Capturing the Industrial Hub!

At the exact moment Brother Edge boarded the transport plane, a massive battle was raging in the Lavinka Industrial Zone northwest of Evernight Port! Situated on the southeastern bank of the Lavinka River, this industrial zone possessed two railways and a deepwater harbor, connecting four processing centers, five mining bases, and a heavy shipyard. Beyond that, three hundred thousand survivors lived in the area, a quarter of whom were industrial workers and engineers employed by the Avent Heavy Industry Group. The materials produced here supplied not only the front lines of the Brahma Province theater, but also military factories of all sizes along both railway lines. Even the armor plating used on the Conqueror 10 heavy tank production lines came from this district's steel mills! Nearly a third of the Southern Legion's gross domestic product was generated in this industrial zone or indirectly influenced by it! Without any exaggeration, losing the Lavinka Industrial Zone would deal a heavier blow to the Southern Legion than ceding a third of its territory. It was precisely because of this immense strategic significance that both warring sides considered the area an absolute must-win. Tasked with defending the region was the Southern Legion's renowned "Desert Lion," Myriarch Lubis. Born in Triumph City into a military aristocratic family, Lubis had been steeped in military discipline from childhood. He had risen to the rank of myriarch at the mere age of thirty-five, commanding the 111th Myriad in campaigns against mutants and marauder tribes across the Great Desert. His most illustrious feat occurred during his time as a millurion, when he led a thousand-man Youth Army unit to rout a mutant tribe several times its size with virtually zero casualties. Thanks to that legendary performance, the officers in Avent City had long regarded him as a rising star among commanders. Yet just as his career seemed bound for glory, the West Sail Port tragedy erupted, and "invading Brahma Province" along with "defending Wilante property with fire and steel" suddenly became the Southern Legion's universal consensus. Though the atmosphere reeked of conspiracy, no one cared amid the swell of public fury. Young men could hardly wait to rush to the front and sever heads to vent their wrath, while older officers rubbed their hands in anticipation of pinning another medal to their chests. Lubis alone stood apart. Not only did he pour cold water on their high spirits while prospects seemed bright, but he also bitterly condemned Gulion's escalations in West Sail Port. Such rhetoric was glaringly out of step with the times. Without surprise, he earned General Gulion's enmity and was sidelined by the mainstream faction of the Southern Legion. And so, the famed Desert Lion was benched for over half a year. Only after Alliance forces landed at Evernight Port, shattering the local city defense force and scattering over a hundred thousand reservists, did the Southern Legion abruptly remember they still had such a capable officer at their disposal. Lubis did not disappoint the Southern Legion Command. He swiftly took up the mantle of organizing the defense, evacuating critical industrial facilities from the Lavinka Industrial Zone before Alliance bombers arrived. Sourcing building materials on-site, he transformed the desert industrial zone into an impregnable fortress. The man truly had real skill. Relying initially on just ten thousand soldiers, he held out against two Alliance offensives and successfully bought time for reinforcements from the rear to arrive. By now, nearly three hundred thousand defenders were stationed within the Lavinka Industrial Zone! Aside from the 111th, 112th, and 113th Myriads, he had seven auxiliary myriads and two hundred thousand cannon fodder from the Glorious Army under his command! On the Alliance side, the spearhead comprised the Skeleton Corps, the Jungle Corps, and the Goblin Corps, augmented by two divisions of the Wilante Expeditionary Force and the Enterprise's 100th Mountain Division. On paper, the balance of troop numbers seemed lopsided, but setting aside the two hundred thousand clone troopers padding the count, the gap was not terribly wide. Furthermore, the Alliance held total air and armor superiority. The Skeleton Corps' self-propelled artillery hurled 155 mm shells every few days, while the Goblin Corps' W-3 bombers dumped loads into the industrial zone on a near-daily basis, making life miserable for the defenders. Even so, under General Lubis's command, the defenders of the Lavinka Industrial Zone held out for a full month without showing the slightest sign of cracking. Even Mole, serving as the assault commander, could not help marveling that they had run into a truly tough customer this time. Yet strangely enough, such a tough opponent had never surfaced on the battlefields of Brahma Province, only making an appearance now that the campaign had entered the mop-up phase. This man was a true loyalist. One just had to wonder whether he was the last of his kind… Standing inside the tank's turret atop a gentle dune, Mole raised his binoculars to peer at the sand-covered fortifications in the distance. The Legion had constructed concrete bunkers on the reverse slope of the dunes, packed with numerous anti-tank guns and Conqueror 10 turrets salvaged from unfinished assembly lines. Those anti-armor fire nests were planted like submerged reefs beneath the sea of sand. One had to admit it was an ingenious idea. It not only bypassed the turret-tossing flaw of the Conqueror 10, but also placed significant limits on the Alliance's anti-vehicle railguns. However, with the arrival of a batch of new equipment code-named "Wolf Spider," this siege was about to reach its end. Mole did not have to wait long. Soon, he spotted eight-legged spider robots in desert camouflage swiftly crawling toward the foot of the bunkers. These were the latest creation from Boulder Military Industry and the crowning achievement of Vault 100's indigenous research and development! Upgraded from the Cross Spider, the eight-legged Wolf Spider robot could carry a warhead of up to a hundred kilograms. It scuttled freely through tunnels half the height of a man, cleared obstacles with tool attachments on its forelimbs, and deftly planted explosive charges wherever needed. The contraption was practically an assassin designed specifically for fixed fortifications! If the Beetle engineering armor was born for construction, this thing was crafted purely for demolition. Moments later, the roar of fighter jets breaking the sound barrier echoed across the sky. A burst of autocannon fire sprayed across the Wilante forward positions like a pressurized hose. Plumes of sand as tall as a man shot into the air, covering many soldiers in dust, though not claiming a single life. The troops of the 111th Myriad were long accustomed to Alliance airstrikes. Every one of them deftly lowered their bodies, pressing their helmets tight against the trench walls, patiently waiting for the strike to pass. At that moment, they did not realize the aerial autocannon fire was intended merely to pin them inside their cover—a purpose it had already accomplished. Even as they ducked the air attack, truly deadly little spiders were working their nimble eight legs, sweeping like shifting sand into the bunkers linked by trenches and tunnels, heading straight for the ammunition racks tucked within! To facilitate reloading the anti-tank guns and Conqueror turrets, the ammunition racks for these fixed emplacements were separated from the guns, but they were never placed too far away. And the internal layout of these bunkers was precisely as the Intelligence-type players operating the mechanical spiders had anticipated: an H-shaped design, with the shells separated from the munitions by only a heavy iron door. These iron doors had clearly been hastily fashioned by the factories in the Lavinka Industrial Zone using tank armor steel. While more than sturdy enough against blast shockwaves, they stood no chance against plasma cutting torches burning at thousands of degrees! The mechanical spiders breaching the bunkers quickly neutralized the artillery crews whose attention was fixed on the airstrike. Before the soldiers outside noticed a thing, plasma cutters flickering with pale blue electrical arcs extended from their agile forelimbs. Accompanied by a low hum, the Wolf Spiders sliced through the door fittings in the span of a few breaths, prying the crudely made slabs completely free of the walls. The iron doors crashed down. The mechanical spiders darted inside, freeing two limbs to work rapidly, swiftly deploying their explosives. By the time the soldiers guarding the positions finally realized what was happening, concentrated charges weighing dozens of kilograms were already crammed into their airtight redoubts, tucked right under the ammunition racks of every anti-tank strongpoint! *Boom—!* Deafening explosions detonated almost simultaneously. Bursts of fire merged across the undulating sands, and walls of sand surged skyward like spontaneous dust storms! The roaring flames came not only from the bombs themselves, but in large part from the sympathetic detonations of the ammunition! Staring at the burning bunkers, the millurion standing on the front line felt his eyes turn bloodshot, his ash-gray face carved with despair. On the other side, Mole wore the smile of a victor. "It's over." As the words left his mouth, he picked up the radio and barked the order to attack. "All units, advance!" A synchronized chorus answered over the comm channel: "Understood!" The moment the order went out, engines roared across the Skeleton Corps' hundred-odd tanks, sweeping toward the 111th Myriad's lines like a surging sandstorm. Advancing alongside the tanks were three hundred Chimera armored vehicles, carrying several thousand soldiers of the Wilante Expeditionary Force inside their compartments! Tracers as thick as pythons crisscrossed the defenses, pinning the Southern Legion soldiers beneath smoke and fire so fiercely they could not lift their heads. The 111th Myriad's line was shattered in an instant. Right behind them, the Enterprise's 100th Mountain Division drove through the breach, striking swiftly into the flanks of the 112th and 113th Myriads, completely outflanking the sharpest teeth of the fortified perimeter! Fierce fighting erupted, reaching a fever pitch almost the instant it began! The desert, tranquil moments before, turned into a boiling sea. The ferocity of the assault caught the defenders of the Lavinka Industrial Zone completely flat-footed. Seeing the front line crumble, seven auxiliary myriads rushed forward to plug the gap, only to collide head-on with the armored spearhead of the Skeleton Corps and the Wilante Expeditionary Force troops surging out of the Chimera armored vehicles! Faced with such ferocious firepower, the seven auxiliary myriads were reduced from a firefighting vanguard into helpless dwarfs, scattering in terror under chattering autocannons and crushing tank fire. Reality proved that the Wilante were natural-born warriors. Especially after swapping their shoddy body armor for the Alliance's Type 5 exoskeletons, their combat efficiency jumped to a whole new level, second only to the fearless players! Even so, General Lubis, coordinating from the rear, remained a formidable figure—far tougher than Stanford, the commander of the Evernight Port defense force. He refused to give up. Seeing the breached sector degenerating into an outright rout, he led his personal guard straight into the breach without hesitation, ordering the Glorious Army to launch suicidal charges at the Alliance lines. For a moment, he actually wrestled back twenty percent of the battlefield momentum. However, a meager twenty percent advantage was nowhere near enough to reverse the Southern Legion's virtually sealed fate. Under relentless bombardments from the Skeleton Corps' self-propelled artillery and cluster bombs dropped by the Goblin Corps, the two hundred thousand clone soldiers were shredded like sea foam breaking on a beach, blown to pieces before they could even disperse. A thick mist of blood condensed into an impenetrable red curtain. The gruesome spectacle shook everyone on the battlefield, prompting the seven auxiliary myriads—whose morale was already on the verge of collapse—to turn their cloaks and surrender in droves. After all, once the clones were wiped out, they would be the next cannon fodder. Though they fought on behalf of the Southern Legion, they remained acutely conscious of their status as non-Wilante outsiders. With the surrender of the seven auxiliary myriads, the remaining three regular myriads gradually abandoned resistance, dropping their weapons to become Alliance prisoners. With that, the Southern Legion lost not only its logistics hub at Evernight Port, but also its largest concentrated industrial zone, which fell entirely into the Alliance's hands. Having lost every strategic anchor in the south, the fall of its 2.7 million square kilometers of colonies was only a matter of time. Recognizing the game was up, General Lubis spoke no final words. He ordered his personal guard to surrender, drew his sidearm, and took his own life. Seven officers committed suicide alongside him, including his adjutant, staff officers, and the captain of his guard. Mole had intended to chat with the opponent who had tangled with him for over half a month, never expecting the man to take his final bow so abruptly. "A shame…" Standing in the turret after hearing the Expeditionary soldier's report, Mole looked out with a melancholic gaze, speaking with genuine regret. "Even the broad-browed, big-eyed ones surrendered, yet one of the few normal people stayed loyal to the end… He should have lived to be useful after the war." Elaina said with a complex look, "Maybe he was just tired. An ending like this might be a release for him. At least he repaid the Southern Legion for recognizing his talents in his own way." Elven King Fugui let out a sigh. "Still, I feel like if he'd given up earlier, it would've been better for the survivors under the Southern Legion. At least we could have ended their long, unending misery sooner." Elaina gave him a side glance. "You're taking a God's-eye view again." "What's wrong with that?" Elven King Fugui asked. Elaina pondered for a moment, unusually dropping his comical tone to offer words completely unlike his usual persona: "God doesn't solve any problems. That's the biggest problem." Elven King Fugui scratched his head. Just as he was about to say something, he spotted a band of dark-skinned figures standing in the distance. They were hulking in stature, with protruding muzzles and small, beady yellow eyes gleaming with bloodthirsty ferocity. Elaina squinted slightly and quickly recognized them as a specialty of the Great Desert—gray mutants! Unlike the green mutants of Jinchuan and River Valley Province, these creatures possessed somewhat higher intelligence and were accustomed to cooperating with humans of similar temperament—such as slaver bands and marauder tribes. Both the Southern Legion and the Eastern Legion had the bad habit of hiring them. A squad of Expeditionary soldiers had them encircled, rifles aimed at their heads. The mutants, in turn, leveled their heavy-caliber weapons right back, baring their fangs in a show of bravado. Tension hung thick between them; a firefight could spark at any second. Mole tapped the turret hatch, signaling the driver to roll forward. The tank ground to a halt before the mutants. Mole tilted his chin slightly toward their leader. "Who are you?" The hulking mutant looked up at Mole perched atop the tank, casting a wary glance at the massive cannon barrel beneath him. "I am Fengyu, chieftain of the Sorrowwind Clan." *Fengyu? Wind Whisper?* Mole looked at him with curiosity. The brute had a rather poetic name. He couldn't help asking with a smile, "Oh? And what are you doing here?" "They're prisoners!" snapped a company commander standing nearby, glaring at the mutants and cutting in before the big brute could answer. "They claimed they were surrendering, but after we agreed, they refused to lay down their weapons!" "Prisoners? I am no prisoner!" Fengyu sneered, grunting as he continued, "We were mercenaries for General Lubis. Now they've lost, and our contract with them is over. By the way, your war isn't finished yet, is it? Let's talk business." "Business?" Mole raised an eyebrow, looking at him with a half-smile. "What business could we have to discuss?" Completely unaware of the doom hanging over his head, the gray-skinned mutant assumed Mole was inquiring about terms. He grunted and went on: "We fought for the Wilante; of course we can fight for you. We don't ask for much—just give us a third of the prisoners you take! If you can give us Wilante women, even better. They breed the best and don't break easily!" The surrounding Wilante soldiers glared at these beasts with murderous intent, their teeth grinding audibly. Mole scrutinized the creature and asked with a pleasant smile, "Sounds tempting. Where is your tribe?" Fengyu beamed with delight. Without a second thought, he blurted out in his guttural voice: "Just a bit north by east, in an abandoned urban area about twenty kilometers from here!" Mole nodded. Without bothering to hide it from the brute, he turned to Elaina and said, "Wipe that place out later while we're at it." Elaina chuckled. "Hand it to the Jungle Corps. They're the pros at that." Fengyu froze for two seconds, his expression shifting from bewilderment to incandescent fury. No matter how slow-witted he was, he understood what these human things were discussing. "You! You are an enemy of the Sorrowwind Clan! I'll tear you apart!" Watching the enraged mutant raise his gun toward him, Mole sneered, dropped back into the turret, and kicked the driver's seat. "What's there to talk about with things like this? Run them over!" …… Batoya Province, Avent City. An atmosphere of despair blanketed the entire settlement, making the already chilly dark clouds and steel structures feel even bleaker. The plague had outpaced the war. Medicine, cigarettes, and canned goods had become the most sought-after commodities, while Wilante honor and dignity were rendered completely worthless. A chilling aura drifted through the streets, making the few pedestrians scurry with even greater haste. The vast majority of shops had shuttered. This was not solely due to the curfew; in large part, it was because the shelves were completely bare. Two months had passed since the rollout of Operation Decisive Battle, yet the Southern Legion's situation had not improved in the slightest. Instead, it had sunk deeper into the quagmire. Factories and farmland were drained of labor, and production lines lost both raw materials and orders. Worst of all, the entire supply chain of the Southern Legion's society had been thoroughly wrecked. It was like riding a roller coaster. Shifting from one economic cycle to another was not as simple as flipping a switch. Besides, even if they wanted to turn back now, it was already too late… Soldiers armed to the teeth marched in formation down the streets, yet their polished combat boots and bayonets failed to offer the remaining populace the slightest sense of safety. The few citizens left in the city shut their windows tight, not daring to leave the curtains parted by even a sliver. People in every street and alley were lost in confusion. They could not decide whether those gun-toting soldiers were their kinsmen or their enemies, nor whether scrambling tooth and nail for permits to stay in the city had been a wise choice. Then again, where could they go if they left? At least there was still food in the city. Out in the countryside, they might well end up on someone else's dinner plate. As for crossing the Vortex Sea to Wilante Province, that was hardly an easy journey either. Those who left early had caught transport vehicles, but now, the only way across was on foot. Indeed. The grand promise to "send everyone to Triumph City for Marshal Julius's funeral" had fallen flat yet again. No one was surprised, of course. It was hardly the first time. It was not just the residents living in the city who felt adrift; even the soldiers marching like clockwork toy automatons bore eyes filled with uncertainty. What on earth was Tyr doing? What were the Southern Legion's top brass thinking? Why had General Gulion's forces been advancing briskly yesterday, only for everything to fall apart today? Why hadn't their enemies collapsed yet, while they themselves were already withering away before their time… At this moment, they no longer dreamed of land in the sun. They only wished time could turn back to the distant past, before everything had gone to ruin. Compared to the sun-drenched shores of Mantou Port, this place was the opposite extreme… Anxiety gripped not only the people of Avent City, but also the myriarchs riding the same war chariot as Tyr. While their supply of cigarettes, canned meat, and hard liquor remained uninterrupted—with enough surplus to share with ladies in need of aid—the battlefield situation was deteriorating at a rate visible to the naked eye. The pressure weighing on them was not a bit lighter than that on the ladies seeking their help. A total war was nothing like a localized border skirmish. There was no such thing as surrendering for half the stakes, nor could a loss be settled with an apology and reparations. The enemy had not come for money. Likely, they would not even entertain negotiations—they wanted them dead! Avent City Temporary Supreme Command. The conference room, spanning less than twenty square meters, was packed with officers, the air oppressive and heavy. Until yesterday, they had held their meetings in a room with windows. Today, they had relocated to this windowless underground bunker. The reason was an aircraft that had roared over Avent City. Though the plane had dropped no bombs, scattering only leaflets printed with "Redeem for Boxed Meals and Beds upon Presentation," it had stretched everyone's frayed nerves to the breaking point. The flames of war had finally reached right under their noses. Even the highest-ranking officers were panicking. Perhaps the only person who remained outwardly calm was Tyr himself. The head of the Southern Legion's General Affairs Department swallowed hard, flipped open his notepad, and broke the oppressive silence around the table with a trembling voice: "I must say my piece… Our production lines have nearly ground to a halt, and our weapons stockpiles will last six months at most. If we cannot add factory workers soon, the logistical strain will crush us completely." Truthful words were always jarring. As he spoke, he kept his head bowed low, not daring to meet anyone's gaze, mentally bracing himself for a barrage of curses. Yet to his astonishment, no furious rebuke came. Instead, what met him was a long, weary sigh. It came from the head of the Homeland Defense Department—a bureaucrat who had only recently gained prominence. "Set the matter of production aside for now… Just yesterday, our Lavinka Industrial Zone fell."