World Occult Usage Guide

Chapter 314 Battle Situation
As time went on, the small skirmishes outside Mbanbuka gradually escalated.

The president's first bullet struck "Lemera Hospital," a private hospital on the outskirts of Mbanbuka, overlooking the entire suburban plain from its rooftop—an ideal military outpost for the World Tree.

Founded in the last century by Pentecostal missionaries, it is the largest private hospital in Mbanbuka, with 230 beds, many foreign doctors, and advanced medical equipment.

Because the hospital is located near the camps of the Presidential Army and the World Tree, dozens of wounded soldiers were brought in during the guerrilla warfare of the past few days. The hospital agreed to admit these soldiers on the condition that they receive protection from the World Tree.

Misuru agreed to their request and deployed a total of more than one hundred soldiers and a mystic here.

In the early hours of December 21, hospital nurses were awakened by gunfire coming from the military camp. They saw figures moving about in the nearby banana grove. They sounded the alarm, but it was too late.

The Presidential Guard has a tactic specifically designed to deal with civilians—the rear guard fires blanks into the air to create chaos, while the vanguard sneaks into the target location amidst the confusion.

Therefore, by the time the alarm sounded, the army had already infiltrated the hospital.

The patients were in a state of chaos. In an attempt to escape, they pulled out the IV lines stuck in their arms. Those who could run did so, those who couldn't limp along, and those who couldn't walk crawled on the ground.

The doctors and nurses hid in small cubicles, praying they wouldn't be discovered.

The next morning, when several villagers mustered up their courage and walked in, the scene before them made them vomit.

More than seventy patients were killed, most of whom were soldiers. Some died in their hospital beds, while others lay sprawled on the floor, either stabbed to death with bayonets or shot. The surrounding area was littered with broken glass, mercurochrome, and injection fluid.

The army looted the pharmacy, destroyed a lot of equipment, and left boxes of syringes and bandages scattered all over the floor.

In the private dormitory, villagers found more than a dozen corpses wearing white coats. Medical staff were shot without mercy, and two nurses in robes were hung up, stripped naked, and twisted and deformed.

Outside the hospital, the traces of battle scorched the withered grass on the ground, where a large number of bloodied corpses lay. Some were dressed in formal military uniforms, belonging to the president's personal guard, while others wore tattered clothes pieced together from various sources, belonging to the garrison left behind by Misuru.

The villagers immediately reported it to the Lambridge Grand Hotel, and reporter Edward Roberts and reinforcements squeezed into a military jeep and sped out of town, where he gave a detailed report on the battle.

After the president's brainwashing tactics failed, Lin An acted swiftly to drive out the struggling regional government and expanded the use of the World Tree system.

Nine percent of Mbanbuka residents have already received the system, most of whom are young people.

Edward reported remotely using data from the World Tree.

Lin An recently updated the "image transmission and projection" function, and reporters photographed every corner of the attacked hospital, clearly exposing the cruelty and indiscriminate killing of the president's army.

The young users of the system were not mute; they shared the news with their families during dinner or before bed that day, and the news spread like wildfire.

The Presidential Army was completely unaware of the World Tree's communication efficiency. Without giving Edward any time to rest, they launched the same attack on a small village on the outskirts of the plains, using the same methods.

The lurking presidential guard attacked the World Tree's military camp, and the soldiers were routed and fled in all directions.

Even though the villagers did not support the World Tree, the Presidential Army did not let them go. They burned, killed, and looted everywhere, plundering all the food and killing many women and children.

Edward reported on the incident tirelessly. With his embellishment, public opinion in Mbanbuka was agitated, with voices of fear and unease everywhere, and arguments with conflicting opinions. Most people found the actions of the presidential army unacceptable and were terrified by them.

Some people were skeptical; they didn't believe the fair-skinned young man with brown curly hair.

By December 23, 22,000 terrified refugees had flooded into Mbanbuka. From them, people obtained more details and were completely convinced that Edward's words were true.

The Presidential Army is determined to eliminate the World Tree, resorting to any means necessary and regardless of the cost.

Soon after, Ogunkawo, through Edward's words, brought an even more horrific report to Mbanbuka.

While hiding in the sugarcane field, they unexpectedly encountered a group of presidential troops and discovered a 15-meter-long BM-30 Smoch rocket launcher equipped with 12 rocket tubes in the vehicle.

To the group's utter astonishment, the commander of the presidential guard actually grinned and smiled at his men.

"We can use this to blast Mbanbuka."

His confidants, still retaining some humanity, retorted, "There's no point in doing this. Only civilians will die, and only houses will be destroyed!"

"An order is an order."

The commander insisted on having his men find a suitable location to bomb the city and ordered him to lead the attack.

"Do you want your soldier to be the first to die in battle?" His subordinate, disheartened, stopped the car and handed the keys to his superior. "I would never go and die like that."

Whether the commander was just making empty threats or not, the people were terrified by this group of crazy guys.

When Ogunkavo notified a nearby mysterious being who manipulated water vapor, and he released energy at night to short-circuit the circuitry of the BM-30 rocket launcher, everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Following this incident, many people packed their bags, left Mbanbuka, and fled to refugee camps in other cities.

There they spread the news of the war between the World Tree and the Presidential Guard, and the news spread wider and wider.

Those who couldn't leave spontaneously formed a militia force under the instruction of the World Tree. From the 25th onwards, the Presidential Army was surprised to find that their advance was no longer as easy as before.

Some people who were uninvolved or who supported them suddenly changed their tune, openly or covertly sabotaging them, leaking their intelligence, and refusing to provide them with food. Some even preferred to burn down their houses rather than let them live there.

It happened to be the rainy season, and as time dragged on, various tropical rainforest diseases emerged one after another, resulting in significant losses for the army.

Although the Mystics provide healing, their numbers are too few to care for all the soldiers, not to mention that Misuru has recently dispatched an elusive army of ghosts specifically targeting Mystics who are mediums of the "God of Agriculture".

No one in the Presidential Army could stand against him, so they had no choice but to do their best to protect the remaining "God of Agriculture" while also imitating him and slaughtering the mystical beings of the World Tree.

However, the Lombridge Hotel in the World Tree seems to be a safe house; once they escape inside, they can no longer be targeted or tracked by any mystical arts.

The battle reached a stalemate, and the President's Army Commander-in-Chief sent a request for reinforcements to Kinsasha on the morning of the 27th, which was answered.

The war minister at the presidential palace told them that a plane would arrive with reinforcements, which boosted the morale of the guards.

But when this group of people rushed to the airport to welcome the reinforcements, they only saw a cargo plane slowly landing. A group of National Guard members with their wives, children and belongings got off the plane.

Two hundred soldiers, dressed in rags and carrying pots and pans on their heads, asked them where they could set up camp.

The commander-in-chief felt a wave of dizziness and almost fainted. He instinctively thought he had been tricked by the Minister of War, but then felt that the other party had no reason to make such a joke.

That evening he sent three telegrams to Kinshasa, urging headquarters to send more troops and resources.

"General, if you delay any longer, you'll be going to the Red Cross prisoner-of-war camp to pick me up!"

He urged them desperately, but received this reply.

“We’re also having trouble in Kinshasa, you know. We need soldiers here too.”

The commander-in-chief stared at the report written in black and white, his pupils dilating and his eyes flashing.

Even so, he persisted in fighting the World Tree until a new telegram arrived from Kinsasha, shattering all hope.

…………

In the capital Kinshasa, Tshisekedi's presence is ubiquitous, with his image appearing in city graffiti, T-shirts, and throughout the streets and alleys.

Lin An stood under the giant presidential statue again, and the people next to him told him that the statue was cast by a sculptor from the Kingdom of Azalea, who was skilled at erecting monuments and statues for leaders.

The president spent $2 million to build it, and now people are trying to pull it down and smash it.

Tens of thousands of protesters, led by civil society groups and Pentecostals, gathered around the statue. They marched along the city’s main thoroughfare, waving flags and singing songs, demanding that the Kinshasa government “solve the citizenship problem once and for all!”

"Citizenship?" Lin An asked the person who had spoken to him.

“The president said that the World Tree is led by the Tutsi people, but they no longer want to pay the price for racial hatred,” the man replied. “This is a breakthrough in solving the core problems of the Bantu.”

Lin An glanced at the dust billowing in the distance: "I'm afraid not everyone agrees with the 'everyone' you're talking about."

"Oh no, the haters are coming! Brothers and sisters, retreat!" The man patted Lin An's shoulder heavily. "My name is David, David O'Connor. Never forget love and peace!"

The protesters were quickly dispersed by the president's loyal supporters; after all, this was Kinsasha, Tshisekedi's stronghold.

Lin An waved to David, who was fleeing in panic, and then walked against the flow of the surging presidential guards and supporters, all the way to the entrance of the presidential palace.

He looked around, surveying the situation, before tentatively stepping into the magnificent Neo-Romanesque building.

It's so quiet here it's almost unbearable; even the tigers in the zoo haven't roared.

Lin An followed the route he had taken twice before and went straight into Tshisekedi's office.

"bump."

He pushed open the door and saw the president sitting behind his almost empty desk. Hearing the sound, the president turned his chair around and looked at Lin An with a smile.

"Forest ranger, you are welcome to my funeral."

Lin An had rehearsed countless scenarios of meeting the president again, but without exception, it always began with a battle. He never imagined that Tshisekedi would be so weak now.

He used to be full of vigor and always wore a custom-made leopard-print suit, but now he was hunched over. His shirt was wrinkled and dirty, as if it hadn't been ironed in years. His thick black hair had fallen out, and his eyes, which used to be either empty or shrewd, were now just lifeless.

Not only that, something else is also not right.

After a moment's thought, Lin An immediately realized what was strange.

Where is the panel that the system should have shown?

(End of this chapter)