The atmosphere of the talks on the Floating City was tense in terms of words; in the United States' Rocky Mountains defense zone, the tension was directly physical.
The battlefield had been raging for quite some time, and though the fighting was still fierce, the outcome had already begun to look clear: relying on its powerful strength, the United Magical Kingdom had pushed into the defense zone. Although it had yet to take many pillboxes and small fortresses, it had successfully divided the United States' wizards and trapped them separately in various strongholds across the different defensive sectors.
Some non-defensive surface buildings had already been destroyed. The structures aboveground swayed unsteadily from the bombardment of the earlier fighting, their windows shattered. Thick smoke rose from all over the defense zone, and the piercing alarms had never stopped...
The strongholds buried deep underground had not actually suffered much damage themselves, and the vast majority had not been affected by anti-transportation barriers. In fact, if not for the need to defend the strongholds themselves, they could still have moved freely.
Macduff led Ian and the others in holding the foremost and most important stronghold within the defense zone. This small outer defensive sector occupied key terrain and was easy to defend but hard to attack—which also meant that almost everyone in their squad was wounded, and the big man from before had already been killed in battle.
The main firing port that relied on the Dragon to breathe dragonfire was still more or less intact, but as for the several Erumpents in the branch pillboxes, though they had caused the Kingdom Army no small trouble at the start of the battle by spraying explosive venom...
After the enemy commander, Albert Harris, personally came over, used his Animagus form to transform into the