Steadily Closing In

One day later, a Zerg fleet engaged the Dawn Empire at sea once again. As expected, the entire fleet was wiped out.

However, this battle cost the Dawn Empire 2,000 magic fighters and, quite unfortunately for them, sank two of their carriers and six escort ships.

Another day passed, and a main fleet of the Dawn Empire landed in the Mis Kingdom on the East Continent, engaging the Zerg forces stationed there.

Relying on a dense defense formed by long-range units such as hydralisks, ravagers, and lurkers, the Zerg fought an excellent anti-landing defense, repelling three large-scale enemy landing attempts in total.

After a day of attrition, an Empire unit finally managed to gain a foothold on land. With support from naval guns and magic planes, they began their assault on the Zerg defensive positions.

This time, however, the Zerg brought in an army of 60,000 from the Yelu Empire. They deployed at least 1,000 relatively primitive magic crystal cannons to fire upon the beach, making this landing operation exceptionally difficult for the Dawn Empire.

Looking purely at the casualty ratio, the Dawn Empire was actually suffering far more losses.

Most importantly, before this battle, the local elf bugs had already organized factories in the Mis Kingdom and Huiwei to manufacture unicycle rocket launch vehicles, while the local hives mass-produced rockets.

Roughly five hours into the enemy landing, the first batch of 100 unicycles, carrying 10,000 small-scale rockets, arrived near the battlefield and began a long-range bombardment of the enemy landing zone.

Rockets rained down from the sky; while the density was not particularly high, the output was steady and consistent.

Combined with harassment from Yelu Empire archers and several Zerg locusts, the forces that had advanced four kilometers into the Mis Kingdom were finally pushed back to the shore.

However, the scale of this Dawn Empire fleet was truly massive. They subsequently deployed a staggering number of landing craft, pushing forward under continuous air cover.

Roughly 30 armored vehicles drove onto land, launching an assault alongside the infantry.

The Zerg lacked heavy units like ultralisks in this area, and the hive level was low. All they could do was produce creatures like banelings to match the enemy in attrition.

These banelings were launched from one or two kilometers away using magic-enhanced catapults. While perhaps not overwhelmingly powerful, they at least landed close enough to the enemy.

If they landed nearby, they detonated immediately, clearing a massive area within a hundred-meter radius.

If they landed further away, they simply rolled toward their targets.

Even though the defense's fire density had increased, it was still insufficient, as they had to defend several landing zones. Facing the Dawn Empire's constant flanking maneuvers and hundreds of heavy artillery strikes, the collapse of the border was inevitable.

For the Empire, the biggest trouble with this battle was that the landing troops had to be transported across the ocean.

The distance of over ten thousand kilometers made replenishing soldiers extremely difficult.

In fact, from Xia Jin's perspective, a landing operation was unwise.

But the Empire was clearly very confident; the tens of thousands of men in this landing force had the courage to try and secure a foothold.

This was largely due to the support of their powerful naval aviation units and the fleet itself.

...

Following the start of the war on the East Continent—roughly three days after the last assessment of their total scale—the main Zerg force finally advanced to the capital of the Gexilu United Kingdom from three sides.

Centering on a 200-kilometer-long urban area and its surrounding villages and suburbs, both sides committed over 500,000 troops to a massive battle.

The Zerg's attacks always began with rockets clearing the way, firing shells as if they cost nothing.

This battle also saw the first deployment of 50 queens specifically tasked with providing medical support to precious units.

200 ultralisks and 800 roaches joined the assault.

Furthermore, these roaches had all been modified; soldiers sat on their backs, operating launch racks to fire powerful rockets.

Essentially, even at a distance of over ten kilometers, one could still suffer from Zerg fire coming from unknown directions.

While Gexilu's equipment had been updated quickly, it was still inferior to that of the Dawn Empire. Facing the Zerg's three-sided pincer movement, the kingdom mobilized hundreds of thousands of troops in a short time, sending them to the front lines and even pulling out stockpiled equipment—such as catapults and primitive magic crystal cannons.

Of course, the effectiveness of these ancient weapons against the Swarm was very weak.

Catapults had a range of one kilometer, which allowed them to play some role on the battlefield, but the stones they hurled were far too easy for the zerglings—who were now at least Tier 7—to dodge. Even if the projectiles were enhanced with magic crystal explosives, they at most caused the Zerg some minor trouble.

...

Following the deployment of the first rocket launch vehicle, the Zerg brought in the first batch of 50 vehicles from the rear within two days. These were divided into five squads to support battlefields where firepower was relatively weak.

In truth, whether these rocket launch vehicles were there or not hardly mattered anymore, as the number of unicycle rocket launch vehicles deployed to the Gexilu battlefield had reached 5,500. Calculating by two rocket launch tubes per vehicle, that was equivalent to 11,000 launch tubes.