In the 13th century, the Mongol Empire launched a massive conquest of Eurasia, and the elite Mongol cavalry began to advance westward from the Far Eastern wastelands in a sweeping manner, attacking at the same speed as the Allied armoured counteroffensive today.

The difference is that the myth of the invincibility of the Mongols was eventually shattered in Egypt.

"Black Dragon-1 This is Hawkeye, please reply if you receive it." The armored force composed of land tanks and individual mechs is like a spear, and this spear is not the wooden spear that can be broken in the hands of the militia, but the spear of Longinus.

Even if there were gods standing in front of them, the torrent of steel would rush through them resolutely.

"Black Dragon-1 received." Astrid replied. The midday sun shines through the high-strength alloy portholes with excellent light transmission, shining on the golden bars on the epaulettes of her military uniform, and in her turquoise eyes, there is no enemy or friendly army in front of her.

She is the tip of the spear, indestructible, in front of her, if there is an enemy, annihilation, behind her, thousands of mechas, follow.

"Black Dragon-1, open your public channel." At the other end of the intercom was Colonel Hausen.

Astrid frowned her very delicate brows, she had raised a gray wolf, different from the tender one of the wolves hunting in groups, her wolf is always alone, even if Astrid is its nominal owner, the gray wolf will never show its back easily, it is a wolf, not a dog.

She remembered the early hours of this morning, she stood in the mecha parking lot with her hands behind her back, watching the vulture transport planes full of airborne troops fly overhead, and it was not until an hour later that she boarded her "cute kitten" T-51 mecha painted black and red dragon, and the Emar Fortress stood a few kilometers away, and she knew very well that these brave and fearless airborne troops were the true pioneers.

"Understood."

Astrid turned on the public channel, and it was not as noisy and chaotic as she had imagined, filled with the meaningless screams of men with excessive hormones, and even less of the usual idiots yelling "full metal sluts".

It's quiet, so quiet that there's only a slight harshness of the radio waves.

"Say something, the flower of the army, but this sentence will go down in history." Colonel Hausen reminded in a separate channel.

Astrid was a little silent, her right eye was attached to the over-the-horizon scope, aimed at the Emar Fortress, she easily found the barrel of the 406MM naval gun at the base of the city wall, and the super-heavy mecha, the famous "Ivan the Terrible", the gaze moved upward, there was a lone soldier. Seems to be watching her too.

Astrid's throat was a little cold, she knew that she was not destined to be encircled, destined to be doomed to a surprise attack by the airborne troops, and what awaited her would not be written in history at this moment, but the crater after the explosion of a super-heavy bomb.

She stopped, and the anthropomorphic control system stopped, and the mech steadied. Together, there was a spear-like armoured force behind her, but it was a dragon.

She looked at the fortress, her fingers closed, and slowly rose to the mecha face, touching the steel brow, just like the heart of steel, the heart of steel.

For a moment, her shout echoed on the public channel, and in a heartbeat, countless Allied soldiers heard the voice of the flower of the army, the Valkyrie, and the second lieutenant of the 1st Mecha Division, Astrid Lindgren.

"Salute to the Airborne Forces! A true pioneer of freedom! ”

……

At some point, Simon was surrounded by people, and among the countless cheering soldiers, Simon, who was silent and cold like a statue of failure, seemed to be a remnant of another world. Everyone is cheering for the armored forces from the bottom of their hearts, and at the forefront of the armored dragon is the mecha Valkyrie, and the flower of the army is sincerely paying tribute to them, the true pioneers of freedom. The night of blood and fire roared, and the blizzard turned into tears at this moment.

It was a tear that flowed across Simon's dry and tired face, but not for the glamorous Valkyrie, not for the arrival of the armored forces that represented the smooth counteroffensive, or even for victory.

Stream for the dead.

At this time yesterday, there were still eight soldiers in Simon's team, and at this moment, he was the only one left.

Simon doesn't remember how many of his lost squads were, five years ago, in the Königsberg Encirclement, four years ago in Narvik in the North Sea, three years ago in Gotland, two years ago in Casablanca, a year ago in South Ossetia, this year in Maastricht, so what about next year, the year after?

War never ends.

Simon turned mechanically, the M47 still hanging on his chest, numbly walking past the place where he had fought bloody battles not long ago, no longer empty, squad after team of soldiers poured up the city walls, scrambling to catch a glimpse of the Allied vanguard mech, the airborne operation had been successful, the Imperial forces near the Emar Fortress had been routed on all fronts, they were airborne troops, they did not need to continue to fight for a while, from now on, there was a lot of time to relax.

Simon went against the crowd and walked to the square under the gun fortress, where the construction machinery began to carry the exoskeletons taken from the soldiers' bodies, and the dog tag boxes had long since disappeared, and the square soon became a gathering ground again, where the soldiers of the new airborne division held their rifles and tilted their heads to listen to the commander's lecture. Even in the information age, soldiers have a complete set of combat equipment, and when they take off their visual masks, it is still the human voice that shouts in their throats that is more inspiring.

Few Rangers passed the square indifferently, and only after seeing Simon's armbands did their eyes glow.

The two Rangers walked over to Simon's empty ammunition box and sat down, took out their cigarettes and handed them to Simon, and the three of them held cigarettes, and an unusually spicy cloud of smoke rose, and the Great Red Star brand cigarettes captured from the Imperial Army.

"Miller, this is Irons." Said the Ranger who handed Simon a cigarette.

"I'm from Company B and I, have you seen Captain Tath?" Miller lowered his head and kicked the shell casings at his feet.

Simon shook his head and replied, "No, I'm Simon Hayes of Company A, I watched Captain Ambrose of our company die with my own eyes, and until now, there has been no news from the battalion headquarters. Simon scratched his stubble-cluded chin and said mockingly.

"Maybe you, me, and him will survive."

The other two rangers sighed silently, the war will eliminate all the unlucky ghosts who do not fit their hearts, and if they can survive until now, maybe fate has prepared an extra gift package for them. Once you lose your basic respect for death, it will be more and more difficult to survive.

The lightness brought by the tobacco is accompanied by the lingering smell of human blood, and the big red star brand cigarettes are already recognized as having a strong taste, and the three of them smoked one after another, and when others saw it at first glance, they must think that the three of them were comrades-in-arms who had known each other for many years.

"What year did you join the army?" Irons asked suddenly, the Ranger had earthworm-like scars on his palms, and Simon could tell at a glance that this was caused by touching the barrel of the M3 machine gun, which meant that this person had chosen to touch the hot barrel in order to escape the war.

Simon glanced at it, indifferently unscrewed the kettle and drank his saliva, touching the barrel of the gun and it, the war has been fought for five years, and this is not the first time that the Allied forces have a major counteroffensive, and it is a normal person who wants to go home.

"2050."

"January 2050?"

"Yes."

Miller became excited, threw down the cigarette butt in his hand, and eagerly became enthusiastic: "My family and Irons are in Boston, my family is on the street, his house is at the end of the street, I heard that all the recruits who joined the army in January of that year were basically sent to the Königsberg encirclement. ”

Simon slowly swallowed the smoke into his mouth, the strong and heavy smell spreading from his trachea to his lungs, and he said, "Don't tell me that you two are also from the 25th Infantry Division. ”

The two Rangers laughed in unison. "Königsberg Cathedral, a spiritual shrine, it's a pity that I haven't been in, I have been squatting in the trench under Chapel Hill for almost half a year, and I passed by when I retreated, and there are only a few bricks left in the church."

Simon was a little tempted to say that he was in the church back then, watching the desolate infantry below the hill from the hill, and he was glad that the position was a roofed place, but he didn't think that the church was not blown up, but it was just left behind by the Imperial Army's convenient calculation of ballistics. So Simon replied.

"Well, it's a pity that the church was blown up in the end."

Simon stood up and picked up his rifle, and when he chatted like this, he felt that there was not much sadness, after all, the dead had been freed from this dilapidated world, and the catastrophe of the living was far from over, Blue Star would not stop because of war, and people should also look at tomorrow.

"I'm going to find the officer in charge, the rangers basically don't have much left, and one of the advantages of more people dying is that before the replenishment is completed, we will either be combined or given vacation."

"So, are you two coming?"

An hour later, Simon came out of the temporary naval artillery fort as the headquarters, and was in a much happier mood, and the other two rangers were also happy, because Simon guessed correctly, in the battle last night and this morning, the second airborne battalion of the Rangers lost three-quarters, and the command took into account the outstanding achievements of the Rangers in the battle to capture and defend the fortress, and the casualties were too heavy, and decided to let the remaining Rangers return to the rear for reorganization and accept supplements.

Simon walked to the fortress tarmac, vultures with open bellies, trucks full of supplies and soldiers driving back and forth, not far away, huge engineering mechs repairing the airport runway, Simon and the three of them hitchhiked, and finally stopped in front of a C-7 "Overlord" transport plane.

"Sergeant, there is only one plane to the west today, if you don't want to take it, you can wait until tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, but you have to convince the people in the command to let you get on the officer's plane!" The ground crew screamed at the top of his lungs, the noise of the engine starting drowned out all the sounds around him, and Simon had to get very close to hear it.

There were no mechs, no tanks, no infantry vehicles, no artillery, just a simple black coffin.

It was an airplane transporting the remains of fallen soldiers.