Thus, in every territory under attack, the Bofur Hegemony simply could not defeat the Collector swarms attacking them. At most, they could only hold them back and wait for the main force to arrive.
But that was precisely the problem. The Bofur Hegemony had only so many main forces—were they supposed to divide them among thirty-two battlefields?
Many garrison forces fought until the very end without ever seeing the Bofur Hegemony's main force arrive.
Faced with such a situation, the Bofur Hegemony's decision-makers naturally could not sit still and wait for death. If they did, they truly would have no way out!
So they decided to cut off the fuel at the source, abandon the defense of their territories, gather all their combat power, and construct one final line of defense.
"Order from the homeworld! Abandon the territories! Withdraw across the board!"
The garrison commander issued the order to his subordinates, who were still fighting.
His subordinates erupted into an uproar. Some asked in shock, "What?! Then what about the citizens on the other planets who haven't evacuated yet?"
"We can only abandon them," the garrison commander answered helplessly.
Such an answer was clearly impossible for the soldiers to accept. There were billions upon billions of people living on each planet, and among them were their own families.
"Do you know what you're saying?! My family is in there too! Do you think I'll abandon my own family just because of an order from the homeworld? I'm telling you, impossible!"
The reply was utterly resolute. Defying one's superiors was rare within the rigidly hierarchical Bofur Hegemony, and once such a thing happened, it meant the soldiers were at risk of mutiny.
The garrison commander demanded furiously, "Staying here won't help anything! There are too many Amiba. They're attacking every territory