Kelvin held his White Raven rifle, aiming with full concentration, then sharply pulled the trigger. He saw a Sand People, who was arrogantly riding a velociraptor and ordering others to charge, fall down. Only then did he exhale the breath he had been holding.

"Hey, buddy, that's some good marksmanship!" Sergeant Youyou, wearing power armor, praised loudly.

Those who could be cowboys on New Yumen Star naturally wouldn't have terrible marksmanship—after all, those who were too bad had already died. And as long as one honed such good marksmanship, they could live very comfortably on New Yumen Star, with plantation owners and mine owners scrambling to hire them.

However, Kelvin still missed the time when he was on Galaxy Native Land. He graduated from a technical school and worked as a laborer in a small parts factory in his hometown. The salary wasn't much, but in his hometown where prices weren't high, he could live quite comfortably. The factory director was his father's old friend, who took good care of him and was happy to teach him mechanical repair and assembly techniques.

Kelvin's dream was simple: by the time he was 40, he could open his own parts workshop. Of course, before that, if he could marry a not-beautiful but gentle and virtuous wife, have a son and a daughter, and serve his mother until her old age, he would be able to comfort his father, an orbital technician, who died in an aviation accident when he was 10 years old.

However, the state-owned machinery factory in his hometown, established during Marshal Li's era, went bankrupt. Because their main customer, Deep Space Mining Group, decided to order more efficient and cheaper autonomous mining equipment from the Alliance, and the Commonwealth Government also stopped subsidizing heavy industry enterprises. The small factory he worked for, which had been providing parts and repair services to that state-owned enterprise, naturally had to follow suit and close down.

After the bank repossessed the factory buildings and equipment that the factory director had accumulated through a lifetime of struggle, he ended his life in a secluded small warehouse.

Kelvin lost his job, and his mother also fell seriously ill. Kelvin could only afford the most basic health insurance, but the insurance company told him that his level of insurance could not cover expensive gene therapy.

His mother's illness dragged on for three years, costing the house and pension his father left behind. When the old woman passed away in the pain of poverty and illness, Kelvin, who had nothing, walked aimlessly on the street, vaguely got on an immigrant ship, and thus came to New Yumen Star, becoming a very promising cowboy.

Yes, perhaps he really had a promising future. Because the boss was a good person. Although rude and irritable, although full of incomprehensible curses, and although he always called him "A-Kai," he was more human than those glamorous and well-dressed bigwigs in his hometown: the bank manager who took away the old factory director's life's work, the insurance specialist who spoke glibly with a bunch of incomprehensible clauses, and the government councilors who announced the closure of state-owned enterprises in his hometown.

More importantly...

Thinking of this, Kelvin couldn't help but turn his head to look behind him.

The woman was oiling her White Raven rifle. Her five-year-old daughter was holding a magazine, filling it with steel nail bullets one by one. She said she used to teach Chinese at a public school, but her husband died, and the school was squeezed out by the private schools that suddenly sprang up like mushrooms, so she brought her daughter to the colony to try her luck...

Such a delicate woman should be holding books and pens, how could she hold a weapon?

The woman seemed to feel Kelvin's gaze, looked over, and smiled.

Kelvin also wanted to return a smile, but a large hand grabbed his collar and dragged him directly behind the cover.

"Poof!" Sand and stones splattered where Kelvin had been. Before he could feel lingering fear, old man Wang Yougui slapped him on the back of the head.

"We're fighting, you little brat, do you have a death wish?!"

Here it comes, here it comes, here it comes, those incomprehensible curses again, but they really felt warm!

Wang Yougui ignored Kelvin, who was covering the back of his head and grimacing, and said to Sergeant Youyou beside him, "Heiwa! Will your young officer come back for reinforcements?"

"Hei, Heiwa..." Youyou opened his mouth, finding the nickname quite interesting, and said, "I've already reported the situation here to the Commander. The rest is up to her judgment. She's a good fellow, if we're really in danger, she'll definitely come back."

"Oh, she'll come back."

"But I don't want her to come back!" The big black man added.

"Ah? Not coming back?"

"These scraps can't even get within a hundred meters!" Having fought so many battles these past few days, and all victories, the black sergeant was quite inflated. Of course, everyone at 12th Garrison Station was a bit inflated.

"Oh, they can't get through..."

"They can't get through! They can't get through! If they do get through, I'll be the first one to go up and flatten them all into little pancakes!" The big black man took full responsibility, patting the power hammer beside him.

Wang Yougui looked at Youyou with a mix of belief and doubt, then at the enemies outside the valley entrance. Based on his ten years of experience as a militia training ace, he felt that what Heiwa said made sense. He raised his "mirror box," tentatively fired a few shots, and then saw the Sand People on the opposite side retreat wailing after leaving behind hundreds of human and animal corpses.

Even the fiercest warrior nation couldn't withstand such casualties! Besides, they were just passing by and were not prepared for a tough assault.

Hmm, they really couldn't get through! This side was indeed stable! The old man let out a long sigh of relief, then suddenly felt like a hero himself.

And that was indeed the case. This group of about two hundred Sand People was the first, and also the last, enemy encountered by the people in the canyon. This Sand People patrol, which luckily discovered the valley, couldn't contact their Commander and could only wander aimlessly in the increasingly chaotic battlefield, then disappeared without a trace.

The heavy artillery of Alqi Highlands had already begun its thirtieth round of shelling. They had turned the Great Elder's temporary camp into a sea of fire, they had shelled all reachable warehouses and armored vehicle barracks, and they were also systematically targeting anti-aircraft positions within sight. The garrison's air force, which had been suppressed in Tulon City by the Sand People's army for several days, finally could swagger out of the city.

The garrison's flying vehicles actually consisted of only one type, the Lynx armored airship. This was a multi-purpose transport ship that could only fly at low altitudes, capable of carrying ten mobile infantrymen and their power armor at once, but certainly not two tanks or four infantry fighting vehicles. Its speed and maneuverability were mediocre, and its armament consisted of only two Vulcan cannons and one honeycomb missile launcher.

To put it bluntly, it was called multi-purpose, but both its combat power and carrying capacity were only mediocre.

Its only advantage was good airworthiness and a relatively cheap price.

As for drones, they were certainly not the heavily armed war machines carried by space carriers that could charge through barrages, but rather civilian gadgets about one meter long, with a payload not exceeding 20 kilograms, capable of carrying at most three small bombs or one Vulcan cannon... Yes, these Kingfisher drones, with their weapons removed, were actually sold on the market, and were considered one of the few star products of the Commonwealth in the international "high-end" industrial goods market, mainly used for urban logistics and aerial photography.

The dual-purpose anti-aircraft guns used by the Sand People were certainly not legitimate high-end brand products; they looked like they could have been hammered out in a workshop. But they were certainly capable of suppressing these kinds of targets.

However, these workshop-made products, which formed the first anti-aircraft network in Sand People history, one by one became history amidst the charge of the Tulon defenders from the front and the roar of heavy artillery from behind.

And so, the garrison's "air force," which had been cooped up in the city with resentment for most of the day, thus swarmed out.

Sixteen airships formed eight standard combat units, deploying in a fan-shaped attack formation, sweeping over the advancing ground forces and continuously sweeping the enemy. The honeycomb missiles truly resembled oversized hornets, shrieking as they rushed towards all Sand People barracks, vehicles, or strongholds within their guidance range, always creating a deafening roar.

Rapidly passing by the airships were one hundred and twenty Kingfisher drones from six drone command vehicles. One-third of these small flying vehicles were also equipped with Vulcan cannons, while the rest were fully loaded with bombs—"small bombs" was relative to the aircraft's standard. In fact, these 6-kilogram, smallest-sized aerial bombs, when they exploded on the ground, could create a shockwave over ten meters in radius, and within that range, produce effects of high temperature, vacuum, and electromagnetic disintegration. Whether it was life, mechanical bodies, or even energy bodies, all would suffer tremendous impact.

Pushing their flight speed to the limit, the Kingfisher drones swept through the Sand People's army in just ten minutes, gleefully dumping all their bombs, then circled back to the city to reload and repair, preparing for another takeoff. The first round of bombing was quite successful, revealing only towering flames and deep craters throughout the enemy's main camp. Bewildered, screaming, rolling, crying, and howling, there was a continuous stream of them. As for the drones, only three were lost, presumably shot down by some straggler by luck.

Most of the Sand People either died in their sleep or, upon waking, saw the hellish scene of their comrades being continuously slaughtered. They couldn't find their weapons, their comrades, or their Commanders, and could only stare blankly, then inexplicably die.

"Where is Great Elder Hessen? Where is Elder Hessen?" The lords and chieftains couldn't even find their own guards, and could only shout for their only hope.

"Just, just several rounds of shelling were aimed at the Great Elder's temporary camp."

"The, the Great Elder might have already..."

"No, no, no, the Great Elder is an apostle of God, he cannot die! Absolutely cannot die!"

Regardless of whether this sorrow was genuine or feigned, by this point, even the most senseless lords and chieftains knew that the tide had turned.

Han Latt, the "King" of Black Mountain City, jumped into his heavily purchased armored off-road vehicle and was the first to leave the battlefield. He was the first Sand People leader to flee the battlefield, naturally setting an example for the rest.

The total collapse of the Sand People thus began.