Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 1307: Chapter 1306: Wasteland - Total War

Strictly speaking, this is a war where both sides have made lengthy preparations, yet neither side is truly prepared, and it erupted beyond everyone’s expectations — everything went beyond the plans, not developing according to the blueprints of the participants. Everything happened suddenly, and the responsiveness of frontline soldiers became the deciding factor. Everything is gradually spiraling out of control, with "loss of control" being the only constant.

Communication with the Silver Empire has been severed, the status of the Elf Alliance remains unknown, and the great walls and sentinel towers have evidently fallen into a fatal error state. The barrier that has protected the civilized world for seven centuries is rapidly collapsing and disappearing. The number of monsters wandering and gathering deep within the wasteland inside the walls clearly exceeds the theoretical upper limit, and their fierce momentum and the vaguely manifest "discipline" during the attack are shocking. The frontline forces originally prepared for the advancement task were compelled to switch from offense to defense in the face of these changes, turning into rocky ridges to block the uncontrollable and ever-expanding breach in the great walls — the changing situation has left experienced commanders and veterans astonished.

Despite this, for the aberration Legion that is attacking the northern defensive line, their imagined scene of a "mortal army fighting in a hurry, the negligent barrier defense quickly collapsing, and the tide of aberrations easily breaking into the civilized realm" didn’t materialize. The humans outside the walls not only didn’t scatter in a hurry but instead seemed as if they had long been prepared, erecting iron barriers. The tank division and heavy artillery positions, like mobile fortress walls, began booming outside the line of sight, and the reckless charging legion found themselves under a rain of fire on their way, with filthy and corrupted limbs soaring through the sky along with the mud and rock beneath their feet amid overwhelming explosions — the Dark Druid Priest responsible for command at the rear of the legion was also taken aback.

Both sides were startled, and at this moment in the war, the first and greatest consensus reached by both warring parties emerged: What the heck is on the other side?!

A low hum cut through the sky, the shadow of Dragon Cavalry Fighter jets skimmed past the depressing clouds, and those anti-gravity aircraft with inverted cone-shaped bases swooped and circled above the aberration tide like swifts, dropping their heavy bombs or incendiary bombs in the process. The explosions and flames splashed like waves in the water among the enemy troops. Simultaneously, arcs of black-red electricity rose from the ground, sweeping through the bombers’ return paths. Two aircraft were hit and exploded in mid-air, disintegrating, while more completed their bombing runs and quickly returned to the Forward Base in the southern banded flatlands.

The intelligence from the front line also became clearer in the eyes of the base commanders as the flight units returned.

"Aberrations, everywhere, almost like the mud flowing over the ground," in the command center, the images from the frontline troops were clearly displayed on the holographic projection. A dark-skinned adjutant stood beside Sir Philip, speaking quickly. "Previously, they only wandered around the breakthrough points or even farther away, but after abnormalities appeared in the great walls, these wandering monsters seemed to have suddenly received a signal, starting to surge towards us wave after wave — and are accurately moving towards the breaches in the barrier."

"How many are there? How many more next?" Sir Philip quickly asked.

"Impossible to count, there are constantly monsters gathering from deeper within the wasteland joining this ’tide’," the adjutant shook his head seriously. "Wherever this tide passes, aberrations without rationality immediately ’respond to the call,’ making it impossible to calculate. And those monsters have some degree of anti-air capability, their arcs and energy beams can hit our Dragon Cavalry, causing great interference to reconnaissance."

Sir Philip furrowed his brows, quickly analyzing and summarizing possible clues from the adjutant’s report. Two seconds later, he opened his mouth in a deep voice: "They likely have some sort of ’command system,’ similar to the Crystal Cluster Legion from before. These command systems are probably mixed somewhere within their main forces. The mechanism could be some kind of pheromone or neural pulse... They can make nearby irrational aberrations obey commands and take action..."

He suddenly raised his head, looking at his adjutant: "Search for areas in the enemy forces that are most heavily defended or have a clear concentration of energy, focus firepower to destroy those units — if there are too many enemies to reach them, then increase the offensive. General Winter has completed main cannon calibration, notify the frontline troops that their requested fire support will be delivered within ten minutes."

"Yes, General!"

The adjutant took the order, quickly passing the instructions down. The entire First Legion’s command system had begun high-speed operation, with command strings transmitted from the command post to the front lines, while first-hand intelligence encountered by frontline soldiers was quickly sent to higher command within the Forward Base through various communication stations set up in the banded flatlands.

Sir Philip, Wright, and other senior commanders stood before the expansive tactical platform, with several holographic projection crystals set on the platform casting various scenes. The largest of the projected images displayed a sandbox projection of the entire region currently controlled by the First Legion — on the projection, semi-transparent plains and hills were clearly marked as zones of engagement by bright color blocks. The blue color blocks representing the First Legion remain firmly rooted at the foot of the great walls, while the black-red tide representing the enemy continues to surge towards the breach, getting continuously eliminated. The blue blocks occasionally recede and fill in, maintaining an overall balance of attack and defense on the surface between both sides.

But this balance is not long-lasting — Sir Philip is well aware of this.

Because on that holographic projection, the pale green, semi-transparent shadow representing the great walls and sentinel towers is continuously weakening. On the defensive line faced by the Cecil Legion, a breach large enough to accommodate half a city has already appeared in the elven barrier, and the range of this breach continues to expand!

The First Legion is strong, General Winter’s main cannon is powerful, yet can only cover areas within its range. If these great walls continue collapsing, it won’t take long before the breach grows to an unblockable extent, especially in those natural hazard areas beyond monitoring — humans can’t gain footing there, aberration monsters won’t mind if it’s a mud pit or poison swamp!

And this isn’t even the worst scenario Sir Philip can imagine...

The young imperial commander furrowed his brows, staring at the holographic projection before him. Instead, what floated into his mind is the entirety of the Gondor wasteland.

The collapse likely isn’t limited to this single defensive line of Cecil. As communication with the Silver Empire has already been cut off, it indicates a major problem in the upper-level control nexus of the entire great walls, so the worst possibility is... the entire wasteland’s surrounding barriers are disappearing.

The entire civilized world is rapidly exposed to the wasteland!

And it’s not just Sir Philip who is aware of this; the tall Wright standing beside also furrowed his brows. The Practitioner of Holy Light spoke solemnly: "We can’t reach the Silver Empire right now, and communication with Typhon is also severely disrupted. I suspect the range of barrier loss is very large, possibly even a complete collapse along the line... there might be huge breaches all around the wasteland right now."

"Frankly, I’m not very worried about our side," Sir Philip nodded grimly, "We still have many countermeasures and reserve forces here, and I’m not too worried about the Typhon Empire either. They can hold on, but I’m most concerned about the Silver Empire — they hold the control rights of the great walls, and with this situation, they’ve obviously encountered a problem there..."

Before he could finish speaking, a burst of hurried footsteps suddenly sounded from outside the door. The next moment, a messenger quickly ran into the command hall.

"Report, sir!" The messenger, flushed from running, saluted Sir Philip and said quickly, "We’ve restored communication with the Typhon Camp!"

"Communication has been restored?" Philip’s face lit up with joy, and he immediately asked, "How’s the situation over there?"

"Worse than ours," the communicator swallowed, "Half of their barrier has already extinguished, and numerous monsters are pouring into the battlefield from the hills and valleys, including many giant mutated aberrations—the only good news is that their terrain is more complex, and the area where the barrier has extinguished has a ridge facing those monsters. The Typhon Empire currently occupies the high ground, relying on their Mage Corps to eradicate the enemies in the lowlands—but things will get tricky when the Mages exhaust their Magic Power."

"... It seems the situation is as bad as we anticipated," Wright’s voice came from beside Philip, "There are multiple breaches in the barrier, and the sentinel towers on the Typhon Empire’s side have also lost control."

"The good news is the Typhon Empire can temporarily hold the line. The bad news is that we likely have no reinforcements for our flank—if the barrier continues to deteriorate, they might even need our support," Philip leaned on the tactical projection table, his eyes fixed on the unwavering line of defense standing against the black and red tide, "...Any news from Andresha Wendell’s side?"

"She states that the Typhon Legion will find a way to seal the breach and asks if we need support."

"...Convey our gratitude to the Typhon Empire, reply telling her we can still stand," Philip nodded, "Has the communications team returned?"

"We’ve only partially restored communications with the eastern front; they’re now off to repair the next communication station."

"Eastern indeed..." In Philip’s mind, the image of a young man with short silver hair and a cheerful, reliable smile appeared. But he quickly shook his head, refocusing on the overall situation, "I understand, leave it to them."

"The situation here has been reported to the imperial capital, and reinforcements are departing from Southgate Fortress towards us," Wright looked at Philip, "But before the reinforcements arrive, the pressure we face will only mount..."

"No need to worry too much. The defense forces we’ve stationed here far exceed what’s ’necessary’," Philip gently exhaled, "From the start, when we were just preparing the counterattack plan, His Majesty seemed to have prepared for the worst. He invested more than you can see on this defensive line... To be honest, back then, even I felt it was a bit unnecessary, but now we all must admit His Majesty’s judgment on the waste land was right..."

He paused here, then continued with a solemn face, as if talking to himself: "What I truly worry about is the defensive lines in the other regions..."

At that moment, a staff officer’s voice suddenly interrupted Philip’s soliloquy: "Sir! Enemy troop movements have changed. Their main forces are repositioning!"

...

Continuously, pale blue arcs soared into the sky from the distant human defensive line, tracing parabolas under the murky clouds before plummeting onto the heads of the aberration Legion.

Every time such an arc fell, it triggered an explosion as mighty as powerful magic, with forceful shockwaves capable of tearing through the aberrations’ resilient bodies, and the ensuing high-temperature blaze could instantly vaporize entire regions.

Even more terrifying than the power of these explosions was their sheer number.

They rained down endlessly from above, like a torrential downpour. The bombardment had persisted for a long time, yet showed no signs of abating, instead growing fiercer. This could only mean one thing: for those "Cecil people," launching such attacks wasn’t something that would lead to exhaustion, at least not in the short term, and they had even more backup forces at their disposal. This force would only continue to grow over time.

The aberration grunts attacking the front were vast in number. Even braving the falling "Skyfire," they made several charges at the humans’ frontlines. Despite their reckless onslaught supported by sheer numbers, they achieved some results—humans had retreated numerous times, albeit only slightly each time. According to sensory signals reported back by the aberrations, the Dark Druid Priest commanding this Legion could see how with each advance, ironclad war machines and accompanying soldiers among the humans could swiftly reposition. Faced with charging aberrations, they didn’t scatter but withdrew orderly—and soon after their retreat, weapons that combusted would sweep the entire battlefield, incinerating the aberrations that charged the defenses.

Fighting like this led to a disproportionate imbalance between investment and outcome.

The aberration Legion didn’t fear losses. These lumbering wandering creatures were hardly considered compatriots or valuable soldiers; the Dark Druids had no pity or sorrow for the death of these cannon fodder. Yet, even as "cannon fodder," from a grand perspective, they held valuable "cost," and excessive costs early in the plan would undoubtedly impact subsequent actions.

Behind the tidal wave of the aberration Legion, a towering, menacing Warped Treant wriggled its root-like tentacles while moving to the side of another Treant. A raspy, ominous voice emanated from its wobbling canopy: "Archbishop, the frontal assault faltered. Human resistance is fierce. Should we continue intensifying the attack?"

The Druid Priest, known as Archbishop, shook his head and raised his gaze, observing the distant weakening great walls barrier and the sentinel towers at the barrier’s node, which had lost their protective glow.

Under the dim, dull light, the glow atop the high tower had grown even fainter, flickering between the magic symbols on its surface, as if on the brink of collapse.

"We should give those stubborn humans a little ’surprise’—and maybe let those idiot elves trying to reboot the barrier system come to their senses.

"Redirect the main forces, and destroy that tower!!"