East Blade Military Academy, principal's office.
Nie Chang saw the door was open, so he knocked lightly and entered with an electronic tactical board.
Lin Yi stood before the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows, his gaze seemingly fixed on the distant north.
"Principal, General Staff has submitted its preliminary operational plan for Operation Dawn."
Nie Chang set the tactical board on the desk, his expression serious.
Lin Yi turned around and walked over to the desk. He tapped the board lightly, and a clear holographic battle map appeared above it.
At the center of the map, the deep-red zone representing the capital's Giant Nest pulsed like a sinister heart.
Scattered around it were a slightly smaller red zone representing a Large Nest, three orange zones representing Medium Nests, each surrounded by the green ring of Cage Tactics, and numerous dots representing Small and Micro Nests, likewise encircled by green rings.
"Let's hear it. What plan has General Staff come up with?" Lin Yi asked calmly, his gaze sweeping across the map.
Nie Chang stepped forward and gestured toward the map as he explained in detail:
"Principal, after joint simulations and assessments by General Staff's various departments, they believe that a conventional plan—concentrating our main forces to charge straight into the Giant Nest's core, then establishing a defensive line there to neutralize its Source Energy—would carry considerable risk and offer relatively poor value for the cost."
Having first pointed out the drawbacks of the conventional approach, he indicated the Large Nest on the map.
"Look. The capital's Giant Nest doesn't exist in isolation."
"The Large Nest around it, along with the three Medium Nests farther out, have already formed a coordinated defensive network with the Main Nest during its previous expansion. Although our Cage Tactics have effectively contained the Small and Medium Nests,