Of the two Battle Mechas poised to attack, one was a classic mecha model known as the [God Armor]. This was a private Battle Mecha with an extremely valiant combat power that had been designed by a Battle Mecha great master for the Binater Empire 120 years ago. This mecha was the only private Battle Mecha he designed before dying and was originally used by the disciples of the royal family for private mecha training. From the time it was revealed to the public till now, a total of a hundred years had passed; in other words, Binater Empire’s royal family had used this Battle Mecha to train for 20 years before using it to generate large amounts of income. This Battle Mecha maintained its enormous competitive advantage, fully displaying its formidable might.
The opposing Battle Mecha was the same model used by Margaret—[Hoch]. Even though its reputation did not exceed the [God Armor]’s, the [Hoch] was still a product from about 80 years ago. Taking into account other aspects, it did not lose out to the [God Armor].
The battle between these two Battle Mechas had attracted everybody’s attention. They were currently battling in a certain mountain valley map. The dense forest and the complex terrain were utilized to its fullest by these two Battle Mechas. With one attacking and the other defending, they were moving at a very fast pace. The main attacker was the [God Armor], who took advantage of its valiant power and simple yet nimble techniques. Even though it was not as spectacular as Tian Xing Jian’s previous battle, where he used speed to fight against speed, Tian Xing Jian knew from a single glance that the combat power of this [God Armor] was above his. Every single one of his attacks was directed to the [Hoch]’s weak points; it was as if he was a famous doctor holding onto a scalpel—his moves were extremely accurate.
Even though his alleged speed wasn’t as fast as Tian Xing Jian’s, it did not mean that he was truly slower than Tian Xing Jian.
The control system, which comprised of a joystick and a keyboard regardless of the model, of Battle Mechas had been standardized since more than a thousand years ago. Most people would be able to obtain a hand speed of 10 actions per second (APS) after training; however, reaching 20 APS was not as simple. In other words, moving the joystick 10 times with the left hand and moving all fingers on the right hand twice per second was something which an ordinary person could not fundamentally achieve without undergoing strict training or unless one had become insane, needless to say how terrifying achieving 30 APS while maintaining the accuracy of the controls of the Battle Mecha would be.
Right now, the [God Armor] pilot’s hand speed was certainly more than 30 APS!
Moving once meant releasing an order. Having 30 APS meant that other than moving the direction of the joystick, the remaining 20 APS could be used to release 20 different orders. These 20 orders were combinatorial, with every single combination being a lesson all Battle Mecha pilot should learn from and memorize as they chant thousands of different combinations in one go. The movement of his own special Battle Mecha was also realized by the combination of orders. Also, for the Battle Mecha to jump up and give a right flying kick, one would be required to issue the following orders: three movements of the joystick so as to maintain the balance of the mecha while changing the direction it was facing, two movements on the keyboard to bend the knees and jump, two movements to kick out the right leg while in the air as well as a press and go of a key on the keyboard, thus a total of seven movements would be required. If one’s hand speed was 10 APS, then this movement could be completed in 0.7 seconds. If one’s hand speed was at 30 APS, then one could complete it in 0.23 seconds.
How wide was this gap between the two? The difference between 0.23 seconds and 0.7 seconds was that the person with a time of 0.23 second could issue out another ten orders in a single second!
Of course, the hand speed did not really represent victory or loss, as there was still a need to look at how the Battle Mecha would react, the rationale behind the overall movement, the accuracy of the ordered movement, the total time required for the physical movements of the Battle Mecha, and many other factors.
If a Battle Mecha’s flying kick took two seconds, then regardless of how fast one’s hand speed was, he would still have to wait. But right now, the Battle Mechas had been developed to a stage where the speed of one’s hand movements would determine the speed of the mecha. A flying kick, from the moment it jumped to the moment it kicked, would not exceed 0.4 seconds. Also, even if the Battle Mecha was slow in responding to the orders, the computer of the Battle Mecha could store the orders and thus prepare for the next moves. It could also utilize additional time to execute other actions, like moving, defending using the arms, linked movements, explosive movements, conserving energy, and other actions.
That was to say the battle between a Battle Mecha that was steered by someone with 30 APS and a Battle Mecha that was steered by someone with 10 APS was akin to an adult fighting a little child—it would be a relaxing fight, as if the adult was teasing the child.
Tian Xing Jian underwent training in the gravity room according to the guidebook from the computer, 《Tempering the Velocity of Your Hand》. In addition to his training, the natural talent he was born with allowed him to reach a hand speed of 27 APS. If he went all-out to the extent of causing his hands to become numb, he could reach 32 APS.
But, the [God Armor] in front of his eyes maintained a hand speed of 30 APS for more than half an hour.
And the other Battle Mecha, [Hoch], had similarly startled Fatty, as it seemed as if it did not know how to fall down from the “howling wind and torrential rain”-like attacks by the [God Armor]. [Hoch]’s two mechanical arms were just like apertures; they parried all sorts of incoming attacks while moving in a strange manner, dodging the killing moves of [God Armor] by a hair’s breadth. The more Fatty looked at his movements, the more he began to feel how familiar it was, causing him to feel as if he had seen it somewhere else before. Every time he felt his heart stirring up, the [Hoch] would retaliate by moving its mechanical legs that were hidden by its dancing arms, shooting towards the weaknesses of the [God Armor].
Opening up the information panel of the [God Armor] that gave an introduction of the Mecha pilot, it was written: Garit, major of Binater Empire Land Army.
This was a name Tian Xing Jian had seen before in the thick 《Battle Mecha Pilot Rankings》 given by Karl. With valiant offense being his speciality, Garit was ranked 182th. The reason why he remembered him was because Karl had coincidentally flipped to his page, and Garit’s fierce appearance and the characteristics of his techniques complemented each other nicely.
[Hoch]’s pilot had a Chinese name, Zhang Qing, and was a Battle Mecha instructor of the Victory Academy of Military Affairs in the Republic of Ryan.
The more he looked, the more Tian Xing Jian felt alarmed. Fortunately, this was happening on the net. If he had met such enemies in reality, even if he did not die, he would have to, at the very least, shed his skin [2]. It seemed that he himself was included in Leray Federation’s group of greenies who viewed the sky from the bottom of a well. Only such battles between experts could be considered as a true wrestle between mechas.
This battle eventually led to a tie from an agreement between both parties. Tian Xing Jian, who felt as if he did not have his fill, decided to continue watching a few more matches, as he had discovered quite a few opponents who were just a tad weaker than him. The human world was, after all, too big. With billions of people, how could there not be experts inundating the place?
As the system was implemented in such a way that those who won a match could only pit themselves against others who had also won a match and those who lost one could only fight with those who had lost a match as well, according to this logic, those who challenged Fatty were not as numerous as before, with about a few hundred thousand remaining. Fatty did not accept any of those battles and instead calmed his heart as he watched the control techniques used by others, broadening his horizons and deepening his experience.
Right as he was watching with keen interest, the simulation cabin was suddenly pried open by someone. Giving it a look, Fatty realized that it was Karl. This chap was full of sweat as he rushed towards Fatty, saying, “I’ve been looking for you for quite some time. Quickly, go and look at the combat report. The front lines have started fighting.”
Even though something was amiss with the words spoken by Karl, Fatty did not need to question him, as he understood that it was the front line west of Cato!
Several days ago when Tian Xing Jian and Karl were analyzing the war situation, both of them had respectively made a deduction. Even though they both used different styles and processes to do it, the outcome was similar. According to the assignment of the enemy’s military power and the troop deployment intelligence report, Karl estimated that Gyaca Woods Empire would commence a large-scale attack six days later. Fatty had instead deduced that the maximum number of days before the Gyaca Woods would commence their operation was four days, and there was no way they would exceed this time period.
In the end, today was the fourth day, and Fatty, who had rushed all the way to the combat planning department, saw the intelligence report—Gyaca Woods Empire’s General Offense would officially commence at midnight!
Everyone in the combat planning department rushed here and there with grave expressions. The movement of the Empire wasn’t too sudden this time round, as they could see from the intelligence report and the deployment of their troops. However, the way this General Offense was started felt strange; signs of the Myth Legion had appeared at the Garo Mountain in the front lines, leading to an exceptionally intense battle. Up till now, the Federation had already sent an armored division and two mechanized infantry divisions to Garo Mountain as reinforcement.
However, the flanks of the mountains were extremely calm, and the military that had been dispatched to their sides numbered quite few—there were signs of a conspiracy happening.
Looking at the combat report, Fatty suddenly remembered that photograph in the collection of famous generals—an ordinary appearance with a thin figure and a pair of calm yet deep eyes.
The supreme commander of the Gyaca Woods Imperial Army, Russell. Previously, he had opened a backdoor. What could he be thinking of doing this time?
[1] General Offense here means an all-out war without having any guerilla tactics, etc.
[2] This is the case of — Autotomy or self-amputation: the behavior whereby an animal sheds or discards one or more of its own appendages, usually as a self-defense mechanism to elude a predator's grasp or to distract the predator and thereby allowing it to escape.
In the hall of the combat planning department, on a projection, the red arrowhead that represented the Gyaca Woods Empire continuously charged at the several important high ground locations of Garo Mountain. As for the blue defense lines that represented the Leray Federation, they were on the verge of collapsing from the enemy’s attack.
Garo Mountain was the frontmost base west of Cato. Countless cannon fire cascaded down this section of the mountain pass with less than 600 kilometers square in area, with several of the important high ground locations being shaved off by 20-30 meters.
In a hidden forward command room that was not more than 10 kilometers away from Garo Mountain, the commander of Miracolo’s forward command who was personally supervising the battle, General Blatter, was currently looking with a grim expression at the electronic sand table.
He had already reinforced Point D1 on the Garo Mountain with two more mechanized infantry divisions that were from the fully-staffed main force of the army. However, the forward command’s call for SOS continued unabated, with the only difference being that those who had been previously requesting for help were all dead, and those who were requesting for help now were the soldiers from the reinforced divisions.
An entire mechanized infantry division that was originally stationed at high ground point D1 was entirely wiped out in battle.
This battle was truly bitter and fierce!
As the bunker located at high ground Point D1 had already been razed to the ground, even if the two reinforcement divisions brought with them temporary military fortifications, how would such structures be able to defend the cannon fire from the enemy? The only thing they could fight for was time; they needed time to allow the soldiers to use their mechanical arms and dig up some new, temporary barricades.
How much more reinforcements were required to be sent upwards? Gyaca Woods Empire had continued to assault high ground point D1 obsessively. Their losses were greater than the Federation’s, however, the Imperial forward commander had seemingly had set their goal as taking control of the Garo Mountain. By doing so, they would be able to cross the mountain and enter the strategic location in Catosi Canyon.
High ground D1’s position was located on the left flank of the defensive front line of Garo Mountain. The entire high ground had seemingly become a half-peeled pyramid, with the side closer to the enemy turning into a high precipitous cliff. Regardless of whether it were the infantry or Battle Mecha, attacking this high ground required them to conquer the cliff that was close to 80 degrees in steepness. Thus, this high ground became a stump on the enemy’s route of attack, as they could attack the incoming enemy from high ground at any moment, consequently turning this into the target of the Imperial Army’s General Offense.
What made Blatter irritated had been the fact that their firepower assistance system could no longer function normally, and six of their autonomous artillery teams had been destroyed by the enemy’s retaliatory cannon fire, four of which were direct subordinates of the fully-mechanized infantry division situated on the high ground point D1 while the remaining two were the reinforcement artillery team dispatched by the forward command on the Garo Mountain. The main cause behind the destruction of these artillery teams had been due to the high intensity electronic blasts that paralyzed the Sky Network System.
The autonomous cannon was actually a simplified version of a certain Battle Mecha model, with an ultra-large caliber cannon installed on top of the mechanical joint legs, enabling them to travel on all sorts of terrain and thus further improving their stealth and deployment capabilities over the previous version, which used caterpillar tracks to move. This was a firepower assistance system within the mechanized infantry divisions, and under the cover of the Sky Network System, this cannon would endlessly deliver an accurate payload to the coordinates demarcated on the Sky Network System in need of firepower assistance.
However, ever since the start of the battle, the continuous electronic blasts had entirely paralyzed the Sky Network Systems of both nations, leaving no system that were able to operate after such an intense electronic battle.
In modern warfare, regardless of whether it was in the outer space or on the surface of a planet, the very first move would be to initiate an electronic battle to destroy the systems used for or by the enemy’s communications forward command, battlefield monitoring, firepower distribution, attack positioning, and many others.
The term “electronic battle” actually came from the era of ancient Earth. In reality, modern electronic warfare covered everything from electronic communication, optical imaging, signal deceit, imitated military power, camouflage concealment to feigning attacks and many other modern warfare. The attack methods utilized were also increasing by the day. Other than the fundamental interference, there was also methods like virus infection, system invasion, program loopholes, laser-guided system blinding, signal disturbance, information infiltration, microwave radiation, pulse attack, commandos attacking certain infrastructures, and many others. The newly developed electronic attack equipment were also becoming more advanced by the day, increasing both the radius of the attack as well as the ferocity.
The electronic battle of both nations would determine the direction in which the war proceeded. The moment a nation lost the electronic battle, the units embroiled in combat would suffer an enormous loss. They would be unable to determine the positions of the enemies and would not longer be able to accurately assist other teams with their firepower under the guidance of the communication and command system, as the system would no longer function properly. The losing nation could only use the most primitive battlefield communications, and the moment those responsible for firepower assistance started firing, they would be revealed to the enemy, leading to the enemy using the Sky Network System to eradicate those from the artillery.
It was the same as currently there were no victor from the electronic battle between the two nations, and thus neither of their Sky Network Systems were working properly in guiding the artillery. The autonomous artillery team could only use the most primitive method of firing based on the observation from the front lines before shooting suppressive fire.
The entire Garo Mountain had become a huge battlefield with no areas for concealment. The autonomous artillery’s strafe shots, which they were familiar with, could no longer be used anymore. Furthermore, the front lines truly needed firepower assistance system so much that without the guidance from the Sky Network System, not only was the accuracy of the strafe shots low, but the speed of the suppressive fire and density of it could not reach the required level. As a result, both nations had decided to fundamentally rely more on the sheer numbers of the artillery soldiers. One by one, artillery teams from both sides would be destroyed after revealing their location because of the firing.
Not only was this happening at high ground Point D1, the losses incurred from the entire Garo Mountain battle region had already caused General Blatter to reach his wits’ end. Looking at the electronic sand table, he was doing his best to verify the intelligence report of the enemy’s military troop deployment and data. He did not know how long he could withstand with the remaining prepared teams. The firepower assistance that had been prepared had long dropped to a minimum, as there were just a few armored divisions left and the fully-mechanized infantry divisions had been destroyed the moment they were dispatched. If this sort of attack continued on for another day, his only option would be to request for Bernadotte to transfer soldiers from other defense lines.
However, would he dare to transfer? Even if he did, where would he transfer the military power to? The entire west of Cato had become a Meat-Grinder battlefield, and there would be no place he would dare to dispatch them to.
Other than Jialipalan, the military power in all the other locations were also hard-pressed. Even if he transferred them over, the time required to assemble the soldiers, transport them, and enter the battle would take at least two days. The only way for it to not take such a long period of time would be to use the teams defending Jialipalan, but if they were transferred out, what would they do if a mishap happened?
The most worrying thing was that nobody truly knew what exactly was the objective of the Imperial Army, who had started this General Offense assaulting method! Unless, did they truly want to open a passage to Cato in order to obtain a strategic open space east of Cato before fighting another war with the Leray federation?
Even though Blatter knew there were several other routes other than Garo Mountain which the enemy could use in attacking Cato, the reason why the Empire attacked Garo Mountain so fiercely was because the other routes were similarly heavily guarded by soldiers. Furthermore, Garo Mountain and the Catosi Canyon behind it contained a total of three Federation ground-based military bases and two air bases, and the soldiers stationed within could quickly travel to any of the places after getting through Garo Mountain, enabling the Imperial soldiers that breached through it to easily isolate and surround the other locations.
However, such an attack would not be worth it since it was so obvious. According to the reports, the Empire’s most famous general, Russell, had already personally reached the forward command on the surface of Miracolo Planet. With the commanding strength of Russell, he would never initiate such an assault in a situation where the Imperial ground-based army did not hold any advantages.
Thus, he had to have planned ahead of time. General Blatter decided to continue his journey to Jialipalan’s command headquarters without having answers to his questions, hoping that he would be able to find a method to resolve the issue of defending Garo Mountain while, at the same time, discover the hidden objective behind the enemy’s attack. Facing Gyaca Woods famous General Russell, Blatter knew that he would not win by just solely depending on himself. Right now, he could only rely on the collective wisdom of the team.
And the battle had lasted just a single day.
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