Chapter 5.4 - The Light Before Dusk
Currently, both Lafite and Curtis temporarily withdrew into their respective nests to treat their injuries. They both had a few more injuries added to their bodies today. After all, those chosen still had numbers on their side, so cutting them down one by one still exhausted quite a bit of energy, let alone the fact that most of their attention was concentrated on each other, so they didn’t bother avoiding some insignificant injuries.
However, when they thought of everything that happened today, Lafite and Curtis suddenly felt a strange feeling, as if everything didn’t seem all that real. However, as for where the problem laid, they couldn’t exactly pinpoint it. Could it be that their luck really was that bad, encountering such a large group of high level chosen? This seemed to be the most reasonable explanation, but what was reasonable didn’t always represent the truth; this was something that they both understood clearly.
Regardless of whether it was Lafite or Curtis, of those that reached their level, none of them were stupid.
As soon as they began to organize the clues hiding behind today’s matter, a mysterious sensation of danger suddenly appeared, surrounding their entire bodies! This type of feeling was impossible to grasp, and it continuously lingered about, but both Lafite and Curtis were almost certain that something bad was happening, moreover something that had to do with them.
The world slowly moved according to its own rules.
Dr. Connor who lost seventeen chosen in one go suddenly entered an extremely quiet state, no longer making any movements. Even if he still wanted to do something, there weren’t any chosen left to squander away. Bevulas who could have said to have indirectly suffered two great losses at Helen’s hands didn’t express anything, and those terrifying ability users below him each held their posts without moving. Haydn continued to watch over the chosen factory, and the ability users that were directly under him acted as if nothing happened, turning a blind eye to the sudden decrease in the number of chosen. Helen was busy with her research, while Lafite and Curtis who felt that things were becoming more and more dangerous gradually decreased the instances and intensity of the internal battles between themselves.
The flames of war continuously extended over the boundless great earth, more and more families and powers now involved in the war between these two giants. In the beginning, the ones that participated mostly did so for the sake of benefits, but later on, more and more people entered due to hatred. However, Bevulas and the Spider Empress who were now at war were like two silent mountains, watching each other from the distance, yet not making any other movements.
Thus, the current deadlocked situation arose.
To the uninhabited west, the great lakes weren’t peaceful. After unifying the entire region, at least nominally, Steel Gate’s war machines rumbled to a start, with enough equipment to arm several hundred soldiers continuously coming off the assembly line each day, and a few days later, it would be distributed to the soldiers waiting for them. Almost every few days, a strictly guarded vehicle fleet would enter Steel Gate from Kelan City, protected by several hundred soldiers. These were boxes of ability formulations!
Abilities were angelic, but also demonic. They changed the world, and also changed human history.
While standing at the roof of the command building, Su silently watched the hundreds of soldiers train in the not too distant public square. They still hadn't been equipped with weapons yet, but they all wore unifying military uniforms. After experiencing two weeks or so of training, they would be sent out into the battlefield one after another, opening up this drill ground for even newer recruits.
In the past month or so, several thousand soldiers had already emerged from Steel Gate, joining the front line of battle, making the endlessly burning flames of war flourish with even more vigor. Li Gaolei and Li were currently leading armies, fighting intensely in the south. Their strategic objective was extremely grand, wishing to open up a passage along the mountain range that led into the southern great sea. Meanwhile, something that stood in their way was the Alloy Brotherhood. The Alloy Brotherhood were walking the path of high tech machinery, using mobile armors as their main battle units. Even though they were still using the first era full cover mobile suit technology, after continuous improvements, their combat functions were already far greater than that of the original first generation machine armors.
However, for Li Gaolei and Li who came from the Black Dragonriders, they had more than enough ways of dealing with these steel giants that continued the olden era’s war ideology of using tanks. For example, they could use infantry guided missiles, guiding them into anti-tank minefields, bombarding them with heavy artillery; these were all good methods of dealing with these low mobility first generation machine armors. By relying on Steel Gate’s enormous military production capacity, as long as they wished, creating RPG type anti-armor weapons was not an issue. As for their shortcoming of being impossible to control precisely from long distances, they could make up for that through their soldier numbers. A single mobile suit’s production cost could be used to equip many, many soldiers. However, on this battlefield, by relying on Li’s strategic command and Li Gaolei’s tactics’ superiority, they often only needed to exchange seven or eight soldiers for one of the Alloy Brotherhood’s mobile suits.
The battle had already continued for more than a month. The Aloy Brotherhood retreated in defeat little by little, but the other side also had leaders proficient in command, several times unexpectedly counterattacking and regaining quite a bit of their previous disadvantage. In this era where conclusive scouting methods were lost, on the battlefield, the command tactics of leaders once again became the most decisive elements of war.
However, Su understood clearly that Li hadn't displayed all of her talents. After Little Luo escaped, Li seemed to have completely lost her moral support. After sinking into a period of depression, she suddenly poured all of her time and energy into war. From the army’s training, equipment plans, and even front line battle command, she did everything she could. When talks with the Alloy Brotherhood failed and war started, she even personally led troops into the front line. Even now, she still hadn’t returned to Steel Gate.
Li didn’t like war, she just didn’t want to see Su.