Chapter 288: Even The Soldier King Has To Kneel!!
The first competition project was already at maximum intensity, harshly knocking down a bunch of competitors, forcing everyone to put away their pride and focus seriously on the competition.
Half an hour of rest passed in the blink of an eye, and the second competition project began right after.
This one also had a tactical background, and compared to the first subject, it better reflected counter-terrorism combat, testing warriors’ basic skills even more.
The competition venue was a nine-story training building, with a platform extending two meters out from the rooftop.
At the front of the platform hung a standard 15-millimeter diameter climbing rope straight down to the ground, a full thirty meters high from top to bottom.
Competitors needed to climb this rope to the rooftop within one minute.
Then perform a 150-meter angled shooting.
The scoring mechanism for the second competition project was exactly the same as the first: those who couldn’t climb up had no chance to shoot.
Climbing up earned one point, and hitting six targets within one minute earned another point.
This project might seem simple—just climb up to get a shot—but it sounded much easier than the previous running.
In reality, its difficulty surpassed the first one by far.
Because the special operations subjects the competitors trained in did include climbing rope, with two such items, but their difficulty was nowhere comparable.
First off, the subjects involving climbing thirty meters up were all hands grabbing the rope with feet on the wall.
Not only could hands exert force, but feet could push off the wall too.
That made it much easier!
Rope climbing with feet not touching the wall—usually called rope climbing or pole climbing—typically maxed out at five meters, ten meters at most.
And regardless of the subject, it was usually done barehanded.
But this competition required light load-bearing: water canteen, magazine, grenade, weapon, etc., totaling no less than twenty pounds.
Climbing thirty meters was already tough enough, and now with twenty pounds of load that high up.
It even had a time limit—one minute to complete.
It was simply inhuman!
Anyone who’s climbed this kind of rope knows it severely tests arm strength and skill; difficulty rises exponentially with every meter up.
Normally in the troops, they only trained climbing ten meters, but here it jumped straight to thirty meters.
And with load-bearing!
Most competitors were truly speechless, faces looking worse than one another.
Even climbing ten meters usually left them exhausted; doing it twice in a row made fingers tremble from fatigue. Could they really climb this thirty meters now?
It really killed their confidence!
The difficulty was just too great!
But the competition rules were already announced, and it was about to start—no chance to try it out first. No confidence? They’d have to grit their teeth and go anyway.
With only two ropes hanging down, this project had to be done in sequence.
For fairness, they drew lots to decide the order.
Chen Jun got extremely lucky, drawing number ten, the last to go.
Going later let them watch the earlier ones compete, extracting experience from their performances—clearly a big advantage.
The first up was team number eight; the team members all looked grim.
“Enter the field, twenty seconds to prepare.”
At the referee’s command.
“Go for it! Go for it!”
Amid the teammates’ cheers, the two number eight competitors reached the rope, started putting on the safety rope, and prepared to climb.
As the first climb was about to begin, the nine teams waiting nearby erupted in heated discussion.
“This difficulty is too much—thirty meters. I’ve never climbed that high in my life, and with such heavy load. Can it really be climbed?”
“If there was no time limit, it’d be okay—just grind it out, should make it up.”
“Yeah, but only one minute—how the hell are we supposed to manage that?”
“Damn whoever designed this project—it’s not human.”
…
The entire venue buzzed with intense discussion; everyone was extremely pessimistic about this project, with only a handful confident they could complete it.
The Steel Seventh Battalion competition team felt the pressure too; their discussion atmosphere was heavy.
“If no load-bearing was needed, thirty meters should be manageable. Our brigade’s daily rope climbing training goes to fifteen meters, but this load is really hard to say—huge difficulty.” Qi Huan’s brows furrowed tightly.
“Looks like they’re determined up top to pick the strongest team, so each project gets harder than the last.” Wu Zhe said helplessly.
“This is way too high. If you fall, it’d hurt bad, right?” Xu Sanduo said innocently.
“Safety rope’s tied to you—won’t die. Afraid of heights? Don’t look down, just climb up. However far you get is how far.” Cheng Cai encouraged.
“What’s to fear? Just do it. One step at a time, one point is one point.” Tuo Yonggang was carefree.
“Wherever Steel Seventh Company goes, we don’t back down. Difficulty means challenge; conquering it proves how excellent we are. If it’s too easy and everyone completes it, there’s no point.” Wu Liu Yi said earnestly.
“Wu Liu Yi’s right—challenges make it fun.”
Chen Jun patted Wu Liu Yi’s shoulder, scanned the group encouragingly: “Don’t overthink it. When it’s time, just climb up. If we score, great; if not, as long as we gave it our all, it’s fine.”
Chen Jun’s words were just to comfort them, but hearing him think of them that way instead fired up their competitive spirit.
Each one started steeling themselves inwardly—even if they died trying, they’d climb up.
While the Steel Seventh Battalion competition team chatted, the two number eight competitors had finished preparing and, with the referee’s timing command, started climbing up.
As elite soldiers picked from ten thousand, both started steadily; speed and technique were flawless.
Legs clamping the rope, hands grabbing above and pulling up—like a caterpillar, inching upward.
The first ten meters took less than ten seconds—that speed was already fast.
But past ten meters, stamina consumption hit hard, like after a hundred-meter sprint; from then on, speed slowed the higher they went.
Ten to fifteen meters took seven seconds; fifteen to twenty took fifteen seconds.
Time to climb higher nearly doubled each stretch.
Even giving their all, one competitor only reached twenty-four meters before hands gave out and he dropped.
The load-bearing was such a drag—like someone yanking you down hard.
Difficulty at least double that of barehanded!
The first competitor dropping from exhaustion drew gasps from the whole audience; luckily the safety rope held, no major harm.
But the disappointment of not making it left him soulless.
He just hung there motionless as the rope lowered him.
The second didn’t fare much better, persisting less than three meters further. The target was just meters away, yet unattainable.
He gave out at twenty-seven meters, dropping the same way.
Number eight’s captain saw both fail, his face turning ghastly; the whole team’s morale plunged.
To boost the squad, the captain changed plans and went up early.
As number eight’s strongest competitor, his appearance ramped up pressure on others, but they momentarily forgot they were opponents, pinning huge hopes on him.
Hoping someone could break through, prove it doable.
Then later teams could have confidence.
Number eight’s captain was indeed strong, his willpower ironclad; at twenty meters, face red and neck thick.
Veins on his forehead bulged like exploding chopsticks.
Even squeezing every ounce of strength, he only reached twenty-nine meters.
Hands there were hard as stone, no strength left to squeeze out; no matter how he struggled, not another inch.
When he let go one hand to reach up, the other couldn’t support his weight.
“Swish~”
He dropped too!
“Holy crap, can this really be climbed? Number eight’s captain was strong enough, still short by over a meter— so close yet a world away.”
“Too hard, really too hard.”
“Last project six people scored; this one won’t be a team-wide zero, right?”
…
The exaggerated difficulty crushed the competitors; even before their turn, massive pressure hit—almost no one confident anymore.
Yet amid the chaos and groans, some drew better lessons from number eight’s failure.
The quickest to react was Chen Jun!
“Their climbing method won’t work. Can’t rush at the start—used too much force early, couldn’t sustain later. Like running 1500m long-distance but sprinting the first hundred meters—you’ll crash.”
Chen Jun pinpointed the key reason for all four failures.
Then he instructed everyone: “When it’s my turn later, remember: don’t go too fast at first. Steady rhythm, or you won’t make it.”
“Right, number eight had big issues.”
Wu Zhe agreed with Chen Jun’s analysis, guessing: “They’re used to ten meters—charged like usual, burned out later.”
“They actually had plenty of time left, especially the captain—nearly twenty seconds. Such a shame.” Qi Huan said.
…
The Steel Seventh Battalion competition team spotted the issue; other teams weren’t dumber than Chen Jun and crew—they saw it from number eight too.
So discussion shifted to core solutions.
On overcoming late fatigue, each team had ideas; solutions were each showing their own special prowess.
Even number eight’s remaining four members adjusted accordingly.
The captain shared his firsthand lessons with the last four teammates, hoping they’d turn the tide.
First round zero points was bad enough—couldn’t stomach another.
Sadly.
At the cost of the first four teammates’ zeros, the last four finally grasped the biggest issue—but didn’t meet the captain’s hopes.
Even knowing not to rush headlong at the start.
Still, two couldn’t last.
Load-bearing thirty meters up tested stamina limits; physical fitness was the hard benchmark—no skill could compensate if lacking.
The other two reached the top, both touching the extension board’s upper edge.
But there, they realized not hope, but inescapable despair awaited.
Rope tied to the front of the extension board; to get up, hands had to grip the edge, then bicep curl the body up.
The move itself was tough, testing explosive power.
Mainly, no purchase points on the board—nothing to grab for leverage; the flat surface too slippery.
Only way: press on the board, force it up.
Sure, all here were elite special forces soldiers, far superior physically; ten bicep curls in a row no sweat normally.
But after draining everything prior, arms trembled from weakness.
No strength left to lift the body.
Seeing number eight’s two competitors touch the top edge but unable to climb over changed the onlookers’ eyes.
Everyone felt it viscerally: this final hurdle was pure “hell” level.
The straw that broke the camel’s back.
Number eight team totally wiped out—no one scored a point. The next team up, number two, didn’t fare much better.
Number three borrowed number eight’s lessons; six of eight reached the top.
But that final hurdle too brutal—none of the six broke through, all sank below the extension board.
And each fell differently.
Some kept struggling past the one-minute limit, missing the precious point.
Some slipped off mid-grip on the edge.
Others got creative, inverting on the rope to hook the board with feet, then back up.
Result: hands couldn’t hold the weight, plunged straight down.
…
The second team wiped out hit all competitors hard, making the whole venue oppressively grim.
Even the distant spectating person in charge couldn’t help thinking—
“Could the difficulty be too much? Overdid it?”
It was normal for the person in charge to think that, since each project was set by a dedicated team—they only designed competition projects, not tested them.
After all, for army-level competitions, no one was available to pretest.
If testers were that awesome, special forces would’ve snatched them already—no way they’d stay in logistics designing projects.
