Sure enough, the heavily damaged vehicle could still rotate its turret to attack.
Seeing the crew inside manage to counterattack despite such an impact on the vehicle, Xia Jin couldn't help but marvel at the physical resilience of practitioners.
More Armored Heavy Cannon Bugs approached from the rear. Across the wide, flat ground, at least twenty of them were distributed along a three-kilometer front.
Meanwhile, a large number of tanks from the Dawn Empire emerged from the ruined city.
Three of the vehicles flanked from the right side of the city, attempting to strike the sides of the Armored Heavy Cannon Bugs.
Of course, this maneuver was largely pointless; the bugs' armor was uniform on all sides, not thinner on the flanks.
Dozens of heavy units from both sides engaged on the great plain, while ordinary soldiers provided support with firearms and individual artillery.
Da-da-da...
Human soldiers set up machine guns, aiming at the distant bugs.
Hydralisks in the rear returned fire at a rate of one shot per second.
The battle was exceptionally fierce. Both sides exchanged shot after shot; vehicles were continuously destroyed, and heavy cannon bugs died as shells pierced their bodies.
Accompanying locusts and drones downgraded to Tier 1 braved the hail of bullets to rush out and scavenge corpses.
This armored battle lasted for an hour, with all 120 of the Zerg's Armored Heavy Cannon Bugs joining the fray.
Seeing their numbers dwindling, the Empire continuously brought in reinforcements, eventually committing nearly all the heavy units from several legions.
They realized the Zerg were using nearly 400 Armored Heavy Cannon Bugs to besiege their salient.
More importantly, to support the battle, large swarms of scourges launched whistling attacks.
Over 1,000 magic fighters deployed to counter them were all destroyed by self-destructing impacts after engaging the scourges.
Clearly, the Dawn Empire's heavy investment in this localized battlefield had not yielded good results.
That evening, the forces at the salient were routed and began a large-scale retreat.
After losing 200 Armored Heavy Cannon Bugs, the Swarm deployed some ultralisks to attack from both flanks. They attempted a pincer movement to completely annihilate the retreating main force of the Dawn Empire on the spot.
However, four Imperial legions from the rear arrived almost immediately as reinforcements. Among them were twelve battalion-level units specifically organized with armored vehicles, which temporarily outnumbered the Swarm and caused the encirclement to fail.
That night, the Empire dispatched 5,000 magic fighters to conduct carpet bombing against the Swarm attacking the salient.
The bugs met them with 10,000 scourges, all of which self-destructed, shooting down over 1,500 magic fighters.
Ultimately, the Zerg had to retreat on a large scale, which conversely allowed the Empire to advance their entire front line by 50 kilometers.
...
“Only fifty kilometers.”
Xia Jin, who had been wandering around the front lines, felt no pressure at all upon hearing this news; instead, she was completely unconcerned.
The Empire couldn't win a war of attrition against her.
Even if the enemy's production capacity was skyrocketing, so was the Zerg's.
One side increased by the week, while the other increased rapidly by the day; the outcome of this battle was actually predestined from the start.
Although the Dawn Empire's frontline strength had exceeded 500,000, their losses remained severe.
The situation was far from ideal for them.
The next day, both sides engaged in a struggle for a city to the northeast of the previous salient battlefield.
The Dawn Empire concentrated six legions, totaling 150,000 men, while the Swarm committed an equivalent amount of force.
The casualty ratio between the two sides was nearly 1.3 to 1.
For every 1.3 main Zerg units killed (excluding scourges, locusts, and drones), one Imperial soldier died.
After this siege lasted for two nights, the Dawn Empire's legions had only managed to occupy half the city.
They found the Zerg's lurkers to be truly broken; soldiers staying in houses never knew when they would be skewered to death by spines from below.
To counter these creatures, a large number of fighters used magic to detect the presence of lurkers, dropping earth-burrowing magic bombs to blast them once found.
If not for the lurkers, the casualty ratio would have reached at least 1.5 to 1.
“1.3 to 1... that's much better than I expected.”
Xia Jin realized that the Zerg's current growth rate was incredibly fast; a week ago, the Swarm would have certainly been crushed by the enemy.
Even if the Empire's frontline legions were constantly evolving, they couldn't keep up with the speed at which the Zerg were becoming stronger.
...
Near the battlefield, the young girl sat in a tree, swinging her legs and quietly observing a small insect in her hand.
It was the latest version of the parasite.
It was about twenty centimeters long.
According to Brain Bug No. 1, this thing was supposed to appear only in the next tier of the hive.
It had extracted some genes ahead of time to create a weakened version.
“Then why not bring out the other bugs too?”
“Bringing them out would be useless. Resources are insufficient, costs are too high, and the cost-effectiveness isn't there.”
“Alright then.”
This parasite was one of the few that were useful even when brought out early.
Rate on N.U.
