Volume 13 Ancient Bronze City Ruins Chapter 621: Detour
"The 9th Armored Division was completely wiped out! The 10th Armored Division suffered heavy losses! The Special Engineering Forces were completely wiped out! Preliminary estimates put the number of casualties at over 8,000! Brigadier General Aliyev, the commander of the 9th Armored Division, was also killed!"
"Let all troops retreat fifteen... no, twenty kilometers!" Terenzi hissed. "Immediately let the information department build a data model of the target and calculate the maximum attack range of the target. Also, let the air force fleet raise its altitude and maintain a safe distance of more than ten thousand meters from the target!"
The fused tentacles of the Giant Seed of Erosion stretch out to a length of more than ten kilometers, which means that it can even use its tentacles to attack warships at an altitude of ten thousand meters.
Of course, Terenz knew clearly that if he asked the troops to retreat now, it would be equivalent to handing over the initiative to the heretical sects...but if he did not do so, the entire main force would probably be destroyed by the attack of the fusion tentacles.
He never imagined that the heretic sect didn't even need to rely on the defense facilities of the Ancient Bronze City ruins. They only relied on a giant Seed of Erosion to stop the army's offensive and inflict a heavy blow to the field corps.
Including the troops that had previously broken into the combat zone to attract the tentacles, the number of casualties had exceeded 10,000 in less than an hour after the battle began... You know, in the past five years, the total number of casualties of the field corps did not reach five digits.
Terenz clenched his fists, and the next second he realized that his palms were full of sweat - this would be a tough battle. Although he had been mentally prepared from the beginning, the difficulty of the battle was still far beyond his expectations... Even in the first few years after the Ark landed on Alpha, there had never been a situation in which more than ten thousand people were lost within an hour of the start of the war in the classic battle examples recorded in military school textbooks.
Not to mention whether it could be a tragic victory...Trentz looked at the overall situation of the battlefield and he couldn't even see a glimmer of hope for victory.
Those who voted against it...Trenz glanced at the old lieutenant general next to him inconspicuously...maybe they are right.
This is an unwinnable war, a "mission impossible" - even if they try their best, they cannot achieve it.
But he is a soldier, and soldiers can only obey orders. He can order the troops to retreat twenty kilometers, but he cannot let them withdraw to the Ark and the base - he is the commander, but he does not have the power to end this battle.
Terenz didn't have time to look for a tissue. He simply pulled up a corner of his cloak to wipe his sweaty palms, and then placed his hands on the touch screen again.
"Let the heavy artillery and the second fleet stay behind to contain the giant erosion seeds with firepower. The rest of the troops will be divided into the left and right wings. They will bypass the battlefield in front and join up with the 20th and 27th Infantry Divisions."
He seldom used "gambling" to command a battle, but this time, he had to gamble.
If the heretic sect focused its defense on the front of the Ancient Bronze City ruins and only set up a small number of blocking troops outside the city in other directions or simply had no stationed combat forces, then he would win the bet, otherwise he would lose everything.
Terenz hated the feeling of betting his success or failure on uncertain events, but he had no choice but to do so now.
Time was too tight, and they didn't even have the chance to conduct preliminary reconnaissance - even if it was a surprise attack, doing so would definitely be a taboo in military strategy...
"Why would the undead crew be so anxious to launch an attack on the ruins of the Ancient Bronze City?" A question flashed through Terenz's mind, but he immediately threw it out of his mind - he was just a soldier, he only needed to obey orders and command the battle, and anything else was not something he needed to consider.
Even if it is a battle that is doomed to fail.
Artillery shells, missiles, lasers and plasma continued to fall on the giant seed of erosion. However, compared with its huge body, the trauma caused by these attacks was too insignificant. What's more, within a few minutes, the limbs torn by shrapnel would heal, and the tissues burned by plasma would fall off and recover as before - the new limbs not only did not become weak, but instead grew layers of scaly hyperplastic tissue, which tightly protected the originally injured areas.
This giant seed of erosion... it is evolving in battle, and any trauma will stimulate the adaptive adjustment of its body... if it continues to fight like this, it will only become stronger and stronger.
To put it in the old, somewhat clichéd way, “Whatever doesn’t kill it makes it stronger!”
Terenzi quickly realized the problem and called a halt to the attack by the heavy artillery and the Second Fleet.
For the first time since he graduated from the military academy with full marks and immediately joined the field corps, he regretted his command operations - if he had not used the crystal energy bomb to open up the surface of the ground, perhaps the giant erosion seed would not have undergone such obvious changes, those fusion tentacles would not have appeared, and the 9th Armored Division would not have been wiped out at this point in time.
The result of the battle, which came at the cost of the loss of an entire "Ronin" squad and the deaths of more than a thousand soldiers, was to make the enemy stronger - this kind of "exchange" was unacceptable to him.
"Aren't you going to use active ammunition to suppress it?" the old lieutenant general asked. "From the previous attack by the Ronin Squad, the active cells of the Flesh-Eating Worm are still very effective in suppressing this monster. Although it is very strong, it is still a variant of the Corrosion Species and has the same weaknesses as the Corrosion Species."
"No." Terenz flatly refused. "We can't waste precious resources on meaningless battles. If the troops can break into the ruins of the Ancient Bronze City from both wings, they will face the enemies of the heretic sect directly. I can't let them fight against unkillable monsters with conventional weapons."
"Then if this giant seed of corrosion starts to move..."
"Let's wait until it starts to move." Terenzi gritted his teeth and said, "I hope it rushes towards my headquarters right now - as long as I can lead this monster away, it doesn't matter if I use myself as bait!"
"Transfer the command of all remaining drone units to me! The heavy artillery units and the Second Fleet will withdraw from the front battlefield and turn to support the friendly forces on both wings!" He issued another new order.
"In this case, the only ones left on the front battlefield are the headquarters and its guards," the old lieutenant general said. "This is too dangerous."
"You should leave here ." Terenzi took off his cool cloak and general uniform, walked quickly to the wall, and took out the combat uniform and helmet hanging in the equipment cabinet. "Also, if I die, please directly transfer the command to the Undead Crew... I think they must be keeping a close eye on this battlefield at this time."
"Are you really going to use yourself as bait?" the old lieutenant general said anxiously, "No, this is against the rules - you are responsible for more important command tasks, if you die, the troops will fall into chaos in an instant!"
"If the giant erosion seeds retreat towards the ruins of the ancient bronze city, do you think we still have a chance to enter the ruins?" Terenz retorted, "Without the commander, at least the combat power of the large army can be preserved. If we lose them, what's the use of me being a commander without troops?"
"The giant erosion seed obviously has a high IQ. I even suspect that it is directly controlled by the heretic sect." Terenz continued, "If they knew that this battleship was the commander's flagship, they would definitely prioritize me as the target of attack. In this way--"
Before Terenz could finish his words, the old lieutenant general had already snatched the helmet from his hand and put it on his own head.
"The army cannot be without a commander. If you want to set up bait, I can do it." The old lieutenant general suddenly straightened his back - only then did Terenz realize that this old general, who originally had a somewhat hunched back, was actually nearly 1.85 meters tall. When he stood up straight, he was half a head taller than himself.
"The lifeboat has been arranged for you, and the backup command and communication system has also been moved there." The old lieutenant general looked at Terenz steadily, "The one who should leave is you."
"But……"
"Stop talking nonsense. This is not your style." The old lieutenant general said, "It is never the old men like me who create the new era. Our ultimate value is to be a stepping stone for the young people, to hold them up and enable them to climb to higher places."
“…”
"I don't know if this battle can be won. If even you have no chance of winning, then there will be no hope for anyone else to command."
"...I understand." Terenz bit his tongue and nodded vigorously.
"Ha, I didn't expect that a piece of dry firewood like me could burn again at the last moment..." The old lieutenant general suddenly smiled at Terenz and closed the visor of his helmet.
…
…
Hundreds of kilometers away from the battlefield, Ke Lan and his team were still moving forward in the collapsed tunnel - thanks to the powerful power of the Blasphemer mecha, the rubble blocking the tunnel did not become an obstacle, and the distance between them and the ruins of the Ancient Bronze City was also shrinking little by little.
"It seems that there are human skeletons under the rocks right in front of us." Valentina's voice rang out in the team's communication channel. Ke Lan immediately signaled her to stop. Then, Ke Lan jumped directly out of the mine car and walked to the place where the skeleton was found.
This is indeed a human skeleton. Judging from the equipment and uniform fragments scattered around the deceased, he should be a member of the elite support team that was sent into the tunnel to carry out search and rescue missions after the Gopher Team lost contact.
According to the time, it has only been a few hours since his death, but the skeleton in front of him looked like a person who had been dead for several years. Even the soft tissue between the bone plaques had been eaten away. According to the natural decay rate of the corpse, it would take at least one to two years for microorganisms to decompose all of these things, and it had to be in an environment suitable for the growth of microorganisms.
"These people were killed by those black beetles..." Layton drove Augustus up, "It feels like they were attacked by army ants. There's not a single blood or flesh left..."
"Yeah." Ke Lan nodded, "It should be. By the way, have you contacted the main force?"
"The interference on the front battlefield is still very strong, but the people at the mining base said they have successfully contacted the 15th Division." Layton said.
"Isn't the 15th Division deployed on the front battlefield?" Ke Lan recalled the assembly diagram that he had glanced at before. "Since the mining base has successfully established contact with the 15th Division, does that mean they have left their original position?"
"Yes." Layton nodded. "According to the liaison officer of the 15th Division, they are carrying out a flanking mission, changing from attacking the ruins head-on to moving towards the wings."
"Divide the troops? No... It doesn't seem like they are dividing the troops. It is impossible for the front battlefield to have enough time to turn the troops to the two wings when the war is tense... That can only mean one thing, the commander of the main force may have given up the front battlefield!" Ke Lan analyzed immediately.
"Give up the frontal battlefield? No way?" Layton said in astonishment. "Can't even hundreds of thousands of people eliminate a Seed of Corruption? Back then, Leviathan successfully conquered it with just one fleet. Now the commander has the main forces of at least three fleets in his hands. Can't he defeat it?"
"The two cannot be compared... The Seed of Erosion can multiply and regenerate infinitely if there are no sufficient means to restrain it." Ivan said, "Even if the commander lets all the main battleships of the three fleets crash into it, the Seed of Erosion can still recover in a very short time. Only the active cells of the flesh-eating worms, or the special stones that Ke Lan brought back, can kill this creature."
As Ivan spoke, he subconsciously touched the groove on his mechanical prosthesis where the stalagmite fragments were embedded.
Whether it is the active cells of flesh-eating worms or the fragments of stalagmites from underwater caves, these things are to the seeds of erosion as water is to fire - although in most people's cognition, water can be used to put out fire, but when the gap between the two is large to a certain extent, the so-called restraint relationship does not have much meaning.
This is how the idiom "a drop in the bucket" came about.
"I feel like we can slow down our advance a bit," Thirty-Three interrupted. "If the main force chooses to make a detour, it will take at least several hours to reorganize an attack on the Ancient Bronze City Ruins."
