Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 1368: Chapter 1367: Thunder and Rainstorm

The clouds are gathering, covering the entire sky above Fort Greta at an astonishing speed. In less than a minute, the originally clear sky was shrouded under a layer of dark clouds, as if the night sky had fallen. The wind filled with moist water vapor blew between the plains and hills, even the sound of trees shaking from the jungle direction seemed to carry the vague sound of surging splashes—the soldiers fiercely resisting the aberrations’ offensive on the front lines quickly noticed this unusual change. Those who still had strength looked up, and immediately saw the "smiling face" spanning over half the sky and still expanding.

"What the hell is that?!" A knight captain with a grim scar on his cheek stared in amazement at the smile floating in the clouds. The bizarre nature of this thing seemed overwhelmingly sinister, making even the battle-hardened knight feel a shiver down his spine, "That cloud is grinning at me! And it looks like a girl’s face!"

The sound of a missile piercing through the air came from nearby. A combat mage responsible for suppressive fire next to the knight captain fired a series of arcane bullets towards the enemy’s location. After that, the transcendent whose consciousness was already blurred from spellcasting also looked up and rubbed his eyes vigorously, muttering dreamily: "Am I about to die... they say when dying people see the faces of their loved ones in the sky... did my grandfather turn into a beautiful girl after he died?"

Before the combat mage could finish speaking, a rapid sound of footsteps suddenly came from nearby. Immediately, a knight in light armor rushed over from around the corner of a fortification, the young messenger knight shouting loudly: "King’s orders! Friendly fire is about to arrive, leave this area immediately, the entire army retreat towards Fort Greta! King’s orders, entire army fall back to Fort Greta!"

"Retreat?!" The knight captain grabbed the messenger knight who was about to run past him, "Friendly forces? Where did these friendly forces come from? Wasn’t it said there were no reinforcements?"

"I don’t know! Just follow orders!" the messenger knight said quickly, turning around to swiftly run to the other side of the fortifications, continuing to loudly deliver King Audris’s direct orders as he ran.

The previous order was to hold the ground at all costs, but now the instruction to retreat was issued, leaving the knight captain momentarily bewildered. But this did not affect his obedience to orders in the slightest—after swiftly suppressing all doubts in his heart, the battle-hardened captain grabbed the nearby combat mage who was clearly mentally scattered, his thunderous voice echoing along the line he was responsible for: "Retreat!"

On the narrow wasteland stretching towards the direction of the wasteland, between layers of fortifications and obstructing steel spikes built to fight aberrations, the soldiers of the Highmountain Kingdom began a rapid retreat after nearly a day and night of bloody battle. As they retreated, they tried their best to leave numerous magic traps and mana crystals in dangerous critical states at the front lines. Meanwhile, in the temporary command center behind this line, King Audris constantly scanned the sky, observing the changes in the cloud layers amidst the increasingly dense rain.

"The retreat order has been issued, Your Majesty," came the commander’s voice from beside him, "The aberrations are quickly occupying our previous positions."

"Good, we’re also preparing to withdraw to the fortress," Audris nodded promptly, speaking quickly, "Don’t forget to leave some explosives behind—the fact is that those charged Rebecca Crystals can play a big role even without being fired as shells."

The commander immediately accepted the order, but Prince Lorin couldn’t help but ask, "Father, are we really going to completely withdraw from here? Perhaps we can leave some Elite Rangers to coordinate with Cecil and the sea demons..."

"You don’t understand their combat style—especially the Cecil people," Audris shook his head, looking at his recently-adult heir still lacking much experience, "The best way to cooperate with Cecil on the battlefield is to quickly leave their fire coverage area, the faster the better. If you’ve seen those visual materials, you’ll know that their new type of magic cannon is completely different from your understanding of ’long-range firepower’..."

Shortly after, the temporary command center where Audris was located began an orderly retreat, and the flag representing the Highmountain Kingdom was lowered from the hastily built walls constructed by the "Mud to Stone" spell. Behind them, the clouds covering the entire battlefield had thickened to a critical point, nearly indistinguishable from the night sky, swirling with substantial moisture. Amidst these heavy clouds, a giant figure suddenly swept through the darkness, enveloped in a faint glow.

In dragon form, Asharena flew through the thick clouds, her body covered in steel-forged mechanical armor, the beacon lights flickering at the tips of her wings and tail. The surrounding cloud layers seemed to consciously part beside her, not affecting her flight or ground observation at all—after briefly circling twice, Asharena activated the magic web terminal at her chest.

"They’ve already withdrawn... Alright then, someone actually understood the ’signals’ the sea demons sent out, those humans do have something different in their ’intuition.’ Byron, prepare for fire coverage, those monsters have entered the target area, wait for my signal—"

Moments later, piercing whistles cut through the thick sky from the direction of the distant Sacred River Ordo, several lines glowing faint cyan ascended, carving arcs that seemed to slice open the sky, directly flying towards the expansive wasteland northwest of Fort Greta. From the direction of Fort Greta, one could see a series of flashes suddenly appearing in the dark clouds covering the sky, like thunder traversing the clouds, with star fires falling from the sky—a brief delay later, the sharp whistles from the sky transformed into terrifying explosions rising from the ground.

On the ground, having just "broken through" humans’ last line of defense, the aberrations, like a tidal wave occupying the positions previously defended by the soldiers of Highmountain Kingdom, were swiftly swept away by successive explosions and deadly shockwaves. The commanders behind these monsters didn’t even have time to feel any joy from breaking through the defense before instantly receiving signals of mass casualties from their front-line troops.

On the towering walls of Fort Greta, King Audris, who had just retreated to safety, couldn’t even take off his cloak or dry the rain from his hair before hearing the colossal explosion coming from the northwest direction. The terrifying sound akin to muffled thunder rolled between heaven and earth, so powerful it shook the ancient and honorable fort, causing the windows protected by steel frames to tremble slightly, shelves and weapon racks to make unsettling friction noises as they swayed. Prince Lorin ran to the lookout, the giant mushroom clouds rising from the ground in the distance and the bright arcs slicing through the clouds leaving the young man, who had only recently entered the battlefield and hadn’t quite understood "contemporary art," in a state of shock.

He even trembled slightly in the face of this power akin to a natural disaster—not from fear, but purely from the shock.

King Audris also came to the lookout. As he watched Skyfire covering the land and saw the expedition fleet of the Cecil launch their "truth" shells from the direction of Sacred River, even he found himself not much calmer than his son—after all, his understanding of Cecil’s modern weapons was limited to the visual materials in Cecil’s official propaganda and the few imported small and medium caliber magic cannons, and witnessing the bombardment of a warship’s main cannon up close was a completely different concept.

"Father..." Lorin finally fully understood the necessity of his father’s earlier order to retreat the entire army, "Such powerful shelling can also be created by ’magic cannons’? That’s in another league compared to what we’re using..."

"Cecil calls that ’truth,’ and some of their soldiers prefer to refer to it as ’contemporary art.’ The medium and small-caliber magic cannons we can import are in a completely different league from that main cannon," Audris said in a deep voice, "Though I hope, beyond the power of these giant cannons, you start considering a deeper question from now on."

Prince Lorin didn’t grasp the meaning of his father’s words for a moment: "A deeper issue?"

"What kind of nation can create and sustain such power," King Audris placed his hand on Lorin’s shoulder, but his gaze went beyond his son’s shoulder, looking down at the kingdom’s soldiers who had just withdrawn from the battlefield and were now resting in the fort’s courtyard, "I’m quite envious..."

...

"The first wave of attacks has landed, impact within the designated range, deviation is acceptable," On the bridge of the Winter, Byron Kirk stood on the captain’s platform. Asharena’s voice came from the magic web terminal in front of him, and the holographic projection above the terminal flickered with light, presenting the land under the cover of artillery fire. Amidst the continuous flashes, the turbid tides formed by aberrations surged like huge "waves," continuously throwing up massive amounts of grotesque and twisted blood and flesh remnants and airborne soil and rock debris, an awe-inspiring sight, "You can continue the bombardment."

"Bombardment effective, charge all main guns to full power, fire at full speed for fifteen minutes," Byron immediately ordered the gunfire officer next to him, "Engineering ship, prepare to dock, then immediately repair that node tower spotted by aerial reconnaissance before. We need to restore direct communication with Highmountain Kingdom and the Silver Empire before sundown today."

"Yes, Sir!"

The army operated swiftly like an efficient machine. The expedition fleet led by the Winter hurled powerful firepower across the river, while in the skies over the eastern area, thick clouds continued to spread, rapidly extending eastward.

Byron glanced at the clouds covering the sky, unable to resist turning to Cassandra standing beside him, with a somewhat peculiar expression on his face: "Speaking of which, your ’signals’ to the Highmountain Kingdom’s defenders actually got through..."

"Mainly because His Majesty Gawain Cecil communicated well with the southern front beforehand," Cassandra chuckled, "Of course, General Vanessa’s battlefield intelligence was even more important..."

"Honestly, I don’t think hanging a smiley face bigger than a city in the sky is ’battlefield intelligence,’ that thing could practically give people with average resilience a psychological trauma—and yet you managed to get the ’friendly reinforcements’ message across, to me it’s almost miraculous," Byron tugged at the corners of his mouth, "At least the other side has good intuition..."

"There was no other choice," Cassandra spread her hands helplessly, "Upon arriving here, we discovered all the border’s magic web node towers had already been destroyed by the aberrations, and the magic environment on the battlefield was unprecedentedly chaotic. The Winter’s communication equipment couldn’t reach Fort Greta, and on the front line, things were getting desperate, so we had to improvise. After all, overlooking the details, the final effect is good, isn’t it."

"...Anyway, next time when I hear you talking about ’battlefield intelligence’ and ’improvisation,’ I’ll be sure to investigate thoroughly." Byron sighed, and then turned his attention back to the battlefield in the distance. In the aerial reconnaissance footage sent back by Asharena, he could clearly see the process of the aberration army’s offensive being gradually dismantled under the bombardment, but he knew that this fire support alone wasn’t enough to reclaim the entire narrow plain north of Fort Greta.

From Fort Greta to the Sacred Stars Temple Forward Base in the east, the entire southern battlefield had a narrow and complex front line, and over the repeated tug-of-war throughout the past winter, this front line had been turned into a torn and chaotic land filled with ruins, trap zones, and magic turbulence points by the firepower of both aberrations and human forces. On such a vast and complex battlefield, fire support had its limits.

"After this round of firepower deployment, it will be time for General Vanessa’s expeditionary army to ’land,’" Byron glanced at the mechanical clock fixed on a nearby pillar and said solemnly to Cassandra, "According to plan, we will first secure the safety of the region north of Fort Greta. After your forces take over the area, we’ll set up a front line base, and then my marines will ensure the safety of Highmountain Kingdom’s northwest border, completely blocking the aberration legion advancing south from the Augari Area, and you will continue to move towards the eastern area by means of rain until you join forces with the Silver Empire’s Thousand Years Legion—no problem, right?"

Cassandra closed her eyes slightly, communicating with General Vanessa, who was currently controlling the weather from high above, through psyche echo. A moment later, she opened her eyes and nodded to Byron: "We have reconfirmed subsequent actions with General Vanessa. She’s just waiting for your signal flare."

"Good." Byron exhaled gently, then watched the ticking hands on the mechanical clock, feeling the recurring tremors from the ship underfoot caused by the main guns firing, and his mind settled in unprecedented calm.

Fighting alongside allies from the deep sea—this wasn’t in his original plan, and due to the enormous differences between the sea demons and land races in terms of technology, combat style, and physiological structure, their initial cooperation was destined to fall short of seamless and exquisite coordination. Rather than formulating an extensive array of tactics only to face constant issues on the chaotic battlefield due to poor communication, both he and Vanessa believed that a more straightforward and forceful approach was needed to resolve the problems.

First step, the Empire Expedition Fleet with long-range heavy firepower would clear the field on the Aldo River, throwing all their mightiest shells into the engagement range and flattening the vanguard of the aberrations to clear out a sizable landing zone.

Second step, before the aberrations could react, the warriors of the sea demons’ expeditionary army would descend with justice—given sufficient preparation and pre-executed form transitions, the well-trained sea demons can perform airborne operations in the form of rain without worrying about casualties. They will quickly establish a frontline base on the landing zone cleared by Byron, and meanwhile, this carefully prepared "rainfall" will alter the entire area’s environment in a short period, adapting it to a "water environment" conducive to the sea demons’ performance.

The pointer on the mechanical clock reached the final mark, and the continuous roar of artillery fire on the river ceased.

"Send the signal," Byron commanded solemnly, "It’s time for rain."