Deep within the Kazdel frontier, the Babel field commander stood near the edge of the forward encampment, staring out toward the endless cracks of thunder and blooming fire along the distant ridge. Ever since he had dispatched his urgent request for aid to the Doctor, a heavy, suffocating layer of worry had settled into his chest.
It wasn't that his unit harbored some stubborn, poetic obsession with holding this specific stretch of dirt. The brutal reality was that this path offered the most direct, unobstructed entry point into Kazdel for Rhodes Island. It was the absolute best gateway available for the approaching mobile fortress.
Though the surrounding expanses of Kazdel looked like a uniform, barren wasteland to an outsider, the geography bordering Rim Billiton was notoriously treacherous, choked with endless chains of jagged hills and steep ravines.
If the Doctor and her vanguard were forced to alter their course, they would have to waste days charting a massive detour around the outer rim of the border. To prevent that, the vanguard had to ensure this crucial gateway didn't fall entirely into enemy hands, or at the very least, preserve a singular fortified position that held the high ground.
The primary fear was that the Regent's forces might permanently collapse the passes through heavy demolition, before turning their full focus toward hunting down or crippling Rhodes Island. Driven by that exact mandate, the hostile ranks were pushing forward with a level of ferocity that defied reason.
Are you lot not supposed to be basic mercenaries? the commander grumbled internally, nursing his frayed nerves. Is there truly a need to display this level of professional dedication? Day after day, those charging soldiers looked as though they had been injected with a madman's zeal, throwing their lives away without a single trace of fear.
The breaking point that had triggered the emergency dispatch to the main landship was the sudden appearance of standard Military Commission uniforms. The regular, disciplined vanguard of Theresis had officially arrived at the staging lines, preparing to join the assault in full force.
Clutching his weapon with white-knuckled intensity, the field commander refused to let down his guard for even a split second. Even while stationed within the relative safety of the rear command tent, his internal alarm systems were wound tighter than those of the frontline fighters.
He simply couldn't comprehend what grand design the Demon King and her inner circle were pursuing to justify a clash of this magnitude. As a soldier stationed permanently on the interior borders, he was kept entirely in the dark regarding the grander secrets, knowing only that whatever rested within that excavation pit was monumentally vital to the future of Babel.
"If your administration fails to deploy immediate reinforcements to this line, I do not see a mathematical path for my crew to survive the day. From a purely practical standpoint, executing an immediate retreat right now would drastically lower our casualty rates compared to standing our ground in these trenches."
Back from the shifting chaos of the vanguard lines, Hoederer marched straight into the command tent, his armor caked in dried mud and fresh blood. He addressed the Babel officer with a dark, severe expression.
His raw irritation wasn't directed at the officer personally; rather, it was fueled by the grinding stalemate on the field and the undeniable reality that their defensive lines were steadily fracturing.
The relentless meat grinder had already claimed a substantial portion of his veteran fighters. If this chaotic exchange sustained its current momentum for another few watches, Hoederer seriously doubted whether he would have enough seasoned mercenaries left to reform a proper vanguard.
Truth be told, if the Babel officer standing before him weren't currently covered in injuries that looked arguably worse than his own, Hoederer would have packed up his crew and abandoned the sector hours ago. Had this been one of those typical corporate handlers who sat comfortably in a pristine rear office while the mercenaries bled out in the mud, he wouldn't have hesitated to pull the plug.
Presently, the battered Babel officer sat in tense silence, carefully weighing the grim variables. He was entirely aware that the enemy possessed a massive superiority in both numbers and raw firepower, and that total collapse was a very real possibility.
Yet, word had just arrived that the Doctor had personally authorized a reinforcement detachment. Because the communication window had been incredibly brief, he had no idea which elite operators were currently en route to bridge the gap, leaving him suspended in an agonising state of uncertainty.
Looking up at the massive mercenary captain, the officer knew he couldn't simply offer vague platitudes. Hoederer was acting as the collective voice for every contract fighter on the ridge; if he failed to deliver a definitive compromise, these desperate mercenaries might very well bind him in chains and hand him over to the Regent's vanguard to buy their own freedom.
Besides, the mercenary's assessment was entirely accurate. Still, the thought of simply surrendering the gateway without a fight caused a deep, stubborn resistance to flare within the officer's chest.
"With all due respect, I do not believe a hidden miracle is waiting to tilt the scales in our favor. A handful of powerful individual combatants cannot systematically dismantle an entire army of maddened zealots," Hoederer remarked, his voice deadpan as he gestured toward the distant ridge, where the relentless thud of artillery echoed through the valley.
The officer knew the danger intimately. He recognized that holding a line with a fractured garrison against an adversary whose reinforcement pools were seemingly bottomless was a fool's errand.
"Give me one more day. Just hold the trenches for the remainder of this single day! If tomorrow dawns and our situation has experienced zero positive turn, we will officially abandon the pass and execute a coordinated fallback to regroup with the secondary divisions. What do you say?"
Hearing the Babel handler officially concede the possibility of a retreat, the immense weight pressing down on Hoederer's shoulders finally lifted. Had the tactical layout held even a sliver of a winning margin, he never would have forced the issue to begin with.
Since the handler had shown a willingness to bend, the mercenary captain saw no reason to push further. A twenty-four-hour window was manageable. If they unearthed every spare explosive cache remaining in their supply vaults and laid them thick across the approach vectors, they could likely survive the night.
Offering a terse nod of agreement, Hoederer spun on his heel and exited the tent. The Babel officer, ensuring his temporary field dressings were secure, prepared to march right back into the fray to coordinate the defense.
"Let's hope... the vanguard the Doctor dispatched carries some real weight," the officer muttered to the empty tent, his tone laced with heavy fatigue.
In all honesty, when he had transmitted the desperate request for aid, he had done so merely as a last resort. Even if the high command had chosen to write his unit off as an expendable sacrifice to buy time for the landship, it wouldn't have surprised him in the slightest.
"Well? Did the handler yield? When are we officially pulling out of this godforsaken ditch?" The moment Hoederer cleared the command perimeter, a frantic crowd of sub-captains and mercenary representatives swarmed his position, desperate for data.
The grinding pressure of the disadvantageous conflict had pushed their psychological baselines dangerously close to a complete fracture. Had their employer been anyone other than the legendary Demon King, these cynical veterans would have gathered their gear and vanished into the wastes hours ago.
Faced with their intense, burning gazes, Hoederer felt an unfamiliar wave of pressure. He had rarely been the anchor for this much collective desperation, and for a brief moment, he struggled to find the appropriate phrasing.
"The directive is to hold the line for one final day until the reinforcements arrive. If tomorrow arrives and the tactical balance remains unchanged, we have formal authorization to abandon the gateway and execute a deep fallback. We will establish a secondary defensive line and await the arrival of Babel's main force."
The moment the terms left his mouth, the surrounding crowd erupted into a chaotic storm of arguments. The camp turned into a virtual hornets' nest, the rough fighters voicing deep dissatisfaction with the mandate to bleed for another twenty-four hours.
"Under normal contract terms, that handler possessed the authority to command us to fight to the last man without a single explanation!" Hoederer barked, his powerful voice cutting through the din like a physical blow. "Since the administration has extended a reasonable compromise, cease this useless grumbling and return to your stations!"
Without waiting for a rebuttal, he strode toward his own sector, entirely indifferent to their underlying complaints. He had secured the exact structural guarantee he required, and that was sufficient.
Returning to his personal tent, Hoederer briefed Ines and his core squad on the arrangement. He issued an immediate order to unearth every single explosive device remaining in their inventory, adopting a posture that suggested they were fully prepared to bring the entire mountain down on the enemy's heads.
Staring through the tent flap at the wave of fearless enemy soldiers throwing themselves against the wire, a trace of genuine curiosity entered his mind. What grand prize had Theresis promised to inspire this level of suicidal bravado?
What the mercenary captain failed to realize was that the motivation driving the opposing ranks was beautifully simple: cold, hard coin. The Regent's officers had guaranteed a massive sliding scale of bonuses—the faster the gateway was secured, the larger the payout for the surviving mercenaries.
As for the penalties tied to failure? The common soldiers hadn't been granted a clear breakdown of that specific variable. But evaluating the dark, ominous undertones woven into the commands delivered by the regular army officers, not a single mercenary possessed the courage to press for clarification.
As the frantic struggle along the ridge reached a screaming crescendo, neither side noticed a cluster of tiny, obscure black specks gathering within the high, freezing clouds above the valley.
In a world that had never developed traditional aerial warfare units, the eyes of every combatant remained glued strictly to the horizontal field, entirely consumed by the immediate threats that were actively trying to take their lives.
As for those distant dots in the heavens? The few scouts who happened to catch a glimpse assumed they were merely a flock of common wild fowl migrating across the peaks. Given the immense altitude, their silhouettes appeared entirely minuscule.
High above the chaos, Jeanne sat securely upon the back of her lead wyvern, looking down at the violent collision of steel and fire below. From her elevated vantage point, the raging armies resembled nothing more than a frantic colony of ants scattering across the dirt.
Had her visual acuity been even a fraction less refined, she would have struggled to distinguish the friendly vanguard from the advancing hostile lines at this distance.
Fortunately, her sight remained perfectly sharp, allowing her to isolate the precise boundary lines of the Babel defensive perimeter. Her eyes locked onto the dense mass of the Regent's Sarkaz forces gathering along the lower ridges, preparing for another massive forward surge.
Leaning forward with a bright, dangerous smile, the Saintess decided it was the perfect moment to deliver a thoroughly unexpected surprise to the battlefield.