The Longest Day (VII)

As the enormous white Diamond stepped onto the western bank of the Sikasen River, the pontoon bridge behind it was completed at the same time, as if it were a signal.

The steel forest standing still on the eastern bank immediately began to stir. Armored behemoths marched forward with heavy footsteps, crossing the trench humans had believed impossible to traverse. Along both sides of the formation, massive war machines advanced cautiously.

Crushed beneath the immense weight, the pontoon bridge was nearly forced entirely below the water's surface. But like all Ork creations, it might have been crude, yet it would always work when it mattered.

No matter how enormous the pressure, the pontoon bridge never broke, even when war fortresses weighing hundreds of tons rumbled across it.

Likewise, along other stretches of the Sikasen River, the major legions that had long been prepared began crossing in an orderly fashion.

The advance units had already drawn enough fire and pushed the front more than thirty kilometers forward, allowing the main legions to cross without any interference.

With the river swollen by floodwaters, the New California Republic's Inland River Fleet could only huddle in port, utterly unable to play its role.

They might not have been able to kill many Orks, but they could have destroyed the pontoon bridges on the river. The floodwaters, however, had cut off that possibility.

The fighting on the ground continued, and the skies were no quieter.

From the very beginning, the howling of fighter engines had nearly torn apart the entire night sky.

Though humanity possessed a radar warning system, Guk had ordered every flight squadron to relocate to forward field airstrips a day earlier. Those airstrips were less than a hundred kilometers from the front, and at the speed of Ork fighters, they needed only