Baron, Guan Yu, Yue Fei, Meng Wu, and Roxi were staring at the hordes of enemies that were just seemingly endless. The front lines of their enemies seemed to stop just short of Baron's deepstrikes range. However, it was good that Xuan Feng and the rest of the all-stars did not wish to do battle immediately. Roxi had provided each of them something that was the pride of her many years of hard work and research, the brilliant blue. Now, under normal circumstances, she would not have made more than one, just for herself. This time was different. There was no other option, there just wasn't anyone who could come out of this situation without being completely destroyed, likely not even the 4 leaders of the Yellow Wang faction of which these all-stars were a part of.
The aim of having these brilliant blue weapons was that they would make sure that all of them were used at once to deal with the most amount of damage that can be done to the enemy at once. Now, there were some shortfalls to this weapon, but its usefulness in combat was nothing to scoff at. Once all of the enemy soldiers had set up camp and showed no signs of attacking that day, Baron and the others were getting a little confused. There was still a good few hours before the sunset, so why were they not taking the chance to launch any offensives? It turned out that a messenger that was sent by Xuan Feng would give them the answer that they wished for.
(M) "General Baron, Xuan Feng of Lian Po's all-stars wishes to have a meeting with you through radio messages. Do you accept?" The messenger clearly wearing the uniform of Xuan Feng's men asked.
(BM) "Yes, I accept. What could he possibly want now?" Baron took the radio that was in the hands of the messenger. Once that was done, the messenger left to head back in Xuan Feng's direction.
(XF) "Ah, Baron. That must be you." Xuan Feng stated.
(BM) "Indeed, though I expected our first meeting to be in person and not through some device like this."
(XF) "Heh, I must say, your confidence is surprising given the situation you are in. Let's get down to business. Would you and your allies be interested in trying out for one of the Yellow Wang factions' recruiting events?"
(BM) "I'll have to decline your offer. There is just nothing that you can offer me that will make me want to give up the dream that I have of starting my own faction."
(XF) "Is that so? Not even if we were to let you off the hook this time and let you continue the tournament under our protection?"
(BM) "Though a tempting offer, my decision still stands."
(XF) "Shame. I think you really would have been a great fit for us. Fine. If that is what you wish, I'll honor it."
(BM) "Tell me something, who were the people that you sent to fight us. Since it obviously wasn't any of you higher-ups."
(XF) "I don't think you really want to hear this. But. The ones that you and your coalition just fought off a few days ago were nothing more than a test for some of our potential candidates for the inner circle. Relatively speaking, much weaker than us."
(BM) "...I see."
(XF) "I don't know if this is something that you wanted to know, but the first time that our armies clashed, it was actually you against some of my most powerful underlings. This time, however, you will get to taste the true power of the all-stars with me at its helm and the three others going in full force as well."
(BM) "I like a good challenge, but this might be even more than I hoped for."
(XF) "Haha, you're funny, Baron. Welcome to the stage of the powerful, allow us to show you just how competitive it can get. Good luck."
(BM) "You as well, but I don't think that you will need it."
As soon as Baron said that phrase, both sides disconnected and went back to what they were doing prior to that meeting. Baron went to go inform the others of what to expect and what had just happened, while Xuan Feng was ordering his troops around to get them in the optimal position to launch an attack. With the final battle drawing ever nearer, strategists on all sides were getting pumped up about the epically million men showdown that would occur. The expectations were set, Xuan Feng and his large 2.5 million men army was something to be amazed about. Most everyone knew how it would go down. Baron and his comparatively small army would lose in just a few days to a few weeks max.
Outside of the simulations, there was a popular type of betting ring going on. Instead of the usual who would win scenario, these rings would bet on the losses on each side. This required a lot more acuity and mental prowess to get to the correct answer, but the main principles were still there. In the unlikely chance that the underdog was to win, then there was a lot of money going to the ones who voted for the less powerful group. What was special about this time though was that it was Baron and Xuan Feng's turn to be the center of attention.
Of the millions of betters, not a single one bet on Baron and his team, except for those who like to put in small amounts in the extremely off chance that the favorite of the two sides were to lose. Everybody could see the extreme odds against Baron right now, even those who had no insight into these matters would be able to see who would win based on the might of these two armies on paper. There was one exception. This person was Li Xin, and although he had just gotten back from a trip to another community, he had come straight away to witness the end of the tournament.
The way Baron. Zhang Da Zhi and commander Ke decided to build their defenses was to have all of the deepstrikes in one gigantic field so that they would be able to fire in all directions instead of having to move them every time an enemy went to the left or right. Stakes were so high that the majority of fighters had to be out on the field fighting right from day one. Defending the deepstrikes from being sabotaged was given to some of the other lesser strategists who could be trusted. All three of them would work together to defend from all possible attacks.
Since they were now on the defensive, all they had to do was to wait for the forces of the all-stars to make the first move. Indeed they did. On the first day of the battle, 8 independent forces of 100,000 soldiers left the enemy camp and rushed straight towards Baron's forces. As of now, the deepstrikes were firing at full capacity and there were thousands of missiles leaving the large field every minute. Of course, Baron had used almost a quarter of the missiles that were in his possession while on the previous battle. They could only be used for so long before the missiles ran out.
The 800,000 soldiers, in a mix of infantry, aircraft, and vehicles, seemed to be expecting this and managed to take evasive maneuvers that were quite successful, if there were only a few dozen coming at them, but with hundreds? No way. Even with the devastating hits that they were taking from the deepstrikes, they were making good progress in terms of closing in the distance between the two armies. Baron never expected that his deepstrikes would be able to dissuade the enemies from continuing the attack, so his army had been ready to fight for a long time already.
An hour later, the two forces clashed in a fervor of clangs and bangs. Around the same time, the other two battlefields were getting started at about the same time. Baron and the other two alliance leaders had agreed to put most of their fighters on the front lines so that they would be able to hold out longer. However, this put their fighters at risk of being targeted, which was to be expected. If they did not do this, they would lose that much quicker. All three battlefields were seemingly winning most of their small scale engagements so far, but the enemy forces started to get the upper hand before Baron switched paces and his elite guards and fighters were once again on top. The first day of battle did not contain anything else of import and the day ended with largely a victory for the allies.
Even though they came out on top today, they had paid a huge price for it. A lot of fighters died, a lot more soldiers fought their last battles and the atmosphere was surprisingly not as dreadful as Baron had anticipated earlier on in the day. That said, Baron still had a few ideas on how they would be able to better fight the enemies on the upcoming days. He would have to work fast if he wanted to be finished the new tactics by morning. He had a few ideas on how it was possible for them to fight smarter, on top of the list was the deepstrikes.
First, he had Roxi become the chief deepstrike coordinator. All this meant was that Roxi would figure out a way for all of the deepstrikes under Baron's control to be more effective in the battlefield. She could do this in a number of ways, Baron suggested something along the lines of separating them into groups and firing one group as a cohesive unit to cover more ground. Whatever she decided would be final. The reason for this was that at the rate they were going, it was likely that they would have run out of missiles in another 2 or 3 days. Not good considering there were still more enemies just waiting for the first 800,000 to either breakthrough or be crippled or something else entirely.
Next up on the list was to somehow get the soldiers pumped up enough for them to be able to fight better the next day. He gave this task to Guan Yu and Yue Fei as these two seemed to be more friendly to the regular soldiers than anyone that Baron had ever seen, even Meng Wu commented on the special bond that these two had with their men. The two of them seemed to have many ideas on how to do this in the limited timeframe they had considering that many of the soldiers would have to hit the hay soon. They decided to think about what it was that they wanted to do and do it just before the soldiers went in to fight the next day. Baron left before he could hear what they planned as he left to go deal with some other matters.
The entire night went by like this with Baron running around to get to the people that he needed to see and talk to about how they could perform better out on the field. In the other two camps, Zhang Da Zhi and commander Ke were doing similar runs around the camp.
However, Ke had a bit of a challenge within his ranks due to his soldiers not being able to synergize with the soldiers of commander Ba. He would need to think of some way for the two to be able to fight better together. If that was not achieved, he feared that he would be the one to fall first out of the three. The big reason that he was able to hold on like this was that he was able to win continuously. Now that they were outnumbered several times, that would no longer fly. Ke had many of the strategists under him think of a solution to such a complicated problem.
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