Counterfeit Hero

After wrapping up Hastings’ daily special training, Fatty, who had been utterly berated by Margaret, dared not to look at the "old bastard’s" grim face, fleeing hastily and heading straight to the Fulong Sword Company’s Mecha Assembly Plant located in Hanjing North Suburb.

The assembly plant covers nearly five million square meters and is composed of six assembly workshops. The enormous rectangular building with white walls and blue roofs is visible even from several kilometers away on the highway.

The flying car speeds along the highway, rapidly approaching its destination. Outside the window, the blue energy shield emitted from the towering Hanjing Central Sky Curtain Tower veils the entire sky. Energy ripples created when the sky curtain is struck by an external hurricane appear like white wisps, twisting and fleeting across the blue water-like energy shield.

Sunlight penetrates the sky curtain, casting dazzling reflections on the rivers and lakes beneath the highway overpass. The green fields on the surrounding hills also glimmer in the sunlight.

The flying car races forward at high speed. The shadows cast by the criss-crossing highways cause the view inside the car window to flicker between light and dark.

Fatty focuses intently on the electronic file in his hands.

This is the newly received battle report. On the Resk frontline, combat intensity has increased by two grades.

On Canglang Star, both sides, having strengthened their forces, have begun a new round of confrontation. Under the command of Admiral Chuckna Martin and Admiral Feiyang Randolph, the Fei Alliance Joint Army currently holds the northern mountainous region, vying with the Su Jie Alliance Army led by Prince Jiepeng Bobett for control over dozens of towns and key transit routes east of Tangtai City.

Due to the dense troop concentration, east of Tangtai City has become a battleground for dozens of army divisions from both sides. Every small town, every road is under crossfire. Hundreds of thousands of troops, competing over less than ten percent of strategic points on nearly twenty thousand square kilometers of land, can only be described as overcrowded.

Troops are either engaged in fights on the front line or en route; there is no respite. With the full exertion of both sides’ impressive engineering capabilities, every inch of this region has turned into trenches and fortifications. Countless Mecha forces advance in clusters amidst the roar of engines and the blinding light of energy cannons, while numerous soldiers run, fire, and battle in the criss-crossing, smoke-filled trenches.

Both sides have pulled out all the stops. Large-scale encirclements are often an exchange of volleys of one side moving in after the other has just taken a stand. The joy of encircling and cutting apart the enemy troops one moment might quickly turn into the fear of having retreat routes cut off the next. Many strategically important towns have been razed to the ground in repeated seizures.

The side cut off from retreat fights desperately back, while the side needing coordination with main forces to encircle the enemy yields no ground. To realize strategic intents, to maintain control over a minuscule but critical territory, both sides sacrifice lives.

Overall, initially, the Fei Alliance Joint Army held part of the advantage. The loss of over twenty Jiepeng armored or mechanical infantry divisions in the northern mountainous region, with them being encircled and annihilated, forces the frantic Bobett to gather troops from elsewhere. He can only temporarily relinquish the northern mountainous region, adopting a steady step-back strategy to stabilize the situation.

However, the advantages gained by the Fei Alliance in the northern mountainous region battle quickly vanished with the arrival of reinforcements from the Western Alliance.

As the Mikami Yuto Fleet strengthens control over the Resk Star System, as supply lines increasingly face threats from the Western Alliance Fleet, and as more Western Alliance troops are deployed to the planet’s surface, the Fei Alliance Joint Army, having not completed its third troop reinforcement, can currently only consolidate positions, holding onto the bridgehead centered around the line of Tangtai City and Beiguan City in the northern mountainous region.

The situation is dire. According to calculations from the Alliance Command Center, if the coalition forces cannot increase their troop strength by double within a month, the Allies might be expelled from Canglang Star.

The situation on Canglang Star is like this, and Leifeng Star is hardly any better.

Since the outbreak of the Resk Battle, Leifeng Star has not received any coalition reinforcements. The only relief for the ground forces is that the scant weapons, ammunition, and energy were promptly replenished after the Canglang Star battle. However, with the arrival of Western Alliance reinforcements, the ground Fei Alliance Army on Leifeng Star, having been controlled in outer space, can only once again adopt a defensive stance. Each day, under relentless bombarding by Western Alliance air-based fighters, they look on helplessly as Western Alliance reinforcement troops land in the Western Alliance Control Zone.

The result is increasingly weakened control on the front lines, increasingly struggling to withstand Western Alliance assaults.

Contrary to Canglang Star, the Fei Alliance Joint Army on Leifeng Star controls roughly eighty percent of the ground. But this percentage is rapidly declining. In just one week, the Su Jie Army, previously at its limit, seemed to revive once again.

These troops in iron-gray uniforms, operating crude and heavy iron-gray Mecha, with assistance from the gray-uniformed Jiepeng Army, begin a frenzied counterattack, expanding the control zone to thirty percent. Although still at a disadvantage, the previously encircling stance of the Fei Alliance is being broken down.

Fatty repeatedly examines the battle reports, calculating the reinforcement strength of the Western Alliance based on intelligence.

Actually, there is no need to estimate — it’s clear that this time, Suss and Jiepeng have thrown in their all. Regarding population, these two countries have plenty. But, concerning adequately armed, sufficiently combat-ready forces, they’ve exhausted their national treasury to its fullest.