Arc of Fire

Chapter 737 -75: Turning My Broken Body into Blazing Fire (Supplementary Update 48/84)

43 Krugan Street, 1930 hours.

The number of elderly seated in the waiting room was growing.

The radio no longer broadcast from the distant capital, but rather the wireless communications of Antean pilots in the air.

"I strafed a half-track vehicle!”

"Damn, my bomb doesn’t seem to have broken the enemy’s resistance at the Post Office!”

"Where’s the Post Office? I’ve still got bombs!”

...

Old man Dudayev yelled, “The Post Office is that red building! Ah! This is killing me!”

Aunt Luna looked at the old man, “I say, us old gals are huddled around the radio because we’re women; isn’t it improper for a man like you to stick with us? You should be participating in the uprising!”

Dudayev swore, “I’m ninety years old! I limp when I walk! It takes me thirty minutes to get to the street to buy some booze, shuffling every step! What about you? Able-bodied enough to hop and skip, why don’t you join? The Church always says women make up half the sky!”

Aunt Luna replied, “It’s said that women can hold up half the sky. We’d like to go, too, but Alekseyevna won’t let us!”

"That’s right,” another old woman chimed in, “We’ve been following the old woman’s lead for all these years, it’s her experience that’s allowed us to survive and even helped the guerrillas! If she tells us to hit the streets, we hit the streets!”

The old woman didn’t respond, instead she closely focused on the radio, listening intently to the Pilot’s urgent conversations.

"It’s bad!” a pilot said, “Looks like they’re stuck in the city center!”

"Who still has bombs? Drop one on that building with the clock tower in the center! The Rebel Army is being suppressed by the enemy!”

"I see the Rebel Army’s captured armored vehicle moving in that direction!”

Suddenly, the old woman reached out her hand, picked up the radio, and angled the speaker towards herself to hear it a little clearer.

"One half-track isn’t enough, is it? We need a tank to help them break through!”

"Who still has bombs!”

"Maybe if we strafe them more, we can destroy the enemy’s cover?”

"No use, the enemy’s machine-gun emplacements are in the marble porches, you can barely hit it from the air!”

"I’ll crash into it!”

"No, at the beginning of the year, the precious Air Force Pilots were ordered not to ram enemy targets with undamaged planes! Your plane can still fly, Mikhail! So no!”

"Then I’ll fly a few more circles until I run out of fuel, then I can crash!”

"No! Mikhail, I order you to return home!”

The old woman holding the radio trembled slightly.

Aunt Luna glanced at her face and said, “These pilots must be fine young men, too, right? Probably about the same age as my Grisha.”

The old woman nodded gently.

Old man Dudayev spoke, “Your Grisha was infantry, which is very different from a pilot. Lyushenka’s (the old woman’s nickname) son was a tank soldier, a technical soldier, almost like a pilot.”

The old woman finally spoke, “I only had one son, a tank soldier.”

Aunt Luna: “It was still the notice of death and the final letters delivered personally by Rokossovsky himself! He fought alongside that Rokossovsky! Maybe it was Rokossovsky who closed his eyes! Lyushenka, your child is sure to go to heaven, and might even become an Angel under Saint Andrew!”

The old woman said nothing, only continuing to listen to the sounds coming from the radio.

"That half-track vehicle is charging! This is reckless; how could a half-track withstand the Prosens’ anti-tank gun!”

"Even the second-tier troops have got PAK38s!”

"The half-track’s been hit, it’s on fire! Someone think of something!”

Sherlov crawled out of the burning half-track vehicle, slipped, and fell down beside the tracks.

With a scream, two Guerrilla fighters braved the hail of bullets to drag him away by his arms.

Two Antean Air Force planes flew over the wreckage, strafing the heavily defended Municipal Building of the Prosens.

Sadly, the fortifications that the Prosens had been building for so long could not be sufficiently breached by the firepower of airplanes alone.

Sherlov came to his senses, pushed away the people dragging him, and ran towards the burning half-track.

He leaned against the door, looked inside, then saw that the driver, Ivan, had been hit by Armor-Piercing Shell from a PAK38, his chest shattered, with blood and pieces of organs spilling out everywhere.

He turned his head to look at the Municipal Building, spewing flames, and gritted his teeth, wanting to move forward.

The parish priest from the underground Church district shouted, “Don’t go! Don’t charge head-on like this! We already control most of the district, and it is unlikely that the enemy will massacre the city! Just wait for our Military Department troops to advance in!”

Sherlov looked back momentarily, only to see Guerrilla fighters’ corpses everywhere, many of whom he knew.

He bent down to pick up a rifle and stumbled towards the Municipal Building.

Several injured Guerrilla fighters rose from the piles of dead and followed Sherlov toward the building.

The Prosen Officer commanding the machine gun spotted him, immediately patted the Machine Gunner’s shoulder, and pointed their way, shouting something.

The tripod-mounted machine gun was swung around, targeting Sherlov.

The barrage hit him; Sherlov was struck by several bullets, stumbled a few steps, then ultimately knelt on one knee.

As the bullets continued to fly, Sherlov used the last of his strength to prop himself up with the rifle as support, struggling to maintain a standing position.

He died standing.

“`

Aunt Alekseyevna set down the radio.

Aunt Luna looked at her expectantly, “What did they say?”

Aunt Alekseyevna: “I’m not your leader, you don’t have to follow me. Given the current situation, the enemy probably can’t massacre the city anymore. You should stay here, wait for the long night to pass, and dawn to come.”

Aunt Luna: “Listen to that, I could never articulate such elegant words in my whole life.”

(The words Aunt Alekseyevna had just spoken were quite refined in Antenese)

Uncle Dudayev: “After all, she’s educated, from the women’s school, the same one General Rokossovsky’s wife attended. That’s nothing like the Sunday school you went to, which is why she can be the administrator of such a large apartment complex.”

Aunt Alekseyevna stood up, draped her cloak over herself, took her walking stick, and with a spryness unbefitting her age, walked towards the apartment’s main door.

She pushed open the door and walked into the street toward the direction of gunfire.

Aunt Luna stood at the apartment entrance, hesitated for a moment, but then walked out the door and caught up with Aunt Alekseyevna.

Lieutenant Fred of the Prosen Army was commanding a machine gun to fire upon the “mob” that had risen up.

The Rebel Army was poorly equipped and lacked training.

If there was one quality in which this motley crew was superior to the Ante Army that had collapsed almost immediately at war’s outset, it was their courage.

They had already launched several attacks; the bodies piled up in front of the Municipal Building.

The bodies wore different clothes, wielded a variety of equipment, making it hard to believe they intended to defeat the formal Prosen Army with such gear.

Lieutenant Fred had been stationed in this city for two years and had had encounters with countless guerrillas and resisters, and he truly understood where their courage came from.

Regrettably, courage alone cannot win a war.

In the previous two years of war, after the Ante Army recovered from its initial collapse, they had never lacked courage, but they could not stop the advance of the Prosen Army—until General Mud and General Winter arrived (Lieutenant Fred tended to believe more in propaganda claims).

And now, the Prosen Army also was not short of courage, but they too could not hold back Rokossov.

Courage is respectable but cannot—

Suddenly, Lieutenant Fred’s train of thought halted because he saw an elderly person with an unsteady gait appear on the street outside the Municipal Building’s main door.

He recognized the person, she was a holdout on Krug Street, whom the Imperial Ministry had long suspected of being a key figure in the Antean underground Church, but they had never been able to find evidence.

Aunt Alekseyevna.

It was said that her son had fought alongside Rokossov, which is why the death notification was personally delivered by Rokossov himself.

The old lady headed straight for the Municipal Building’s main door.

Lieutenant Fred heard an Antean shout, “Aunt Alekseyevna, what are you doing?”

Lieutenant Fred had taught himself Antenese for professional needs, and now it came in handy.

Aunt Alekseyevna replied: “I’m here to see how my sons have fallen.”

Her voice was loud, even the Prosen positions could hear her clearly.

Aunt Alekseyevna: “They killed my biological son! Then they killed my foster son! Afterwards, they killed those good children who treated me as their own mother!

"So now, let them kill me too! If they can’t kill me, then with a bayonet!”

The old lady reached the side of the Ante Warrior who had never fallen in death, seemingly about to take his rifle.

But then she stopped.

It seemed she recognized the person.

At that moment, one of Lieutenant Fred’s subordinates said, “Lieutenant, I can shoot that crazy old hag, a single burst could kill her!”

The lieutenant did not immediately reply; he watched as the old lady closed the guerrilla fighter’s eyes by hand, and laid his body down on the ground to rest, before picking up the blood-soaked rifle.

Aunt Alekseyevna: “Now, they’ve killed another son of mine! Let them kill me! If not, with this rifle, I’ll stab them, an Prosen mother will lose her son!”

The old lady, holding the rifle, walked toward the building.

Lieutenant: “Fire! Fire now!”

The machine gunner opened fire, but the overheated machine gun’s trajectory was ruined, and incredibly, not a single bullet hit the old lady!

The old lady cried out: “Kill me! I don’t have many days left to live! With my frail body, I shall turn into a blazing fire and send you all to Purgatory!”

The lieutenant was profoundly shaken, and someone cried out simultaneously, “Look!”

Fred turned his head and saw thousands upon thousands of civilians bursting out of buildings and onto the streets.

They were armed with fire pokers, rolling pins, and even blacksmith hammers, surging through the streets.

The machine gun fired again, the bullets indiscriminately delivering death to the Anteans.

Only the old lady continued to steadfastly approach the doorway.

At that moment, the sound of engines and the rhythmic clacking of gearboxes filled the street.

The lieutenant’s subordinate excitedly cried out, “The Armored Troops are here to save us! These mobs will be slaughtered! Machine guns aren’t afraid, they’re not ordinary mobs, they must

The machine gunner’s voice abruptly stopped.

Because rounding the street corner, the aerial of the advancing armored unit was fluttering with a Red Flag that seemed stained with blood.

“`

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!