They were brimming with ambition, itching to fight the demons for three hundred rounds, carpet the earth with corpses, and dye the sea red.
Yet reality forced the Revenge Fleet's six thousand-odd players to stay put on the beach. They could not set out immediately.
Why?
First, the most urgent task facing the Revenge Fleet's players was to regroup.
The beach landing might have looked thrilling, but in reality, it had been an utterly chaotic crash landing. Before reaching these waters, the Revenge Fleet had never planned to storm a beach like this.
As a result, the operation had been a complete mess. More than twenty ships had been destroyed, and every surviving vessel had suffered damage. They lay beached at crooked angles, while a few unlucky ships had become stuck offshore without ever reaching the sand.
The players had jumped ashore, but vast quantities of equipment, ammunition, and supplies remained scattered throughout the ships' holds. Moving and organizing them would take time.
Meanwhile, many of the ships' cannons had shifted or suffered damage during the collisions. Players on the engineering team had to repair them urgently and secure their mounts again.
Wounded players needed treatment. Otherwise, every death meant one fewer pair of hands.
The entire beachhead looked lively, but it was still in the chaotic process of absorbing the landing's aftermath. It was nowhere near ready to launch a large-scale offensive.
Second, the charge across the sea and the earlier antiair battle had consumed enormous quantities of ammunition, particularly the expensive Tiger Descending the Mountain Fire Rockets. That was a major concern. The players needed to inventory their remaining supplies, prioritize unloading ammunition from the less damaged ships, and establish temporary ammunition stockpiles and distribution centers on the beachhead.
Without a steady ammunition supply, their firepower advantage meant