The battle was fierce, but King John didn't feel it, as did the rest of the officers and soldiers. Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

Now, they're in a race against time. As long as you can take out the attacking enemy, you can retreat and rest and prepare for the next attack. If the enemy is not killed in time, the enemy will take up a surface position and immediately launch a new attack after they have withdrawn. Even if the enemy only captured part of the position and advanced a small step, it meant that it would not be long before the forts in the rear would fall. This is the last fortress of the human legion, and there is no way back, no matter what the cost, it must be defended. It's just that the physical strength of a warrior is limited, and so is the time. Under the repeated attacks of the enemy, King John was already exhausted. If the fight ended now, he just wanted to get a good night's sleep. Perhaps, the same is true for other officers and soldiers. For them, the greatest reward for defeating their enemies is to retreat to the underground bunker and enjoy a rare and extraordinarily precious moment of quiet. As for whether they can hold the fortress, or even when they will die in battle, it is not at all a question that the grassroots officers and soldiers like King John need to consider. In their view, whether it is victory or death, the time will naturally come, and all they do is obey orders.

Thirty minutes passed quickly.

When the sound of Campbell rang in his ears, King John knew that there were still three minutes left for them, and this was not the time to kill the enemy, but the time to withdraw to the underground bunker. Because the poisonous gas that had permeated the position had not yet dispersed, they had to end the battle immediately, or they would not be able to return to the underground bunker in time. The problem is that the battle is not over yet, and there are still many enemies on the positions.

"All of them, retreat according to plan b."

Hearing the order from the squadron leader, King John did not retreat, but rushed towards the most densely populated area of the enemy with a dozen officers and soldiers.

If all goes well and all the enemies are killed, everyone will retreat to the underground bunker. The problem is that if you can't take out all the enemies, when you run out of energy, and the battle is not over, you have to have some officers and soldiers stay behind to cover the rest of the officers and soldiers to retreat to the underground bunkers, and try to take out as many enemies as possible. To put it simply, these remaining officers and soldiers will definitely die in battle, and their sacrifice will buy precious time for their comrades-in-arms to return to the underground bunker to replenish energy. Because as long as you stay, no matter how many enemies you kill, you will eventually die, so there is an unwritten rule in the legion, that is, all officers and soldiers decide the order by drawing lots, and then take turns to be responsible for the rear.

This time, it happened to be the turn of King John and a dozen other officers and soldiers.

They did not hesitate, nor did they have the slightest fear. In fact, King John even developed a sense of joy that he was about to be liberated.

In fact, more than a dozen other officers and soldiers were the same.

As a veteran, King John came to this planet fifteen years ago, and according to the rules of the Human Federation, unless he was exceptionally promoted, he would have to serve here for thirty years before he had the opportunity to return to his home galaxy and get a good job as a retired soldier. Without this war, thirty years of military service would not be a long time for humans with an average life expectancy of more than three hundred years. If he was lucky, such as being promoted to become an officer, King John would have to serve elsewhere for decades, even until he retired. Although serving in the military meant being exposed to danger at all times, and the mortality rate of soldiers was much higher than that of others, the income of soldiers, especially officers, was just as good, and at least King John could provide for his family without any burden. Military personnel also have a high social status and the best benefits, and the children of officers not only receive free education, but also have the opportunity to obtain higher education. All in all, the vast majority of soldiers have no worries and regard joining the military as a shortcut to realizing their life ideals.

It's just that it was before joining the army.

Fifteen years here raised a question for King John. That is, what is the ideal of life?

You know, all citizens of the Human Federation, male or female, are required to serve in the military at the age of eighteen as long as they do not have a physical handicap. Because they had only received basic education before that, the vast majority of young people had to start as soldiers. Even if you pass the examination and get the opportunity to receive higher education, you will have to serve in the military after graduation, but you will start from a junior officer, and the starting point is slightly higher. The point is that all junior officers and soldiers did not start a family before they entered service, and according to the relevant regulations, only mid-level officers are eligible to marry during their service. Therefore, for the junior officers and soldiers such as King John, they will either have to start their own families after 30 years, that is, after retiring, or they have to find a way to climb up and strive to be promoted to a mid-level officer as soon as possible.

In fact, it is almost impossible for almost all junior soldiers to be promoted extraordinarily during their thirty-year military service, let alone to mid-rank officers. Quite simply, officers are trained through higher education, and rank and file soldiers simply do not have the opportunity to receive higher education. Even if you have the opportunity to be promoted, you must first return to colleges and universities to receive systematic education, and then return to the army to start as a junior officer, and then spend 10 to 15 years before you have the opportunity to be promoted to an intermediate officer. While this means being able to serve in the military for the rest of your life, it also means spending more time than officers who have received higher education from the start.

Of course, less than 1 in 10,000 soldiers have been unusually promoted.

For fifteen years, King John did not find the ideal life he was pursuing.

In the first few years, he had some fantasies that he was the lucky one, but gradually, he recognized the reality and merged into the crowd. For him, it is a period of 30 years of military service, and after retiring from the army, he can return to his hometown with a retired soldier's honor card, seek a job that is not too bad, and then start a family with a certain woman, raise a few more children, and wait until more than 200 years later to meet the arrival of death in peace.

In fact, this is also the life experience of the vast majority of citizens.

It's just that this war changed the fate of King John and the fate of all soldiers.

When the federal authorities declared a state of war and extended the military service of all active duty soldiers indefinitely in accordance with wartime decrees, King John, like the rest of the soldiers, was furious, believing that the federal authorities had not acted in their own interests. It's just that as more and more planets fall, as more and more legions fall, the voices of complaining gradually decrease. Compared to the life and death of the Human Federation, what is the extension of military service? What's more, it was only a wartime decree, meaning it would lapse after the war ended. If military service in peacetime is just a job, then in wartime it is about survival.

Obviously, it's not just the lives and deaths of the military, but everyone.

Although King John was not married, and he didn't even have a partner who could be considered a girlfriend, he had relatives and many friends.

It's just that the continuous and arduous fighting is also draining the fighting spirit of King John and other soldiers.

Obviously, grassroots officers and soldiers like King John have no vision of the future, let alone when this war will end.

For him, all he needs to know is to fight the enemy and face death bravely.

After more than a dozen battles, King John had long lost hope. Although he firmly believes that the Human Federation will hold out to the end and win this war, he does not believe that he will survive to that day, and he does not even believe that he will be able to defend the planet he is on.

You know, before that, many planets had fallen, and none of the soldiers guarding those planets survived.

In fact, after the fall of other fortresses, King John knew that the moment when he needed to brave death would soon return. At that time, not only him, but all the officers and soldiers who fought side by side, as well as those high-ranking officers who hid in the fortress and commanded the battle, would be the same.

In a sense, dying on the battlefield will be the final outcome for King John and all other officers and soldiers.

If this is an unchangeable ending, then an earlier arrival means an earlier liberation.

It was also in this way that, after the squadron leader gave the order to retreat, King John was the first to rush towards the enemy, and did not flinch because of the impending death.

At this moment, King John had only one thought, to take out a few more enemies before he fell. Even if it is of little significance, after all, there are too many enemies, and even if this attack is repulsed, there will be another one, and all the officers and soldiers in the officer will die before the fall of the fortress. But what else can you do besides kill a few more enemies? To retreat is death, and to retreat in the event of a violation of the order is to die a disgraceful death at the hands of one's own people. If the final outcome is death, then you can kill as many enemies as you can before the result comes. Besides, it's the last three minutes. Even if you are not killed by an enemy, you will be poisoned if you run out of energy.

Three minutes, obviously, is very short.

When the sirens turned into a constant buzz, King John took his last breath. Immediately after, the energy barrier that protected him disappeared. For him, there were only two minutes left in his life, and there were more than a dozen enemies near him who had been affected and had not yet come to their senses. He didn't stop, still waving the long knife in his hand at great speed, each blow extremely accurate, either stabbing the vital point or cutting off the enemy's head. It's just that the feeling of suffocation is getting stronger and stronger, and every cell in the body is desperately trying to get oxygen, telling the brain with a stinging pain, so that the brain can give breathing instructions to the diaphragm. It's just that gradually, the brain also becomes numb and confused. King John stubbornly rushed at the enemy not far in front of him, and aimed the tip of his sword at the enemy's waist, which was where the heart was. As he took the final step, King John pressed all his weight down and watched as the tip of his sword stabbed into his enemy's body.

It was only when he fell that King John opened his mouth and took a greedy breath.

There is still enough oxygen in the air. As the air enters the lungs, the cells throughout the body come alive and the brain regains cognition.

It's just a flashback.

Along with the oxygen that enters the bloodstream, there is also poison gas released by the enemy. Thirty seconds later, the poison in the gas paralyzed King John's nervous system, paralyzing him completely. If there were comrades around him, he would still survive. Only now, what awaits him will be about three minutes of death. It wasn't too long, and it wasn't too painful, because he would be completely unconscious before he died.