Chapter 979 — The Slide

She had spoken barely half her sentence when she suddenly stopped, as if sensing something. The officers in the room, unsure what had happened, looked at one another, but soon some of them caught on and signaled everyone to keep quiet. In the silence, An Luo and her adjutant held their breath and listened carefully to the sounds coming from outside.

The dense explosions from the direction of Little Triangle Slope were rapidly growing sparse.

"Less than half an hour," the adjutant beside her said, his face dark. "Faster than we expected…"

An officer could not help muttering under his breath: "If we had the Iron River Knights and the priest corps, high-level war blessings combined with the battle mage corps' strategic magic, we could hold back the enemy's assault in the northwest…"

An Luo glanced at the officer, then withdrew her gaze: "We no longer have the Iron River Knights, nor the priest corps—only the main force of the Winterwolf Knights, three reinforcing units, and this fortress. Ladies and gentlemen, on that basis, think about how to deal with those Cecilians. That is facing reality."

An Luo still wore a stern expression and spoke in a decisive tone, as if utterly unshaken, but as an elder well acquainted with her, Palin Winterfort could sense the frustration and regret the young wolf general kept buried deep inside.

Yet he could not think of any words of comfort, and he knew most of the people here likely felt the same; even he himself could not muster much optimism at this moment.

And this oppression did not come from the Cecilians, nor from any fear of battle—the empire's soldiers had never feared war. What truly shook them was the clouded future of Typhon.

The corrupted Church of the God of War, the out-of-control ace knight order, the contamination hidden close at hand that might erupt at any moment—everyone tried not to discuss such things in a place like this, but every one of them knew they hung over all their heads in earnest. Quite a few officers, upon learning the deeper intelligence, had even developed an even more terrifying worry—

The Iron River Knights had lost control under the influence of mental contamination, and they were followers of the God of War… Then could they themselves, also followers of the God of War or at least touched to some degree by that faith, suddenly fall into madness as well? And even… were the things they were thinking at this very moment, the tactics they were now deploying, truly the product of their own free will?

The empire's soldiers were human too—these terrible pressures were, by any measure, shaking the morale of every one of them.

"We've set up large-scale arcane stress fields along the western side of the defense line," An Luo suddenly spoke up after a brief silence, breaking it. "These are targeted traps designed around the specific properties of mana engines and ley-line substrates. They should prove quite effective—if they succeed in slowing the enemy's advance, the Black Flag Mage Corps' strategic spell strikes will no doubt be even more devastating."

Palin Winterfort raised an eyebrow. "Arcane stress fields? Those are a research product of the Royal Mages' Association... You've already made them practical?"

"Barely functional," An Luo nodded. "The main problem is we didn't have enough time to set them up, but they should still have some effect..."

After sending Count Palin Winterfort off to rest for the time being, An Luo let out a long breath. She felt slightly lighter than before—but only slightly.

"Still no way to establish contact with the Cecilians?" She suddenly turned her head to look at the adjutant who had followed her for years.

"All attempts have failed," the adjutant answered at once, straightening his back. "We tried calling the Longwind Fortress backup line through the communications device—no response. We also sent out three waves of messengers, and not one came back alive. It seems the Cecilians have been thoroughly enraged. Until a victor emerges, they probably won't negotiate with us."

"Damn it..." An Luo gritted her teeth. "Have their minds been corrupted too..."

The adjutant glanced at his commander with some concern. After a moment's hesitation, the young man who had served An Luo for years could not help speaking up. "General, do you still believe this war can be stopped? Both sides have already resorted to force in earnest... Forgive my bluntness, but I believe trying to contact the Cecilians at this point and explain away the misunderstanding is futile..."

"But the fact is none of this should ever have happened!" An Luo stared at her adjutant, struggling to keep her tone calm. "This war benefits no one—it harms the Empire and harms everyone. Only those corrupted madmen could derive some false satisfaction from it. Listen to me: try contacting them one more time. That's an order."

The adjutant met An Luo's gaze. Two seconds later, he lowered his head and accepted the order. "Yes, General. I'll go to the communications tower again."

The adjutant left, and An Luo remained where she was, facing the disaster that was grinding ever closer with an increasingly heavy heart.

As time passed, more and more intelligence began converging before her.

It was intelligence that scouts operating afield and the griffin units in the sky had gathered at mortal risk—and in report after report, the Cecilians' "steel advance tactics" finally took concrete shape before the defenders of Winterwolf Fortress: the performance of those war machines, the Cecilians' way of fighting, the comparison of combat capabilities and tactics between the two sides...

And along with the intelligence came that ever-advancing steel legion.

Before the sun went down, the last watch post on the western border of Winterwolf Fortress caught sight of the Cecilian army—steel-forged war machines rolling in from the direction of the plains. Amid the roar of artillery, the vehicles' treads tore through the outpost's defenses with ease, and soldiers who had managed to evacuate before that brought word that Winterwolf Fortress would be within enemy firing range in a little over ten minutes.

That was the final piece of intelligence.

At the same time, the adjutant brought the last bad news—there was still no response from Longwind Fortress to Winterwolf's communications.

An Luo stood atop the towering, solid ramparts as the energy shield above the fortress steadily increased its charge level. The enchanted wall beneath her feet resonated with the mana, and some of the stone blocks gave off faint tremors now and then, but none of these rising protection levels could put her heart at ease.

Many things only become clear when faced directly; no amount of prior calculation can match the depth of reality—An Luo had clearly seen the Typhon army's fatal weakness.

The Cecilians' arcanotech had changed this era, and a change of era meant everything must change with it—both the way people lived and everything on the battlefield.

The Typhonians had been one step slow, and that slow step showed on the battlefield as a lack of sufficient units in the Typhon army that could match the Cecilians' new weapons.

Against those steel war machines called "tanks," the Empire's Iron River Knights were absent, the priest corps could no longer be used, and only the battle mages who had recently completed upgrade training remained, able to fight them with the aid of arcanotech vehicles—yet the latter suffered from a severe shortage in numbers, and on this new kind of battlefield they were far less experienced than the Cecilian army that had survived civil war and the Calamity of the Gods.

After a round of comparison, An Luo finally realized that once the Cecilian war machines rolled onto the battlefield, she could find precious few troop types under her command that could march out of Winterwolf Fortress and fight the enemy head-on in open battle!