Chapter 926: Slaughtering the Camp

A Tiger tank, its turret emblazoned with the number 113, stormed onto the road from the embankment, shoving aside a burning German military truck. The tremendous crash stunned the Soviet soldiers on the other side. Before their horrified eyes, the front of the King Tiger reared up before slamming back down with the shift in its center of gravity, its dark cannon swinging towards the distant enemy.

BOOM! Without a shred of hesitation, the mighty 88mm cannon spat fire. A high-explosive shell streaked across the ground and exploded in a crowd of men, blossoming into a brilliant fireball. A massive black cloud of smoke billowed upwards. The surrounding soldiers were thrown to the ground by the blast, their screams lost in the roar of the explosion. All anyone wanted was to escape this deadly steel behemoth.

Before the Soviet forces could mount an effective counter-attack, another long cannon barrel poked out from the embankment. Then came the sight of churning tracks, followed by the sloped frontal armor of another hull. The entire chassis heaved into view before crashing down, leveling out.

“Rein! You take the left, I’ll take the right! Let’s show these damn Soviets what the Ace First Company is made of!” Inside the swaying, dim turret of the second King Tiger, Markus roared into his throat mic, his voice thick with a rage that felt ready to explode.

The white, hollow number 112 was emblazoned on the turret of the second King Tiger to storm the road. One after the other, the two tanks plunged into the hastily assembled Soviet camp, and in an instant, they unleashed a storm of blood and steel.

Above the King Tiger’s commander’s hatch was a pintle mount for a machine gun. For air defense and to allow the commander to engage targets directly, an MG42 was mounted there. This brought the King Tiger’s machine gun count to three, giving it an incredibly dense field of anti-infantry fire.

And at this very moment, Rein was manning that machine gun. With his terrifyingly precise fire, he was reaping enemy lives in droves. In his hands, the machine gun seemed to come alive, flexibly and accurately pouring bullets into the most densely packed enemy formations.

“Less talking, more killing! I’m busy! See you in half an hour!” headset on, Rein was utterly focused on the slaughter. His eyes, sharp as an eagle’s, gleamed brightly from under the rain-shielded brim of his military cap.

His finger stroked the trigger, and the machine gun’s bolt began its rhythmic cycle. Shell casings traced beautiful arcs as they ejected, clattering onto the turret roof before rolling off in all directions. The ammunition belt, pulled by the gun’s action, danced as it fed into the chamber, a strangely graceful sight.

The German tank ace was now a storm of cold, dark fury. His killing intent sharpened his senses to an impossible degree. He could even feel the air around him, feel the lives of the terrified fodder. And so he devoured these souls, these lives, with relish. The sensation was like a sumptuous feast, intoxicating and satisfying.

Unfortunately, no one had time to appreciate the terrible peak of the god of slaughter, Rein. His comrades were slaughtering their own targets with equal efficiency, and his enemies seemed to have little interest in admiring the cold, merciless heart of a killer.

The tracers flashed, illuminating Rein’s face, which seemed to be covered in frost. Then these bullets, trailing streaks of light, flew into the panicked crowd of Soviet soldiers, cutting down the cowards who had their backs to the enemy, tearing their skin and shattering their bones.

“Devil!” a Soviet soldier screamed, watching the two German tanks that had come off the roadbed and were now charging into the crowd. Before his scream could travel far, a bullet tore through his throat. He could only clamp his hands over the hole, his eyes wide with terror as he collapsed to the ground.

Farther away, some Soviet soldiers raised their rifles, but the bullets from the King Tiger’s hull machine gun cut them down one by one, as swift and efficient as a harvester cutting through wheat. Tracers ripped into the crowd, followed by a rising mist of blood. It was brutal, clean, fast, and direct.

BOOM! The King Tiger’s second shot hit a distant Soviet truck, blowing its entire rear end into the sky. The wooden frame flew a long way, and the surrounding Soviet soldiers were hit by the shrapnel and flying debris from the truck, many falling with screams.

A Soviet officer drew his pistol amidst the chaos. He waved his arm, trying to stop the rout. Two soldiers following him held their Mosin-Nagant rifles, shouting at the surrounding soldiers to stop fleeing. “There are only two enemy tanks! Hold your positions! Our reinforcements will be here soon! Our reinforcements will be here soon!”

Rein’s machine gun swept over. A bullet struck the officer’s waving arm, blowing away his hand and the exquisite pistol. Blood splattered, flying onto the face of a Soviet soldier beside him. But before this soldier could even react, another bullet hit him in the chest. The two of them fell almost simultaneously, one wounded, one dead.

Before the officer whose hand had been blown off could even count himself lucky, he was trampled in the chest by the surging tide of routed soldiers. And before he could even cry out for help, he was ground into the mud by countless boots.

To his dying breath, he could not understand why their temporary camp, so far in the “rear,” had been assaulted by two such terrifying new German tanks. The entire camp was now a scene of devastation. Many tents had half-collapsed, the other half covered in gruesome patterns of splattered blood.

Who could have known the price the Soviet armored forces had paid to stop this counter-attacking German tank unit? The path from the front line to this place was a continuous trail of destruction. At least a full armored regiment had been wiped out on the road. From the front to here, in a straight line, the wrecks of Soviet tanks were everywhere.

There were completely destroyed Stalin tanks, T-34s with their turrets torn off, as well as trucks and T-26s with their entire turrets blown away. In short, this straight line was like a graveyard for the Soviet armored forces. No one could say for sure how many Soviet soldiers had been lost.

By the time the German grenadiers, under the cover of the Panther tanks, broke into this gap, the Soviet army had already collapsed. This German counter-attacking force had collected at least a thousand Soviet prisoners along the way, and the mental state of these men seemed to be not very good. They repeatedly muttered words like “devil” and “monster,” numbly accepting their capture by the Germans, unable to even speak a complete sentence.

“Have the tanks of the 2nd Company caught up with those two madmen?” the battalion commander of a 1st Panzer Corps armored battalion asked his subordinate with a frown. “Damn it, we came to support as fast as we could, and we’re still a step too late.”

They were indeed a step too late. The five tanks of the 1st Company of the 502nd Heavy Panzerjäger Battalion, which had been holding the position, had finally suffered losses under the frantic Soviet attack. First, tank No. 111 had been hit by a Stalin tank at close range, and then the isolated tank No. 114 had been destroyed, its entire crew annihilated by the Soviets as they tried to bail out.

Tank No. 115 had ultimately volunteered to stay behind to cover the retreat of the grenadiers and had then been destroyed at the very rear of the entire force. Along with this tank, a dozen or so wounded grenadiers who had voluntarily stayed behind had also been killed.

They had not chosen to surrender in the end, because that word had long since ceased to exist in their dictionaries. “The German grenadiers are the best infantry in the world. To surrender would be to disgrace the name of this unit!” were the last words the grenadier platoon leader who had chosen to stay behind had said to Rein. And the commander of tank No. 115 had said it even more simply: “In your tank company, there are only heroes.”

So when the German reinforcements arrived, Rein had led Markus and the supporting units in a counter-attack. He wanted to avenge his subordinates, to get his own justice for those outstanding men.

And so, two companies of Tiger tanks, following two King Tigers, had launched a frantic counter-attack on the Soviet positions. Rein, who had been forced to retreat due to a shortage of tanks, was not at a disadvantage this time. Dozens of German tanks had joined the battle one after another, and the Soviets, locally, had finally experienced the devastating power of a German armored assault.

“Captain Rein! The Soviet tanks on the flank are retreating! We’re in pursuit! They’re closing in on your right. If you turn right, you can probably run into those unlucky bastards!” a friendly commander’s voice came through the headset, clear and distinct. “We’ll try to drive that bunch towards you.”

“Thanks! I’ll be there!” Rein pressed his throat mic and gave the order to turn to his driver, Baumann. “There’s no point in fighting these stragglers. We’re going to find trouble with the Soviet armored forces! Turn right!”

“Alright, Captain! I’m turning!” Baumann replied to Rein’s order. The King Tiger’s tracks, moving in opposite directions, began to nimbly turn on the spot. Markus’s tank No. 112 also began to turn. The two King Tigers left the half-devastated Soviet camp and charged menacingly in another direction.

“Wolf! If you’re here, I’ll be waiting!” Rein’s sword-like eyebrows were furrowed, and he snorted coldly.

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