Another Lazarus power armor demonstrated superb stealth.
He utilized the coastal rocks and undulating terrain, shutting down non-essential engines and approaching silently in a low-power mode.
As he neared a pillbox, he suddenly leaped, the hydraulic system in his power armor's feet erupting with immense force, allowing him to land directly on its roof.
Before the soldiers inside could react, the flamethrower under his arm briefly jetted, and the high-temperature stream instantly melted through the pillbox's roof, incinerating everything within.
Arasaka's defenses here appeared more rushed and chaotic.
They clearly hadn't anticipated the enemy attacking with such an "elite mob" style, from various unexpected angles.
The comms channel was filled with chaotic shouts: "Three o'clock direction! That black one, he's too fast!"
"Our heavy firepower can't penetrate their shields!"
"They've breached the position! Close-quarters combat!"
Two Arasaka power armors, hastily dispatched, attempted to intercept the squad leader's unit, piloted by "Butcher" himself and painted with a grim skull.
"Butcher" sneered, advancing instead of retreating.
Just as the two sides were about to collide, his power armor executed a nearly impossible side-slide, evading the opponent's frontal fire, while simultaneously extending his left arm's power claw.
With a shriek that tore through the air, it savagely plunged into the chest cockpit of an Arasaka power armor.
The other Arasaka power armor tried to shoot from the side; the missile launcher on "Butcher" squad leader's shoulder instantly locked on, and a small high-explosive missile whistled out, blowing it to pieces.
The battle became a one-sided hunt.
The Lazarus power armor pilots were all seasoned veterans; coupled with the added fault tolerance provided by the temporarily installed shields, they pushed the power armor's mobility and firepower to their limits.
They charged left and right within the Arasaka positions, precisely destroying the Take-Mikazuchi Electromagnetic Railgun projectile's cooling systems, capacitor arrays, and the rails themselves.
"Target A destroyed."
"Energy node compromised."
"Processing the last gun emplacement."
Concise reports were transmitted over the encrypted channel.
In less than twenty-five minutes, the Take-Mikazuchi Electromagnetic Railgun system on the coastal high ground had been reduced to a pile of burning, twisted scrap metal.
The surviving Arasaka soldiers had long lost the will to resist, scattering and fleeing.
"Butcher" stood at the highest point of the position, looking at the devastation below, his voice beneath his faceplate devoid of emotion: "Mission accomplished. Rendezvous at the extraction point."
The five power armors, like a pack of wolves that had completed their hunt, quickly disengaged and vanished into the shadows of the coastline.
——
Meanwhile, in the southern abandoned factory district.
The fighting style here differed from the eastern and western fronts.
Morris, like a true ghost, infiltrated the factory district ahead of Maine's crew.
Her sensors blocked the perimeter surveillance, her Sonic Blade silently severed the throats of patrolling sentries, or disabled alarms at critical locations.
She cleared a relatively safe infiltration path for Maine's crew.
Maine's crew rapidly advanced along the route marked by Morris.
They lacked the heavy protection of power armor but possessed the flexibility, synergy, and deadly efficiency characteristic of street mercenaries.
"Left corridor, two men," Sasha's voice came through the internal channel; she had hacked into the factory's remaining surveillance system.
Dorio, like a tank, led the charge, unleashing a punch with her Oscillation generator.
The invisible shockwave sent two Arasaka soldiers, along with their cover, flying from around the corner.
Rebecca followed closely, delivering a finishing shot with her heavy explosive shotgun, ensuring the targets were completely silenced.
Pilar and Kiwi were responsible for rear guard and electronic countermeasures, disrupting Arasaka's internal communications and sowing chaos.
Deep within the factory, Arasaka had clearly deployed defensive forces.
A four-person power armor team, supported by more than twenty elite security personnel, guarded the Susanoo Gravity Field Generator, which was currently being assembled.
"Intruders detected! It's Maine's crew! Maximum alert!" the Arasaka commander roared.
The power armors raised their rotary machine guns and began to wildly spray bullets in the direction Maine's crew might appear, riddling the factory's metal walls with holes.
"Rebecca, draw fire! Dorio, follow me around the side! Pilar, smoke grenades!" Maine quickly issued commands.
Rebecca let out an excited howl, shouldering her explosive shotgun and flashing out from behind a cover, firing a high-explosive round towards the power armors.
Although the explosion failed to penetrate the armor, it successfully drew the enemy's attention. The muzzles of three power armors immediately turned in her direction, pouring down a storm of bullets.
Meanwhile, Maine and Dorio, using the factory's complex structure and Pilar's smoke grenades for cover, rapidly approached from the flank.
"Bang!" Maine's left arm plasma cannon once again emitted a low hum.
A brilliant blue orb of light streaked through the smoke, accurately hitting the back engine compartment of a power armor. The high-temperature plasma instantly melted through the armor, triggering an internal secondary explosion, and the power armor immediately became a fireball.
Dorio, meanwhile, charged towards another power armor like a brute.
The moment the opponent turned his gun, her arm-mounted Oscillation generator simultaneously slammed into the power armor's leg joint.
The immense impact caused the steel giant to lose its balance, stumbling backward. Dorio seized the opportunity, leaped onto it, and with brute force tore open a weak point in its chest armor, stuffing several high-explosive grenades inside before quickly jumping away.
"Boom!" Another power armor was destroyed from within.
The last remaining power armor and security personnel attempted to organize a counterattack, but Maine's crew gave them no chance.
Morris appeared like a phantom from the shadows, her Sonic Blade tracing an elegant arc, severing the power armor's weapon feed chain, then her figure flashed, cutting down several security personnel who were attempting to aim at Maine.
Rebecca's explosive shotgun continued to roar, suppressing the remaining infantry.
Maine's plasma cannon recharged once more; this time, the target was directly the core, not yet fully activated Susanoo Gravity Field Generator.
"Goodbye, Arasaka's toy."
The plasma orb whistled out, hitting the generator's core control unit dead on.
After a blinding flash of energy came a violent explosion and precision parts scattering everywhere.
The expensive Gravity Field Generator turned into a pile of charred junk before it could even operate.
After clearing the remaining sporadic resistance, Maine looked at the devastated factory interior and said in a deep voice: "Target cleared. Morris, confirm if there are any tails. Everyone else, prepare for extraction."
Three key targets, under the assault of three distinct units, were successively eliminated before Arasaka's main force could complete its final deployment.
Arasaka's meticulously planned "Triple Strike" was declared bankrupt before it even began. The professionalism of the Wraiths, the elite nature of Lazarus, and the lethality of Maine's crew were all fully demonstrated in the battles of this night.
The temporarily installed shield technology became the key factor for them to achieve their tactical objectives with minimal cost.
In the combat command center of the Arasaka white whale aircraft carrier, the air was so heavy it was almost suffocating.
On the massive holographic tactical sand table, the light points representing the three assault squads and heavy weapon systems flickered out one after another, eventually solidifying into glaring red "Loss" markers, firmly pinned to the positions of the eastern high ground, the western coast, and the southern factory district.
On the auxiliary screens, the last fragments of real-time footage scrolled silently—the burning wreckage of the "Amaterasu" array, the twisted and broken "Take-Mikazuchi" Electromagnetic Railgun projectile, the core unit of the "Susanoo" Gravity Field Generator melted through by plasma cannons—every frame was like a silent slap, heavily striking the face of every officer.
For nearly a minute, the command center was silent, with only the low hum of equipment and a few suppressed, heavy breaths.
"Bang!"
A muffled thud suddenly broke the frozen air.
Director Takayama Shintaro's fist slammed heavily onto the alloy base of the tactical sand table, with such force that the entire sand table shook.
His usually meticulously combed hair now had a few strands loose on his forehead, but he seemed completely oblivious.
The muscles on his usually calm face were taut, and the veins in his neck subtly bulged.
His chest heaved violently twice, as if he was forcibly suppressing the rage about to erupt.
"... Useless!" The word was squeezed from between his teeth, carrying a chilling coldness, more oppressive than a desperate roar: "A bunch of utter trash!"
He spun around abruptly, his gaze like a razor blade sweeping over the cowering staff behind him.
The young officers lowered their heads one after another, not daring to meet his gaze, fearing they would become the focus of this overwhelming fury.
"Power armor units! Our highly anticipated power armor units!" Takayama's voice suddenly rose, every word like it was dipped in ice, "In the east, they were picked off one by one like targets by a ragtag army like Wraiths!
In the west, they were treated as practice dummies by Lazarus' mercenaries!
In the southern factory, they didn't even manage to organize decent resistance before Maine and his street rats raided their base!"
He snatched the tactical tablet from the technical staff's hand, quickly pulled up the battlefield data analysis report, his finger almost piercing the screen.
"Look! Open your eyes and look!" He projected the data from the tablet onto the main screen, "Enemy power armor model confirmed, it's Militech's 'assault squad - type vii' basic framework!
It's in the same generation as our 'oni (ghost warrior) power armor - Type IX' in terms of paper parameters! There is no insurmountable performance gap!"
His finger traced over a series of comparative data, his voice trembling imperceptibly from excitement: "But what's the result? What's the exchange ratio? Four 'oni (ghost warrior) power armor' in the east were completely annihilated, zero losses for the enemy power armor!
Two in the west were instantly eliminated! Three in the factory district couldn't even buy time!
Is this a performance gap? This is a generation gap! An absolute generation gap in tactics and equipment application!"
He paused, took a deep breath, trying to regain his usual composure, but with little effect.
He pointed to the faint, constantly rippling light blue halo around the enemy power armor in the footage.
"The problem lies with this shield!" Takayama's voice was decisive, "According to battlefield records, our small-caliber autocannons, assault rifles, and even some armor-piercing rounds were effectively deflected or had their kinetic energy weakened by this shield.
Yet the enemy's attacks could pour onto our armor without any hindrance!
They could forcefully push forward under our firepower, engaging in damage-for-damage or even no-damage combat!
While our pilots were still hesitating over firing angles and evasion routes, their pilots, relying on the extra margin of error provided by the shield, had already charged right into our faces!"
He looked around at everyone, his eyes, besides anger, held a deeper, cold sense of powerlessness born from being technologically outmatched: "This isn't a matter of soldier courage, nor can it be fully explained by a commander's tactical error. This is absolute technological backwardness!
Militech, or rather the 'Archmagos' behind them, has used a technology we don't yet fully understand to put an impenetrable shell on their power armor!
And with this shell, they've turned our meticulously trained power armor units into live targets on a training ground!"
Just then, Yorinobu Arasaka, who had been standing silently by the porthole, slowly turned around.
His face was covered with a layer of frost, his eyes dark and ominous, as if a storm was brewing within them.
He had also witnessed the entire defeat, but unlike Takayama's anger, which was based on military logic, his rage was more like a performance, a carefully calculated emotional release.
"Enough!" Yorinobu's voice was not loud, but it carried a chilling coldness that instantly overshadowed Takayama's reprimand: "Once was a failed probe, twice was a troublesome shield... Now, even our most core heavy assault weapons and power armor units are being torn apart like paper in a head-on confrontation!"
He walked step by step towards Takayama Shintaro, his pace slow and heavy, carrying an invisible sense of oppression.
"Uncle Takayama, tell me, how much of Arasaka's prestige, the empire's face, is left now?" His voice was sarcastic, "Being repeatedly trampled into the ground by a bunch of mercenaries, rebels, and street rats!
The whole world is watching us, watching this white whale, watching us put on a clumsy farce here!"
He stopped in front of the tactical sand table, his gaze sweeping over the three glaring red loss markers, finally settling on Takayama's face.
"Since conventional methods are all useless, and you're hesitant about unconventional methods..." Yorinobu's lips curved into a cruel arc, a hint of almost insane paranoia flashing in his eyes, "Then I'll ask one more time, Director Takayama, will you or will you not hand over the authorization code for the tactical nuclear missile? Must we wait until the enemy attacks this flagship before you admit that only destruction can wash away the shame we are currently enduring?"
The air in the bridge instantly became extremely tense.
All the officers held their breath, their gazes shifting back and forth between Takayama Shintaro and Yorinobu Arasaka.
Using nuclear weapons would undoubtedly open Pandora's Box, and no one could predict the consequences.
Takayama Shintaro, facing Yorinobu's almost forced attitude, his chest heaved violently again.
But he quickly controlled his emotions, the flush of anger on his face slowly receding, replaced by a deep solemnity.
He knew that Yorinobu was using this as an excuse, trying to force him to make concessions or test his bottom line with extreme proposals. He absolutely could not lose his composure at this moment.
"Lord Yorinobu," Takayama's voice regained its steadiness, though a suppressed anger could still be heard, "I understand your anger, and like you, I am deeply distressed by today's failure. However, using nuclear weapons is still an absolutely unacceptable last resort."
He took a step forward, his gaze meeting Yorinobu's without flinching.
He knew he had to stop Yorinobu's recklessness.