The Southern Legion's "Clever Move"

"Recently, due to weather conditions, the Alliance Administrator's itinerary for his visit to the southern regions has been adjusted..." Inside a restaurant in the harbor district of Settlement No. 1, the daily news played over the radio. It was four in the afternoon. Although the doors were open, it was still hours away from the dinner rush. Sitting by the window, Arman glanced outside from time to time, seemingly waiting for someone. Just then, the wind chime at the entrance tinkled. He looked up toward the door and locked eyes with Greg. "I knew you would contact me." "Why do you say that?" Arman raised an eyebrow slightly. Greg winked at him and continued in an amused tone. "Need you even ask? Loyalty to the Marshal is the factory setting for every Wilante. We would lay down our lives for honor and allegiance without hesitation, even when our feet are far from Triumph City. If the Alliance thinks petty favors are enough to buy us off, they are sorely mistaken." Pulling out a chair opposite Arman, Greg offered a bright smile to the approaching waitress. "Just a black coffee, please." "Right away, sir." The Moon Clan girl gave a polite smile, her slender figure floating back behind the counter. Arman took a deep breath, glancing uneasily to his left and right. "Should we find somewhere quieter?" "No need. The view here is wide open. Once you get used to this line of work, you'll learn that discussing certain matters in plain sight is far safer than behind closed doors. No matter how cautious you are, walls have ears..." Watching the waitress return with his coffee, Greg nodded and smiled politely. Only after she had walked back to the counter did he turn his eyes to Arman. "The radio is loud enough to drown out our conversation." "All right. I only mentioned it just in case. If you have no objections, let's get straight to business..." Arman said hurriedly, taking a sip from his glass of lemonade to mask his nervousness. "As you wish." Greg pulled a piece of paper from inside his coat and laid it gently on the table. Not expecting the man to be so startlingly candid, Arman was taken aback. He followed Greg's gaze down to the sheet, his expression growing increasingly astonished. "This is..." "Operation Tsunami," Greg said unhurriedly. "The Alliance has been funneling supplies to Brahma Province through two ports: Baiyue Strait and Silver Moon Bay. If we can seize the Baiyue Strait, we can break one of their legs." Arman stared at him in shock. "But wouldn't that mean—" Greg smiled faintly. "Declaring war on the Alliance? Yes. I know what you're worried about, but this is an essential part of our strategic deployment. Opening a second front on the Alliance's home turf is an absolute necessity. Only then can we tie our allies firmly to our war chariot." Watching this madman, Arman swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing. He spoke in a hoarse whisper. "...You work for the Southern Legion Army Intelligence Bureau? The... legendary Second Bureau?" "Indeed. Surprised? It's not just the Second Bureau, either—it's also the General Staff." Hooking his index finger around the handle of the water pitcher beside him, Greg tipped a little water onto the sheet. Wherever the water soaked through, the writing melted away like mist in the morning sun. Arman had already captured an image of the text, however, so he paid little mind to the destruction of the evidence. Having displayed his sincerity, Greg continued at an even pace. "In fact, we took our inspiration from the refugees of Evernight Port. Since the Alliance is so willing to embrace Wilante without reservation, why shouldn't we seize this opportunity to slip real soldiers into their midst, and then... boom." As he spoke, Greg opened his clenched right fist outward, mimicking an exploding firework. A brilliant smile rested on his face as he delivered words of utter ruthlessness. "...Just like fireworks, they'll be blown to bits." Listening to this lunatic scheme, Arman felt as if he were sitting across from a demon. If this plan actually succeeded... ...the Wilante would likely become notorious the world over as utter dog shit. Yet that was probably exactly what the Southern Legion wanted. Reality was often counterintuitive. While the various legions bound the Wilante with notions of honor, an organization forged of Wilante did not actually treasure reputation the way "honor-bound Wilante individuals" did. In fact, they could hardly wait for the Wilante to become walking pariahs. After all, the fouler the Wilante name became, and the more hostility others showed at the mere mention of it, the more the Wilante would have nowhere to turn but the legions. Like dung beetles clinging to their dung ball. Arman swallowed dryly. "...That really is a stroke of genius." Greg gave a faint smile. "You flatter me." "What about your own business, then?" Arman asked. "Won't it be affected?" Not in the least surprised by the question, Greg chuckled, then lowered his voice. "That trade is merely a front. Besides... you don't need to worry about your business suffering. We never mistreat those who work for us. Once our plan succeeds, I can guarantee you a thirty percent share of Port French Fries' trade, and you will be granted the rank of Myriarch... From then on, you'll never have to live a drifting life again." A front... The so-called Mutual Aid Association was undoubtedly a front as well. Arman took a sip of lemonade to calm his nerves while feigning tempted interest. "How many men do you have?" "Two myriads." Greg held up two fingers. "Most of the Alliance's battle-hardened corps are tied down in Brahma Province. Over twenty thousand men will be more than enough for us to take Baiyue Strait." "Twenty thousand?!" The corner of Arman's mouth twitched, and he couldn't help pressing: "Are you out of your mind? I only have twelve ships. Five thousand people is my absolute transport limit." Greg smiled and placated him: "Rest easy on that front. To carry out this operation, we procured five container freighters through our own informants... We will pack our soldiers and their weapons inside the containers. All I need is for your fleet to provide cover for them to dock at Port French Fries. When the local customs officers open the containers, our soldiers will jump out and give them quite a fright." He paused, then continued: "The warehouses at Port French Fries are stocked with military aid meant for Brahma Province—equipment that will serve us nicely. Once Port French Fries is secured, we will immediately blockade Baiyue Strait. Covered by the Western Legion, we will move our monitors and gunboats in, establish a frontline beachhead in Baiyue Province, and advance along the coast toward the Death Coast... When that happens, the entire Alliance will collapse under our offensive." Arman rubbed the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on. "I can't shake the feeling that your plan is riddled with holes... And another thing: why are you so certain that landing on Alliance soil will turn the tide of the war? You must have seen how cohesive they are." "I know. Of course I know. Ever since I arrived in the Alliance, I've been studying them... including their weaknesses," Greg said with a smile. "Take their Administrator, for instance." Seeing Greg's mysterious smile, Arman arched an eyebrow. "I hear he's quite young." "Then an unfortunate accident can be arranged for him." Adding sugar to his coffee, Greg stirred it gently with a spoon and continued in a leisurely manner: "Under his leadership, they've certainly rallied a lot of people, but just as many hate them. Like shadows under the sun... those people skulk in the dark corners untouched by the light of order, biding their time, ready to strike a fatal blow against their enemies. On their own, they might wait an entire lifetime and never see an opportunity. But with our help, things will be different." Arman stared at him in disbelief, the outlines of the scheme slowly dawning on him. "...You want to replicate the Bone Chewer Turmoil?" "The Bone Chewer Turmoil?" Greg curled his lip in contempt. "The reason the Eastern Legion could never achieve greatness was that they wavered when they should have stood firm. We won't make that mistake. We will deploy the assets ourselves, command directly, and provide them with all necessary weapons and gear... The plan is foolproof. They will pay dearly for their arrogance." Seeing Arman about to ask more, Greg coughed, cutting off his words. "Enough. Aren't we straying off-topic? The decapitation strike is someone else's responsibility. Let's return to our 'Tsunami.' Your role is simple: help our men make landfall, and leave the rest to the professionals." At that, Greg fixed an unblinking gaze on Arman, awaiting his answer. Arman knew full well that after learning so much, if he dared utter a single 'no,' he might not live to see tonight's moon. Smiling wryly on the inside, his face remained calm and composed. After a long, deliberate pause, he slowly nodded. "Leave it to me." Hearing the expected reply, a radiant smile bloomed once more across Greg's face. "Congratulations. You've chosen the right path." With that parting remark, he stood up, patted Arman lightly on the shoulder, stuffed the damp sheet of paper into his pocket, and headed toward the counter. He had dumped an entire dish of sugar cubes into the coffee, likely sweetening it to a nauseating degree, yet had not taken a single sip. Watching Greg pay his bill and depart, Arman let out a self-deprecating chuckle, lifting his glass of lemonade for another sip. As the waitress came over to clear the table, he unclipped a button from his collar and set it gently on the surface. "You heard everything, right?... Is there anything else you need me to do?" The Moon Clan girl gave him a gentle smile, tidying up the items on the table. She even collected a few stray hairs that had fallen onto the table and chairs. "No need, sir. We'll handle the cleanup. Please proceed with your schedule for today. Thank you for your patronage, and have a pleasant day." Arman wore a helpless expression. If he had a choice, he truly wouldn't want to get involved in this sort of business, and that had indeed been his original intention. The Guards Corps hadn't forced him to cooperate with their investigation; if he had refused, all they asked was his word to keep quiet and cut all ties with anyone associated with the Mutual Aid Association. Yet the moment he recalled the tragedy of West Sail Port, the thought of staying out of it vanished completely. No one could truly remain detached. When trouble found him, one foot was already in the game. Pretending none of it had anything to do with him would not make him or his family any safer. He couldn't wait until everything had already unfolded, only to mimic the Brahma and plead to the united survivors: "Not all Brahma are like that." Such a feeble excuse couldn't offer even a shred of comfort... ... The "Tsunami" aimed at Port French Fries was already an arrow on the bowstring. Container freighters packed with soldiers were departing from Evernight Port. Through Greg's machinations, a shipment of weapons had already been loaded onto freighters in Settlement No. 1, dispatched to Port French Fries under the guise of military aid for the nations of Brahma Province. Meanwhile, Arman's fleet had set sail as well, bound directly for West Sail Port. They would rendezvous at West Sail Port and cut straight across the Polo Sea toward Baiyue Strait. Everything was proceeding according to plan. For now, the Alliance's attention was completely tied down in Brahma Province... At least in the eyes of the Southern Legion's brass, their entire plan was seamless. So long as their troops seized Port French Fries, the entire Polo Sea would become the Southern Legion's back garden! Elsewhere, the operation codenamed "Guillotine" was unfolding in dead silence. At the very same time Greg was recruiting assets in Settlement No. 1, another fierce officer of the Southern Legion, Millenarian Wyatt, had arrived at the border between Haiya Province and Yuema Province—a sprawl of ruins nestled among the mountains. This was the former site of Yanshan City, roughly a hundred kilometers from the coastline and about the same distance from the Alliance's Settlement No. 10. Two centuries ago, this had been a prosperous coastal city. Now, nothing remained but rust-pitted steel skeletons and clusters of honeycomb-riddled concrete blocks. Yanshan City had never been particularly large, comparable in scale to the lakeside Xizhou City, and had catered primarily to vacationers, so it lacked the towering skyscrapers of Qingquan City. During the earlier Battle of the Torch, Enterprise's 101st Mountain Division had been stationed in this area, but they withdrew shortly after the war concluded. With the retreat of order, the place had swiftly reverted to a paradise for mutant creatures and marauders. "Just ahead, sir... There's no drivable road up there. We'll have to leave the vehicles here and continue on foot." Looking at the collapsed viaduct not far off, the driver cut the engine and spoke respectfully to Officer Wyatt in the backseat. "Mm. Here will do." Checking the nearby terrain against the contour lines on his map, Wyatt nodded, gave the succinct reply, and pushed open the door to step out, flanked by two attendants clad in exoskeletons. As the off-road vehicle came to a stop, two box trucks trailing behind it pulled over in sequence. From them emerged two soldiers in exoskeletons and two "big guys" armed to the teeth in jet-black metal. In the Legion, Wilante with such extraordinary physiques were individuals whose awakenings had failed. Unstable fragments buried deep in their DNA granted them superhuman strength and resilience, allowing them to fight recklessly like mutants, impervious to pain and wounds. The Eastern Legion typically assigned them directly to purge teams to serve as the assault vanguard in large-scale campaigns. In the Southern Legion, however, purge teams functioned primarily as special forces, and these brutes were usually outfitted with expensive cybernetic implants, then deployed beyond the frontlines wherever needed. Particularly behind enemy lines. Terrifyingly powerful and utterly incapable of surrender, they were like humanoid nuclear warheads; a single one could unleash combat capability rivaling several full ten-man squads. Unlike Greg, who belonged to the Army Intelligence Bureau, Wyatt and his subordinates were part of the Southern Legion General Staff, holding the rank of Millenarian. Thanks to his military background, he was not only adept at intelligence gathering but also highly seasoned in operational command. He had taken part in planning the West Sail Port tragedy orchestrated by the General Staff. And during the subsequent Janusz uprising, he had also helped formulate the battle plan given to the former Gray Wolf Army loyalists supporting Absaik. It was no exaggeration to say that for Janusz to conquer Tiandu within two weeks, at least a third of the credit belonged to this man whom Janusz had never met in his life. Janusz himself had been completely oblivious, kept entirely in the dark right up until he was gunned down on the imperial throne. And now, to open a second front in the Alliance, the Southern Legion General Staff had dispatched Wyatt to Haiya Province to orchestrate the assassination of the Alliance Administrator. The risks of the entire mission were obvious. Once the Administrator was dead, they would face the frenzied retribution of the entire Alliance, leaving them next to no chance of escape. Yet for the Legion, for the total success of Operation Tsunami, for the Marshal, and for final victory, personal sacrifice meant nothing to him. As the group entered Yanshan City, pairs of greedy, covetous eyes lurking in the shadows had already locked onto these uninvited guests. Most of them were marauders who had drifted into the area following the tracks of migrating survivors. The Alliance had broadcast messages to lure away the fat sheep right out from under their noses and had hunted them down across the wasteland. In response, they had retreated deep into urban ruins far from the settlements. Alliance influence could not yet reach this far, so they built their nests in the shadows right behind the Alliance's heels. Every passing survivor or caravan was fair game for pillage, and they would sometimes cobble together an engine into a makeshift skiff to raid cargo ships at sea. They usually sold their plunder to black market traders, using the silver coins earned to buy supplies. The Alliance had never ceased encircling, pursuing, and suppressing them, but just as a man could never pin down his own shadow with the sole of his shoe, marauders had existed since the Reconstruction Committee era and had never been wiped out by any survivor faction. So long as lawless, masterless lands remained, they would sprout up like weeds. Still, it was worth noting that the Alliance's crackdowns on marauders were unusually relentless for these lands. And it was precisely this relentless pressure, shrinking their living space day by day, that made the marauders loathe those meddlesome blue mole rats to the bone. When Wyatt's party entered Yanshan City, the local marauders, catching sight of their gear, instantly mistook them for Alliance vault dwellers. After all, in the limited minds of these marauders, only vault dwellers would deck themselves out in so many costly, cumbersome cybernetic implants. As for the Legion? Most marauders from Yuema Province had never even heard of them, even though their own ranks of Decurion and Centurion were copied directly from the Legion. Sensing the threat lurking in the shadows of the ruins, one of the big brutes stepped in front of Wyatt, shielding him with an iron body as solid as a fortress wall. "Ahead. Threat." Hearing the low rumble echoing beneath the heavy armor plates, Wyatt smiled faintly, paying his subordinate's warning no heed. "That means we've come to the right place." With that, he signaled his men to step aside, turned toward the devastated expanse of steel and concrete ruins, and yelled at the top of his lungs: "Do you want to be cowards your whole lives, rotting away in this rat-hole of a hell, or do you want to be fucking brave for once—storm into the homes of those so-called civilized folks, plunder their treasures, claim their wives and daughters, and seize enough riches to last you a lifetime?!" His resonant voice echoed among the ruins, but no sound replied. Undeterred, Wyatt raised his voice and called out again: "Think it over! Or go home, find a mirror, and look at your pathetic, sniveling selves! The Alliance chases you around like cockroaches, and your answer is to scurry into ruins and hide! I'm telling you right now: if you can't band together and grow a spine for once, sooner or later you won't even have a hole left to crawl into!" "At least right now, the Alliance is pinned down on the western front by our forces! You still have a shred of hope to strike back—" Before he could finish his speech, a figure suddenly leapt down from the ruins above. The fellow had a sinewy build like a leopard, but his hair was a matted, unkempt mess that looked infested with fleas. Not only that, his wrinkled skin resembled a mangy, hairless hyena. Even more repulsive were his blackened teeth, which looked as if they hadn't been brushed in years. Gazing warily at the party standing before the ruins, the man let out a low, guttural snarl toward Wyatt at the head of the group. "Who are you people?" The soldiers flanking Wyatt frowned in unison, yet Wyatt's expression remained completely unfazed. "Wyatt, Millenarian of the Legion. Tell me your name." "Hunting Claw. Cannibal Tribe. Myriarch." The man stared unblinkingly at Wyatt, then shifted his gaze to the hulking giants beside him, making no attempt to hide the naked greed in his eyes. Wyatt didn't mind. He simply looked the man named Hunting Claw up and down, then gave an approving nod. "Hunting Claw... Good name. I've already thought of a cybernetic suited for you." As he spoke, he drew a holographic stylus and tapped it twice with his index finger. A pale blue hologram quickly materialized, depicting a warrior whose arms were mounted with razor-sharp claws. The sudden projection startled Hunting Claw, but his eyes were instantly riveted by its distinctly mechanical design, unable to look away. "...How do I get it?" Seeing the greed in Hunting Claw's eyes, Wyatt stated bluntly: "Simple. Do a job for us." Hunting Claw didn't mince words. He knew people who sought out marauders almost always had one goal in mind. "Who dies?" Wyatt smiled. "The Alliance Administrator." At those words, Hunting Claw's pupils constricted sharply, a look of blatant terror washing over his face. Noticing the panic behind his eyes, Wyatt patiently continued: "He's only one man, and we are an army. We won't make you act alone. We'll supply your weapons, draw up your plans, and even fight by your side." "All you need to do is summon the courage to stand with us. Leave everything else to us." Hearing this promise, Hunting Claw's gaze finally settled, and that fleeting trace of fear was quickly overtaken by greed. "You've got a big appetite... Going after that bastard means you'd better be ready for all-out war with the settlements." "Then war it is." Wyatt looked at him. "Tell me your answer." A cruel smile spread across Hunting Claw's face, and he nodded without hesitation. "Fuck it! Deal! But you've gotta give us weapons and ammo! A pair of claws ain't enough—we need gear to arm at least two or three thousand men... If you can deliver, not just the Cannibal Tribe will answer to you, but every tribe in this whole damn city!" A pleased smile appeared on Wyatt's face. The numbers were a bit on the low side, but they would suffice. The objective of Operation Guillotine was solely the Administrator; fighting the actual war was the job of Operation Tsunami. The Alliance would never anticipate that this "assassination" would be carried out on the scale of thousands. And by the time they realized it, it would be far too late. Looking at Hunting Claw's gleaming eyes, Wyatt extended his right hand with a smile. "Deal."