Chapter 1691: Siege of Terra (part 2) |
Zhao Zian and his regiment had fallen into dire straits.
Yet it seemed that fate always had a way of turning at such moments.
When their last remaining plasma weapon destroyed the Demon Engine-driven battering ram in one desperate overload salvo, evaporating a large circle of enemies in the process, the massive casualties seemed to finally pry open the bloodlust-filled brains of the Terror Demon followers.
The subsequent surge was not as frenzied and fearless as before, especially when they discovered that those stubborn points on the walls were still sporadically spewing deadly firepower.
The frenzied Blood God followers temporarily receded like a tide, leaving piles of corpses and nearly scrapped fortifications above and below the walls.
Gasping for breath and in pain all over, Zhao Zian had only one thought in his mind:
"Won?"
Why did the enemy retreat?
He couldn’t quite understand.
The enemies were still numerous.
As for morale... although Terror Demon units also experienced morale collapse, it was relatively rare.
At least, in this situation, it shouldn’t be the case.
Could this be fate’s favor? The Emperor’s blessing? Was it their courage that repelled the demons’ assault?
Despite the heavy doubts, he decided to rest for a while.
Zhao Zian slid down to sit on the ground against a piece of broken wall, his helmet automatically disengaging and revealing his blood-stained and deeply exhausted face.
He scanned his surroundings. Fewer than ten soldiers were still able to stand or lean heavily against cover and pull the trigger. Communications with various companies yielded few responses.
Counting it up, of the entire elite guard regiment of three thousand warriors he led out, perhaps a hundred might remain.
A regiment commander reduced to a company commander.
The air was filled with a nauseating mixture of burnt flesh, flowing blood, and thick smoke.
The moat beneath the city wall was no longer filled with accumulated water but a viscous stream of filthy blood, mingled with countless broken limbs from both sides.
"Count the numbers... bandage the wounded..." Zhao Zian’s voice was hoarse and dry, but carried a hint of post-catastrophe relief.
But soon, that relief was gone.
Fate’s joke was quite big.
The terrifying assault of the Terror Demon followers had indeed retreated, but...
The soldiers on the city wall were calling him.
He ascended to the wall and glanced into the distance.
The smoke filling the air was not all dust and gunfire from the fierce battle. The remaining Terror Demon followers were being slaughtered.
Their angry roars reached faintly from afar. They were fighting desperately.
But those attacking them were no reinforcements.
On the chaotic battlefield left by the temporary retreat of the Terror Demon followers, a new, denser, suffocatingly fetid, yellow-green mist was surging up from the depths of the earth.
The great enemy had become rotten.
On the ground resembling a swamp, figures with staggering steps and bloated, decaying bodies were fighting the Terror Demon followers. Countless swollen pustules rolled and burst beneath the skin, oozing foul-smelling pus. The stench of decay even overshadowed the battlefield’s original gore and smoke.
On those putrid bodies hung torn fragments of Sun Legion uniforms, mixed with countless shoddy clothes of Nest Capital civilians.
They were Nagor zombies! Their numbers were like an endless tide of maggots surging out of the rotten swamp, spreading over the mountains and plains, far exceeding the Terror Demon legion which had nearly wiped them out just now!
Having ’devoured’ the Terror Demon remnants, whose numbers were far fewer than theirs, they continued their mighty assault toward the Terra Imperial Palace walls.
They wielded firearms, and behind them were filthy, foul-smelling Nagor siege machines and plague cannons.
Despair.
A deeper and more viscous despair than when facing the Terror Demon followers just before gripped the heart of every surviving guard.
Did they repel the Terror Demon followers?
It didn’t seem so.
These new enemies emerging from behind them were probably the real cause of the Terror Demon followers’ collapse and retreat.
And now, it was their turn, this pitiful remnant army, to face an even more formidable enemy than before.
Zhao Zian gave a bitter smile and put his helmet back on.
...
Sure, here is the translation of the Chinese text:
At this moment, the battle command center of Terra Imperial Palace witnessed the ordeal of Yan Xinzhen, no less intense than that of the front line.
The enormous hemispherical dome was divided into countless flickering light screens, each representing an external defense zone node of the palace. The anvil-Third Gate block representing Zhao Zian’s group had just been covered by an eye-catching blood-red fallen marker, and only a few seconds later, the surveillance footage signal for that area flickered violently before going dark, leaving only darkness and a harsh busy signal.
"Pressure on the ’Diamond Bastion’ main gate section is surging! Titan level biological signal detected approaching!"
"Large-scale teleportation reaction detected in the ’Sighing Corridor’ wing C! Confirmed to be Jian Qi Wizards!"
"’Emperor’s Crown’ Observatory artillery positions are under heavy bombardment by airborne Demon Engine clusters, anti-aircraft fire grid severely torn!"
"Multiple sensor failures in the Palace River dam system suspected Nagor corrosion is damaging the basic structure!"
Warnings struck everyone’s nerves like the dense beat of drums.
On the panoramic battle map, the warning red lights representing fierce crossfire spread like a plague, turning over seventy percent of the palace’s outer defense nodes to the orange-red glow of "critical" or "imminent collapse," while the golden points representing the Imperial Guard’s maneuvering reserve forces were alarmingly few, most of them frantically jumping on the map from one crisis point to another fleeting crisis point, each intervention like a drop in the bucket.
A combat staff officer’s voice held a barely noticeable tremble: "Marshal! ’Anvil’ confirmed fallen. Nagor plague legion is maneuvering through that breach towards the ’Stronghold’s’ flank! B wing of ’Sighing Corridor’ was attacked by a band of desecrated wizards, part of the defending forces betrayed under dark magic, causing us heavy losses! Half of the energy grid generator nodes of the outer fortifications were destroyed or polluted into meat lumps by plague..."
Each piece of news conveyed to Yan Xinzhen a painful truth that weighed heavily on him and all Imperial Guards: the palace walls they had defended for millennia would extensively fall.
A brutal choice pierced his heart like an ice pick and spilled from his mouth.
He had no choice but to abandon the vast outer defense circle, etched in legend and epic, for millennia, and retreat his limited, precious Imperial Guard forces to the middle ring of the palace walls.
No, possibly not even the middle ring.
He was short of troops, facing such a scale of enemy, and insisting on defending an area he couldn’t hold would only futilely thin out forces, then be crushed everywhere.
The middle ring, he couldn’t hold either.
For a long time, the Imperial Guard always looked down on the Golden Knight Legion garrisoned with them at Holy Terra.
Not because of any specific opinion towards the Golden Knights; they just equally looked down on all Interstellar Warriors.
But now, how he wished for the Golden Knights to be here.
Even a thousand more interstellar warriors couldn’t change the situation, but adding some relief would be beneficial.
Abandon the outer ring, abandon the middle ring, totaling sixteen complex concentric walls and countless fortresses, to let them be handed over; the decision was too difficult.
Yet Yan Xinzhen made it.
He urgently needed to consolidate his scarce troops into the more compact, advantageous, intrinsically higher priority inner ring palace walls.
He truly wished he were dead.
Nearly ten thousand years, what Forbidden Army Marshal could lose 70% of the palace’s area?
Shame!
He had to reflect; were the traditions he upheld as Marshal of the Forbidden Army for millennia flawed?
The Imperial Guard should have stayed in the palace?
Without the Empire, what would become of the palace?
This should have been an incredibly obvious principle that even a three-year-old could comprehend, let alone the Imperial Guards who prided themselves on being perfect humans.
Yet they rigidly adhered to tradition, becoming recluses for ten thousand years.
Arrogance blinded them to the reality unfolding before them.
Now was the time to pay for such arrogance.
The orders for abandonment and withdrawal, after a momentary shock among all the personnel in the command post, were communicated downward.
Yan Xinzhen knew that those blood-soaked warriors at the outer layer, upon receiving the orders to retreat from the palace walls or defend themselves and delay the enemy, would feel humiliation and resolve.
He had no time left for sentimentality.
He couldn’t afford honor or pride.
He accessed the highest level encrypted communication channel with the moon.
The screen flickered steadily, and Robert’s resolute face, though also shrouded in fatigue and anxiety, appeared.
"Regent King, Your Highness." Yan Xinzhen’s voice carried no pleasantries, "Terra Imperial Palace’s outer defenses are collapsing; I’ve ordered the abandonment of the outer defense circle and anticipate subsequently abandoning the middle ring, concentrating on the core defenses."
Robert’s pupils dilated sharply on the screen.
The background of his command center was in utter chaos, evidently struggling with the orbital battle and the preparation for multiple ground landings.
"...So soon?" Robert’s voice carried pain.
"The enemy has planned long." Yan Xinzhen spoke quickly; time was of the essence. "Terror Demon ripped open the first big breach, Nagor’s army surged from corpses and plague, in numbers far exceeding the Terror Demon legions. Jian Qi’s witchcraft twisted and caused chaos both internally and at communication nodes, Slaanesh’s whispers shook any remaining defending forces’ will... Regent King, Your Highness, we need your legions!
"At any cost, we need your or an alliance’s legions, to arrive at Terra Imperial Palace, and immediately!"
"The Emperor’s Golden Throne located within the palace’s inner ring must not be lost."