kneel in the muddy, filthy ground.
But these three men... they were completely different from Captain Konopka, the officer who had broken down and begged for mercy earlier.
By the light of the tank's headlights, Arthur could make out their faces. They were very young, the oldest no more than twenty, the youngest perhaps only seventeen or eighteen. Their faces were covered in gunpowder and blood, and one of them had his left leg blown off, bone fragments exposed, but he didn't utter a sound.
There was no fear in their eyes; all Arthur saw was a burning, chilling green flame—a fanaticism instilled from childhood through long-term brainwashing and education in hatred.
"This is the foundation of the Skeleton Masters," Arthur thought to himself.
Compared to those pampered aristocratic officers, these young soldiers from the lower classes, whose minds had been completely formatted by Nazi ideology, were the most terrifying weapon of the Third Reich.
"Look at me." Arthur walked up to them.
The SS-1st SS-Obersturm commander in the middle looked up. A trace of blood clung to the corner of his mouth, and his eyes were filled with contempt and defiance.
"Pooh!"
A mouthful of saliva, thick with phlegm and blood, was spat precisely onto Arthur's expensive tall leather boots.
The surrounding British soldiers instantly flew into a rage. Major Ryder raised his rifle butt to smash it down, but Arthur stopped him by raising his hand.
"You look energetic." Arthur glanced down at the stains on his boots, seemingly unconcerned.
"Kill me, you British bastard!" the soldier with the broken leg roared in German with a Bavarian accent. "The leader will avenge us! Our armored divisions will crush you into mincemeat!"
"According to the Geneva Conventions!" another soldier shouted immediately, his face contorted with a morbid fervor. "We are prisoners of war! We have the right to humane treatment! You can't kill us! Otherwise, you are war criminals!"
This comical scene left everyone present stunned.
Just minutes before, this group was firing machine guns at unarmed prisoners of war; minutes later, with guns pointed at their heads, they began to talk at length about the Geneva Conventions.
Indeed, the kind of commander you have determines the kind of soldiers you have.
This extreme double standard, this blatant shamelessness, made Arthur laugh out loud.
"Ha ha ha ha……"
Arthur's laughter echoed through the rainy night, sounding more eerie than crying.
He straightened up, and his blue eyes looked as if they were covered with ice in the darkness.
"The Geneva Convention?" Arthur repeated the word, as if chewing on a piece of rotten fat.
"Major." Arthur turned to Ryder, who was standing to the side. "Did you hear that? These butchers are still trying to talk to me about the law."
Major Ryder's face was ashen, and his knuckles were white as he gripped the submachine gun.
Arthur turned around, squatted down, and aligned his gaze with that of the first-level squad leader.
"The Geneva Conventions are contracts between people. They are the last vestige of chivalry. But you..."
Arthur reached out and gently patted the company commander's cheek, as if soothing a mad dog.
"SS. You are not the Wehrmacht. You are the Nazi Party's private army, a mob armed with ideology. In my eyes, you are not even human."
Arthur stood up and took something out of his pocket.
It was a rag doll that had been burned black, with only half of its hair remaining—Sophie's keepsake.
He stepped forward and, with extremely gentle movements, stuffed the dirty rag doll into the collar of the SS soldier who was shouting the covenant.
"This is your judge."
Arthur said in a low voice, "Take it to hell. If there is a God, go and explain the covenant to Him. If not... then I'll send you to meet Satan."
After saying this, Arthur did not order the shooting. He turned around and walked straight to the B1 heavy tank parked by the roadside—codenamed "Joan of Arc".
"Sir?" Major Ryder asked instinctively, "To execute them? Prepare the firing squad..."
"No."
Arthur waved his hand, a gesture so cold it was chilling.
"Bullets are too expensive. And for these fanatics, execution is too cheap for them. They yearn to fall like 'martyrs' under the gun."
Arthur climbed onto the tank's towering side armor and crawled directly into the driver's compartment.
This 31-ton steel behemoth is now both his scepter and his instrument of torture.
"Since they like to talk about strength and iron will."
Arthur's voice was transmitted via the vehicle's radio to the communication channels of every tank, and to the ears of everyone present.
"Then I'll let them experience firsthand what absolute power is."
As the three SS soldiers watched Arthur climb into the tank, a crack finally appeared on their previously fanatical faces.
They weren't afraid of bullets. But tanks...
The B1 bis, painted in yellow-green camouflage, seemed to awaken suddenly from a slumber. Its 307-horsepower Renault six-cylinder engine let out a deep roar, spewing out a thick plume of black smoke from its exhaust pipe.
The massive tracks, covered in mud and bits of flesh, began to turn slowly.
Click—click—
The sound of metal track plates striking the ground was amplified infinitely in this deathly silent rainy night.
"No...no! You can't do that!"
The SS soldier with the broken leg finally realized what was about to happen. He frantically crawled backward in the mud, leaving a long trail of blood.
"I am a prisoner of war! I am protected by the Geneva Conventions..."
boom--
The tank started.
Arthur sat in the cockpit, the B1 tank offering a narrow and cold field of vision. But he didn't need to look at the writhing figure; he was fixed on the muddy ground ahead. His hands moved steadily on the control lever.
"I treat civilized people in a civilized manner."
Arthur silently recited it in his heart.
"But when it comes to beasts, I choose to learn from that red empire to the east. Fear is the only language they can understand."
Aaaaaahh ...
A piercing scream tore through the night sky, but it lasted for less than two seconds.
It was a tooth-grinding sound, the sound of bones being crushed by immense pressure in an instant. Like crushing a dry walnut.
creak—crack—
Immediately following was a dull thud, the sound of liquid splashing and being quickly squeezed into the soil.
The tank did not stop.
Arthur continued to press the accelerator, allowing the 31-ton steel body to slowly and completely roll over the area.
When the tank finally came to a stop and made a brutal center turn on the spot, only three deep, dark red track marks remained on the ground.
There, the three men who clamored for the convention and praised the head of state had completely merged with the soil of France, becoming part of the road's matrix.
The entire room fell silent.
More than two hundred British and French soldiers stared blankly at the tank that was still steaming.
This visual impact and psychological pressure completely shattered the moral shackles in the hearts of some people and reshaped the values of this unit.
"call……"
Sergeant McTavish spat out the chewed-up cigarette butt from his mouth, breaking the silence. He stared at the stain and muttered to himself:
"This is indeed the Geneva Convention... but Lord Sterling's version."
Arthur pushed open the hatch and jumped off the tank.
"We can't stay here."
Major Ryder walked over. He had changed into a German raincoat that he had taken from a dead body, and was holding a blood-stained MP40 in his hand. Although he could only use one hand for the time being—his other hand had been bitten by a bullet—his aura was completely different now—it was the murderous aura unique to someone who had crawled out of a pile of corpses.
"The gunfire will attract more Germans," Ryder said in a low voice. "My scouts have reported hearing tank engines to the south. Guderian's main force is just a few kilometers away."
"That's right."
Arthur took a deep drag of his cigarette, the pungent nicotine exploding in his lungs, slightly easing his tense nerves. He exhaled a smoke ring, watching it instantly dissipate in the rain.
"We have to go. And we have to be quick."
"Where to? Evacuate to Kassel?"
Ryder asked instinctively, but the moment the place name left his lips, it felt like a red-hot iron had burned his tongue. The hope in his eyes vanished instantly, replaced by deep despair.
"No... we can't go to Kassel. We were captured at the foot of that mountain."
Ryder shook his head painfully. "Before I was knocked unconscious by the butt of a rifle, the Gloucester Regiment's defenses had already been torn apart. It's definitely a dead end there now; the German 6th Panzer Division has completely surrounded the area."
Arthur nodded expressionlessly.
The RTS tactical map on his retina testified to Ryder's despair. The area surrounding Mount Kassel still had scattered patches of green—that was the surviving soldiers of the Gloucester Regiment still putting up resistance—but more than ninety percent of the area had now turned a suffocating crimson—that was the extremely dense armored formations.
That's not a battlefield, that's a meat grinder.
If we were to head straight for Kassel now, it wouldn't just be walking into a trap; it would be practically offering ourselves up for dinner.
Especially considering the trouble he had caused Kempf's 6th Panzer Division with Rommel's "spiked gasoline"—Arthur was certain that the German tank crews, driven mad by the inferior fuel and seething with anger, would not hesitate to blast him to smithereens with their 88mm guns and then run him over a hundred times with their tracks if they caught him.
"Then to Dunkirk?" Major Ryder asked again. "I heard they're organizing an evacuation there..."
"No."
Arthur shook his head, extinguishing Ryder's fantasy.
"If we go to Dunkirk now, we'll just be adding two hundred more refugees to the beach waiting to be bombed by the Stuka."
Arthur tossed away his cigarette butt, watching the tiny red glow extinguish with a hiss in the murky puddle. He walked to the pile of maps captured from the German vehicles, traced a line on them with his finger, and finally stopped at a winding blue line.
"Let's go here."
Ryder leaned closer and frowned. "River Aa? It's just a small river, with no fortifications, and it's right on the outskirts of Dunkirk. The Germans will definitely cross it..."
"No, Ryder. Believe me, they can't get over it."
Arthur raised his head, his icy blue eyes filled with an almost cruel mockery.
"Do you know what drives a bloodthirsty hunting dog crazy?"
Arthur pointed to the A River defense line on the map.
"It's not about putting the dog in a cage. It's about letting it loosen the leash, letting it bark and charge out, and then, just a second before its teeth are about to pierce its prey's throat—you yank the leash back in fiercely and without any reason."
Although in the original historical trajectory, that famous "ceasefire order" had already been issued once on the 24th, and was subsequently lifted, Guderian is now running wild like a runaway horse.
But on the strategic early warning interface that appeared in the RTS system when he upgraded to LV2, a flashing line of top-secret intelligence revealed the latest loop in the madman's mind in Berlin:
[Intelligence intercepted: New OKW (Supreme Command) directives are being generated]
[Content: Given the complex terrain of Flanders and the losses of armored forces, in order to preserve strength for the implementation of "Operation Red" (an offensive into southern France), the 19th Panzer Corps was ordered to halt its advance along the Are River.]
This is the true value of LV2 – it no longer just tells you where the enemy is, it starts to tell you what the enemy wants to do.
History is closing in a darkly humorous way, and new trajectories are re-entering this muddy, rainy night.
To save time and effort from the tank mileage wasted in the French quagmire, and to satisfy the morbid vanity of "Air Marshal" Hermann Göring, who wanted to claim all the credit with the Stuka bomber, the radio waves from Berlin would, hours later, become an invisible noose, tightening around the throat of Guderian, this armored beast, for the second time.
Such fickle and almost schizophrenic political maneuvering is a form of torture more despairing than death in battle for any frontline commander with normal logic.
At that moment, Arthur suddenly understood why, after the first "emergency stop" on May 24, both Guderian, the "father of Blitzkrieg," and that stubborn old man Kleist went crazy, willing to burn out the gearboxes to drive the armored formations at full speed, even more fiercely than in the original history.
Because they knew that Bohemian corporal sitting in the Imperial Chancellor's Office all too well.
They were racing against time, racing against the leader's unpredictable neuroticism—they had to slam the "fait accompli" onto his desk before he pressed the pause button again in a fit of rage.
However, Arthur did not expect this "life-saving charm" to come so quickly and so... timely.
"When Guderian received that 'no entry' ticket again, the tactical rhythm that was forcibly interrupted by politics was enough to cause the 'father of Blitzkrieg' to have a stroke."
Arthur tapped his fingers heavily on the location of the river on the map.
"Therefore, the Ahe River is not just a river. It will once again become an insurmountable political red line."
"On the other side of the A River, there is an invisible wall that even Guderian dared not cross."
Arthur patted Ryder on the shoulder, a knowing smile on his face. "Believe me, that will be the biggest prank of the war."
"mischief?"
"That's right."
Ryder couldn't understand at all. In his mind, war was a quagmire, bloodshed, and severed limbs, and it was no joke.
He didn't know where Arthur got the confidence to use the River Line to stop Guderian, this beast, but in the end he neither refuted nor questioned him.
He only glanced deeply at Arthur's profile, which, even stained with oil, couldn't hide its arrogance. It was the madness unique to the Coldstream Guards, flowing with "blue blood." In the centuries-old unspoken rules of the British Army, when a Guards regiment, especially one with aristocratic officers, displayed such absurd confidence, the best option for officers in ordinary infantry regiments was usually to shut up and blindly follow.
After all, these noble lords always treated war as another form of fox hunting.
"Alright, Major Sterling."
Ryder stepped back, a standard, formal gesture of relinquishing command.
"Since you managed to pull us out of hell, you have the right to decide where to take us to go crazy. Give the order."
Arthur turned around and looked at the soldiers who were already fully armed and ready to go. Their eyes no longer held fear, only a cold hardness born from having experienced the cycle of life and death.
"Tell everyone, there will be no rest or hot soup tonight. We must march through the night and cross the Ahn River before the Germans."
Arthur raised his voice a few decibels, drowning out the sound of the rain.
"Then, we'll stop on the other side of the river, set up our machine guns in a grand manner, and brew a pot of hot coffee."
He patted the heavy armor plating of the Verdun beside him, grinning like a mischievous boy about to get his way.
"We'll have to watch Guderian's tanks pacing anxiously on the other side of the river, but they won't dare to take a single step across."
"How is this possible?" Ryder thought it was absolutely insane.
"In this crazy world, anything is possible."
Arthur jumped onto the tank and waved.
"Everyone get on the trucks! Drive all those German trucks in! Squeeze in!"
"Go to the river! Let the Germans chase our exhaust fumes!"
Rumbling--
At Arthur's gesture, the engines of the four B1 heavy tanks roared once more, spewing out thick black exhaust fumes.
The convoy began to move slowly. The headlights pierced the darkness, like a long, luminous dragon, winding its way northwest towards the A River in the stormy night.
Behind them, the rain continued to relentlessly wash over the red brick walls of Leparadis, attempting to cleanse them of the bloodstains and sins that remained.
But some things can't be washed away.
For example, hatred etched into one's very bones.
For example, the crunchy sound that makes your teeth ache yet is incredibly pleasant when steel tracks roll over the bones of invaders.