The sun had already sunk beyond the hills. The fighting of the day was over, and beneath the curtain of night, the fires burning within the city stood out all the more clearly...
After days of relentless bombing by Holy Alliance Empire aircraft, the area south of Coldwater City had been utterly transformed into a sea of fire and ruins.
During the day, the Western Continent Human Allied Forces air force had fought Holy Alliance Empire aircraft to the death above Coldwater City, with both sides suffering losses. By nightfall, the Human Allied Forces air force withdrew, and the dark skies became the domain of the Holy Alliance Empire's Winged Devils.
When human air forces fought the Devil Race's Winged Devils in the skies, during daylight and under good visibility, the loss ratio between the two sides could even reach one to one. But at night, or in rain and snow that affected aircraft performance and pilots' vision, that ratio could rise to one to four or worse—something the Western Continent Human Allied Forces could not bear. Thus, whenever night fell, the allied air force withdrew and handed the battlefield over to the ground troops.
On the Western Continent today, the Holy War between the Human Allied Forces and the Devil Race had split into two fronts, one in the east and one in the north. Like two meat grinders, these fronts had swallowed countless corps and troops from both sides over the past decade or more. No one cared exactly how many had died anymore. The Human Allied Forces had only one bottom line: they absolutely could not allow the Holy Alliance Empire to link the eastern and northern fronts. Once those two fronts connected, the sea and land routes between the Western Continent and the Eastern Continent would