Chapter 34: Nightmare

The dull rumble, sounding like an empty gasoline drum rolling down the stairs, hollow, piercing and continuous.

Trembling, everything is trembling, everything in sight is hopelessly trembling, making people dizzy. What does it taste like? Turbid and pungent, the air was filled with the smell of unburned fire, mixed with the stench of burning rubber products, constantly irritating his respiratory tract and eyes.

A face dangled in front of him, as if he was shouting something at himself. Who is this person and what is he doing? Reinhardt rolled his eyes and looked around suspiciously, everything around him seemed to be shrouded in a white mist, hazy and blurry.

"My Führer, we must get out of here now......"

The man in front of him was still yelling at him, his voice distant, with a little echo, and it didn't feel so real, but Reinhardt was glad that he had regained his senses.

At the same time, everything around them began to blur clearly, but it seemed to be somewhat strangely distorted, as if there was a wall of water between themselves and them.

Oh? It's the root of the dog...... But where exactly is this?

Reinhardt finally saw the man standing in front of him, and what puzzled him was that this handsome and strong subordinate seemed to have suddenly aged a lot, and his sideburns with white spots were exposed under his military hat, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes were deeper than he remembered, as if he had been carved with a knife.

Those firm and deep eyes, once full of infinite energy, are now left with endless exhaustion and frustration, and even a hint of despair, like two candles about to be extinguished deep in the blue eye sockets.

Reinhardt was a little surprised, he didn't know why the Dougan he knew was like this. He struggled to remember what he had been doing.

"My Führer, we must get out of here now, and I beg you not to give up. Our cause has not been lost, and we can continue to fight until the final victory. ”

Dogen didn't seem to hear Xu Jun's inquiry, and he continued to shout rapidly.

Reinhardt felt dizzy, what was Dogen talking about? Leaving here, I still haven't figured out where I am. What's going on?

Where is this? What the hell is that oppressive rumble and this damn tremor?

Did you suffer another assassination? If I had known that this would happen, I should have agreed to Bock's advice to strengthen the defense. But what's going on here, from the surroundings, it looks like it's in an underground shelter, like a cliff castle.

"Dogen, what's going on, why am I here?" Reinhardt was desperate to get an answer from his men, but what happened next took him by surprise.

"I'm not leaving!"

Reinhardt heard this answer clearly, and what frightened him was that he clearly felt that it was coming from his own mouth.

"Field Marshal Manstein's corps can save all this, and I have given him a definite order to march on Berlin."

Reinhardt felt all this in a horrified way, he confirmed that it was his own voice, and even more so that it came from his own mouth, which could not help but make him feel a fear from the bottom of his heart, as if his body was occupied by another soul. He didn't understand why this was happening, he didn't understand what was going on, and what scared him even more was that he didn't even understand what he was talking about right now.

"It is no longer possible for Marshal Manstein to get here, my Führer." The "Cypriot" corps had been completely annihilated by the Russians, the "Hydra" and "Griffin" corps were fighting hard against the Americans on the French front, there were no formed corps to use near Berlin, and there were no reserves left to mobilize here.

Therefore, I hope that His Excellency will heed our advice and leave Berlin immediately. We have at least fifty more divisions in France and the Balkans, we need you to command those forces to continue the fight, you will surely be able to perform miracles again, and we still have hope of victory, my Führer. ”

Weierle, Reinhardt recognized that it was Weierle's voice, and then he saw his chief of staff.

Wehrle looked as tired and old as Dougan, his eyes full of frustration, and to Reinhardt's surprise, His Excellency the Chief of Staff's normally spotless uniform was now covered with a layer of dust.

"We must leave, my Führer. Time is running out, and I ask you to get out of here as soon as possible before it's time for no return. Werler maintained his respectful attitude.

"No, I can't get out of here, I can't run away like a wild dog in front of those damned Russians."

Reinhardt had never known that he could be so stubborn, and although he didn't fully understand what was going on, he knew that he must be in a very bad situation.

"It's too late, my Führer, General Hans has already led the last of the Guards in a surprise attack on the enemy's lines, he will certainly be able to open a passage for you, and we cannot let Hans die in vain. Now the explosion is not the bombing of the Americans, but the bombardment of Russian heavy artillery on the outskirts, the Russians have no target at all, and we have every chance to rush out. ”

Doug grabbed his arm violently, and Reinhardt clearly felt the strength and pain coming from those hands. He felt like a walking corpse right now, able to clearly feel everything around him but unable to control it. He felt himself being dragged out of the room by Dogan in a dazed way, and then made his way down a narrow hallway.

"Salute to the Führer! Long live the Führer! ”

The aisles were lined with heavily armed soldiers, and the air was mixed with grease, leather, sweat, rusty blood, cigarette smoke, all sorts of smells that only soldiers have, and a large amount of carbon dioxide, the sweltering air in the aisle was suffocating.

"You all keep up and protect the Führer from breaking through."

Dougan shouted orders, his hands still clutching his arms. What puzzled Reinhardt was that the stubborn self in front of him was now silently walking along the aisle.

It was a massive underground fortification, larger than any similar fortification Reinhardt had ever seen. The large and small passages are like spider webs, and the complexity is like a labyrinth. Each aisle was crowded with people, soldiers, officers, and many civilians in various costumes.

Reinhardt felt as if he was watching a film about the end of the Empire, and what he saw now was as chaotic and terrifying as the scenes from many films about the last days of the Third Reich in his original world.

You can't feel the maddening depression of being in an underground fortification, you can't breathe the suffocating air from the movie, and you can't feel the real gore and tragedy from the movie, because the movie doesn't splash blood on your pants.

At each aisle, several or even dozens of heavily armed soldiers and officers joined the procession, and when the huge street sign marking the exit appeared before Reinhardt's eyes, he found that there were soldiers everywhere in front of and behind him, and the aisle where two trucks could travel side by side was crowded with two trucks side by side, and the huge procession seemed to have no end in sight in the dim light.

It was supposed to be an exhilarating sight, and the atmosphere could almost be called solemn, but Reinhardt felt only a bitter sadness.

The warriors around them all stood there silently, and they could not see in their eyes the fanaticism and pride that Reinhardt had often seen. Now, only exhaustion remained in those eyes that were once clear and full of vitality and blood, a kind of exhaustion that came from the bottom of the spirit, with a trace of frustration and powerlessness, a trace of struggle and despair.

However, Reinhardt was struck by the fact that they had kept what would allow them to reunite the weary and frustrated soldiers in front of them with the once proud and mighty Wehrmacht. No matter how difficult their expressions were, they still maintained that proud military posture, and they continued to hold the weapons in their hands, and their eyes still burned with determination.

These warriors have not lost their faith after losing countless precious things, and although they have been trampled and ravaged by a powerful enemy, they still retain the pride of a soldier, these warriors may have been defeated, they can only be defeated, and no one can conquer them.

The four soldiers struggled to spin a large wheel on the wall at the exit.

"The hydraulic system is broken, and we can only do it by hand, my Führer."

Dougan whispered to the side, nervously swinging the heavy Mauser pistol back and forth in his hand.

With the efforts of the soldiers, the huge concrete shelter slowly flipped upward, and when the first crack was seen in front of the people, a burst of hot air blew into the aisle with a burst roar, causing the two outermost rows of soldiers to retreat a few steps.

"All attention, after the exit is opened, rush out quickly, occupy the favorable terrain and spread out a defensive circle, your duty is only one, to protect the safety of His Excellency the Führer!" Dogan shouted loudly.

"Yes, sir!" The sound of neat passwords echoed in the hallway.

The exit slowly opened, and the soldiers, led by the officer, rushed to the ground, and Reinhardt struggled to climb the last few steps under Dogen's tug. Then, like the officers and soldiers who rushed out first, they were stunned by the terrible scene in front of them.

Reinhardt admits that he has seen countless documents about the end of the world and various similar films, but he has never seen the real picture of the end of the world as he does now.

In his eyes, even if the directors of Hollywood concentrate the supercomputers of the world, it is difficult to create the hell that appears in front of their eyes, the hell that burns.

In front of him was a burning and crumbling hell, razed to the ground as far as the eye could see, littered with flames and twisted wreckage and spitting ashes of ruins.

Reinhardt turned his head in shock to see the remains of a massive building, broken into two sections of charred Romanesque stone columns that had once been magnificent.

This is the Imperial Chancellery, the heart of the entire Empire...... Reinhardt could barely believe his eyes. He looked around with fear, could this be Berlin? Why is this happening!

The remains of the Brandenburg Gate stood slanting in the distance, the bronze statue of the goddess reflected in the blazing flames, like a satanic monument in hell.

Reinhardt looked horrified at the demonic clouds of smoke in the distance, and he looked up, feeling the air around him burning his skin, and he struggled to suck the last shimmer of oxygen from the hot air. He tried to greet his men, but found that he couldn't make a sound.

Reinhardt was puzzled by what he saw, and he knew from the bottom of his heart that he must be dreaming now, a very real nightmare. He didn't know what he was seeing, how it happened and why he was dreaming about it. It was a nightmare so real that Reinhardt found himself unable to even stop it.

He watched helplessly as his subordinates around him twisted and fell to the ground, a faint cloud of green smoke rising from their uniforms.

Reinhardt roared silently at the sky, and before he collapsed on the hot ground, he finally saw the true face of the demon that was rolling and burning over the ruins of the sprawling city, a mushroom-like cloud.