The Legion and the Heart of Iron!

Flames spewed from the elongated barrel, and in the span of a lightning flash, two soldiers were instantly torn to shreds. The roar of gunfire nearly ruptured Hairike's eardrums. Scrambling desperately behind cover, he had just raised his weapon to return fire when he saw a comrade slam right into a howling set of incoming claws. Flesh and blood flew everywhere! Even the great white bear seemed startled by its own ferocious momentum, let alone the soldiers cloaked in black. "Scatter!!" Seeing another two men gunned down by the heavy machine gun, Hairike raised his muzzle in a blind fury and emptied a burst into the truck's cab. The bullets clattered uselessly against the welded steel plating shielding the gun, doing nothing more than kicking up a flurry of sparks and leaving shallow pockmarks. "Giao!" Tail ducked her head by reflex, deftly evading the stray rounds, her hands steady on the machine gun. Sesame Paste, sitting in the driver's seat, was thoroughly rattled by the deafening chatter of rounds striking the metal. "Eek!!" She instinctively tucked her head beneath the steering wheel, her foot glued to the accelerator. Watching the charging truck and its impenetrable steel plates, Hairike gripped his submachine gun, despair creeping into his eyes. Especially when he saw the thick, elongated barrel on the roof swivel and point dead at him. For a split second, his heart felt frozen in his chest. And yet— What ultimately stole his consciousness was not an incoming bullet. It was the front of the truck slamming squarely into his chest. In his final sliver of consciousness, he faintly heard someone shout something. Though he didn't understand a single word... "Tail! Leave one alive!" "Ooh! Got it!" ... Cold water splashed across his face. Hairike jolted awake, only to find a dark muzzle staring right back at him. "We always prefer to convince people with reason, so you'd best not do anything rash." Sisi threw his own words back at the man on the ground, only to see him gaping at her as though she were a monster. *Uhhh...* She rubbed her chin with her left hand. *Am I really that terrifying?* She was actually pretty satisfied with her game character's appearance. "You scared me half to death... We got the emergency quest saying you were in trouble and rushed right over. When we saw you take all those shots, Tail and I thought you were a goner." Climbing down from the truck, Sesame Paste hurried over, her face full of concern. "Thanks to the body armor. Though a few ribs broke, of course." Sisi spoke casually. Even so, she had a feeling her actual condition went well beyond a few broken ribs. Still, despite such severe internal and external trauma, she had already recovered thirty to forty percent of her health. Choosing the Constitution-type build precisely for situations like this had proven to be the right call. Having pain suppressed beyond a certain threshold was easily one of the game's best features, essentially functioning as a built-in sedative and painkiller. Otherwise, no matter how many points one pumped into Constitution, it wouldn't mean a thing if the player couldn't endure the agony. "As expected of Sisi! That line was so cool!" Tail's eyes sparkled. Rou Rou looked at her with concern. "Are you really okay? You took so many bullets..." "I'm fine." A gentle smile touched Sisi's lips. "...Thanks to you guys showing up in time. If I'd been on my own, I might have been captured." "Rou Rou especially—you were really brave!" "Oh, come on... When a friend's in trouble, how could I cower in the back?" Lifting a heavy paw, shy Rou Rou sheepishly scratched the back of her head. The gesture promptly smeared blood all over her fur. The heartwarming moment turned subtly gruesome. Right then, an ill-timed remark steered the conversation in a bizarre direction. "Giao! C-captured?! Would stuff from a doujinshi happen?!" Sesame Paste blinked blankly. "A doujinshi?" Looking at the girl whose eyes were gleaming with mischief, Sisi sighed helplessly. "Tail, you really need to lay off that stuff." "!!! Did you put a surveillance camera in my room?!" "Eww, you're something else, woman..." The gunfire and commotion drew the people nearby, with Kaliman and his guards arriving first. Even though his captain of the guard had vehemently opposed meddling in the disputes of wastelanders, Kaliman had committed himself to protecting these travelers only minutes earlier. Clenching his jaw, he led his men over anyway. Yet when he arrived, the fight was already over. The black-cloaked wastelanders lay strewn across the ground in grotesque, gruesome postures. A ten-millimeter machine gun round did far more than punch neat holes in human flesh. Mangled limbs and shredded viscera lay scattered among the ruins of the tents. Having never left the desert before, Kaliman felt his stomach churn violently, his face draining of color. "What happened here..." The bearded guard captain stepped forward and crouched down. He extended a forefinger, inspecting the bridge of a corpse's nose, his expression turning solemn. "Legion men..." Wastelanders came in every skin tone and hair color, but only the Legion bore that pronounced ridge along the bridge of their nose. Some said they carried ancient DNA, while others claimed they had altered their genetics to set their noble lineage apart. *The Legion...* Kaliman turned the word over in his mouth, eyes burning with hatred. By now, the merchants, guards, and mercenaries who had scattered earlier crept back as the gunfire ceased. Seeing the carnage and wreckage strewn across the ground, one merchant's face twisted in agony. "Damn it, what did you do?! My tent, my bags, my cargo... you destroyed everything!" Eyeballing the truck parked beside the ruined tents, several rifle-toting mercenaries began crowding in. "It's just a few tents..." Sisi tossed a few gold dinars onto the ground. "Is that enough?" It was clearly far from sufficient, and the merchant opened his mouth to protest, but his guard tugged at his sleeve. "Those three girls are Awakened... If a fight breaks out, we're the ones who'll suffer heavy casualties." The merchant's face flushed red with indignation, but he ultimately swallowed his anger. Grabbing the gold coins from the dirt, he turned and slunk away without another word. The nearby residents watched the spectacle from a safe distance. The northern end of Kating Post was reserved for traveling merchants. So long as stray bullets didn't fly into their homes, none of the locals cared how many wastelanders died. Still, it had been years since they had seen a skirmish this violent. As the crowd buzzed with whispers, a man past fifty stepped forward from among the onlookers. His dark skin was etched with deep wrinkles, carrying the weary mark of years weathered by the elements, yet his frame remained sturdy. A dozen burly men flanked him in matching attire, each carrying a revolving rifle slung across his back. Sweeping his eyes over the corpses, the captive on the ground, and the three girls with their bear beside the truck, the older man furrowed his brow. "I am Mudeka, the headman here." "Sisi. Over there are Tail, Sesame Paste, and Rou Rou." Sisi introduced her companions, though she suspected the old man couldn't care less about their names. Her instinct was spot on. The village head didn't bother asking where they hailed from, speaking straight to the point. "This is a safe zone. You broke the rules here. You must compensate the villagers for their distress and the frightened livestock." Sisi replied with a deadpan expression. "Oh? If this is a safe zone, why didn't you step in before they attacked?" "I came running only after hearing the gunfire. Regardless, tearing through the camp in a truck, crushing tents and supplies, firing a machine gun... you went too far." Tail, who only half-understood the exchange, protested indignantly. "Hey, I didn't hit anyone innocent—" Sisi cut Tail off, fixing her gaze on the elder and speaking deliberately. "This is business between the Alliance and the Legion. Are you sure you want to get involved?" She could tell the old man was merely trying to extort whatever he could. Had she not tossed out those dinars a moment ago, this nuisance likely wouldn't have arisen at all. Sure enough, the moment the word "Alliance" left her lips, the elder's demeanor shifted. A sharp flicker of wariness and doubt cut through his fierce, cunning eyes. He had heard of the Alliance, of course, along with the rumors drifting from the east. This upstart Alliance had halted the Bone Chewer Tribe's southward rampage and brought an end to the year-long turmoil across River Valley Province. Before their rise, the towering Great Wall was the only beacon of order for hundreds of li around. "...You people are from the Alliance?" Sisi met his stare. "We are." The elder's face stiffened slightly, as did the expressions of the men at his back. He had indeed intended to fleece these girls—the truck carried plenty of valuable cargo, and his demand for compensation had reasonable justification. Now, however, the calculus had changed. Overhearing the exchange, the onlookers traded startled glances. Murmurs rippled outward through the crowd. "The Alliance? They're with the Alliance?" "I heard Alliance soldiers fight like ten men apiece. They crushed the Bone Chewer Tribe with barely a thousand troops." "No wonder..." The Alliance might not match the sheer might of the Legion, but they were right on their doorstep. The Legion, by contrast, sat half a continent away on the distant West Coast. "This could get ugly... A trip from the Alliance out here takes a week at most, maybe two or three days if they move fast," a middle-aged man leaned in and whispered into Mudeka's ear. Mudeka gave an imperceptible grunt of acknowledgment, never taking his eyes off the young woman before him. After a long pause, he spoke slowly. "...We have no desire to meddle in your disputes. But we expect you not to disrupt our lives." With that, he waved a withered hand and turned to leave with his men. Not another word was said about compensation. Hairike lay on the ground, his eyes darting between the three girls and the bear. He had never heard of any Alliance, nor did he care to know. His mind raced frantically, searching for a way out of this predicament. Yet as his gaze settled on the dark, hollow muzzle hovering over him, his tense shoulders finally sagged, abandoning any notion of flight. The strength these people displayed exceeded anything he understood. Whether it was the woman who shrugged off multiple bullet wounds as if nothing had happened, or the mysterious weapon that had annihilated five of his comrades in the blink of an eye. To this moment, he still had no idea what that device was. Perhaps... Something extraordinary really had changed in River Valley Province. "Are you certain you wish to make an enemy of the Legion?" Hairike kept his voice low, invoking the Legion's name in a bid to intimidate them into letting him go. Sisi looked down at him. "Even if we didn't, would trouble stop knocking on our door?" She flicked the muzzle slightly. "Don't waste my time. Your name?" "Hairike..." "What do you want with Luo Hua?" The man's expression darkened, the corners of his mouth curling into a sneer. "Heh, you want—" *Bang!* The sudden gunshot made the onlookers jump. Naturally, the man on the ground had the most visceral encounter with the gunpowder. The bullet struck the dirt an inch from his ear, splattering wet mud across half his face. Staring at the wisps of smoke curling from the barrel and the merciless gaze behind it, a chill sank deep into Hairike's bones. "I—I was just about to tell you..." The bravado in his voice evaporated into a pathetic stammer. It wasn't even conscious cowardice; it was pure instinct. "Then hurry up." Sisi activated her VM's recording function, her tone dripping with impatience. "...The Enterprise. He's one of the Enterprise's men." "I already know the guy you're chasing belongs to the Enterprise. What else?" Hairike swallowed hard and rattled off his words at top speed. "...That mobile fortress pushed into the desert. Our subjects caught wind that they were searching for some treasure out there. Whatever it is, we can't let them take it from our territory." "Subjects?" Tail tilted her head. "The Falcons," Kaliman interjected darkly as he walked over. "The kingdom ruling Oasis 2... A pack of groveling cowards who cast aside dignity and faith to sell their souls to the barbarians of no man's land." Tail: "?" Massaging her aching temples with her left hand, Sisi sighed. "...You mean a vassal state?" Kaliman nodded stiffly. "...Yes." Sisi fell into thought. Between discussions on the forum and official lore posted on the website, she had pieced together the overall picture. Put simply, the Legion's vassals had spotted the Pioneer and reported its whereabouts to their masters. To prevent the Enterprise from securing Shelter 0, the Legion had likely dispatched an expeditionary force of unknown size into the desert, working alongside the locals to pin down the mobile fortress. Formidable though the Pioneer's firepower was, no amount of advanced technology could conjure supplies out of thin air. Electricity and raw ores, at the very least, couldn't be spawned by magic. Hairike's following confession corroborated her theory. "...We encircled them while the Pioneer was out scavenging for supplies. They were forced to fall back to the ruins with their fuel rods. Their power armor is formidable, but their numbers are limited. We quickly split and surrounded them—some fled into the desert, some are holed up in the ruins, and a few remain trapped aboard the fortress." Sisi asked immediately, "Have you already taken the Pioneer?" Hairike replied, "The battle is over. Capturing it is only a matter of time, but we don't want a pile of scrap metal. They locked the reactor room behind an access code. We can't breach it from the outside without triggering a failsafe that dumps the remaining nuclear fuel into a self-destruct sequence... which would leave us with nothing." "Does Luo Hua have the code?" "...I don't know, but he appears to be a key figure aboard the Pioneer, supposedly holding clues regarding Shelter 0... The general ordered me to capture him before he links up with Enterprise reinforcements. If I can't take him alive, bringing back his head works too." "Reinforcements..." Tail stroked her chin in theatrical contemplation. "Clever. They even know the Enterprise sent backup." Sesame Paste gave her a deadpan look. "...Uh, did that really take much guessing?" Fixing her eyes on Hairike, Sisi pressed on. "Tell me your unit designation, your superior's name, and how many troops you deployed into the desert." "The Heart of Iron..." "What?" "My unit," Hairike swallowed and muttered. "Aboard the *Heart of Iron*... 29th Marine Regiment. Our commander is Myriarch Macklen." "How far are they from here?" "Right here." "Here?!" Sisi froze. Tail, Sesame Paste, Rou Rou, Kaliman, and his guards were equally stunned. Before Sisi could press further, the terror that had plastered Hairike's face melted into a sudden gleam of fanaticism. He stared straight past her. His pupils weren't focused on her face, but on the space behind her head. A foreboding sensation crept over Sisi. "Right behind you... Just look back and you'll see." A grin spread across Hairike's face. Whatever was fueling his smugness, Sisi knew this was no "Look, a flying saucer!" trick. Moments ago, the spectators had already looked away from them, turning their faces toward the distant sky. Now, those unfamiliar faces were uniformly gripped by bewilderment, helplessness, and sheer dread. "What... what is that thing?" "A wh-whale?" "Great Horned Deer God above..." Several herders collapsed to their knees, pressing their foreheads flat against the dirt. Many mercenaries stood utterly paralyzed, while a few experienced merchants recognized the apparition. "An airship... It's a Legion airship!" Staring northwest toward Ruigu City, Kaliman's eyes widened, alternating between bewilderment and terror. Beside him, his guards instinctively gripped their rifles tighter. A colossal iron silhouette breached the clouds like an iceberg rising from the ocean. Twin sets of sweeping wings spanned outward like the wings of a leviathan, while rows of roaring propellers chewed through the mist like the fangs of a beast. *So this is what a Legion airship looks like...* He had heard countless rumors of them, but this was the first time he had laid eyes on one. It resembled a giant whale cruising through the sky... though he had only ever seen photos of such creatures. The players were equally dumbfounded. Sisi especially. Rather than wondering where the vessel had come from, her immediate thought was how on earth such an iron leviathan could stay aloft. Its hull carried a distinct metallic luster, looking nothing like painted canvas; this was leagues apart from any airship of reality. If it was built of metal alloys—even lightweight aluminum—and even if its thickest plating measured a mere ten millimeters, its displacement would easily reach hundreds, if not thousands, of tons. And such an unscientific contraption was propelled through the sky by a synchronized bank of propellers? Sisi felt her understanding of common sense short-circuiting, her brain momentarily freezing. Not that this was the first time... Lying on the ground, Hairike took in her stunned profile and sneered darkly. "Surrender and pledge fealty to us, and there's still ti—" *Bang—!* A gunshot cut him off. Hairike clutched his left ear in agony, curling into a ball on the ground. Holstering her smoking pistol, Sisi adjusted her headset and snapped a photo of the sky. Yet the moment she opened her VM to upload the image to the official website, she found herself disconnected. No signal? Just then, Tail, who was also craning her neck to peer north, suddenly turned pale and yelped. "Giao! My balloons!" Looking at the vanished signal on her own VM, Sesame Paste wore a look between tears and laughter. "I told you... not to set it up so far away, but you just had to hike all the way up the mountain!" "I—I was just trying to get better reception..." Tail muttered sheepishly. "Besides, the manual said to find high ground!" "Not *that* high!" "Relax... The Administrator will drop another one for us." Tail patted Sesame Paste's shoulder, though her sheepish tone sounded less like reassuring her friend and more like convincing herself. *He won't make me pay for it, will he?* *Probably... not, right?* "Sigh... We finally had a shot at hitting the trending topics," Rou Rou sighed, plopping down onto the dirt. "Ugh... Damn it, my heart hurts." Unlike the NPCs who trembled before the Legion, the players held no such fear. Whether they were marauders, the Legion, mutants, or alien horrors that barely counted as living beings, they were all just higher-level mobs to farm. In fact, they cared far more about broadcasting this piping-hot scoop onto the forum. *The damn devs cooked up something new again!* Too bad... The screenshot would have to wait. ... Aboard the *Heart of Iron*. In the command bridge suspended beneath the airship's belly, a man in opulent uniform held his chin slightly raised, peering through the panoramic windows at the rolling mountains, urban ruins, vast forests, and open plains below—and at his own handsome reflection cast against the glass. His name was Macklen, captain of the airship *Heart of Iron*, belonging to the Eastern Legion, bearing the rank of myriarch. While a Legion myriarch did not necessarily lead ten thousand troops, standing in this command bridge made him an unquestioned master over thousands. The core of the entire airship was an unfinished People's Federation Aerospace Force corvette, housing a reactor room powered by a fusion generator and a deflector shield generator designed against kinetic weaponry. Though most of its underlying principles remained indecipherable, and virtually impossible to reproduce even if decoded, that did not hinder its continued operation. Even if repurposed into another form. In short, this vessel represented a synthesis of pre-war civilization's pinnacle and the apex of the Legion's engineering mastery. It served not only as a flying carrier, but could also advance straight to the front lines once air superiority was secured, raining tons of ordnance onto enemy heads. Across the entire wasteland, barely any faction possessed the power to stand before them. Save for the rats scurrying in the swamps, the dung beetles burrowing beneath the Sacred Shield, and the roaches huddled along the East Coast... even if other vermin possessed the means to bring down this vessel, none would dare gaze upward at them. No one knew how many airships the Legion possessed, nor how vast a cache of unspent pre-war munitions they had inherited two centuries ago. No one except the Supreme Marshal himself. "Honored General, beneath your feet lies Ruigu City! Beyond it, the southern corridor of River Valley Province opens its western gates to you!" the adjutant beside General Macklen announced with obsequious deference. Yet the flattery landed squarely off the mark. "I don't need a history lecture on this insignificant speck of land. Just tell me how far those roaches crawling from the East Coast have advanced." General Macklen spoke deliberately, though a distinct edge of impatience laced his tone. He should have been enjoying the pampered service of retainers back at Oasis 2, yet an intelligence report relayed from the Bugra Free State had prompted his superiors to send him here to intercept the Enterprise's relief force. Calling him a "superior" was generous; that old fox Griffin outranked him by a mere half-step—a single extra star on his myriarch's epaulet. Yet a half-star was still a higher rank. Moreover, the man was the corps commander of the Eastern Legion, appointed personally as front-line commander. Whether commanding an airship or a starship, Macklen was bound to follow his orders. Every time the thought crossed his mind, fury flared within him. The Pioneer was already neutralized, its remaining crew cornered within pre-war ruins with no supplies; surrender was only a matter of time. Just as the spoils were ready to be divided, he had been shunted off to this forsaken backwater. All for a solitary Enterprise employee. Was that person really so important? "...Griffin harbors no small ambition. He likely intends to seize this opportunity to bring the entirety of Sunset Province under the Eastern Legion's domain," a staff officer standing nearby murmured softly. The notion sounded like a pipe dream. The Great Desert separated Sunset Province from the Legion's core territories. The so-called Great Desert was no mere geographic label; it was thousands of kilometers of uninhabitable dead zone. The Legion could not hope to administer an exclave like Sunset Province, nor did it touch upon their core interests. Had it not been for the campaign against the Great Ravine, they wouldn't have bothered keeping vassals there at all. Even though the Falcon Kingdom supplied abundant wealth each year, every general in the Eastern Legion knew full well that compared to what they invested in that subject state, the dinars and slaves offered by its meek king were hardly worth mentioning. However... The expeditionary force's disastrous defeat and General Klaas's death had finally driven home to certain high-ranking officers that taking the Great Ravine—a stronghold that had previously inflicted heavy losses on the Enterprise—within a few short months was pure fantasy. They needed to commit greater forces, construct more dependable logistics, fortify supply lines, and mobilize vast labor pools to polish the decurions' boots—whether drawn from their own ranks or their vassals. In the end, it all boiled down to one imperative: they had to tighten their grip on the east. There were many avenues to achieve this. For instance... Elevating that obedient, simple-minded king into an emperor. "...So he shoved us aside deliberately to hoard all the glory for himself." Recalling Griffin's arrogant face, General Macklen narrowed his eyes, a sudden idea taking root. Looking out toward the open expanse to the southeast, a cruel smirk touched the corners of his lips. "Allowing these flesh-devouring barbarians to scavenge here is a desecration of our ancestors' legacy. In my view, the Legion's frontier should expand another five hundred kilometers eastward." "We have more than enough power to do so!" The adjutant and staff officer traded startled glances. "...Courting unnecessary complications may not be wise. I believe our best course is to crush the Enterprise relief force with utmost speed, then return to Oasis 2." General Macklen replied flatly, "What purpose is there in returning? That old fox will only invent another pretext to push us away. Once we secure the southern corridor, the southern approach to the Great Ravine will lie wide open before us. Neither the corps commander nor the Supreme Marshal himself will be able to ignore our achievement." "But—" "No buts." Cutting off the staff officer, Macklen turned his gaze back to the panoramic window, a pleasant chuckle rising in his throat. "Let us bring true order and civilization to these savages!" Almost the moment the words left his mouth, the cruising airship tilted two degrees to the right, its structural joints groaning with a metallic screech. It was only a slight shudder. Yet at that moment, Macklen's attention was fully captivated by his handsome reflection in the glass. Caught completely off guard, he stumbled, his nose nearly making intimate contact with the handrail beside him. Fortunately, the quick-witted adjutant lunged forward, catching him before he hit the deck. "My lord, are you all right?" Snatching his peaked cap off the floor, Macklen bellowed in a towering rage. "What the hell was that?! Which idiot is at the helm?!" "Perhaps it was just turbulence..." Facing Macklen's fury, the adjutant ventured a trembling reply. Before he could finish, a soldier trotted in from outside the bridge, reporting nervously. "Captain! Something seems to be tangled in our starboard propeller bank!" "Send a repair crew immediately!" Macklen roared. "Sir!" The soldier snapped to attention with a salute and scurried off. Macklen stalked back to his command chair, swearing under his breath. The officers exchanged uneasy glances, holding their breath and keeping dead quiet, terrified of drawing his wrath and serving as his punching bag. Since the deflector shield hadn't triggered, whatever struck them hadn't been traveling at high velocity—probably just a dazed bird. It shouldn't be anything serious... Still, truth be told, that sudden lurch was hardly a good omen. "That man I sent down to the surface... Hairike, was it? Any word from him?" Hearing the captain's question, the adjutant hurried to answer. "Not yet, sir. However, his last report indicated he had already cornered the caravan... We should hear from him shortly." Macklen's mood improved slightly. Capture that Enterprise employee, eliminate the incoming relief force, resolve these nuisances one by one, and he would have the freedom to pursue his own agenda. While the crew aboard the *Heart of Iron* scrambled to inspect the malfunction, over a hundred and fifty kilometers away, Chu Guang sat staring at his VM in utter bewilderment. *Where did the signal go?* It had just been at full bars, and he was completely engrossed in lurking on their stream. How had it vanished into thin air?