Counterfeit Hero

Chapter 1477: Chapter 9 Volume 15: The Weights on the Balance_3

The ship kept descending.

On the ground, densely packed flashes of artillery and fire seemed to suddenly bore out of the darkness, making the light outside the porthole flicker on and off.

Reinhardt’s berserk gaze gradually turned icy.

Everything in the past, since it was too unbearable to look back on, no longer needed to be recalled. That cold and ugly metal skull was merely the inevitable price he had paid to gain strength. What mattered was that he had once again seized the pulse of fate, once again clamped the chance tight in his own hands.

The war had only just begun; the future still held far too many possibilities. Commanding a full three hundred Judgers and favored by Sobel, he still had a wealth of opportunities to obtain everything he desired.

That Fatty called Tian Xingjian would never in his dreams imagine that he, Reinhardt, would return to this war with the hand speed of over eighty‑five moves per second.

When they met again on a narrow path, the humiliation of the past would be repaid tenfold!

Night shrouded Sunset Mountain.

Amid the sky‑filling barrage of artillery, the Transport Ship silently touched down at a base less than thirty kilometers from the Sunset Mountain front.

Seeing the black Judgers filing out of the Transport Ship’s hatch, the Western Alliance Army soldiers busy repairing the damaged base facilities and transferring supplies could not help but let out low roars of excitement.

The vanguard forces had already been locked in fierce combat at Sunset Mountain for half the night. The Fei Alliance defensive line was long since riddled with holes, a complete mess.

They had no doubt that once this black force plunged into that all‑encompassing artillery storm at Sunset Mountain and set foot on that charred battlefield, the Western Alliance would usher in a victory that would crush everything before it!

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From the moment the news of the Frenso Town defensive line’s collapse arrived, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Armored Division of the Feiyang 33rd Army, stationed on the southern line of the Charloks Mountain Range, assembled and set off at top speed, marching south along the defensive line toward Frenso Town.

There were few roads on the way south; most of the march was over mountains and ridges.

The combat units could still barely keep their formations orderly, but the Logistics troops were starting to fall behind. After seven hours of forced march, the lead and rear elements of the column were stretched as far as thirty to forty kilometers apart. If any Western Alliance Forces slammed into them mid‑column, it would instantly turn into a rout.

Fortunately, this entire route lay behind the Resk Main Army’s defensive line; though the road was rugged, the Western Alliance Army’s hand ultimately could not reach this far. Besides, no matter how dangerous it was, at this point they had no choice. When the message came, the Western Alliance Army vanguard had already reached Half Cloud Ridge. Seven hours on the march—who knew what might happen in that time.

Commander Deputy Army Chief Pereira and the three division commander under him had done nothing along the way but urge the troops to pick up the pace, shouting until their voices were hoarse. They all understood that if they failed to plug the breach at Frenso, the entire defensive line of the Northern Battle Zone would collapse. Once the north rotted, the south would not hold either. When the Western Alliance main force crossed the defensive line and entered the Phoenix Plain, Leifeng Star would be as good as lost.

If they lost this place, relying solely on that tiny patch of territory held in the Northern Mountain Region of Canglang Star as a bridgehead, the Fei Alliance would not be able to stand firm. If they were driven out of the Resk Star System, then to come back and land again, Chuckna would have to commit three to five times more troops than the two Empires Suss and Jiepeng, paying ten or a hundred times the current price!

Rather than regret it then and pay a crippling price, it was better now to fight for every scrap of opportunity at maximum speed.

The Command Mecha climbed the slope in the surging flood of Mecha.

Feiyang Admiral Pereira, tall and broad‑shouldered, with steel‑needle‑like brown cropped hair and a full beard, stood on the Mecha’s platform, and from the moment they approached Frenso Town he had not lowered the portable long‑range viewer in his hand.

The mountain wind was bitter, crashing through gaps in rock and forest to let out a low moaning sound.

By calculation of distance, once they crested this peak named Little Bear Mountain and advanced another ten kilometers along the valleys between several mountain ridges, they would reach the mining district northeast of Frenso Town.

The closer they came to Frenso Town, the more uneasy Pereira felt.

Originally, when he received the news of Frenso Town’s fall, he had thought the 33rd Army would swing along the eastern route of the Charloks Mountain Range, loop around to Half Cloud Ridge, then establish a defensive line to block the enemy. But to his surprise, the order issued by Army Chief Pierre and Command Headquarters was to have the 33rd Army cut straight across to the northeast of Frenso Town!

Although Pereira was very confident in the combat capacity of his 33rd Army, and understood that the reason Command did not redeploy other units was precisely because they valued the 33rd Army’s fighting power, launching an attack from the narrow mining district northeast of Frenso Town after the enemy had completely occupied Frenso Town was almost tantamount to suicide.

Right now, the three divisions of the 33rd Army were strung out nearly twenty kilometers through the rugged mountain mass. Even after adjustment, the forward elements could only deploy a single battalion across the front. Once this force was discovered by the Western Alliance people, those resting and waiting in comfort would only need two regiments to completely seal the 33rd Army inside the mining district.

And all of this was because of a single, scarcely believable plan proposed by a Leray Fatty Vice Admiral.

The Command Mecha paused briefly on the mountaintop, then followed the main column down the slope, jolting forward along the V‑shaped valley between two great mountains. Starlight spilled into the valley floor. A trickling creek flowed among the scattered stones, reflecting a chill light. Wild grass and leaves around them swayed in the wind, rustling softly. The towering slopes on both sides and the incline ahead pressed in through the night, bringing a suffocating sense of oppression.