"Do you think something is wrong here, Dantiok?"

"If you're referring to the fact that your warriors are acting like rookies in front of those Avalons, trust me, brother, it's actually quite normal."

"That's not what I meant...... Wrong! ”

"Whose soldiers are like rookies!"

"Whoever gets angry is whoever's."

“……”

How did this guy become so naïve after decades in Avalon.

Kyle Valen's eyes narrowed.

He endured for a moment.

But he still couldn't hold back.

"Tell me, Dantiok, what the hell are you crazy about actually following the dick named Erwin and making his army the first line of defense: our battalion will do better."

The war blacksmith just chuckled.

"Then please tell me, brother: Erwin has asked us for two companies to support, and since you are not at ease, why don't you draw two companies from Ling's battalion, but borrow one from me?"

“……”

The One-Eyed Warlord had nothing to say, and Dantiok's voice echoed in his ears.

"So, don't kid yourself, Brother Kylvallen, you and I are well aware that among the three defender troops in this world, the group of outspoken-looking Avalon mortals is the one with the highest military literacy."

"After all, there are a large number of mortal veterans in their army who have served for forty or fifty years, and have undergone rejuvenation and transformation surgeries, and these new Salasmas bloods under my command have only served for an average of one or two decades, as for your seventy-seventh battalion, if I remember correctly, except for the company you sent out, the remaining companies are all newly recruited, right?"

"yes, the new blood of Olympia that was just added last month."

"Do you remember, how long these Olympian recruits had to train?"

“……”

Kylvallen lowered his head, his only eye focused on the thermal imaging instrument in front of him, which became the most reliable means of probing over a large area in the Iron Warrior's hands as the sky darkened.

"One year."

After a long time, he spat out the word.

"That's right, a year."

Dantioc nodded, his face contorted with sarcasm.

"It only takes six months of training and endless surgeries to turn an Olympian from a recruit to a warrior of the Iron Legion in less than a year, a force that we have to use, and when such a legionnaire stands in front of a veteran with forty years of service, even if it is just a mortal veteran, which of them do you think is more worthy of our trust?"

"Don't confuse the concept, Dantiok, even an Astarte recruit who has only been training for a year can easily twist off the heads of those forty-year-old elites in your mouth, or shatter every bone in their bodies."

"But war is not something that can be solved by twisting one's head or breaking bones."

The War Blacksmith shook his head, he looked like he wanted to continue arguing with his battle brother, and as his gaze casually swept over the thermal imaging equipment in front of him, a cloud of vague energy surged out of the two War Blacksmiths in the blink of an eye.

"What is this?"

“…… I don't know, I can't see clearly, it's definitely not a good thing. ”

Kyle Wallen complied, and before he could speak, the battle-hardened veteran habitually clicked the button next to him, sending the various sensors, birds, and particle scanners to a frantic pace.

With the roar of all the scanners being overloaded, the vast land around the fortress revealed its true nature in less than a second, and the heat source writhing on the ground was like a signal, and the two war blacksmiths watched him emerge from beneath the surface, and then, as if blowing the horn of the charge, in the blink of an eye, more heat sources, centered on the first source, from the cavern that had been judged to be no threat, poured into the surface world.

Dozens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands......

Distorted, multiplied, multiplied, and expanded their numbers at an incredible rate, as if the wind was blowing away the dark clouds in the night sky, causing many cruel stars to release their own light in an instant, the scanner released the screams of detecting a large number of enemies at microsecond intervals, and when the two war blacksmiths finally breathed heavily, the thermal imaging equipment in front of them was already full of those distorted heat sources, like a large boiling swamp.

"The Emperor bless us."

With only a cursory estimate of the number of these opponents, Kylvallen, with his resolute countenance, couldn't help but whisper a desperate prayer in his throat.

"He can't bless anything."

On the other side, Dantiok, who looked more urbane, gritted his teeth, his smooth forehead was full of green tendons, and as he spoke, his thick palm pressed the alarm.

"Let's believe in the steel in your hands."

The next moment, the shrill sound of sirens pierced the dreams of thousands of people, followed by the small sound of the night wind, as if thousands of rodents were migrating in the dark passages, and the sound of them made people's scalps tingle.

Almost at the same time, a flare rose from the positions of the Avalon auxiliaries, and Morgan's warriors didn't need to be reminded by the war blacksmith at all, the purple eyes that were unique to Avalon narrowed slightly, adjusting to the sudden light of the explosions in the night, and the distorted, ugly, Herudian faces under the bright light: too many to count.

In the next moment, the war cries, roars, shrill whistles and alien hoarseness, the resonance of thousands of guns and artillery fire, were released from the cage by the god of war, and a sun bathed in blood was rising in this nameless world that was forever dark.

——————

They're wrong, they're all wrong.

Breathing in the slightly smelly air, in Dantiok's ears, apart from the rumbling of artillery fire in the distance, there was only the almost hysterical command, or rather roar, of Kylvallen, and his voice alone was more than a dozen company commanders and junior officers combined.

But Dantiok didn't do that, he didn't need to, and by the time he put on his helmet and put his blaster and power sword in place, his Salamas bloods had spontaneously entered the defensive positions that had already been arranged, and they didn't need him to give orders at all, they were even about half a minute or so faster than the Olympia recruits who were driven by Kylvallen's words: for the Astarte warriors, it was already an unimaginably large gap.

But Dantiok didn't have time to make any more comparisons in his mind, and he used both of his brains to the extreme, checking for holes in the fortress while watching the battle on the other side of the river with concern: every inch of land as far as the eye could see worried him.

For the first time, the blacksmith of war had seen the power of the weapons of the Herud time, and he saw the fortress farthest away from the line of defense on the riverbank, the fortress which he had personally commanded in the afternoon, and boasted of its sturdiness, which had not lasted even a second in the face of the raging tide of Herud, and then fell apart like an old mountain: it was definitely not the result of any attack or bombardment, for apart from the incessant roar of the artillery of the Avalonian auxiliaries, There is simply nothing worth mentioning on the battlefield with ranged forces.

Dantiok could see a few thumb-thick beams of energy in the black-brown frenzy of the Heruds, and he guessed that they might be weapons like Phase Ions, these guns were far less powerful than the firearms in the hands of the Avalon auxiliaries, but there were so many that each salvo of the aliens was like a raging wave.

War blacksmiths don't know how many Heruds are storming the line on the other side of the river, maybe hundreds of thousands or a legion, from one end of the skyline to the other, all of them are this group of aliens, dirty robes, and greasy space-time vortex twists, without the slightest appearance of interstellar civilization.

But just as the primitive and ferocious Germanic barbarian tribes of ancient times were able to break down the camps of the Roman legions, the sheer number and madness, as well as the extensive underground network, still allowed these aliens to uproot the fortresses of the auxiliary armies one by one, and the war blacksmith almost watched the three fronts of the defense line fall in an instant, and just as he was about to mobilize his troops and cross the river to support, the roar of Kelvallen beside him brought him back to reality.

"What are they doing! Retreat! ”

Hearing this, Dantioc also squeezed next to the bird, and understood the reason why the One-Eyed Warlord was so angry: after the loss of the first three lines of defense, these mortal armies of Avalon did not carry out the work of recapture, but under the cover of follow-up fire, withdrew the troops in the next few fortresses and trenches, and blew up the hard-earned fortifications, although this move successfully took the lives of many Heruds, but compared to the disadvantages of the loss of the defensive line, it was simply not worth mentioning.

However, it cannot be said that they are blindly retreating, and many of the fronts that seem to have been pushed to the limit by the Heruds have not collapsed, but have been able to launch ferocious counterattacks, and these small elastic defenses have allowed Avalon's auxiliaries to withdraw largely intact and still maintain the integrity of the battle line.

What are they doing?

Before Dantiok could come up with an answer to that question. The communicator that Elwyn had left for him rang off, and Kyle Valen snatched it up and turned it on, and the other end of the communicator was a rumbling cannon fire that made his brow furrow slightly.

"The situation is manageable, two."

Before Perturabo's sons could ask questions, Avalon's mortal generals seemed to already know what they were looking for: it seemed that he had been questioned like this in battle before.

"The Herudians are more powerful and numerical than we think, dozens of Herudians together can crush a fortress in an instant, and they now have at least tens of thousands of people: but there are also differences in their abilities, we find that the individuals who rush to the front can only affect a range of less than two meters, but behind their battle lines, there are more capable advanced individuals."

"So, what do you want to do?"

The war blacksmith kept his voice as calm as possible, and while observing the battle situation at the front, he quickly calculated the distance between the main force of the Herudians and the positions of the auxiliary army in his mind, and at the same time connected the results of a series of mental calculations to the fleet in low earth orbit through the instruments next to him, and asked for timely fire support.

The calmness and logical ability that comes from the bloodline of the war blacksmith are vividly displayed at this moment, and Dantiok only blinks his eyes, and turns the chaotic vast battlefield in front of him into countless data streams, constantly pulling and pulling to the road to victory: and even if there are some errors in these thousands of calculations, Kylvallen next to him, although he still maintains a violent mentality, can also point out every flaw in time.

As Erwin took a few seconds to brew his words, the two war blacksmiths had ensured that their respective battalions were on the right track to victory: the roar of artillery, the sharpness of their shawls, and the support ships in orbit were looking for the best position to fire.

"I intend to abandon the trenches and fortresses at the front of the line, the situation is not what we had envisioned when we designed it, and there is no point in clinging to them."

As soon as he said this, Kylvallen frowned, but Dantioc reassured him.

"And what are you going to do?"

"Retreat, retreat to the banks of the river, retreat to the range of fire of the fortress, gather the remaining forces, and at the same time, I hope that you will be able to send your troops to support, and concentrate all the artillery fire on the fortress on the other side of the river: the fire sputter can effectively disrupt the phalanx of the Heruds, and as long as they do not form a numerical superiority in a certain area, this battle will still be fought today."

"All the firepower?"

Before Dantioc could speak, Kylvallen shouted: he had to, for the rumbling of cannon fire could barely drown out the roar of anger in the hearts of every warrior.

"What about the fortress here? The Heruds are good at fighting in the tunnels. ”

"Didn't we probe before, the soil under the fortress is not suitable for tunnel warfare, they can't dig in it at all: we need all the fire support, because the gap in forces is too big now."

"But ......"

"Listen to him, Kyle."

Danteok looked up and interrupted his fighting brother, his voice serious enough for Kyle to sigh at what a determined, yet convincing, light he saw in Dantiok's pupils.

"I've been fighting alongside them for decades, Kyle, believe me, they're going to be able to get the job done, and ordered all the artillery fire to be concentrated across the river: and you, General Erwin, after concentrating your troops, I need you to launch a partial counterattack, and it won't be dawn to hold on to it."

"As you wish."

General Avalon seemed to be confident in Dantiok's assurance, and he hung up the communicator without even listening to the ensuing argument, leaving only the two war blacksmiths who continued to look at each other: after a few seconds, Kylvallen also nodded silently, turned around, and went to carry out the order Dantioc had just given.

"Hoo ......"

The war blacksmith breathed a sigh of relief, he had not imagined that he would be able to suppress his comrades by imitating the gestures of the Lord of Avalon when he was on the Far Eastern Frontier: but now was not the time to think about it.

His gaze locked on the battlefield and captured the moment of victory: in the middle of the trench, almost alone outside the defensive line, a clear glint of long-range artillery sparkled with precision, and it hit the heart of the Herud frenzy, and then, the screams of these aliens almost tore through the canopy, and many of the attackers even turned and retreated.

The war blacksmith saw clearly, and as he and his assembled recruits hurried to the battlefield, the corners of Dantiok's mouth lifted slightly: at this moment, he was sure that the battle was worth fighting.

Though......

It looks like a lot of people will die.

——————

"A lot...... A lot of people ......"

The company commander poked his head out of the newly reinforced trench and used his night vision to search the battlefield that had been quiet for a few moments: less than a few minutes ago, it was littered with charging Hurd armies, but now, these goddamn aliens seemed to be retreating again.

Had it not been for the fact that warnings of attack and calls for help were still echoing in the positions and communication areas close to them, he would have almost thought that tonight's battle would be over.

After observing for a few seconds, he shrank back into the position and watched as one of his men hurried from the other end of the trench: this man had an answer on him, an answer to why the aliens in front of their position had suddenly retreated.

The company commander grabbed this subordinate, to be specific, his artillery commander.

"Are you sure you hit?"

"Sure! Sir! ”

The artillery commander nodded, a glimmer of excitement still lingering in his pupils.

"My artillery crew is pretty sure it's a big guy, and the shell landed almost right above its head, and although it didn't break into pieces, it certainly won't make it back alive, and the debris around it must be finished."

"High temperatures, suffocation, shockwaves: any one can make it die seven or eight times!"

"That's ......"

The company commander nodded, and he glanced at his artillery commander, who had been with him for more than thirty years, following him all the way up from the field regiment, and he knew that this bastard never said big things: if he wanted to, he could accurately hit the nest of the sparrow with a cannonball ten kilometers away.

"Go ahead."

Eventually, the company commander waved his hand, and after dismissing his artillery commander, he glanced out rather reluctantly: the breath of war was still strong, the rumbling artillery fire and noisy fighting echoed less than a few kilometers away from them, and the silence in front of them might not last long.

But in this silence, there is a treasure that makes him salivate.

"Do you want to take the risk again, sir?"

The company commander turned around and found his company commissar leaning against the trench next to him, and the bespectacled Sven guy, also covered in dust and heavily armed, showed that he was not a fancy man: after all, he, like the other commissar colleagues of the Empress's Guards, was voted for by the grassroots soldiers, and after further study, the figure who returned to the company to take up his post was himself a veteran.

"You know, that's a big guy."

The company commander laughed, he had a similar physiognomy to the Iron Warrior named Kelvaren in the fortress: his fierce face had only one eye, but unlike Kelvalen, who maintained a hollow eye socket, the company commander installed an electronic eye on himself, and had the function of killing enemies if necessary.

"I'll tell you, I've been fighting with all kinds of aliens for more than forty years, and in less than an hour of fighting with this group of Heruds, I can almost figure out how fast these guys can run and how strong they are: their retreat just now must not have had time to take those dead bodies away, which means that the body of that big guy is likely to stay there."

"Is that a high-level commander, or a high-level individual, I'm not sure, but it's certainly very valuable to study: we must have had more than one war with these guys, but if we can bring back this complete and important corpse, it will definitely be very useful for future wars."

"Believe me, commissar, it will be a first-class merit: we will receive this first-class merit alive!"

The political commissar seemed to hesitate for a moment, he finally did not say anything to stop it, and he also knew very well that in terms of this kind of military operation, it would be difficult for him to stop the intention of the company commander, so he just watched the military commander in the battle line put on the newly issued [emperor-style] tactical cloak.

It was so named because of the fact that this powerful tactical cloak was rumored to have been a gift from the Emperor by the Lord of Avalon, and so aptly effective that many soldiers have become accustomed to draping it over their mortal power armor.

"So, how many people are you going to take with you?"

"Old rules, squad."

The company commander laughed.

"You help me watch the battle line, I'll touch it first, if it works, drag it back with a gravitational device, if it doesn't work, I'll come back to Lala: this front has been almost destroyed, and when I get that big thing back, we just take advantage of the situation to withdraw to the rear defense line to strengthen the defense."

“…… Got it. ”

The commissar nodded, and before his words could land, the company commander turned over and disappeared into the outside of the trench, along with the silent tactical squad beside him.

The political commissar watched them go away, muttering complaining words in his mouth: it was because of this seemingly unobtrusive recklessness that his boss was still here as a company commander with the rank of major after forty years of military career, despite his outstanding military achievements, although the company commander himself was willing to accept it.

Then the commissar glanced to the rear of the battle line, and he could hear the rumbling footsteps of the march in the fortress on the other side of the river, which was the sound of the Iron Warriors crossing the river, they brought strong fire support, several war engines, and the horn of the counterattack, but the commissar did not blindly engage in it, he gave his troops more time to rest.

As his gaze swept over the rest of the trenches, he was pleased to see more than a hundred soldiers in the company, seizing this free time in an orderly manner, not at all dismayed by the departure of the commander, and going about their work on their own, and the commissar, who was satisfied with all this, also took out the data plate in his arms, and he also had something to do.

Boost morale, patrol the trenches, check every detail, and listen to the soldiers' thoughts on what has just happened: there is always something more important than mere reprimand and punishment, and in addition to this, he has a small extra task for the opponent he encounters for the first time.

Thinking of this, the political commissar lowered his head and began to record on the data board as he walked, recording all the information they had learned in the battle just now: these data must be handed over uniformly after the battle, and their diligence will benefit other brother troops, just like their company has been using the information that other brother troops have exchanged their lives for.

The commissar coughed, and he whispered.

"The Heruds, a suspected unknown psionic race, have a special temporal weapon......"

(End of chapter)