Chapter 1337 No Retreat

In Cecil City, in the study room covered with blue velvet carpet, Amber delivered the information just received to Gao Wen: "This is a new clue found by the Western Front Expeditionary Force in the area once occupied by the aberrations. I've sorted it out, take a look."

Gawain recovered from the work at hand, looked up at Amber who was protruding his upper body from a shadow rift and holding a document in his hand, and asked casually while reaching out to take the things in the other's hand : "What aspect?"

Amber handed the thing over, and jumped out of the shadow rift holding the table: "The ground operation team of the outpost research ship found the remains of some kind of man-made object in the ruins of the aberrant camp on Wolf Ridge Mountain. Preliminary analysis of that thing and the Kraken The cubes 'salvaged' in the deep blue veins are similar to a certain extent, but the damage is serious, and many structures can no longer be restored-now the cube has been sent to the transport plane and transported here.

"On the other hand, King Wycliffe, one of the Five Kings of Ogure, provided clues to the expeditionary force. He said that the aberrations had inexplicable actions when they attacked the Fortress of Farm, and they stormed regardless of losses. The high ground where the North Tower of the fortress is located stayed there for a long time. After that, the technical priests of the Holy Sun Chapter searched the ruins of the North Tower based on this clue, and found the rune matrix and mana crystals that had not been completely destroyed under the ruins. According to the remaining energy fluctuations at the scene, the technicians suspect that those aberrations or the commanders behind them once performed some kind of... magic ritual with huge energy fluctuations."

Gawain was flipping through the documents he had sorted out in his hands. At this moment, the movement of his hands suddenly stopped, and he raised his eyelids to look at Amber: "Some kind of magic ritual with huge energy fluctuations?"

"For example, open a space rift leading to the dark blue vein," Amber shrugged, "that's what the technical experts said."

Gawain's eyes fell on the document in his hand again. After staring and pondering for a long time, he finally threw the document on the table, and leaned back on the chair behind him after taking a long breath.

The lightness and clarity brought by the clues surfaced and the depressive urgency brought by knowing the conspiracy appeared in his heart at the same time. The two feelings mixed together, but made his thoughts clearer and sharper than ever.

"This matter..." Amber carefully watched Gao Wen's reaction, held back for a few seconds and finally couldn't help but speak, "What do you think? Those deformed bodies..."

"At this time yesterday, Aldernan also sent a contact. Rosetta mentioned that their frontline commander noticed some abnormal movements of those monsters, and suspected that there was a bigger conspiracy behind the actions of those monsters. Now we have found further substantive evidence...this evidence matches the clues discovered by the sea monster before." Gawain sat up straight again, and said in a serious voice, "Amber, I think this is the real clue of those monsters. What they want to do——their operation of dropping rune stones in the dark blue webway is still going on, and this matter is far more important than other operations, even..."

He paused for a few seconds at this point,

It seemed that he was weighing something repeatedly, but in the end he still expressed his bold guess.

"Even their large-scale attack on the civilized world this time may be just one of the means adopted to achieve this... Behind their military operations, putting those 'cubes' in specific places is their real purpose." Target."

Hearing Gao Wen's words, Amber couldn't help but widen her eyes: "You mean, their real goal in launching such a massive war is not to occupy any place, nor is it to destroy a certain country. Many of the actions are simply a cover, just to be able to throw those 'stones' into the deep blue webway?!"

"Put the cube in the dark blue webway and 'create destruction' may not conflict," Gao Wen raised his eyelids and looked at the shadow assault goose in front of him. "Our only shortcoming before was that we failed to place the enemy in the wasteland." The Cubes' and the war they're waging this time - we thought it was two separate operations, but now it looks like the two things are one."

Amber blinked her eyes, and the information she possessed was quickly combined in her mind, gradually sorting out a new thread, and after a while, she broke the silence thoughtfully: "So we can confirm at least two things now: the first It is obviously not enough for those monsters to just drop 'cubes' in the wasteland. If there is some kind of 'indicator' for their action, then part of the 'points' in this 'indicator' are obviously located in the civilized world, so they can This war must be waged, and in some places, action at all costs.

"Second, their 'delivery plan' hasn't been completed yet, no matter how much is left, as long as the predetermined 'delivery target' has not been achieved, they must continue to act..."

"In a sense, both of these are good news," Gao Wen nodded and said, "The thing we were most worried about at the beginning was that the Sentry's plot against the Deep Blue Webway had reached its final stage, and the mortal world had no time to take action. Countermeasures, but now we find that those monsters are still looking for places to drop that kind of cube, which shows that our enemy's actions are not going well... Maybe the 'system' that the Sentinels are trying to build has very strict restrictions, Maybe it was the sea-monsters' erratic 'salvage' behavior that disrupted the enemy's plan... No matter what the reason is, it's a good thing."

Gao Wen's words made Amber feel relieved, but soon, she realized the hidden pressure behind these optimistic judgments: "But in this way, we are now 'to ensure local advantages, use strategic depth, and gradually reduce the enemy's 'The combat policy is..."

"That's right, I'm afraid we have to make some adjustments," Gao Wen nodded slowly, "The 'Sentinel' is still dropping cubes into the dark blue network lane, but we have no way to determine its 'dropping standard' What is it, we can't be sure where the next 'drop point' is, and we can't be sure how many cubes the enemy plans to drop... So the only thing we can do at this stage is to stay on all fronts without retreating any more. A new occupied area, because any breach may mean that the plan of the sentinel will be advanced, even if we can recover those areas later, those monsters may have already dropped the cube..."

"But our counterattack plan will be difficult to handle in this way," Amber scratched her hair vigorously. Although she is not an expert in military affairs, she has been influenced by Gao Wen for so many years, and she still has some simple truths. I can understand, "There is a long front around the wasteland of Gondor. The alliance's military strength is not very abundant, and now it has to defend all positions. Whether the local advantages that have been established with great difficulty on the northern and eastern fronts can be maintained is a question. Question, not to mention that we also plan to counterattack the wasteland and build a 'blocking wall' that runs through the entire wasteland in the Gondor polluted area... how can we have so many troops?"

"...Tallond has sent three waves of expeditionary forces, and now they are at the forefront of the three fronts of Ogure, Typhon, and Cecil. The Holy Dragon Principality, the Northern City-State Federation, and even the Dwarf Kingdom have also sent themselves The elites at the bottom of the box have been dispatched, the situation in the southern part of the mainland is unknown, and the Violet Kingdom is a bunch of self-closing hermits, who can't be counted on at all..." Gao Wen said slowly, his face looking a little gloomy, "But no matter what, Unless we can accurately determine where the 'Sentry' will drop the next cube, the only thing we can do is to hold all the lines of defense, this is not a multiple-choice question..."

In his thoughts, his eyes slowly fell on the map hanging on the wall not far away—on the map of the entire Loren Continent with accurate proportions, the red and blue arrows and annotations marked almost the entire land. Regarding the situation on the continent, except for the lack of information in the southern region, intricate marks can be seen everywhere on the entire wasteland defense line, the coalition forces from various countries, the large-scale offensive of the aberrant legion, the canine-toothed occupied areas and contested areas, and the fragmented grandeur. The wall barrier... In the center of the vast civilized world, a dark and broken deep pool appeared, and the dirty mud overflowing from the deep pool polluted everything around like a poison.

Gawain stared at the map, but he began to focus more energy on the connection deep in his mind. His "vision" gradually increased in his senses, and the satellite's bird's-eye view from outer space emerged in his mind.

Between the clouds and the fog, he saw the Loren Continent in flames of war. The sun was slanting on the land from the side of the top of the atmosphere. The dark wasteland in the center of the land was as eye-catching as an ugly scar. The luminous high wall surrounding the entire territory of Gondor is now in a fragmented state. In the gaps, there are dazzling traces of purple and black mixed with dark red. These traces "flow" from the wasteland, as if Corroded scars are imprinted on the original green mountains and green waters, and around each of these scars, one can see rising smoke, or continuous flashes of light—or, a piece of ruins.

The old satellite monitoring system cannot give all the details on the land, and there is even more impenetrable interference in the area with the strongest smell of wasteland, but even so, the bird's-eye view from space can still give Gawain a general understanding of Loren The situation on the mainland—this information is not comprehensive enough, but at the most dangerous moment when the communications in various theaters were cut off and the friendly defense lines fell one after another, it was these limited information that allowed Gao Wen to always have a general grasp of the situation and prevent everything from getting out of control.

Even now, this bird's-eye view still works.

Gao Wen's "eyes" were focused on the southern part of the mainland, which was the last area on the entire front where communication with the north was severely impeded so far - the communication problem was even second, after all, at least Amorn could be on the mainland now Acting as a messenger between the north and the south, the biggest problem on the southern front is the lack of support.

Although Typhon's magician group and national knights are strong, but after the loss of the Battle of Winterhold, they have lost the power they used to be proud of the other countries. Currently, only parts of the northern part of Typhon can maintain partial power on the entire Eastern Front. In an advantageous situation, it is difficult to provide any support to the south. Ogulei has just recovered from the crisis of almost subjugating the country, so naturally there is no leeway. As for Cecil...

It was too far away, and the Imperial Navy led by the Winter was still repairing the communication network along the western circumnavigation route, and the army led by the Dawn of Earth and the Duke of Baldwin was not enough to support all the way to the south.

And even if there is no such a long distance, there is no way, the military strength of the Cecil Empire is also limited, and under the pressure of the Wasteland Legion in the northern region that is about to make a comeback, it is impossible for Gawain to distribute the military strength on hand to other places indefinitely.

But even so, the coalition forces of the Gaoling Kingdom and the Silver Empire still had to defend the entire southern battlefield.

...

In the eastern part of the Holy Spirit Plain under the sunshine, the towering giant tree of Sorin covers the land, stretching her huge branches in the sunshine and breeze, and a deep and sweet sound is heard deep in the crown of this "miracle tree" Echoing in some of the chambers, it's like a wind chant, and it's like a dream whispering.

In a large-scale chamber wrapped in layers of wooden structures and green leaves, the soft twilight illuminates the open space, and the fluorescence on the surface of the vines begins to flow, and in the center of the chamber, a large number of vines and In the depths of the "nursery" formed by intertwined roots, a group of flower vines suddenly spread out, and Bertila's figure appeared among the flower vines, and slowly opened his eyes.

"...The poisonous spores have failed, and the propulsion has stopped..." The former dark patriarch whispered to himself, but there was not much expression on his face, "Oh, you are indeed my former 'citizens', It's quite tenacious to resist..."

She could feel the warm winter sun shining on the canopy of Thorin's giant tree, but at the same time, she could also feel the darkness and coldness coming from far to the south—her distant limbs were moving toward the The wasteland extends, deep in the soil and rocks, at the edge of the Gondor wasteland, the roots and vines belonging to the giant tree of Thorin and the root system belonging to the dark priest of the wasteland are continuing a war that ordinary people cannot understand.

Toxic spores, fighting split organisms, antagonistic pheromones, and the most direct strangulation and nerve parasites—every minute, every second, Beltera is using his own methods to kill the layer of "immunity" that protects the root network of the wasteland. "Barrier", trying to extend her power to the interior of the wasteland, and every second, the root network controlled by her former compatriots is also carrying out tenacious resistance and counterattack.

This kind of tug-of-war has continued from the beginning of the war to the present, and has even begun to have a visible impact on the ecological environment near the entire northern front—luxurious green plants grew in the black forest, and thorns and thorns began to emerge from the corrupted dark land. Rotten vines, all kinds of normal or abnormal plants spread on the border of the civilized world, and it was hard to tell the winner for a while.

At this moment, a part of Bertila's consciousness was temporarily withdrawn from the protracted confrontation in the distance. She took a short rest, thinking about the "recipe" of the new nerve agent and pheromone, and at the same time seriously feeling the sunshine over the Holy Spirit Plain.

This sunshine is her favorite pastime on weekdays.

But at this moment, a slight rustling sound suddenly came from the depths of the chamber, interrupting Bertila's thinking. She looked up in the direction of the sound, and saw that the "door" formed by the leaves was facing The left and right sides were opened, and a petite figure in a plain gray coat poked his head out cautiously.

"Sister Bertera...you're back'? I heard some movement here..."

Bertila looked at the petite elf who appeared in front of her in surprise: "Berna? Why did you come here?"