Chapter 359: Requesting Backup!
Translator: ryuxenji Editor: H2dH2mr
"The situation is unclear right now. In any case, it's already been confirmed that the ground forces below are prepared ... I'm afraid our ambush plan has been exposed." The adjutant could not help but swipe the cold sweat from his forehead as he said to the commander-in-chief.
The commander-in-chief breathed deeply a few times before quashing the rage beating at the walls of his chest. He knew that anger would not help anything — since it was certain that their sneak attack had failed, then they could only proceed with brute force! Coming to a decision instantly, he ordered, "Notify the men below. Let all mecha activate in advance. Break the shells now and attack!"
His orders were transmitted to the metal eggs and those eggs which had yet to enter the range of the cannons suddenly burst open. From within them, activated mecha emerged to descend swiftly, zooming towards the ground.
"Godd*mmit, these cannons can't penetrate the beam shields of the mecha," said a commanding officer, frustrated. He had observed this scene from a watchtower with an infrared telescope. Initially, he was hoping to destroy a few more of these metal eggs so that there would be fewer enemy mecha landing on the planet's surface. The fewer the better, but now it looked like things would not be that easy. The enemy was very alert — seeing that their sneak attack had failed, they had immediately switched to a direct attack.
Following the appearance of the mecha, the initially silent radars suddenly began screeching. Countless dots representing the enemies' mecha popped up all over the radar display. By this point, everyone now knew that those metal eggs must have some radar-shielding functions. It was lucky that the commander had been astute enough to see through the ruse and had told them to give up on the radars in favour of infrared telescopes instead. Although their search range would be limited by 7 to 8 times less, at least they had not been blind anymore and had been able to locate the invading enemy ...
The first few enemy mecha were already close to the ground. Just as they were rejoicing over their fortune in evading the cannonfire, they were struck in quick succession by several beam shots. A few unprepared enemy mecha died instantly, exploding. It turned out that the mecha columns waiting on the ground had all fired when they saw the enemy land, welcoming these enemy mecha with their beam guns.
Soon, the ground mecha forces and the enemy mecha descending from the skies began to fight. The flames of war very rapidly spread to the ground — when an errant missile fired by god-knows-who shot into the dormitory district of the First Men's Military Academy, the already startled awake district was instantly enveloped by a localised beam shield ... those inside could not come out, while those outside could not go in either. Unless the administration of the academy decided to override and get the mainframe to turn it off or an external force destroyed the shield, the shield would stand. If the latter happened, it would pretty much spell the loss of the Federation. The final outcome would be the complete annihilation of all the students in the dormitory district ...
The commander of ground control saw the dazzling beam shield appearing suddenly behind the ground troops, and he could not help but be greatly annoyed. Wasn't this just setting up a clear target for the enemy? Telling them: quick, come attack this spot ... Which idiot had designed this procedure? Although it must have been out of good intentions 1 , in the darkness of the night, set against such a chaotic and complicated attack situation, this was an absolutely foolish and reckless response.
Worried, the commander could not help but growl angrily at the officer beside him, "Godd*mmit, let the frontline warriors hold off the offence! We must not let the enemy's attacks reach the dormitory district of the military academy ..."
The future seedlings of hope of the Federation were there. Any students who could enter the First Men's Military Academy were sure to be the top talents of the Federation. Every single one was an elite with great potential which they could not afford to lose.
Right then, Little Four was still trying to make contact with those out of reach satellites, but unfortunately, till now, he had had no luck at all. He could not find any bit of signal from the various major satellites; this made him feel rather discouraged. He understood that the moment he left the virtual world and had his signal jammed by the enemy, he would be worthless ...
Luckily, he had perfectly completed the task his boss had assigned to him. He had taken the images from the invasion of planet Demonbeast 6 years ago and modified them to fabricate an image of the attack tonight. Then, faking a satellite transmission, he had sent the images to the intelligence department of ground control, giving the ground troops enough time to prepare. Watching those enemies descending from the skies being caught off guard by the ground forces, Little Four was pumped up. At the same time, he found his admiration for his boss growing even further, even thinking for a moment that his boss was a god, being able to guess so accurately how the enemy was invading!
Frankly, Little Four was overthinking things. Ling Lan had only hoped for the ground forces to be prepared, and the invasion of planet Demonbeast 6 years ago just so happened to be an air invasion as well, which fit the situation tonight very well. Thus, Ling Lan had made an impromptu decision to borrow the images from then. In fact, Ling Lan had no idea who the invading enemy was tonight or how they were attacking. It should be said that Ling Lan's luck was extraordinary — the images she had asked Little Four to send just so happened to match the truth. This great stroke of luck deftly concealed any sign of her interference. In the post-war analysis later on, both the Federation and Caesar would come to the same conclusion, believing that Caesar's satellite shielding technology was not sufficiently advanced, thus allowing one of the satellites to capture and transmit the images of their sneak attack ... the difference, however, was that the Federation would be relieved and gleeful about this point, while Caesar would be frustrated that the flaw in their technology had appeared at such a critical moment.
Still, as the battle progressed, the enemy adjusted to the situation and the inherent uncertainty of battle began to reveal itself. The fighting soon spread across the ground, and massive numbers of casualties began to appear among the ground forces. Meanwhile, an endless stream of mecha continued to descend from above ... this made Little Four feel somewhat unsettled.
At a loss, Little Four could only run back to ask for his boss's opinion, taking the opportunity to update his boss on the current battle situation as well. Frankly, as they were moving, when Ling Lan had seen the dormitory district suddenly become a shining beacon, she had sensed that the situation might soon become unfavourable for the Federation. Now, hearing Little Four's report, she knew that if the satellites continued to be sealed away so reinforcements could not be summoned in time, it would be very difficult for the ground forces to hold out for long on their own. Ling Lan was well aware of the power of a mecha. It was impossible to destroy even just a common lower mecha without suicidal-style attacks from a whole column of warriors 2 .
They needed to send out the news of the attack here as soon as possible. Ling Lan made a split decision to use the emergency helpline her father had given to her before he had left 3 . Ling Lan and Ling Xiao were all disciples of the Divine Command Sect. As a sect specialising in the cultivation of spiritual power, they naturally possessed a way to request for backup without the need for advanced high-tech signals.
Before Ling Xiao had departed from the academy, because he just could not push aside his worry, he had deposited a cord of his spiritual power within Ling Lan's mind. If Ling Lan found herself in any danger, she would only need to shake and detonate Ling Xiao's spiritual power. No matter how far away Ling Xiao was, he would be able to sense a disturbance in his spiritual power. Even though he would not be able to know the specific details, this strange occurrence would be enough to let Ling Xiao know that Ling Lan was in danger.
Ling Lan decisively shook and detonated Ling Xiao's cord of spiritual power. Her body jerked and her face turned pale. Detonating spiritual power stored within one's mind would deal a certain amount of damage to the bearer; this was also why Ling Xiao had emphasised that this method should only be used when she felt the situation was extremely dire ... the strange shift in Ling Lan's condition drew the attention of her companions. Qi Long asked quietly, "Boss, are you alright?"
"I'm fine. We should increase our pace. Time is running out," said Ling Lan calmly, forcibly suppressing the discomfort she felt in her spiritual power. After that, her speed picked up once more.
Seeing Ling Lan speed up like nothing was wrong, her companions let out a sigh of relief and relaxed. They sped up after Ling Lan. Only Li Lanfeng frowned as he stared at Ling Lan's still pale complexion, a trace of worry flashing across his eyes ...
Right then, on the military ship of the 23rd Division's assessment team, seated on the captain's seat, resting, Ling Xiao's eyes suddenly sprang open. He shot up in his seat, his initially mild and gentle aura turning cold in an instant. This caused the nonchalantly chatting officers by his side to fall silent instantly, turning to stare in bewilderment at this usually always mild-mannered sir general.
Ling Xiao had no mind to keep up appearances at this time, because he had sensed a sudden tug on his spiritual self. This meant that the spiritual deposit he had left in Ling Lan's mind had been hit and dispersed by someone.
"Contact the First Men's Military Academy immediately. Find out what's going on there ..." ordered Ling Xiao with an icy expression. Without a smile on his face, Ling Xiao actually looked a lot like Ling Lan — as expected of a father and a daughter.
"Contact established. The other party has responded that all is as usual," the operator responsible for external communications quickly replied.
Ling Xiao frowned when he heard this. If Ling Lan had detonated the spiritual power he had left in her mind, that must mean that some huge problem she could not handle on her own had cropped up where she was ... he immediately tried to connect to Ling Lan's communicator but only received a busy signal in return.
A cold glint passed through Ling Xiao's eyes, and he attempted to contact the old principal of the First Men's Military Academy, but still, all he received was just a busy signal.
Ling Xiao's gaze had become extremely shadowed by this time. He lifted his head to order once more, "Submit a request to the other side. Tell them we will be arriving at planet Newline tomorrow and to please allow us safe passage."
The operator was taken aback, but he very quickly transmitted Ling Xiao's words over to the other side. A few seconds later, the other party responded and the operator immediately reported, "General, the other side answered that planet Newline is currently off-limits to all visitors. The ban will only be lifted three days later. They hope we will cooperate and change our flight plan or wait for the ban to lift."
"Something has really happened." By now, there was no longer any doubt in Ling Xiao's mind. His request had only been a probe — having just departed from planet Newline themselves, he naturally knew there was no so-called ban order for planet Newline.
"Activate a launch port immediately. I'm going to pilot over to planet Newline." Ling Xiao leapt to his feet and rushed anxiously toward the hold doors. His daughter's life was in danger — how could he just sit here as a father? He needed to get over there as soon as possible. The speed of a god-class mecha was 4 times faster than a warship, and when pushed to high gear, it could go up to as much as 7 times faster.
"General, that's too dangerous!" Hearing what Ling Xiao planned to do, Adjutant Qiao became flustered. He quickly rushed over as well to advise Ling Xiao against this plan of action.
Ling Xiao snapped his head around to glare fiercely at Adjutant Qiao, causing the other to cower instinctively. "This is an order!" Leaving these four words behind him, Ling Xiao vanished through the hold doors ...
"Domain ..." The highest ranked officer on the ship, a senior colonel, broke the shocked silence of the subdued crowd. Adjutant Qiao looked at the senior colonel and then looked at the rest of the crew, then, with a firm step, he once more chased after the general. As the adjutant to the general, he had to stop the general from taking this personal risk.