Wake up from the nightmare of burning flames, surrounded by darkness and turbid air, and although you can breathe, you feel like you could suffocate at any moment...... After a cough, Weiss dragged his tired body to sit up, turned on the flashlight, tiptoed to the blocked maintenance passageway, calmed down, squinted for a while, breathed a sigh of relief, and called softly: "Guys, you can move things away!" ”

In this space like a burial chamber, the lying people sat up one by one like corpses, and under the light of the flashlight, their faces were almost expressionless, and their mouths were spitting white gas. Under the summoning of Weiss, the "corpse king", the "corpses" gathered together one after another, and carried out the cement slabs and broken bricks and rubble piled up in the downward passage. About an hour later, the project was finally completed, which was not easy to operate. With the reopening of the maintenance channel, the turbid air was finally injected with a fresh element - the sour smell in the sewer, which actually played a refreshing role at the moment......

The night before, Weiss led the surviving Federation officers into the sewers, but the familiar way became extremely difficult. That night, groups of Norman soldiers carried out a sweep of the city's sewers. This kind of sweep is not just about cleaning up accessible passageways, even if there are impassable corners, if there is even the slightest doubt, let the Pyro or Demoman deal with it. In the face of this powerful sweep, the federal soldiers and civilians hiding in hidden positions had to choose between death in battle and surrender, and with their familiarity with the sewers and their own special vision, Weiss forced to go out of the third way: they found a maintenance passage with the outer exit blocked by the rubble, blocked the opening connecting the sewer with cement slabs and broken bricks, and then lay down in this enclosed space to reduce physical activity and oxygen consumption, so as to avoid the Norman army's search - The process seemed dangerous, but as Weiss led everyone back to the sewers, their groggy heads undoubtedly reminded them that if they continued to stay in that homemade "tomb of the living dead", it would not be long before everyone would die of lack of oxygen.

The bitterness is best experienced by those who have experienced it.

After a night of dodging, it was already morning when I returned to the sewers. The few rays of sunlight that leaked through the gutter railings were so bright in the eyes of these lucky survivors. They cautiously moved down the sewers, surveying their surroundings and thinking about where to go. It can be seen that the Normans had no interest in the huge sewers of the city, nor did they have the manpower to "control the field", at best they swept them regularly and set up sentry posts at some important locations. Therefore, after a night of noise, the underground world has returned to its previous silence.

Everything seems similar, and everything is different.

In the empty sewers, the remains of the war dead can occasionally be found, but no weapons or ammunition can be found on them. Many passages collapsed, reducing the number of accessible areas, and the wells used to collect and store rainwater were either inaccessible because of blocked passages or garrisoned by Norman troops.

The vast underground world no longer seems to have the soil and nutrients that urban guerrilla heroes need to survive......

Of course, Weiss and his new followers will not starve to death in the short term. They went around the sewers, found a few hidden locations that were more suitable for temporary staying, and placed the seriously wounded in one of them, and then Weiss led the team to collect medicines and supplies, and by the way, to find out the news.

With the Norman army completely occupying the city, there was no longer the sound of gunfire on the ground of the city. At the observation port near the surface, Weiss and others saw captured Union officers and soldiers, as well as some Federation civilians picking up the mess in the ruined neighborhoods, Norman soldiers either armed with guns or roaming around, and the entire city was basically under their watchful eye, with no chance during the day. It wasn't until nightfall that Weiss took the lucky Federalist detachment to the surface, took cover from the ruins, evaded Norman sentries and patrols, and entered an open-air prisoner of war camp where hundreds of Union officers and soldiers were being held. In the current situation, even if these federal soldiers are rescued, there is no proper route for them to be transferred, or to find enough weapons to arm them temporarily. Thus, Weiss only took out of the POW camps a handful of strong-willed people who were willing to take risks for their freedom.

After a night of attempts, although no useful information about Nikolai was obtained, the size of the team grew. Given that the Union army had already withdrawn from Austria, and then attacked the Norman army at night, the impact on the war situation was already minimal, and it was likely to bring him a house of destruction, Weiss pragmatically acted as a mouse. During the day, he led a group of people to conduct technical surveys in the sewers, found a water storage well in the west of the city where the passages were blocked on all sides, and dug a hole in the collapse for crawling as a temporary shelter for the team. At night, he led his elite personnel back to the city to explore the stockpiles that had not yet been cleared. In the process, they encountered many dangers and fell into difficulties several times, but they all flowed through them. Beneath a collapsed building in the west of the city, they found a group of supplies left over from the retreat of the Federal Army, and found valuable medicines in them, so that the wounded in the team could be treated later.

With a relatively safe place to stay, more weapons, ammunition, food and medicine, Weiss rescued batch after batch of federal officers and soldiers who were still fighting in the process of finding Nikolai's whereabouts. As the days went on, the number of troops continued to increase, and with their strength, it would not be a problem to annihilate the lone Norman patrols, but unfortunately, this momentum did not evolve into a tactical result. After 12 days, the information about Nikolai collected by Weiss was still fragmented, and a complete clue could not be pieced together, and some of the federal soldiers and civilians trapped in Austria were transferred to other places, and some were transferred here from other places, and the relative flow of personnel made the idea of rescuing Nikolai less and less feasible. Out of sanity, Weiss decided to withdraw from Aocheng with his team. On a night when they couldn't reach their fingers, they left the "underground lair", which was temporarily safe but had become very crowded, and moved to the outskirts of the city along the route that had been achieved for reconnaissance. After more than five hours of trekking, they finally arrived unscathed in a wooded area on the western outskirts of the city, where the Union army had fortified itself and abandoned trenches provided a makeshift shelter for the survivors to recuperate. Despite the fact that Norman flying ships passed by several times and Norman vehicles passed by from time to time on the nearby roads, they spent a dangerous day here and continued their transfer after nightfall.

12 days is not a long time, but it is not a short time. With the fall of the city, the other two industrial cities in the south-central part of the Union, Dart and Moenstein, were attacked by the Norman army, which had neither a natural barrier nor the size of the city, and despite the desperate efforts of the Union army, the situation in both places continued to deteriorate. Weiss and his entourage had planned to move to Dart, but they found that Dart was surrounded by Norman troops, and the city, whose main industry was metallurgy, was reduced to fire under the rumble of artillery...... Unless you risk your life passing through areas controlled by the Norman army, you can only go west to the federal state of Lorraine.

The development of the battle situation is just as Octavier predicted earlier, and her suggestions for Weiss's personal development path are also "magically" in line with the situation at this time. At this time, Weiss did not hesitate, he led the survivors to the stars and moons, all the way west, skillfully avoiding the Norman guard positions and patrol detachments. Two days later, in the Marenchik Forest in the eastern part of the federal state of Lorraine, they encountered the Federal Army units that had formed a defensive position there. Coincidentally, the 16th Combat Division, which was withdrawn from Aocheng, also happened to rest here.

At division headquarters, he met again with Acting Colonel McCullen, the gunnery expert who had greatly appreciated him since Batton, but he had not met General Carr, and would not see the wise veteran again. According to McCullen, General Karl and his mount were hit by Norman fire during the evacuation of the city, and blood was immediately spilled on the battlefield. In the Battle of Aujo, which was comparable to the "meat grinder", the 16th Combat Division below General Carr had four fifths of its strength killed and missing, and this elite veteran unit was almost lost in one battle, but McCullen said that the 16th Combat Division had been on the brink of despair three times in its long and glorious history, and then reborn three times. Even if there are only a few people left on the battlefield, as long as the honor is not lost and the spirit is not extinguished, it will definitely return to the top.

Weiss was deeply moved by McGoaron's impassioned exposition, and he even came up with the idea of staying in this heroic unit. However, the success or loss of the Battle of Aocheng made him more and more disappointed with the current operational thinking and command system of the federal army. Staying in the 16th Combat Division can certainly refine its combat skills, but it will continue to endure the shortcomings of the federal military system, and the end result is likely to be charging in the enemy's bullets, falling in the enemy's bullets, and giving his young and precious life like a leaf in the wind.

"I want to go back to my hometown of Somsonas and organize a guerrilla army to fight the Norman army to the end." Weiss confessed his decision to McGoalen, thinking that he would need to take a lot of trouble to convince the acting commander to give him the "green light", but McCullen just shook his head: "It's a waste of your talent to command an army without artillery." ”

"The guerrillas are not all rabble, and as long as they are carefully organized and carefully trained, the guerrillas can also become an elite combat force that makes the enemy fear." "In fact, the Klumberg-Heisen plant has the capacity to manufacture firearms, ammunition, and small and medium-caliber artillery, and as long as we move the equipment and supplies in advance, we can guarantee the supply of weapons to the partisans to a large extent." If the Federalists can't stop the Norman army from invading the federal state of Lorraine, then the brave Lorrainians will make the invaders pay in their own way! ”

"I understand your thoughts, and I believe in your guts, but there is not much I can do." With that, McCullen went to the table, picked up his pen, and quickly wrote a paragraph on a piece of paper with the logo of the 16th Combat Division, signed his name, stamped two seals, and handed the paper to Weiss.

After reading the contents, Weiss carefully folded it up and put it away, and solemnly saluted McCullen.

McCullen also gave a military salute and said, "Good luck, graduated cadet Ron Clumber Haythen!" ”

"No, with you, I will always be a student with little knowledge and need your guidance and help." Weiss replied.

"But you have to go alone." McCullen said.