Colonel Meng Jiao, deputy commander of the 38th Division, was currently looking down from a commanding height at a battlefield that looked nothing like the one at Marshal Li Grad.
Far below him, at the foot of the mountain, the Empire's tanks and armored vehicles were crossing the damaged roadbed. Their ranks were orderly enough, but their movements seemed somewhat hurried.
As it happened, this highway, which ran directly from Marshal Li Grad to an Imperial settlement ten thousand kilometers away, had been built jointly by them and the Empire. They had once thought it would become the planet's main transportation artery, but now, like the urban district of Marshal Li Grad, it had been reduced to ruins.
The half-built maglev line lay broken amid the dense vegetation, like a steel serpent that had been dead for ages.
Meng Jiao and his men were lying low in the dense forest, holding their breath as they waited for the Imperial tanks and the mechanized infantry accompanying them to pass by.
The observation post recorded the figures as it reported them. "Forty-seven Guardian Type 3 medium all-terrain tanks, twenty-five Foxhound Type 2 assault guns, twelve multipurpose support armored vehicles, three command armored vehicles, and 2,478 mechanized infantry."
"Good." Meng Jiao nodded in praise. In truth, he didn't even need to record the figures with equipment. He could count every unit passing before him with his naked eye and a good memory.
"An armored grenadier regiment?" one of his subordinates asked.
"No. Just an armored regiment from an assault force. Judging by their movements, they're planning to enter the battlefield from the north side of the city," he said.
At that moment, he heard another kind of rumbling. The Empire's armored airships had appeared in the sky to the north.
This time, more