Glory After the Bloodbath

Town 417. Artillery and gunfire roared without end. Advancing in an arrowhead wedge, the "Scorpion" infantry fighting vehicles maintained continuous fire. Before their twin 45mm cannons, the rows of dilapidated houses and shattered tiles within the town crumpled like paper. At the same time, the "Hyena" armored vehicles pushing up along both flanks swept the area in unbroken bursts, their quad machine guns spewing tongues of flame that wove webs of death through the air. The already precarious ruins quickly splintered under the alternating fusillade of high-explosive and armor-piercing rounds, collapsing into heaps of rubble on the ground. Yet the players garrisoning the town showed no sign of retreat, stubbornly putting up fierce resistance around the few surviving defensive strongpoints. The first five hundred Auxiliary soldiers sent to the front had already suffered over eighty percent casualties, while the remaining twenty percent were pinned firmly behind fragmented obstacles by machine-gun fire. Soon enough, however, another five hundred wastelanders were herded to the front lines. Grouped into century-sized units, they launched another charge under the covering fire of the rear—or rather, under the coercion of the rear's weapons. Standing in the rear with a megaphone in hand, an officer bellowed at the top of his lungs: "Charge!" "Or die—!" In that suffocating atmosphere, the cannon fodder driven to the front had no time to think. They could only clutch their weapons and sprint wildly forward. "Aaaah!" At the very least, compared to the thick, long barrels pointing at them from behind, the enemies lurking in the ruins seemed marginally easier to deal with. A distance of less than three hundred meters—if they gritted their teeth, they could cross it. Yet they soon paid the price for that assumption. Despite sustaining heavy casualties, the players yielded not an inch, throwing themselves into the breach wave after wave to hold the line. Even after dropping a dozen corpses, even after being buried under artillery strikes countless times, the perimeter machine-gun nests kept up continuous fire. Facing that relentless sweeping fire, the advancing Auxiliary soldiers paid for every single meter with dozens of lives. The muddy ground leading into Town 417 was painted crimson with blood, then diluted by the rain. Intact human silhouettes could no longer be seen through the storm of lead and iron—only twitching heaps of flesh crawling forward or scrambling backward. The discipline squads in the rear gunned down fleeing deserters, forcing the cannon fodder to press on and burn through the encircled defenders' ammunition. Under such brutal assault, the breaching action had turned into a cruel firing squad. Evidently judging that the defenders were nearly spent, the Scorpion IFVs acting as the spearhead began rolling forward, the five lead vehicles firing up their engines. Yet just as those five Scorpions closed to within two hundred meters of the town, several RPGs suddenly swarmed out from the ruins like locusts. HEAT warheads with three hundred millimeters of penetration might struggle against a Conqueror tank, but against these lightly armored, densely packed IFVs, they achieved startling results. Three IFVs were penetrated, belching black smoke as they broke down. One was struck dead-on in the turret ring; the high-temperature metallic jet ignited the ammunition rack beneath the turret, and the resulting fireball and superheated blast instantly sheared off the turret, knocking down the heavily armored infantry following behind. The centurion commanding the armored squadron was startled by the sight. Grabbing his comms, he roared, "First echelon, fall back!" "Covering elements, stay alert! The enemy has anti-armor weapons!" His men hardly needed the order. Having witnessed the gruesome fate of their comrades, the two surviving IFVs wasted no time throwing themselves into reverse, backing away as fast as their tracks would carry them. The marine infantry advancing behind the IFVs lost their mobile cover. Three ten-man squads found themselves pinned down behind the smoking wrecks by fire from the town, unable to move an inch! The Auxiliaries, having advanced halfway across the field, attempted to peel off two squads to provide support. Before they could move, two more RPGs zipped out from the ruins. High-explosive fragmentation rounds this time. The shockwave and shrapnel hurled two soldiers into the air. The rest, dead or maimed, dropped flat to the ground. "Nice shot!" Doomsday Lone Wolf pumped his fist excitedly. Clutching a crate of ammunition, he was about to dash over to the brother hauling the RPG launcher when a rushing gust like a sudden hurricane swept right beside him. Over a dozen high-explosive shells detonated in an instant. Before either could even let out a grunt, he and the player carrying the RPG were shredded into a pulpy mess. Yet— Soon, a new anti-tank team scrambled forward to take their place, crawling behind the barricade and lying in wait for a second ambush opportunity. Staring intently at the town two kilometers away, Rachel's eyes narrowed into slits. To be frank, the stubbornness of these people had exceeded his expectations. He had originally expected this engagement to conclude in ten minutes at most. Yet they had held out through one ten-minute interval after another. Nearly half an hour had passed, and the outermost buildings of the town had still not been taken. Glancing at the pale-faced Auxiliary soldiers beside him, a flicker of disdain crossed Rachel's eyes. These spineless weaklings. They were far less useful than clones. Noticing Rachel's nod, the adjutant at his side shouted into his comms: "Auxiliary forces on the west and east flanks, advance!" "Even if you die, die inside that town!" Under the officers' orders, the assaults on the western and eastern flanks commenced. As gunfire spread from the north of the town to its flanks, Town 417, sitting at the eye of the storm, turned into a full-fledged meat grinder. Screams and wails rose and fell in waves. Yet beneath the roar of gunpowder and explosions, they sounded utterly insignificant. With casualties surpassing fifty percent, the players were forced to pull back their defensive perimeter. Under cover of artillery fire, the charging Auxiliary soldiers finally broke into the town that had felt so close yet remained unreachable. However, Hell had only just begun... ... Inside a half-collapsed three-story villa, the northwest wall had already been blown open, exposing a cage of steel rebar. "Holy crap! What the hell... feels like an entire division has us surrounded!" Swapping out his magazine, Stop Bullshitting cursed loudly as he leaned against the wall below a window. "How many of us are left?" Bandages wrapped around his head, Zhang Hai crouched on the other side of the barricade, his brows tightly furrowed. "Four hundred... roughly." Under these conditions, confirming casualties was impossible. Even maintaining effective command was a struggle. They could only break into squads and follow the predetermined battle plan, fighting their own separate battles from the fortifications their allies had prepared for them beforehand. Fortunately, the solo players included no shortage of battle-hardened veterans. Bolstered by high morale, breaking up into small units had not devolved into chaos. To think that after retiring, he'd be dragged into such thrilling work again... It was truly hell on his old bones. Thank goodness he had a young body in this game. And an Agility-type, the most nimble of them all. "Looks like we won't be able to hold it," Stop Bullshitting muttered, the corners of his mouth twitching. "Their firepower is way too crazy." Zhang Hai didn't answer. Taking a deep breath, he glanced out the window at the smoke-choked street and the dozen or so silhouettes emerging from the haze. "Hold the line!" Leaving behind that single phrase, he leaned his rifle out of the cover and pulled the trigger with agile precision. The three lead soldiers dropped dead on the spot. The rest quickly scrambled for cover, returning fire toward the upper-story window. Gritting his teeth, Stop Bullshitting snatched up an RPG tube, slotted a high-explosive warhead into the front, and leaned out the window. "I'll take you bastards down with me—!" An RPG trailed a plume of backblast out the window, but three bullets immediately slammed into his chest, one punching straight through his left shoulder. An explosion echoed from the street. Without waiting to confirm enemy casualties, Zhang Hai reached out, grabbed the wounded Stop Bullshitting, and dragged him toward the staircase. "Are you out of your damn mind?!" "Cough, cough... I'm fine." Stop Bullshitting gave a raspy laugh, trying to play tough, but before his words finished, a rocket came screaming through the window. The blast's shockwave knocked Zhang Hai stumbling forward, nearly pitching him down the stairs. Yet he never let go. Retreating to the ground floor, he checked Stop Bullshitting's wounds and found that two of the rounds had been stopped by his body armor, with only one punching through his shoulder. "Can you still move?" Choked by the smoke, Stop Bullshitting coughed for several seconds before squeezing out a word: "Yeah..." "Then get up and walk on your own!" Zhang Hai hauled him to his feet, switched on the comm channel, and bellowed without caring whether anyone could respond: "All units, fall back to the third defensive line!" "Prepare for the final showdown—!" The third defensive line was situated at the town hospital, the only five-story structure in the area. Because its outer walls remained intact and the courtyard was filled with dense vegetation, the allied forces had reinforced it heavily. At the same time, it was their final line of defense... Elsewhere, the squad consisting of Yaya and Teng Teng had also engaged the enemy in a fierce firefight against Legion soldiers. Perhaps noticing they were women, the ten-man squad attacking their sector seemed intent on capturing them alive and hadn't brought out heavy weapons right away. They soon paid dearly for that carelessness. A Switchblade drone looped around the ruins behind them, and a sudden eruption of smoke and fire engulfed the entire street. The men on the street were now thoroughly, unquestionably dead. Propping her rifle on the windowsill, Yaya curved her lips in a proud smirk. Even if she wasn't the main DPS, that didn't stop her from showing off in front of the newbie beside her. "...Don't be scared, Jiu Jiu! Big sis has got your back!" Listening to her brag, Jiu Jiu casually replied, "What's there to be scared of?" Yaya blinked. "Huh? You're not scared at all?" Sitting in the corner of the room wearing neural interface gear, Teng Teng smiled softly. "Newbies these days aren't to be underestimated." She had already handed Teng Teng's Cottage over to an NPC girl she hired to watch the shop. Like other lifestyle-class players, she had been integrated into the mixed thousand-man regiment and placed in the same squad as Yaya. Compared to surprise raids and airborne drops, static defense was supposed to be slightly easier. Though looking at it now, only slightly. Jiu Jiu rolled her eyes thoughtfully and spoke up: "Say, Big Sis Teng Teng." "What is it?" "What do you think of my brother?" "Your brother?" Teng Teng paused, thought for a moment, and then realized. "Oh, Ye Shi..." "Mhm!" Jiu Jiu nodded vigorously, her eyes burning with gossip. Seeing right through the little girl's thoughts, Teng Teng sighed helplessly. "Isn't that guy basically still a kid?" Jiu Jiu blinked, then burst out laughing. Yaya gave her a curious look. "What are you laughing at?" "Nothing. My brother always thinks of me as a kid. Hmph... how does the saying go? In short, this must be karma." Jiu Jiu nodded with satisfaction, but before she could finish, a Panzerfaust rocket slammed into the wall in front of her. Smoke and fire swallowed her in an instant. Even Yaya, standing further back, was nearly swept into the blast. Staring at the pile of mangled remains buried beneath rubble, Teng Teng froze, her breath catching for half a second. Just a moment ago, that person was laughing and chatting with her, and in the next second, not even an intact body remained... "...Is this what war is?" "Cough, cough... Snap out of it!" Before she could process it, Yaya, stumbling to her feet, scooped her up under one arm and hauled her through the rubble toward the rear. Teng Teng hadn't zoned out; rather, through her neural interface, she had linked her consciousness to a crawler robot hidden in the street. Only one was left. Though she had wanted to buy more, the shop's inventory wasn't infinite, and she had to leave some for other Intelligence-types. A ten-man squad charged forward. Spotting the retreating figures of Teng Teng and Yaya, several Legion soldiers picked up their pace. Yet before they could close the distance, a massive explosion erupted beside them, sweeping through the alley in a torrent of smoke and flame that swallowed them whole. Tucked under Yaya's arm, Teng Teng breathed a sigh of relief and reached up to massage the bridge of her nose. "...That should do it." Wiping out two ten-man squads was quite an achievement; once the battle wrapped up, she should earn a solid performance evaluation. Feeling the pressure on her face, Teng Teng strained to crane her neck, looking up at Yaya with a slight pout. "By the way... could you put me down now?" ... By the time the two received orders to pull back to the central town hospital, players defending other sectors had trickled in as well. Aside from those unable to escape or those who had stayed behind to cover the retreat, the originally full-strength regiment of a thousand players was down to fewer than fifty. The scattered gunfire in the distance had begun to quiet down, punctuated only by an occasional grenade blast signaling the final stand of a squad's last survivor. Zhang Hai was busy organizing the remaining personnel to set up defenses. "This is our last defensive line... We've done everything we could." Wrapping a fresh bandage around his shoulder, Stop Bullshitting swallowed hard. "Did we complete our mission, then?" "Probably." Glancing through the courtyard wall at the Legion soldiers closing in, Zhang Hai continued, "We held them up for nearly an hour... That should be plenty." That young fellow named Spring had commanded well. Still, plans rarely survived contact with reality. That airship was far too broken—it could scout, bombard, and even possessed a "damage-immune shield." Truly a nightmare to deal with. Everyone tacitly prepared for a fight to the death. Right at that moment, piercing shrieks tore through the sky above as streaks of white smoke traced arcs through the clouds, descending toward the north of the town. A rain of fire falling from the heavens! Caught completely off guard, the armored squadron and the First Cohort of the Air Marines pushing into the town were instantly engulfed in a boiling sea of flames. Staring at the fire raining from above, the defenders in the courtyard wore looks of sheer disbelief, which rapidly shifted into ecstatic frenzy. "Hahaha! Reinforcements!" "Our reinforcements are here!" Looking out the window at the distant billowing smoke and roaring inferno, Zhang Hai excitedly raised his rifle and shouted to the players behind cover: "Prepare for the counterattack!" ... On the smoke-shrouded battlefield, the earth ravaged by rockets looked as if it had been chewed apart by wild beasts. Infantry fighting vehicles and armored cars sputtered black smoke or showered sparks. Of the nearly full-strength armored squadron, only eight vehicles had survived. Crews limped away from their burning mounts, some just crawling out from underneath the wreckage. The infantry caught outside of cover weren't so fortunate. Heavy and light infantry alike had been blown apart, their bodies torn to pieces by the rocket barrage. From the north side of the town to the outer perimeter, there were no blast shelters to take cover in. Just as the surviving soldiers cried out in agony, five pairs of tracks came tearing out of the billowing smoke. "Dammit! Tanks!" Terror swept through the Legion soldiers at the sight of the armored beasts charging head-on. Though these machines looked primitive and bore little resemblance to high technology, their solid steel armor, towering turrets, and coaxial machine guns were no bluff. Bullets and shells crisscrossed the smoke-choked field. Any soldier who could still move scrambled backward in panic—including the few surviving wheeled vehicles. Giving them no chance to traverse their turrets, the armored formation bursting from the north began its harvest! "Hahahaha! It's finally my turn! Tiger, floor that accelerator! Dammit... those four-wheelers think they can outrun my five road wheels? Let's see you try!" Sitting beneath the turret, Makabazi pressed his eye firmly against the gunsight, his right hand gripping the trigger. "Fire!" With an ecstatic roar, the 88mm low-pressure gun spat fire, hurling a shell that accurately struck a wildly reversing Scorpion IFV. Side armor less than thirty millimeters thick was punched clean through in an instant, and flames immediately erupted from the Scorpion's turret. Makabazi yelled with glee: "Enemy vehicle destroyed! Quick! Reload!" "I'm on it, I'm on it! Stop rushing me!" The Strength-type player crouching at Makabazi's feet rolled his eyes, but his hands didn't pause for a second as he hauled a fresh shell from the rack and rammed it into the breach. A deafening roar erupted. Moments later, another IFV was blown apart. The eight surviving Legion vehicles were systematically dismantled by the Alliance tanks, reduced to scrap metal in secondary explosions of their ammunition racks. These five tanks were the latest masterpiece from the No. 81 Steel Mill. As the Alliance's first "independently developed" tracked tanks, they were christened "Vehicle No. 1." Though the name lacked the flair of Goblin Technology, the craftsmanship of Factory 81 was undeniable. Sloped armor, a relatively modern turret layout, and the classic five road wheels—without a careful look, one could hardly tell that this machine was essentially an imitation of the BMP-1. To avoid establishing a new production line, the 100mm low-pressure gun had been swapped for an 88mm variant. Thanks to the Alliance's newly mastered N10 azide compound, its armor penetration hadn't degraded in the slightest; if anything, it had improved. The only drawback was a thirty-meter minimum arming distance that proved awkward in close-quarters brawls, though tanks rarely needed to press that close. As for the low muzzle velocity, it wasn't an issue at all. No matter how slow a shell flew, it was still faster than wheels on the ground. With the Legion's armored squadron wiped out, twenty armored trucks mounted with quad anti-aircraft guns roared out from the road, speeding down the flank and hosing down the retreating First Cohort. Brother Mole's voice crackled over the comms: "Tank formation, keep advancing!" "Punch straight through their northern positions! Drive behind their western positions to cover the Death Corps infantry's advance!" Receiving the order, Makabazi shouted with excitement: "Understood!" The battle shifted from the urban center to the outskirts, and the lead assault unit transitioned from the Death Corps to the Skeleton Corps. Crossing through the muddy northern sector of the town, the five tanks and twenty armored trucks carved an arc, sweeping toward the western side of the town and brutally severing the connection between the First and Second Cohorts of the Air Marines. Simultaneously, the Death Corps' wolf cavalry followed closely in the tracks of the Skeleton Corps, launching a second charge. Surveying the sea of fire across the battlefield, Rachel picked himself up from the ground using his rifle for support, his face pale with shock. The moment he had seen flames burst from the airship, an ominous premonition had seized him. That premonition had been swiftly validated when the whistling storm descended upon his men like a plague of locusts. A single rocket barrage had inflicted over fifty percent casualties on his force, and most of the survivors were wounded and combat-ineffective. And it was far from over. The enemy armor had crushed through the smoke; the chaotic gunfire and ricocheting rounds left him disoriented, barely able to tell north from south. He had no time to wonder where these people had come from. Amid the crackling static of the comms, Rachel roared, trying to rally his remaining troops to stave off defeat. Yet it was already too late. Piercing whistles echoed from every direction, grating against his eardrums and his frayed nerves. Along with ringing bugle calls. Swift silhouettes burst through the smoke—Deathclaws, ridden by cavalrymen! Those barbarian riders shouted slogans he couldn't comprehend, brandishing massive "revolving handguns" as they lobbed grenades into the rear of his positions, surging forward like a tidal wave. Through the churning sea of smoke, he caught sight of an azure suit of power armor. The rider held a hammer in his hand, and the Deathclaw beneath him was clad in sharp-edged exoskeletal plating, looking distinct from head to toe compared to the other mounts. The man didn't charge; he simply watched him, as though he had fixed his sights on Rachel long ago. The Deathclaw beneath him did the same, its amber slit-eyes gleaming with bloodlust, looking eager to feast. Rachel swallowed hard, tightening his grip on the rifle that offered him little comfort. He felt a piercing force strike through his armor and chest, squeezing around his pounding heart. That presence seemed not to stem from those amber pupils, but from the power armor itself. Or rather, from the man inside it. A flicker of fear crossed Rachel's eyes, but only for an instant before being banished by stubborn resolve. From the moment the rockets rained down, he knew he had lost. Yet— He would not surrender. Gripping his rifle, Rachel aimed at the man atop the Deathclaw, venting his final madness in a roar: "Come on!" "The Legion knows no cowards!" The moment he pulled the trigger, bullets sprayed in a tight burst, weaving a blistering net of fire through the air. Yet— Those rounds flying toward the rider's chest seemed to slam into an invisible wall. Without even leaving a scratch on the azure armor, the bullets were scattered by a silent, rushing gale. Infuriated by the muzzle flashes, Neko let out an enraged roar. Her muscular hind legs bunched and launched her forward like an artillery shell. Rachel's eyes burned with complete madness. Tossing aside his empty rifle, he drew the combat knife he rarely ever used and charged headlong toward the Deathclaw rider. "Die—!" No metallic clash rang out. Before his blade could even brush the Deathclaw's talons, a colossal shockwave slammed into his chest. Swung upward in a clean arc, the Nitrogen Power Hammer shattered his defense without contest. His black chestplate fractured into shards that went flying backward. The concussive nitrogen blast not only perforated his armor but pulverized his internal organs. Rachel coughed up a spray of blood, his body hurled over a dozen meters like a cannonball before crashing hard against the wreckage of an IFV, where he lay motionless. Neko snorted, shaking her neck, her amber eyes carrying a hint of disappointment. After finally getting to hunt with her master, the prey had proved so fragile that it was swatted away before her claws could even touch it. Still, She rather liked the armor her master had prepared for her; she felt bursting with endless strength all over. Averting his gaze from Rachel's cooling corpse, Chu Guang raised the warhammer above his head from atop Neko's back. Through the power armor's external speakers, his voice rang across the open fields, reverberating over the smoke-choked battlefield: "Soldiers! Forward!" "Sever the heads of those beasts! Irrigate our soil with their blood! Come next year, the fertile land will bloom with flowers—" "And with victory and glory, we shall honor the eternal souls of our fallen heroes!" "Forward—!" The roar across the wilderness ignited the entire battlefield. Resounding shouts echoed over the hills, answering his call: "Charge!" "Kill—!" "For MIA Xiao Yu and Boss Xia!" "For the damn game planner!" "Long live the Administrator!!" "Demacia—!" The cavalry charge was over, and the infantry of the Death Corps surged forward to the sound of whistles and bugles, mounting the charge toward victory. Three mercenary regiments led by the Storm Corps emerged from the edge of the forest, cutting off the retreat of the Second and Third Cohorts. Watching the azure armor galloping across the battlefield, many mercenaries from Boulder City wore expressions of utter shock. "That's... the Administrator of the Alliance?!" "Blue power armor! It's him! I saw him at the celebration at the start of the year!" The Administrator of the Alliance was standing alongside them! He was even charging ahead of them... To their minds, this was utterly unimaginable. During past Tides, let alone the reclusive City Lord, they had never even seen the militia commander. At most, an officer in impenetrable power armor would sit in a safe spot, watching them march to their deaths. That towering figure planted a seed in many of their hearts. Though they couldn't articulate what it was, nor understand why their blood boiled like red-hot iron, even the most timid mercenaries let out fearless battle cries at this moment, charging alongside the players toward the retreating Legion forces. Thick smoke billowed across several kilometers of front lines. First cleaved and outflanked by the Death Corps' wolf cavalry, then enveloped on all sides by swarming infantry, the Legion Air Marines had suffered over fifty percent casualties, while the shattered Auxiliaries had lost all unit coherence. Deprived of armored support, sustaining relentless losses, and with their frontline commander dead in the chaos... The Legion Air Marines encircling the town finally suffered a total rout, fleeing toward the encampment directly beneath the airship. That was their sole hope of survival. If they could fall back into the fortifications, the survivors might still reorganize a defense. Yet what they didn't know was that while their main force was tied down, the Jungle Corps had taken advantage of the boarding action on the airship to infiltrate from the urban district of Ruigu City straight into the camp beneath it. Five hundred Strength-type juggernauts clad in KV-1 exoskeletons launched a surprise assault, unleashing devastating firepower from light and heavy machine guns that caught the two garrison centuries completely unprepared. Aboard the Heart of Steel, chaos reigned supreme. With the forward gun bay completely destroyed, the crew on the airship could barely look after themselves, leaving them entirely unable to provide early warning to the camp below. Listening to the rolling gunfire across the encampment, the officer guarding the base wore a look of utter panic. Grabbing his adjutant by the collar, he roared: "What about Fallen Leaves Camp?! Why hasn't Korwei arrived yet?!" The adjutant, terrified, stammered in reply: "Sir... those wastelanders mutinied!" "Dammit... those treacherous dogs!" With no time for fury, the officer scrambled to organize a defense, but before they could form an effective line, a second volley of rockets rained down upon their heads. Without aerial fire support and lacking counter-battery fire to suppress the enemy rocket artillery, their camp was quickly reduced to a sea of flames. Having rapidly dismantled the outer defenses, the Jungle Corps, spearheaded by Midnight Chicken Slaughter, secured the entire camp in under ten minutes. And they had suffered barely a dozen casualties. Shouldering a machine gun, Piltover Paratrooper walked up and looked at Midnight Chicken Slaughter. "...The routing Air Marines will arrive in twenty minutes. Estimated strength: one cohort!" "Leave them to Brother Mosquito!" Looking up at the airship overhead, Midnight Chicken Slaughter detached a silver-white cylindrical canister resembling an oxygen tank from his back and slammed it into the ground. The pointed tip on top was aimed squarely at the airship above. He pulled a nylon clip from his exoskeleton and hooked it onto the cylinder. The others did the same. Seeing that everyone was prepared for takeoff, Midnight Chicken Slaughter barked cleanly: "Fire!" At his command, plumes of white mist burst across the camp. Slender harpoon heads shot into the sky like harpoons, igniting mid-air and trailing ropes woven from devil silk along with thin plumes of white smoke toward the belly of the airship. Spanning a distance of four to five hundred meters, the harpoons pierced the deflector shield and neared the hull, their kinetic energy nearly spent. Yet the moment they touched the hull, the tips detonated, driving steel grappling hooks deep into the airship's armor. Tugging on the line to confirm it was secure, Midnight Chicken Slaughter looked up at the sky and roared at the top of his lungs: "Dedicate your hearts to the Administrator!" "Boarding action!" With his shout, the winch inside the canister spun, hoisting him into the air. Not just him—scores of exoskeleton-clad figures launched upward, hauled into the sky by the ropes. The soldiers on the airship were still locked in combat with the Burning Corps and had no capacity to deal with these new intruders. Standing on the bridge and gazing down at the ground, General Macklen's expression shifted from anxiety to shock, and from shock to utter disbelief. These barbarians... They had gone completely mad! A violent tremor shook the airship from below. General Macklen quickly grabbed a nearby railing, barely keeping his footing. Just then, a noncommissioned officer in an exoskeleton rushed in, his face masked in panic: "...Report! Our boarding bay has been captured by the enemy!" Before he could finish, another sergeant came stumbling in from the corridor. "They've seized our vehicle bay! And they've started the two Scorpions parked inside... They're firing on us with 45mm cannons! We need reinforcements!" General Macklen's face paled. First the wing had been rammed, then the forward gun bay was destroyed, and now the frontline forces had suffered a catastrophic defeat. If he had managed to keep his composure when Rachel's troops were bombarded, appointing Rachel's adjutant to take over command and withdraw, hearing that the enemy had breached the boarding bay finally stirred a flicker of panic he couldn't suppress. "...These savages." His lips twitched as he ground out the word between his teeth, as though wishing he could crush them under his molars. The adjutant standing beside him took a deep breath and glanced at a nearby staff officer. The staff officer understood his gaze. After a brief exchange of looks, the staff officer stepped up to General Macklen and murmured in a low voice, "General, sir... for your safety, I suggest you temporarily withdraw." "Withdraw?" General Macklen stared at his staff officer in disbelief. Seeing no sign of jest on the man's face, he struggled internally for a moment before finally letting his tense shoulders slump. The Heart of Steel could sink. But under no circumstances could a Legion captain fall into the hands of barbarians. That would be a disgrace to the entire Legion. Gritting his teeth, he took one last look through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the smoke-veiled ground, and finally lowered his proud head. "...To the escape pods." The adjutant sighed in relief and saluted smartly. "Yes, sir!" ... A shuttle-shaped craft launched from the stern of the airship, shooting toward the west like a shooting star. It drew no one's attention. The Jungle Corps fighters who had breached the interior split into two teams. One headed forward to reinforce the brothers of the Burning Corps and pincer the Legion soldiers. The other team, led by Midnight Chicken Slaughter and following the route Battlefield Guy had secretly mapped out, fought their way directly to the command section and stormed the bridge. The floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Ruigu City stood right before them. Yet the officers were nowhere to be found. The ten-man squad guarding the area was quickly eliminated. Carrying a heavy machine gun, Midnight Chicken Slaughter strode forward, searching the bridge before grumbling with a curse, "Dammit, they slipped away..." "Let them run. At least we took the airship." Walking up beside him, Piltover Paratrooper pulled out a flag he had prepared in advance and grinned. "Come on, let's decorate this big guy." ... Outside the bridge's panoramic windows, the flag of the Alliance was hoisted, the five-meter-long banner snapping proudly in the wind. With the Heart of Steel captured, Goblin Corps air squadrons scrambled from the airfield north of Dawn City, swooping down upon the retreating Legion Air Marines. Subjected to rocket strikes and relentless strafing by propeller planes, the morale of the battered Legion soldiers had already hovered on the brink of collapse. Seeing the Heart of Steel fall, they lost their final shred of courage, dropping their weapons in surrender. Mounted on Neko's back, Chu Guang looked up toward the distant sky, a faint smile gracing his face. "Looks like the rain is stopping..." Neko snorted softly in response. Through the center of the dark clouds shattered by artillery fire, a beam of light pierced downward. Like a holy sword, it lanced through the veil of rain and struck the earth, bordered by faint shimmering bands of color. It looked like a rainbow. At the same time, at the command post far in the West District of Ruigu City, Commander Spring unlatched his helmet visor, gazing at that same shaft of light descending from the clouds. Just moments ago, he had received reports from all corps on the front lines. The Skeleton Corps, Death Corps, Storm Corps, and three mercenary regiments had thoroughly shattered the remaining Legion resistance, capturing entire units of soldiers who had laid down their arms. The Jungle Corps and Burning Corps had successfully secured the Heart of Steel. Including the mixed regiment that had held out until the very end. Every corps had fulfilled their ultimate operational objectives to perfection. Though casualties were severe—and several second- and third-tier corps had been virtually wiped off the roster— They had ultimately achieved victory, overcoming an enemy that had seemed all but invincible. And upon this land, the dawn of peace had finally arrived. Standing beside him with a rifle on his shoulder, Kakarot grinned. "The rain sure stopped at the right time." Commander Spring nodded gently. "Yeah..." "By the way, did we miss the front line again?" Kakarot teased. Hearing that, Spring gave an embarrassed smile. "You caught me again. Going to roast me?" "Hahaha, as if! Winning is all that matters! Besides, we aren't the only ones playing support... Isn't there someone else who didn't get to see the front lines either?" Kakarot laughed heartily, clapping him on the shoulder. "In any case... splendid command!"