As time went on, one hour, two hours, then three hours passed in a blur. Most of the pilots in training had begun to feel physically exhausted. Though drenched in sweat, not a single one complained. They merely hurriedly replenished their water before throwing themselves back into battle training, again and again without pause.
And now, after three hours, they were already on their third restart. In the first round, everyone had kept Xiao Ran's words firmly in mind: offense was the best defense. Kouji Kabuto, Ryoma Nagare, and Shinji Ikari, who had been specifically called out, charged straight ahead, while those pilots capable of Space Jump began leaping all over the battlefield, wreaking havoc and attacking at will.
For a time, the battle had gone quite smoothly, but in the end, Danner's Son was destroyed, declaring their defeat.
With the experience from the first round, Shinji Ikari understood what he had to do the second time when facing an enemy with an overwhelming numerical advantage. Together with the other two EVAs, he held fast near the warship. Whenever they encountered a forceful assault, they activated their AT Fields. Meanwhile, everyone else either maneuvered, pushed forward, or defended as needed. The scene looked quite good for a while, and it was indeed far smoother than the previous round.
However, some people pushed too aggressively, causing their front and rear lines to become separated by the simulated Gamillas forces. Quite a few were dragged into isolated individual battles. The strong swept through the enemy like erasers, while the weak could only struggle to protect themselves amid countless foes. As time went on, their coordination became impossible to see, and casualties eventually appeared, declaring another defeat.
For the third round—the training currently underway—they had once again learned from the previous two failures.