bullyxtreme Chapter 54 The Butcher of Berg
Chapter 54 The Butcher of Berg
Chapter 54 The Butcher of Berg (Tenth Update)
1940年6月3日，03：20AM，伯尔格市政厅防线后方，第12师临时指挥部。
[Enemy attack countdown: 00:28:15]
Current Status: Gathering
[Battlefield Environment: No Moon]
A suffocating sense of anxiety permeated the command center.
It was the calm before the storm, but the calm was mixed with the stench of blood left by the massacre.
Even without Arthur's system notification, everyone in the command center knew exactly what was going to happen next. A dense, low mechanical roar came from the night wind outside the window.
That was the roar of dozens of Maybach tank engines warming up simultaneously, causing the ground to tremble slightly.
The tanks of the 10th Panzer Division were moving, and the infantry squares of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler were assembling. Death had already placed its scythe against Berg's neck.
"This is absolutely insane, Major!"
Major General Sen's furious roar nearly blew the roof off the makeshift command post, even drowning out the roar of tanks outside. The French general slammed his hands heavily on the table covered with maps, his face flushed, veins bulging on his neck: "Listen to what's going on outside! Anyone with eyes can hear it!"
Sen pointed to the night sky outside the window, its surface a crimson red illuminated by countless car headlights, his fingers trembling: "Just as you said, in less than half an hour! An entire enemy regiment, under the cover of tanks and armored vehicles, will crush us to dust! At this critical juncture, you're going to lead your troops away from the defensive line? To launch some damn counterattack?"
Sen pointed to the dark area on the map, his fingers trembling: "That's suicide! That's throwing the 12th Division's last hope into a fire pit! As the frontline commander, I forbid you from doing that! I order you to hold the line!"
The staff officers in the command post dared not breathe, all staring in horror at the young British major.
Arthur was organizing his equipment.
He took off his dusty trench coat, slowly changed into a clean and crisp tweed hunting suit, and put on a brand new pair of lambskin gloves.
Hearing the major general's roar, Arthur merely raised his eyelids slightly.
"General."
Arthur's voice was calm and indifferent, carrying a terrifying composure that instantly overshadowed Major General Ryoma's voice: "Holding out to the death is indeed the textbook answer. But you've forgotten one thing."
He picked up the silver-tipped cane and gently tapped the coordinates on the map where the massacre had just taken place—the site still littered with the corpses of French soldiers.
"That Nazi bastard just spat a thick wad of phlegm in the face of France and the British Empire right in front of thousands of us. If we cower in our trenches and pretend we didn't see it, the morale that was just forcibly boosted by hatred will cool down in the waiting half hour and turn into a deeper fear than before."
Arthur turned around, looking at Major General Jensen with a murderous glint in his eyes: "Fear will fester. The soldiers will wonder if their officers have also been scared out of their wits. Once that thought takes hold, the next wave, or the wave after that, will collapse like a sandcastle the moment the whistle blows."
"I have a score to settle."
Arthur put on his wide-brimmed hat and pulled the brim down.
"Then what are you going to do? That's a camp of thousands of people!" Major General Rangsen was still shouting, but his tone had already wavered.
Arthur didn't answer. He simply walked to the door and waved to the group of people who were already waiting in the darkness.
Those were Sergeant McTavish, Private Miller, and thirty of the most elite sergeants under his command. They were not carrying Enfield rifles; each of them carried an entrenching tool, a hand axe, or a sharpened trench dagger, and some even had strips of cloth tightly wrapped around the soles of their boots.
Their faces were covered in black soot from the bottom of a pot. In the pitch-black night, these veterans, though lacking Arthur's RTS God's-eye view that could see through the fog of war, possessed something even more terrifying than night vision goggles.
It was a beast-like intuition honed through countless night battles, and an almost blind trust in the officer before him.
After several battles and the necessary training, they came to see Major Arthur Sterling as a guide carrying an invisible lantern.
No matter how dark the road ahead, as long as you follow his steps, you will never stumble or run into the enemy's guns.
"Twenty minutes."
Before stepping into the darkness, Arthur uttered his last words: "Twenty minutes from now, I will bring that bastard back. Not just for revenge, but to show those self-proclaimed supermen Nazis what they're made of—"
"When they were skinned and hung on the wall, did they cry like women?"
03:35, abandoned drainage ditch on the flank of the German assembly area.
[Distance from enemy attack: 00:15:00]
It was so dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.
But in Arthur's view, the world appears as a starkly clear monochrome line drawing.
The RTS system's top-down perspective completely digitizes this battlefield.
The undulating terrain, the blind spots behind the ruins, and even the faint heat from the cigarette burning in the mouth of a distant German sentry were all clearly marked on his retina. The fog of war was transparent to him in one direction.
"stop."
Arthur raised his cane.
Behind him, the thirty soldiers, who looked like ghosts, froze instantly, their breathing seemingly swallowed by the night.
They were on the route the group of French deserters had just tried to take to escape—a dry, old drainage ditch.
This leads directly to the side and rear of the SS camp.
Monk may have thought that the brutal public execution had already shocked everyone, or perhaps his damned Aryan superiority made him think that no one would dare to launch a counterattack before the German general offensive, and that the lax defenses here were an insult to the war.
Enemy Sentinels: 2
[Distance: 12 meters]
[Status: Casual conversation/Extremely low vigilance]
Arthur glanced at McTavish beside him.
The Scottish veteran grinned, his expression particularly sinister against his charcoal-blackened face. He didn't speak, but made a throat-slitting gesture, then silently climbed up the canal wall like a giant feline.
Two SS sentries were leaning against a half-track vehicle, smoking and excitedly discussing the scene of the Frenchman's execution that they had just witnessed.
"Did you see that guy's head explode like a watermelon? Haha, those French pigs, it's hilarious to see them kneeling on the ground crying—"
'
Suddenly, a rough, large hand reached out from the darkness and covered his mouth.
puff.
That was the sound of a trench dagger made of special steel piercing a trachea and carotid artery. A dull, short sound, accompanied by a slight splatter of liquid. At the same time, Miller on the other side also made his move. He didn't use a knife, but rather a sharp entrenching tool, using the weight of his falling body to strike another sentry directly in the back of the neck.
There were no screams.
The two bodies were gently dragged into the shadows.
McTavish made a "cleanup done" gesture.
Arthur stepped over the still-steaming pool of blood without expression.
On his RTS minimap, the red fog ahead was dissipating in large swaths, revealing countless purple dots of light.
That was the main force of the guard flag team that was assembling.
They were organizing their equipment, officers were giving instructions, and some were even polishing their boots. Their minds were completely absorbed in how they would storm Berg and wreak havoc in ten minutes, utterly unaware that death was already lurking behind them.
"This is what you call an amateur player."
Arthur sneered inwardly.
In the eyes of RTS players, this kind of behavior of not setting up flank sentries before attacking and being blindly confident is simply writing "come and ambush me" on their faces.
He selected the thirty soldiers and lightly marked them on the huge tent called the "Provisional Headquarters of the 2nd SS Battalion".
[Tactical Instructions: Infiltration & Abduction]
[Combat Rules: NoGuns (No Shooting) / SilentKiU (Silent Kills)]
"Gentlemen."
Arthur lowered his voice, his tone elegant yet cruel: "This is a surgical procedure. That bastard in the leather coat is mine. As for the others—"
He made a cutting gesture: "Don't let them make a sound."
03:42 AM.
This is not a battle. This is a cleansing.
If the daytime executions were the violent aesthetics of the industrial age, then this night raid outside Berg is a return to the most primitive and savage form of hunting.
Thirty veterans, the best killing machines in all of Britain, have now become a dream in the darkness.
They worked in groups of three, infiltrating the SS command core area like mercury spilling across the ground.
As an SS messenger lifted the tent flap to emerge, a large hand pressed down on his face, forcefully shoving him back into the darkness. Immediately following was a dull cracking sound—the snapping of a neck.
Arthur, leaning on his cane, gracefully avoided the pool of blood on the ground.
Finally, he stopped in front of a makeshift command post that had been requisitioned half of a farmhouse as a shelter.
The familiar, gleaming half-track command vehicle was parked at the entrance. Even through the door, you could hear Wagner's opera "Die Walküre" playing on a phonograph inside.
The stirring and grand music perfectly masked all the sounds of killing outside.
[Target confirmed: Wilhelm Mohnke]
[Distance: 3 meters]
Status: Relaxed (Extremely Relaxed)
Arthur straightened his tie and nodded to McTavish beside him.
There's no door to kick.
Sergeant McTavish sneered, drew his sharp trench dagger, and slashed it fiercely across the heavy canvas curtain.
Sizzle—!
The sound of the canvas being torn was particularly jarring against the music.
McTavish roughly tore open the rift, and Arthur strode in.
Several Persian carpets looted from a nearby mansion were spread on the muddy floor, and an exquisite mahogany desk stood in the center. Munch sat in a velvet-covered armchair, a glass of expensive Bordeaux wine in his hand, his eyes closed, lost in Wagner's melodies, awaiting the moment of attack.
The loud noise made him open his eyes abruptly.
At that moment, his reaction demonstrated his trained qualities—he threw down his glass, almost instinctively reached for the Luger pistol on the table, and opened his mouth to shout for the guards.
"guard----"
Whoosh—smack!
Arthur's silver-tipped cane, imbued with wind pressure, struck Monk's right hand, which was reaching for his pistol, with precision, ruthlessness, and utter mercilessness.
Click!
"Aaaaaah—!!!"
The piercing scream had barely escaped his throat when it was forcefully muffled back by a calloused, rough hand. McTavish, like a brown bear, tightly covered Monk's mouth, suffocating the scream in his palm, leaving only a few weak whimpers.
The grand and sacred music of "Die Walküre" still echoed in the tent.
But Monk's right hand was already crippled; his five fingers were bent in a bizarre, ergonomic way, limp and lifeless, like a mollusk whose bones had been removed. The Luger pistol was knocked away and slid into the shadow of the Persian carpet.
Before he could recover from the excruciating pain of his severed hand, Arthur stepped forward and kicked him hard in the diaphragm.
boom.
The immense impact caused Monk's eyes to bulge out instantly, and his stomach to spasm violently. The expensive Bordeaux red wine he had just drunk, mixed with sour gastric juices and bile, gushed uncontrollably from his nostrils and mouth, staining his uniform in a complete mess.
Immediately afterwards, two guards stepped forward expressionlessly, as if they were holding down an animal to be slaughtered, and pressed him firmly into the warm, foul-smelling vomit from both sides.
"Is this what they call Aryan Superman?"
Arthur took off the gloves that were slightly dusty and casually threw them onto Monk's distorted face.
"The bones look brittle too."
Monk struggled to lift his head.
The face that had been handsome, arrogant, and domineering just minutes before was now covered in cold sweat, snot, and vomit. He stared intently at the man in British hunting attire before him, his eyes filled with shock, resentment, and a rapidly growing fear.
"You—who are you—"
Panting heavily, in the suffocating pain, he struggled to lift his vomit-covered eyelids and stared incredulously at the unfamiliar face in British military uniform before him.
The mental block made him even temporarily forget his fear, leaving only utterly absurd astonishment, as if to say:
An Englishman? —Why is there an Englishman in my tent? —
He tried to struggle, using his ingrained arrogance to mask his inner terror, as if simply giving his name would make the other man kneel and beg for mercy like the previous prisoners: "How dare you—this is the command post of the 2nd Battalion of the Guards! Even God wouldn't dare barge in! My troops are outside! You can't escape!"
"If you release me now—I might consider treating you as a prisoner of war of the highest order—"
Snapped!
Arthur retaliated with a powerful slap, the wolf striking Monk squarely across the face. The force of the blow knocked out two of his teeth, and half his face instantly swelled up.
"Shut up."
Arthur looked down at him: "Still don't understand the situation, Major?"
"Your guards are all dead. Now, only I am judging you."
Monk's pupils contracted sharply. He looked toward the doorway, where several blood-soaked, demon-like British soldiers stood, wiping blood from their daggers.
No one came to save him.
In that instant, cracks began to appear in that hard shell called "Nazi fanatic".
"No—this is impossible—"
"I'm an SS major—I have diplomatic immunity—I have money! Listen, British, I have some money in Switzerland! I can give you money! Lots of money!"
Arthur smiled.
He bent down and got close to Monk's face.
But the next second, he seemed to suddenly smell some kind of rotten, fermenting sewer odor, his brows furrowing in undisguised disgust, and he instinctively tilted his head back—
That once arrogant Aryan face, which touted its "pure bloodline," was now covered in a sticky filth of red wine, stomach acid, and undigested food, emitting a nauseating sour stench.
"Look, this is your true self."
"Just outside, you were like a god, controlling life and death. Now, with a gun pointed at you, you're just a coward who would sell his faith to save his own life."
Arthur straightened up and untied a bundle of rough hemp rope that had been prepared beforehand from his waist.
He tied a slipknot in his hand, a standard hanging knot.
Upon seeing the noose, Monk completely broke down.
That primal fear of death broke through his psychological defenses. He began to struggle violently, tears and snot streaming down his face, and even the smell of urine emanated from his crotch.
"No! No! You can't kill me! I'm a military officer! I have the right to be tried!"
Monk screamed, howling like a dog whose tail had been stepped on: "Please! Don't kill me! I'll do anything you want! Don't kill me!"
Arthur, expressionless, put the rough hemp rope around Monk's neck and tightened it sharply.
The feeling of suffocation turned Monk's screams into gasps of breath.
"Stop yelling, Major."
Arthur grabbed the other end of the rope and dragged him off the table like a dog, all the way to the muddy ground: "Since you like performing so much, I've prepared a bigger stage for you."
"Take him away! To the city wall!"
03:55 AM, Berg City Hall defense line, front line of the city wall.
[Distance from enemy attack: 00:05:00]
The alarm finally went off.
Terrified screams and sporadic gunfire echoed from deep within the SS camp. It was the outer patrols who had discovered the massacred command post guards, or the chaotic scene at the command post.
The entire German position erupted into chaos, like a hornet's nest that had been poked open. Countless searchlights swept wildly across the night sky, tank engines roared, and chaotic commands rang out one after another.
But it was too late.
On the weathered medieval walls of Berg, several magnesium flares suddenly shot into the sky from the Anglo-French allied defenses.
A blinding white light illuminated the dilapidated section of the city wall, making it as bright as day.
Everyone saw that scene – whether it was the French troops waiting in the trenches or the German troops on the other side, who were panicking and preparing to launch an attack.
Arthur Sterling, the British officer, was standing on the crenellations of the city wall.
In his hand, he was holding a rope.
The other end of the rope was around the neck of a man wearing a black leather coat, whose face was covered in blood and whose body was covered in mud and excrement.
That was William Monk.
This SS battalion commander, who had been as arrogant as a god just half an hour ago, now knelt on the edge of the city wall like a dog with its spine broken, his hands tied behind his back, his severed right hand still dripping blood.
He cried like a child.
"Help! Ferdinand! Fritz! Help me! Help me!"
Munch cried out in anguish towards the German positions below, his desperate, ugly will to survive carrying clearly through the silent night to the ears of every SS soldier.
That was a profound disillusionment.
The officer who always shouted "For the Führer" and "To shed the last drop of blood" was now kneeling before the enemy and even crying.
"Watch!"
Arthur held a megaphone, his voice echoing across the battlefield.
With his other hand, he grabbed Munch's hair, displaying his terrified, distorted face to everyone—to the SS opposite him, to the French troops behind him, and to the Wehrmacht below.
"This is your God!"
Arthur roared, his voice filled with utter contempt: "This is the ghost you all fear! Look at him! He's crying! He's wetting his pants! He's begging for mercy!"
"He's a coward! A complete and utter coward!"
Monk struggled: "Please—I am a nobleman—I have…—No—"
Arthur looked down at him, his eyes devoid of any pity.
"You killed those surrendered soldiers. You said it was to clean up the trash."
"Right now, I'm cleaning up the trash too."
After saying that, Arthur did not hesitate or beat around the bush.
He raised his foot and, in full view of everyone, under the gaze of thousands of eyes, kicked Monk hard in the buttocks.
"Go down."
"Aaaaaah—Ugh!!!"
Monk's scream lasted only half a second.
Immediately following was a sickeningly loud sound of a rope tightening, followed by the cracking sound of a cervical vertebra breaking.
Click.
The black figure fell from the city wall and then suddenly stopped in mid-air.
William Monk, commander of the 2nd SS-Leibstandarte SS-Obersturm (SS-Obersturmführer), was hung on the city wall of Berg like a rag doll.
His body was still convulsing violently due to nerve reflexes, his tongue was sticking out, and his eyes, which were bulging out due to suffocation, were still fixed on the German positions below.
He swayed in the wind.
It resembles a giant, black pendulum.
Dead silence.
The entire battlefield fell into a deathly silence.
The German troops on the opposite side, preparing to attack, halted. The fanatical SS soldiers watched the scene unfold, seeing their idol transformed into this ugly, miserable state; the impact of their shattered faith was greater than any artillery shell.
Morale plummeted in that instant.
[Hint: Enemy morale is Crumbling]
[Key commander has been executed]
[Gain the aura effect: Fear Projection]
[Enemy attack countdown: Halted]
On the city wall, Arthur clapped his hands, as if he had cleaned up some trash.
He turned around and looked at the French and British soldiers behind him who were already stunned.
Major General Jensen's mouth gaped open. Captain Higgins stared at the swaying corpse, his eyes no longer filled with fear, but with an almost fanatical adoration. Lieutenant Jeanne stared intently at Arthur's retreating figure, her eyes red-rimmed, biting her lip, her whole body trembling.
Arthur straightened his wind-blown collar, took the silver-tipped cane from McTavish, and said calmly, "It seems they won't attack tonight."
He walked through the crowd, and no one dared to speak; everyone unconsciously made way for him.
Just then, a young French soldier suddenly raised his rifle and shouted into the sky, "Long live the Butcher of Berg!"
Then came the second, and the third.
"Long live the butcher!"
"Kill them all!"
The cheers erupted like a tsunami, not for justice, but for the ultimate thrill of violence beating violence.
Arthur didn't turn around. In the dim light of the RTS interface, he watched the new title slowly appear above his head: [Title Acquired: The Butcher of Bergues]
[Title Description: Your brutality strikes fear into the hearts of your enemies and drives your allies mad. On this land, your name is fear itself.]
"Butcher————"
Arthur's lips curled into a self-deprecating smirk as he disappeared into the shadows of the city wall: "At least it sounds better than 'dead men.'"
That's all for today. If you enjoyed reading, please consider giving me some recommendation votes, monthly tickets, or tips. Thank you! Starting tomorrow, I'll be updating 2-3 chapters (2 chapters of 5000 words or 3 chapters of 4000 words), with occasional extra chapters. Update times will be during the day (12 PM or 6 PM), and all updates will be released at once. Any special circumstances will be announced separately.
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