In this battle, he didn’t feel even the slightest bit complacent. Nor did he harbor any intention of trying to annihilate the enemy.

As a Commander, what he learned from his mentor, apart from military theory and command skills, was how, as a qualified Commander, to keep his own emotions and desires under control.

He didn’t need to wipe out the enemy; he only needed to hold them back, and that was enough! Any unrealistic greed usually brings, in the end, not the dessert of victory.

Even though his reorganized Armored Camp had more than 400 Mecha, five or six times the enemy’s number, after weighing the gains and losses between annihilating the enemy and blocking them, and after weighing that unusual scent he had caught earlier, he still chose the more cautious tactics.

By the time the enemy appeared to the east of the basin, his troops were already fully prepared for battle and marching out of the base in an orderly fashion.

When the enemy advanced to one-third of the way into the basin, his troops had already lunged forward, forcing the enemy Mechanical Army to intercept while their infantry detoured toward the northwest.

When the enemy pushed to the middle of the basin, his two wings had already begun a wide sweep to envelop them. When those flanking maneuvers were pinned down by the enemy, his troops had already begun even larger-scale small-unit infiltration.

He was dead set on keeping these people here!

Even now, looking back and reexamining his tactical command, he still didn’t think he’d made any mistakes. The advantage in numbers had been used to the utmost, the enemy’s weaknesses had likewise not been spared. In terms of detailed command, he had poured in everything he had. From the moment the fighting started, SkyNet had been running at full speed. With the enemy’s electronic systems suppressed, the entire battle situation was in his hands.

Yet under these very conditions, the opposing Commander had still managed to wrench the situation around.

He watched helplessly as his own forces were sliced apart stroke by stroke. Every time he issued an order in response to the battle, he would discover that the opposing Commander had already beaten him to it.

That bastard always found a way to make the situation more chaotic, always found a way to cut up the troops he was trying to pull together into even smaller fragments. More than once, he thought he had caught the enemy’s rhythm. Several times he commanded his troops to force a blocking action, trying to sever the links between the enemy’s roaming units, to disrupt the enemy’s seamless offensive coordination.

Platoon after platoon, company after company, under his command, dashed east and west, running themselves ragged. Yet what he got in the end were reports that, because of a time-lag, they had been suddenly ambushed by the enemy—or, because of a time-lag, the enemy had slipped away at their leisure.

Time-lag, time-lag. Those three words were like a blood-stained dagger, driven deep into his heart.

The opposing Commander used the time-lag to coordinate, used the time-lag to turn his Red units from one company into two companies, three companies! And turned his own superior forces into locally passive, beaten-down inferior ones.

Endless artillery fire rained down all around.

In front of him, Jiepeng Mecha after Jiepeng Mecha were scrambling in panic, fighting their own separate battles. Countless Chuckna infantry surged down from the 415 position, pouring along the valley and down the low slopes on both sides, brazenly coordinating with the Red Mecha to launch attacks.

When the two Chuckna forces advancing toward each other met up on a small hill at the mouth of the valley, he heard cheering far louder than the cannon and explosions beside him. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

It was all over.

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Amid the mountains along the Karachi Riverfront, southeast of 415 high ground, six small hills rose and fell in a chain, looking like three twin-humped camels lying on the ground head-to-tail. Vegetation was lush, the air fresh. Moss clung to the cliffs, a few trickles of gurgling spring water flowed out, and the occasional clear birdsong made the place seem exceptionally peaceful and serene.

All of a sudden, the bird flocks in the forest burst into the air without warning, beating their wings in panic, shrieking as they scattered.

The earth began to tremble. The tranquility was shattered.

Huge engine roars boomed from behind the hillside. Densely packed steel mecha leapt out from behind the small slopes, thundering downhill through the billowing dust like a herd of galloping Pentium. Dense bushes and low trees were crushed under enormous mechanical feet, and countless large trees snapped in this steel torrent.

Moments later, the Mecha Group had already crossed over the ridges. Their receding footsteps and the whistling wind grew fainter and fainter until they were barely audible. The hills, once again calm, were now a scene of utter devastation.

Looking down from the sky, on different hilltops separated by several kilometers to several dozen kilometers, four or five identical formations were charging toward the same place in a sweeping, unstoppable surge!

"Division commander, sir," an anxious voice came over the comms: "The Chuckna Forces at the 415 position have gone on the offensive. The attack is extremely fierce. The First Battalion of the 3rd Group is about to be unable to hold."

"Tell the First Battalion commander to hold! If he can hold for another eight minutes, I’ll put him in for top merit! I’ll promote him to group or division commander!" Zhongshan Yi’s neck veins bulged, his eyes bloodshot.

The voice on the communicator cut off, leaving only the roar of Mecha engines in his ears.

Zhongshan Yi didn’t know how the liaison officer would relay his words to the First Battalion commander; he only knew to lead his troops forward with everything he had. He was going to race those mud-legged grunts who ran on their own two feet. Eight minutes—no, he only needed five—and he would make it there, and make those damned Chuckna people lose every last shred of hope at the final moment.