Chapter 93: Rush to Reinforce "Loyash"
In front of the Steel Fortress, atop the towering Zero Cannon Tower.
Boom!
A heavy cannon fired, spewing a dark red laser beam from its muzzle, slanting down toward the ground below. As dirt flew, the cannon's recoil mechanism raised the barrel, like a technological holy sword sweeping across the land ahead.
Where the bucket-thick laser beam passed, all wild boar riders and their mounts turned into scorching red slurry scattered on the ground, sizzling as the earth was corroded. This was the scene that occurred when flesh was simultaneously burned by high-corrosion substances and high temperatures.
After the heavy cannon's ray swept through, a straight area nearly five meters wide was cleared, and the regions the dark red laser beam passed through exploded one after another.
Heavy cannon-class weapons were the strongest sword of the Vassal Alliance. In the past, no one could block this strongest sword, but today, it seemed powerless.
Clang!
A spiral lance embedded itself in the middle section of the Zero Cannon Tower. The next moment, a deafening explosion rang out, but for the towering Zero Cannon Tower, it meant nothing.
On the open ground in front of the Steel Fortress, wild boar riders and Vassal soldiers were locked in chaotic battle.
Amid the melee, a Vassal soldier raised his war blade and swung it down at an oncoming wild boar warrior.
With a clang, the war blade met a heavy hammer, and the solar force on the hammer caused a fiery explosion.
The Vassal soldier immediately felt a tremendous force from his hands. Gritting his teeth, he endured the cavalry's charge and the explosion's power, leaving his hands gripping the war blade numb. The wild boar rider he blocked was also struggling, as the Vassal soldier's basic combat skills were evident.
Just then, the wild boar rider's mount lunged forward, its claws extended. Seizing the moment when the opposing Vassal soldier was off-balance, its two front claws firmly grabbed the Vassal soldier.
Taking this opportunity, the wild boar rider on its back recovered his breath. Gripping his hammer with both hands, he delivered a brutal horizontal swing.
Bang!
The Vassal soldier was sent flying, but his combat suit saved him from death. However, before he could land, a charging wild boar rider, using the momentum of his charge, smashed his head to pieces with a hammer.
Wild boar riders couldn't one-shot Vassal soldiers, but they could not only use their mounts for charging but also naturally fight two-on-one.
In a one-on-one fight, wild boar riders could drive Vassal soldiers to despair. "Heavy Hammer Mastery, Lv.45" was no joke, and combined with "Beast Riding, Lv.48," every wild boar rider possessed not only core combat skills but also excellent riding techniques.
On the battlefield, three heavy tanks charged side by side, followed by hundreds of cavalrymen charging with them.
Amid a series of dull thuds and screams, the Vassal soldiers ahead were either knocked away or trampled by the three heavy tanks. When one heavy tank stepped on a Vassal soldier's head, the scene was like an elephant crushing a watermelon.
The heavy tanks cleared the path ahead, and the hundreds of cavalrymen behind, like a steel grinding machine, crushed the surviving Vassal soldiers to pieces.
Where this cavalry force passed, intact bodies were rare on the ground—either crushed by the heavy tanks or smashed to death by the wild boar riders' hammers.
From an aerial view, the battle at Steel Fortress was spectacular to the extreme. As a frontline fortress, Steel Fortress was surrounded by dozens of meters high steel walls, which was why it was called Steel Fortress.
As a T0-level fortress, it couldn't move, but every T0-level fortress had its own strengths. Steel Fortress's strength lay in its surrounding steel walls and the five giant cannon towers on each wall.
These were part of the Steel Fortress itself. To cultivate this T0-level fortress, the Vassal Alliance consumed massive amounts of various metals, feeding them to the fortress to enhance the defensive power of its walls.
Around the base of the four walls, Vassal soldiers and wild boar riders were locked in chaotic combat. The cannon towers standing on the walls either rained down volleys or swept beams of death.
This time, our side had gone all out, deploying all 500,000 wild boar riders and bringing out the Sun Fortress. As for the rear, there was no rear anymore.
Su Xiao's goal this time was to capture Steel Fortress. He had long had his eye on this fortress. Although its area was smaller than Freedom City, it was protected by surrounding steel walls, which were part of the fortress. As long as the fortress core wasn't damaged, these walls, once breached, could gradually heal themselves, provided the fortress was fed enough metal.
Currently, our side's original base camp in the border region had no defenses set up. Su Xiao's plan was to capture Steel Fortress as quickly as possible, then relocate all the dwarf pigs, female pig-heads, and others from the rear to Steel Fortress.
This way, our side would firmly establish a foothold. If we continued to push forward, Steel Fortress would serve as our rear support, while the Sun Fortress would advance alongside, carrying various supplies and replenishing the wild boar riders' losses.
Steel Fortress must be taken—it was the key to whether we could continue advancing.
Storm wyverns circled at low altitude, swooping over the chaotic soldiers. On the back of one wyvern was Su Xiao, who kept the wyvern from flying too high to avoid being targeted by heavy cannon-class weapons.
The battlefield was filled with the roar of battle. The Vassal soldiers were being pushed back step by step. Since they all wore black combat suits, from above, they looked like a black tide. The wild boar riders, fully unleashing their solar force, had crimson phantom flames flickering on their bodies.
From above, the golden cavalry tide completely surrounded the black tide beneath the walls, swallowing it at a visible rate.
Why didn't the Vassal soldiers hold their ground on the walls? It wasn't that they didn't want to, but they couldn't. The hole in the eastern wall, created by 20 heavy tanks repeatedly ramming it, showed that if they didn't set up defenses at the base of the steel walls, the total of over 600 heavy tanks would turn the four walls into a honeycomb in less than five minutes.
One or two heavy tanks couldn't break through the steel walls' defenses. The problem was that their charges were accompanied by high-intensity flame explosions. After several consecutive charges, that section of the steel wall would be heated red-hot, drastically reducing its defense. Then, a dozen or so heavy tanks taking turns to charge with full force could create a massive hole with molten iron flowing around it.
The huge breach in the eastern wall had become the bloodiest area of the battle.
Moreover, once the wild boar riders reached the base of the walls, their mounts would use their claws to climb up.
Although these war beasts were far inferior to wolf riders in climbing, the wild boar riders could pile up human walls. They and their mounts had strong physiques and weren't afraid of being trampled by comrades above.
If the wild boar riders reached the wall, they would first have their mounts climb, then their comrades would swarm up, quickly forming a sloping human wall.
At this moment, on the nearly eight-meter-wide wall, an elite wild boar rider swung his war hammer, sending nearby Vassal soldiers flying in all directions. Not only was he tall himself, but his mount was also larger.
Boom!
A loud crash rang out as the elite wild boar rider and his mount staggered back. In front of them, a Vassal soldier operated a machine gun fixed to the wall. A shell casing, which could be called a cannon shell, clanged to the ground, still smoking.
The smoke at the impact point cleared, revealing the elite wild boar rider's form. His chest was caved in, with a spiral large-caliber bullet lodged in the center of his chest. He grinned, his teeth stained with blood, his eyes fixed on the Vassal soldier who had fired the machine gun at him.
The soldier felt his scalp tingle. He kept his four fingers on the machine gun's trigger, firing explosive bullets as if they cost nothing, ignoring the ear-piercing overheating warning.
Under the bombardment of explosive bullets, the elite wild boar rider raised one arm to shield himself, urging his war beast to charge forward. He rushed to the machine gun and swung his hammer with full force.
With a bang, the machine gun fixed to the wall was torn off, along with the screaming Vassal soldier, flying off the wall. After flying about a hundred meters, it crashed with a clang onto the head of a heavy tank.
The heavy tank, hit on the head, shook its head left and right, its small eyes relative to its size looking around to see who had hit it. It wanted revenge.
Suddenly, the heavy tank heard the sound of a machine gun. It turned to see a living war chariot, with a Vassal soldier manically operating a machine gun on top, firing wildly.
The heavy tank looked at the machine gun and its base that had hit its head, then at the machine gun firing from the war chariot nearby. Confirming that the two looked similar, it roared and charged at the living war chariot.
Compared to the battles on the surrounding walls, the situation at the Zero Main Cannon Tower was a disaster.
The Zero Main Cannon Tower was the tallest structure in Steel Fortress. This hundred-meter-tall cylindrical cannon tower was now a scene of disaster. Wild boar riders controlled their mounts to climb the main tower with their claws, while the dozen or so Vassal soldiers at the top fired down with machine guns, their eyes full of terror.
On the hundred-meter-tall cylindrical main tower, from the bottom to the middle-upper section, it was covered with wild boar riders. Just seeing this scene, one could imagine how desperate the Vassal soldiers at the top felt. The more they fired now, the worse it would be when they were caught.
The chaotic battle lasted from around ten in the morning until one in the afternoon. Wave after wave of reinforcements from the surrounding area were beaten back. The original garrison inside Steel Fortress was split into two groups.
One group was the "Sixth Unit" led by Brigadier General Rez, with a strength of about 90,000 to 100,000.
It had to be said that Brigadier General Rez was truly capable. Knowing that the situation was hopeless, and that the 300,000 frontline troops were no match for the Sun Legion, he decisively abandoned Steel Fortress, which seemed like an advantageous position but had no tactical significance, and led the "Sixth Unit" of Vassal soldiers to break out to the rear of the battlefield.
As a result, Brigadier General Rez successfully broke out. The heavy cannon-class weapons' area bombardment was indeed hard to withstand, but our side was cavalry. Su Xiao sent a pursuit force of 100,000 to chase Brigadier General Rez.
Apart from the "Sixth Unit" led by Brigadier General Rez, there was another group of Vassal defenders inside Steel Fortress, stubbornly defending the fortress. This was the force led by Brigadier General Rez's daughter, Lieutenant Colonel Wenna.
This defending force numbered over 50,000. With Wenna's rank, she wasn't qualified to command and deploy so many soldiers, but with the situation critical, no one cared about that.
By one in the afternoon, when the other Vassal generals stationed in the surrounding areas believed Steel Fortress had completely fallen, Lieutenant Colonel Wenna contacted the outside world, stating that they were using the building complex in the center of Steel Fortress to resist the enemy's charges.
The general idea was that although the walls and other areas had been occupied by the enemy, their defending force had stabilized in the center of Steel Fortress and urgently needed reinforcements from outside.
According to Lieutenant Colonel Wenna herself, the surrounding walls had been breached in too many places and had lost their defensive value.
Could Su Xiao annihilate this defending force? Of course he could. He deliberately left them.
He surrounded the 50,000-plus defenders commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Wenna, seemingly hindered by the terrain where cavalry couldn't charge, unable to take them down. In reality, he was waiting for other forces from the surrounding area to come to reinforce them.
Based on his understanding, the Vassal Alliance didn't just station troops at Steel Fortress on the border. This was the core defensive point. On both sides of the border area, there were six other forces, with a total strength of at least over 600,000.
The Alliance Marshal, He Kangdiwei, had made his intentions clear earlier. First, drive the tiger to devour the wolf, letting Su Xiao attack the beast tribe, then take the opportunity to station troops on the border, preparing to wipe out the Sun Fortress in one go.
The result was that Su Xiao fought the beast tribe to the death, beating them until they cried. Before the Vassal Alliance could deploy many troops, the beast tribe surrendered.
Thinking about it, when they were almost beaten to the "Great Gathering Place," how could they not surrender? If they didn't, the Beast King would soon become a Overlord Essence.
Inside Steel City, flames still burned on some buildings. The closer to the center, the denser the buildings. Several blocks in the center were now occupied by Lieutenant Colonel Wenna's people.
Su Xiao stood on the roof of a two-story building, watching flames erupt with a roar in the distant streets. Steel Fortress was more like a city than a fortress.
It was spread out flat, with walls around it. The vast internal area was left to the builders' imagination. Calling it a dream-level base camp was not an exaggeration.
In contrast, the Sun Fortress, even if a hundred of them were spread out, wouldn't be as large as Steel City. But that didn't mean the Sun Fortress was weak.
The smell of gunpowder lingered around. Su Xiao looked at the communicator in his hand. It had been delivered a few minutes ago by an enemy soldier who paid with his capture. The commander of the defenders inside the city, Lieutenant Colonel Wenna, wanted to speak with him.
The communicator in his hand rang. Su Xiao answered it, and a noisy sound came through. The location on the other end had many wounded.
"Hey? Hey, are you sure it's connected?"
"Yes, Lieutenant Colonel, I'm sure it's connected."
"There's no sound on the other end."
"That's because the other party hasn't spoken."
"Cough~, I see."
Lieutenant Colonel Wenna's last words carried a hint of embarrassment in her tone.
"You have something to discuss with me?"
Su Xiao spoke.
"Sun Lord, I hope you will accept our surrender. We are already surrounded by your forces. There's no need to go to extremes."
"I refuse."
"Do you really... have to kill us all to be satisfied?"
"Mm."
Su Xiao crushed the communicator in his hand and tossed the remnants aside. Without severely punishing the enemy's reinforcements, how could he accept Lieutenant Colonel Wenna's surrender?
...
Twenty kilometers north of Steel City.
A Vassal force was marching hastily toward Steel City. At the front were two living war chariots. When one of the chariots ran over some rubble on the ground, an explosion occurred.
Boom! The explosion lifted the heavy body of the living war chariot slightly but didn't flip it. The Vassal colonel inside the armored vehicle behind saw this but ignored it, until several signal flares rose into the sky, and wild boar riders, stretching as far as the eye could see, closed in from all sides.
The mobility of the wild boar warriors had reached a terrifying level. First, they were cavalry themselves, and then they had the War Lord's bonuses.
"Lord's Authority (Passive) has six effects. Each triggered effect stacks one layer of 'Lord's Pride,' increasing the march speed of all soldier-type units under command by 12% (when Lord's Pride is fully stacked to 6 layers, all soldier-type units' march speed increases by 72%)."
Additionally, the war boar mounts possessed "Hunting March (Passive, Lv.33)," which increased running speed by 23%.
With these bonuses stacked, one could imagine how strong the wild boar riders' mobility was.
After 40 minutes of siege, this 30,000-strong reinforcement force suffered heavy casualties. The surviving 8,000-plus Vassal soldiers were all captured.
This scene played out repeatedly in the surrounding areas. Although our side's assault on Steel City was heavily bombarded by heavy cannon-class weapons, resulting in about 30,000 casualties, after deducting the pursuit force and the garrison force, there were still nearly 300,000 wild boar riders available for deployment.
Su Xiao turned these 300,000 wild boar riders into a hunting force, specifically tasked with surrounding and attacking the enemy forces coming to reinforce Lieutenant Colonel Wenna, intending to trap the Sun Legion inside Steel City.
When encountering small enemy forces, they would first encircle them, then charge, scatter the enemy, and finally quickly devour them.
If they encountered a large force, such as a reinforcement force of over 100,000, they would ignore it for the time being. When the enemy attacked Steel City, the hunting force would strike hard from the rear.
The force that was hit hardest by the hunting force was Lieutenant General Whitely's "Eleventh Unit." A total of 140,000 soldiers came to reinforce, but they were caught between our garrison and the hunting force. It was a complete disaster. Of the 140,000 Vassal troops, fewer than 50,000 managed to break out.
Soon, these 50,000 Vassal soldiers discovered a truth: two legs really couldn't outrun four legs. They ran ahead, with the hunting force trailing behind, occasionally launching a charge. After four charges, the commander of this force surrendered.
After Brigadier General Rez was driven back, Lieutenant General Whitely once again became the overall commander of the "Border War Zone." He had just recently passed the buck, but who would have thought it was a boomerang? It circled over Brigadier General Rez's head and then slammed back onto Lieutenant General Whitely's.
In the area between Freedom City and Steel City, at the "Second Unit" garrison, inside the temporary command post.
Lieutenant General Whitely sat at the head, flanked by a group of Vassal generals, including Brigadier General Rez, whose head was bandaged and one arm in a cast.
"General, what do we do now? Should we abandon the defenders inside Steel City?"
The Vassal major general who spoke glanced at Brigadier General Rez. The commander of the besieged defenders inside the city was Brigadier General Rez's daughter, Lieutenant Colonel Wenna.
"Rez, I'd like to hear your opinion."
Lieutenant General Whitely said in a deep voice. Hearing this, Brigadier General Rez hesitated, thought for a dozen seconds, and then said:
"I propose... abandoning the defenders led by Lieutenant Colonel Wenna inside Steel City. They have no hope."
Saying this, Brigadier General Rez let out a long sigh, as if he had aged several years. Everyone knew this decision was correct, but for Brigadier General Rez himself, he believed this decision was wrong, yet he had no choice.
"Tally the battle losses."
Lieutenant General Whitely spoke. His adjutant picked up a prepared document. When the battle losses of over 270,000, including casualties and captured, were reported to the gathered Vassal generals, everyone was shocked. They hadn't realized so many of their soldiers had been killed or captured.
It was no wonder. Small units here and there were wiped out—sometimes a few hundred, sometimes one or two thousand. It didn't seem like much individually, but when added up, it became a terrifying number.
Additionally, there was the initial brutal defense of Steel City and the battle that almost made Lieutenant General Whitely want to shoot himself—the "rear-end attack." These two battles had the highest number of Vassal casualties.
Every time he thought of this, Lieutenant General Whitely's head spun.
Bang!
Lieutenant General Whitely's fist slammed onto the wooden table in front of him. If the Tribunal investigated this matter, he would indeed be in for a rough time.
At this point, the border defense line wasn't just breached—it was shattered. The enemy legion was so strong that Lieutenant General Whitely, Brigadier General Rez, and others were somewhat bewildered.
Just then, a blood-stained messenger rushed into the command post and said urgently:
"General, the enemy cavalry has charged into our territory!"
"Which side? Freedom City?"
Lieutenant General Whitely's face twitched. Freedom City, as the capital of the "Watchtower," was Lieutenant General Whitely's hometown.
"No, a 20,000-strong light cavalry unit of the enemy is advancing along the coast toward 'Loyash.'"
"Loyash?"
Lieutenant General Whitely's expression changed. The Tribunal was located in "Loyash." Today's disastrous defeat on the border meant that every officer present would face the Tribunal's judgment.
And now, the enemy's elite light cavalry was attacking "Loyash." If the Tribunal was destroyed, wouldn't that mean no one would judge them for a while? They could use their connections to try to make amends.
Thinking of this, Lieutenant General Whitely looked around at the gathered Vassal generals. No one spoke.
"We must rush to reinforce 'Loyash.' Major General Dart, your Fifteenth Unit will go."
"Huh?"
Major General Dart was a bit stunned. His unit was a "Heavy Armor + Heavy Cannon Mixed Unit." With their march speed, by the time they reached "Loyash," it would already be gone.
Lieutenant General Whitely's arrangement wasn't unreasonable. Other Vassal units would find it hard to stop the Sun Legion, but facing Major General Dart's iron turtle unit, the Sun Legion would indeed find it troublesome, as there were too many heavy cannon-class weapons.
Lieutenant General Whitely interlaced his fingers. His inner thoughts were: 'No one can judge me, not even the Tribunal.'
...
Steel City, Central District.
The streets were littered with corpses, and buildings on both sides were burning. Lieutenant Colonel Wenna sat on the steps, holding a uniquely shaped knight's rapier in her right hand.
This weapon was a combination of a gun and a sword. In the middle of a sword fight, one could suddenly point the blade at the enemy, telling them, "Sir, times have changed," and then pull the trigger on the hilt, sending a penetrating bullet through the enemy's vital point.
Lieutenant Colonel Wenna was no weak woman. At 26, aside from being a bit nearsighted, she had no other flaws.
The sound of claws scraping across the ground reached Lieutenant Colonel Wenna's ears. She took a deep breath of the hot air, pressed the sharp blade against her neck, closed her eyes, and prepared to end her life to avoid humiliation after capture.
"If you die, who will lead the remaining Vassal soldiers to surrender?"
A voice reached Lieutenant Colonel Wenna's ears. She opened her eyes and saw a man wearing a black feather cloak, holding a soul stone in his hand, sitting on a building across the street.
Seeing this person, Lieutenant Colonel Wenna felt a slight familiarity. Suddenly, she remembered—this was the Sun Lord, the source of all this war.
Lieutenant Colonel Wenna's heart began to race. Please don't misunderstand—it wasn't that Su Xiao had romantic luck. Rather, Lieutenant Colonel Wenna was preparing to assassinate Su Xiao.
"My guards happen to be away. This is a good opportunity."
Su Xiao took a bite of the soul crystal in his hand, crunching it as he chewed.
Lieutenant Colonel Wenna stood up from the steps. Her heart beat faster. Reason told her this was definitely a trap, but hope told her this was an opportunity, a once-in-a-lifetime chance.
"I... surrender."
Lieutenant Colonel Wenna made as if to release the rapier in her hand. The next moment, she vanished from her spot and appeared beside Su Xiao.
'Bee Sting: Bone Piercer.'
The rapier turned into a flash of light, stabbing at Su Xiao's neck. Lieutenant Colonel Wenna's eyes were filled with ecstasy. Then, she turned into pieces of flesh like flower petals, thin as cicada wings, and the blood mist was blown away by the wind. This was a combination of cruelty and beauty.
Intense pain assaulted her. Lieutenant Colonel Wenna, sitting on the steps, took a deep breath, her pupils sharply contracting from the death experience.
On the roof across the street, Su Xiao, holding the soul crystal and about to take another bite, suddenly stopped. He felt like something had happened, but nothing had. The source of all this was centered on the female Vassal officer across from him.
His first thought was whether he had encountered a time-rewind ability, causing his memory to have retroactive amnesia. But on second thought, that wasn't it.
Su Xiao was sure this wasn't a time-based ability because he knew a time-based scoundrel named Zuiyasi. Su Xiao and he were barely friends—it was complicated.
Excluding time-based abilities, it was a very powerful precognition ability. The female officer across from him had foreseen something, which was why there was this strange sense of loss.
Su Xiao speculated that she had foreseen an event happening, so she didn't take action, which caused his own actions to change, resulting in this sense of loss.
Or, according to normal development, he might have already killed her, but because she didn't act as she had foreseen, she didn't die.
Su Xiao had encountered people with precognition or prophecy abilities before, but this was the first time he had seen someone predict such a short-term event with such accuracy.
Banishment detached from Su Xiao's sleeve and shot toward Lieutenant Colonel Wenna the next moment.
Bang! Banishment embedded itself in the stone pillar beside Lieutenant Colonel Wenna's ear. With her reaction speed, she shouldn't have been able to dodge this attack.
This ability truly surprised Su Xiao. It was worth studying.
"I surrender."
Lieutenant Colonel Wenna released the sword-gun in her hand and raised her hands. This time, it was a real surrender. In the precognition where she assassinated Su Xiao, she felt like a tiny sparrow, with astonishing courage, pecking the nose of a giant beast. At the time, she felt nothing, but afterward, her hands trembled uncontrollably, and she was filled with fear.
As soon as Lieutenant Colonel Wenna surrendered, Su Xiao received a flood of notifications.
[Notification (Reincarnation Paradise): You have breached the Vassal Alliance's border defense line.]
[This is a historical-level event in this world.]
[You have received Victory Medals ×3.]
[Victory Medal: A unique resource in World Conquest battles. One Victory Medal can be converted into 1.5% to 3% World Source in any Primordial World (if used in this world, one Victory Medal can be converted into 5% World Source).]
[You have received a Certificate of Honor. If you use this item to form an adventure group, the group's initial rank will be A-level (adventure group ranks range from E to SSS).]
...
[Notification (Void Tree): You have captured Steel Fortress (Steel City).]
[You have met the following conditions.]