Volume 16: The Wheel of Reincarnation Chapter 82: Tight Front Lines
Delta frontline base command center.
The frontline of the planet in the Delta sector now lies across the Psychic Hub. If this fortress planet is not breached, the Free Alliance's follow-up legions will not be able to get reinforcements. However, the entire planet's defense line is like a thousand-layer pancake, peeling off layer by layer, making the Free Alliance furious.
In order to achieve the corresponding results faster, the Free Alliance no longer cared about the so-called peace treaty. Since it was a backstab, they had to behave like traitors. Faced with the defense line that could not be broken through for a long time, these scums who had lost all their conscience began to use various despicable and horrifying tactics. Including various mass slaughters and sacrifices, poison gas, and using civilians to make evil magic tools. Their madness made the defense line retreat step by step. Almost in just sixteen hours, two-thirds of the entire planet had fallen into the hands of the Free Alliance.
"They are everywhere! There are so many of them! Like a tide! And our base is full of rebels! We can't hold on any longer! We don't have enough descendants of the Holy Light! There are too many of them, tens of thousands, countless! There are demons everywhere, poison gas everywhere, and the healers and magicians have bugs in their brains. They are simply a group of traitors! Only a few people have survived, but we need support! Now the energy lines are about to be cut off——"
"…Institute 434, mark it as fallen. Send a message to the support squad on Hill 105, and ask them to hold out for three hours before retreating."
"yes."
"Send a message to the defenders in the 715 area, and have them leave some obstacles along the Death Road, then retreat to the Death Watch Mountain area and station themselves in the temples inside. Hold the checkpoint until reinforcements arrive."
"Yes... What about the residential areas along the way?"
"Give up everything and don't bother. If anyone has any objections, let them be referred to the military court."
"yes."
"Next is the elves of Luden's Branch. Send their militia up. They should begin preparations for battle."
"yes."
“…That’s enough!”
Faced with these cold and ruthless orders, the man behind the commander let out an angry roar and smashed the axe to the ground.
The dull sound interrupted the relaying of all the orders. The officers and the secretary seemed to have woken up from a dream, looking at the man with a gradually ferocious and angry expression with a blank face, revealing an incomprehensible expression.
The sturdy man, who was covered in animal fur and looked like a barbarian prince, grunted dangerously, staring with red eyes at the commander who seemed to remain unmoved, constantly pointing at the strategic map in the void with his fingers, and sending troops one by one to the battlefield where they would die. As if sensing that the atmosphere was not good, the servants around him looked at each other, shrank and surrounded him, pretending to surround the furious man.
"Sergeant Finn, this is a war, please obey local military orders-- "
"Bullshit military order!"
He roared, swept aside several attendants around him, walked behind the commander and growled in a low voice:
"The brothers in front are being besieged by traitors, and the civilians are wailing! But you are arranging our brothers to die like a machine!? All the places you arranged are places of death! Do you want them to die deliberately at the hands of those scum of the alliance so as to buy time for your evacuation?!"
"Watch your language, Sergeant. I don't have time for an irrational discussion with you."
The commander waved his hand nonchalantly, as if shooing away a fly.
Despite his thin and slender figure, this commander who looked like a mutant elf did not take the angry barbarians seriously at all and continued his methodical command.
His palm slid firmly and without delay on the plane, marking each piece of information and possible directions on the entire battle board. It was as if he had treated the angry barbarian behind him as air. After a long while, he raised his head and reassigned tasks to his subordinates.
"Continue your respective tasks and do not let down your guard. Then I will arrange the defense of the Heart of Norred next—"
"Ding!"
A loud and shrill noise suddenly resounded throughout the hall.
The gorgeous shining battle axe fell less than a centimeter away from the commander's feet. The huge man walked behind the thin commander, turned him around, grabbed his collar and lifted him into the air. The huge face with patterns stared angrily at the commander's cold face, and said word by word:
"Now, can you talk to me?!"
"…Sergeant Finn, what do you want to say?"
The commander did not waver at all. His eyes narrowed into dangerous slits and he asked in a low voice:
"I'm sorry that I was just dealing with my own tasks and ignored your spiritual feelings. So what do you want to say to your superior, your direct superior, with this gesture? I will use the time I should have spent on command to listen to your valuable advice."
"I'm asking you why you let our brothers die!"
As if he couldn't hear the commander's hidden sarcasm, the huge man grabbed his collar and roared loudly, and the rumbling sound echoed in the hall.
"I'm asking you why you keep a lot of reserve troops to guard those barren rear areas!" He roared, "I'm asking you why you send the people you protect to the enemy again and again! Now, can you, the great commander, tell me, an uneducated ruffian, about your profound wisdom? If you can't, I will chop off your head right now to commemorate my innocent brothers who died!"
"Are you sure you want me to explain now?"
"Yes, right now!"
"… Then our conversation is about to waste fifteen minutes, which means potentially hundreds of lives, and you will be responsible for these deaths."
"You bastard—"
"The duty of Holy Light is to ensure that more people are not tortured by evil, rather than to protect the people in front of them from being tortured by evil."
Seeing that the reckless man was about to lose control of his emotions, the commander who was lifted in the air said without any emotion:
"We have never protected a few people. We only care about greater survival and more meaningful possibilities. The survival of an individual is not controversial to the whole world. Use space to buy time, use time to buy troops and a solid defense line, and look for opportunities to conduct strategic decisive battles after the front line is completely stabilized. Otherwise, any hasty actions and factors full of personal emotions may cause the loss of the entire front line. Are you satisfied with what I said now?"
"You are talking nonsense, you son of a bitch! Each of our brave brothers can fight ten enemies at once! Each of our brothers can chop off more than ten heads on the battlefield! Are you underestimating our fighting qualities? You underestimate the fact that we cannot defeat those sissy alliances. Do you think we are cowards who dare not fight?!"
"But in fact, if you could really fight ten people with one, Institute 434 would not have fallen."
Looking at the angry barbarian with a red face, the commander, hanging in mid-air, pushed his glasses with his hand and narrated calmly:
"There were 300 barbarian soldiers stationed there, and there were only 2,000 people attacking the institute, and it was a tough battle. Even so, the 434 Institute still fell. You just heard the news, right? The bravery of your compatriots is not as solid and reliable as you imagined."
"That was just an individual—"
"There is no such thing as an individual in war, Sergeant Finn. I only care about the conclusions drawn from a large amount of data as a whole. If your so-called brothers can really break through the entire enemy's defense line like a whirlwind, there is no need for me to go on the defensive and wait for the arrival of follow-up reinforcements. However, the performance of you and your compatriots, haha, maybe they are really good at fighting a favorable battle. But their defensive line is often the first to be breached. I can't trust your so-called brothers. And now, you are the same."
"I……"
"Stop what you're doing now."
Looking at the sergeant who was still holding him and looked embarrassed and pale, the commander said indifferently:
"Put your hands down. I don't want to have to repeat my order a second time. I told you to put your hands down, didn't you hear me?"
“…”
"Take your hands away."
“…I’m sorry.”
The barbarian's face was flushed red, and his whole body was shaking, as if he had a lot of anger accumulated in his body. But he didn't do anything rash in the end, and could only put the commander back to his original position with an angry look on his face, allowing the short man to continue his command.
The commander did not do anything retaliatory. He straightened his clothes and shook off the dirt on the barbarian's hands. He brushed it off with his white gloves, then adjusted his glasses and continued to look at the silent giant man. There was no malicious emotion in the dim pupils under the crystal glasses, but it made the barbarian feel a little creepy, and he subconsciously took two steps back.
"Thank you for staying calm. Of course, if we ignore the civilians and public opinion, we can easily achieve greater results."
Turning around and looking at the electronic table filled with data, the commander said without even turning his head:
"After countless innocent people have died through scorched earth, human bombs, plagues, forbidden weapons, death guerrillas, and sneak attacks, you still shamelessly say this is war? We can't do that, because this is not war, this is just the murder of innocent civilians. We are soldiers, although we have lost the right to live by standing in this position. But only soldiers and civilians of the enemy country are qualified to kill soldiers of another country. But our soldiers cannot kill civilians of the enemy country at will, nor can they use such dirty means."
"Because we are human, we are the army of justice. We hope that this nightmare-like scene will not appear in everyone's night. This method will not be expanded, and the hatred will not be too intense. Because the enemy is madly slaughtering civilians, should we also madly slaughter the enemy's civilians? Then if others believe in the devil, should we believe in it? If others eat shit, should we eat it? For this final madness, we don't need to accompany these crazy monsters in their hellish carnival. We just need to step out of their sharpest places step by step, then wrap up their madness, and then smash it in one breath."
"Has Holy Light promised to protect everyone? We will only protect more people. We will protect those who want to save themselves. We will not protect those useless people who do nothing but rely on others. What's more, we don't have the strength to fight back now, and any action we take is risky."
"…What's wrong with taking risks? What if you win?"
Looking at the commander's back, the barbarian returned to his position with an axe in hand and muttered in dissatisfaction:
"Those cowards of the Free Federation don't know what war is. I can tear off all the heads of those women and make them into ornaments. As long as I lead a team of decapitation squads, I can take down any enemy headquarters."
"What if I lose?"
The commander's voice as he looked at the map was so cold that it sounded like it came from hell, making people shiver uncontrollably.
"Behind me now are over 60 million intelligent creatures, and behind me are 43,800 life planets in the star region. Now I am in charge of guarding the most critical area. I only need to follow the plan and steadily gather everyone in this area without any outstanding behavior, and then I can win the final battle. And then you tell me that you want me to take a gamble and pay the price of annihilating tens of millions of lives behind me, just for my or your so-called personal glory? Just for the so-called, 'excellent' completion of this battle?"
"I, I didn't..."
The man's expression changed for a while, and finally he lowered his head dejectedly, grabbing his hair unwillingly, but he couldn't think of any words to refute.
Looking at the man with a face full of embarrassment and self-blame, the commander shook his head, as if he didn't want to see him in that state. He turned around and waved his hand, signaling the onlookers to go about their business.
"In short, I have recorded everything you said. You delayed the battle by fifteen minutes, contradicted your superiors, were self-righteous, and had strong personal desires. When this battle is over, you will report to the military court. If you surrender sincerely and pass the glyph of repentance, you may be exempted from punishment and directly incorporated into the vanguard to meet your needs."
“…”
"Commander, urgent information."
The operator wearing headphones suddenly turned around and said loudly:
"A message came from the Holy Light Headquarters that the first batch of reinforcements will cross to the battlefield in fourteen hours. The Tenth Crown Li Lin personally presided over the teleportation array and glided through the subspace. Master Li Lin sent us condolences, but asked us to continue to hold on for another fourteen hours."
"Fourteen hours... isn't that hard."
Looking at the red enemy spots on the electronic table that almost covered the entire area, the commander's numb expression did not change at all.
