0610 April 5th, 2020 CE

0605 Sun 5th, 196 AE

Way behind the Elven frontline

In his tent, Colonel General Virro of the Eastern Army was faced with a dilemma. Should he stop the 33rd Magipanzers? Or should he demand that they continue to push forward? The loss of an entire magipanzer battalion was unexpected. In the Battle of Abellinum, the human’s capability to destroy Knights was already surprising. Now the humans were even taking out Fortresses! Hopefully, the Leader’s superweapons are able to handle this better. And wasn’t the description ‘a slow mechanical aircraft with a propeller on top instead of on its nose’ clearly a helicopter? That technology was under development in the Elven Advancement Department. With how advanced human technology was, they shouldn’t have the ability to produce them yet. He needed to report this to the Intelligence Department.

If he waited, he could reinforce his unit’s position and allow them to take more losses without greatly affecting their combat effectiveness. The Air Force would be able to provide coverage by then too. On the other hand, he would lose the momentum gained before and the humans could begin a counteroffensive before the reinforcements arrived.

The humans were still a force to be careful around. They were weak but it didn’t mean they were foolish.

It would take two days for the second wave to reach the Verona River and another day for the Air Force to be able to provide complete coverage.

CG Virro shook his head. His units were too spread apart. He sighed. Even though he was only 125 years old, he was already feeling like an elderly from all this thinking.

Near the Elven initial amphibious landings

Field Marshal Zaos Qintumal looked extremely concerned. CG Virro was right. Not only was his army too spread out, but the entire army group was. There was also a massive gap in the center of the Army Group that the humans could easily exploit. I’m addition, both the Eastern Army and Western Army have faced similar setbacks because of the human “helicopters”. Since the order to advance nonstop past the jungle was given directly by the Leader, he had to bring this up to him.

A few minutes later

Afvalin, Elven Nation

“And why are they requesting to stop?”

Tarron Venharice, the Leader, closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. His most trusted aide read out the report in a tone indicating a ton of bad news.

“The humans are equipped with weapons capable of taking out Fortresses. The entire I Battalion of the 26th Magipanzer Regiment was wiped out. There is a high chance that the humans are equipped with advanced weaponry. The description of the weapon capable of taking out Fortresses oddly matches the helicopters that we are designing. These are big problems.”

“And how is a helicopter capable of taking out tanks? Our helicopter designs show that heavy armaments are impossible to be fitted on them.”

“The human helicopters were equipped with rockets.”

Tarron sighed.

“I guess that's a divergence in the humans' technological development. They somehow invented the helicopter before us. However, just because these humans destroyed a single tank battalion using somewhat advanced weapons doesn’t mean we should put the whole invasion into a standstill.”

“Field Marshal Qintumal is expressing concern about how his army group is spread so thin.”

Tarron leaned back on his chair and his head fell onto his clasped hands. After a few minutes, he looked back up.

“We will not stop. Push forward as fast as possible! It is vital that we at least secure the jungle. If we allow the humans to fortify the jungles, then we will have to engage them there. They will have the advantage at that point. Our ancestors may have had the skill to fight in the forests but now only our special units have that capability. And none of them are in the second wave. Trust me, jungle battles will be more hell than the city battle we faced in Abellinum. We must take this chance when the humans are battered, disorganized, and demoralized.”

0642 April 5th, 2020 CE

0616 Sun 5th, 196 AE

Plains between the jungle and Verona River

The advancement of the 33rd towards the Magusian Secondary Defense Line greatly slowed at this point. Anti-air thauguns were kept as close to the front as possible. They didn’t have any air cover because they had advanced too fast.

It was also surprising that the humans had any aircraft left. What the Air Force had reported facing were just wyverns that did not have long-range capabilities. They could be dealt with easily by 20mm anti-aircraft thauguns. Even then hundreds of wyverns had been reported shot down so the humans should barely have an air force left in this area. That logic was turned upside down when they were attacked with mechanical aircraft that easily wiped out the 20mm anti-aircraft thauguns.

Colonel Trakkas turned on his radio and switched the channel to his counterpart in the 37th Magipanzer Regiment.

“Your regiment will be entering the jungle first. Keep a lookout for any survivors from the recon units.”>>>

The 26th and 37th Magipanzer Regiments of the 5th Magipanzer Division from the 33rd Magipanzer Corps approached the jungle. Right outside of the jungle, infantry jumped out the back of their trucks and started moving up the road, towards the magipanzers.

In the air over the jungles

<<<”Wolfpack 01. Saber 01. Do you copy?”

”We hear you loud and clear, Overlord.”

”Hundreds of Elven tanks have shown up on the outskirts of the jungle. Take out as many as you can. Exercise caution. We are seeing multiple AA guns spread out in their formations.”

”Will do.”>>>

This time support from only the Apaches wasn’t going to be enough.

Magusian Secondary Defense Line

“We will have to expect casualties now. There’s just too many for the Apaches to take them all out. They have divisions of tanks advancing towards us.”

“Never thought I would ever face an entire division filled with tanks. Modern warfare has been focused more and more on smaller sized units. This will be something different. How long is it until our ground reinforcements get here again?”

“Less than an hour.”

“This will be a problem…”

Lieutenant Colonel Parker’s battalion had a few Humvees equipped with BGM-71 TOW missiles and infantry squads equipped with M3E1 Carl Gustafs and M136 AT4s. That definitely wasn’t enough to face an entire division of tanks.

Apache comms

<<<“I’ll be damned! You weren’t lying, there’s hundreds of them.”

“Keep your distance, Wolfpack 04. They got some big anti-air guns down there.”>>>

On the ground

Just as the lines of magipanzers started to enter the jungle, a distinct whipping sound was heard.

”Enemy aircraft! Get the 88s up!”>>>

Crew members jumped out of the back of their trucks and rushed to man the 88mm anti-aircraft thauguns.

Apache comms

>>

Przemo1232 was here~

The elven anti-aircraft thaugunners were struggling to spot enemy aircraft through the thick forest canopy. The only indication of enemy forces was the constant noise made by whatever flying contraption was nearby.

Suddenly, multiple shots were heard from the suspected location of the enemy. With no visual confirmation of an attack, much less an idea where the attack was targeted, the elven units had no chance of escaping it.

Multiple missiles impacted the line of magipanzers, throwing the battalion that was entering the jungle into disarray. The infantrymen that were beside the magipanzers dived from the roads and into the jungle. Some of the 88mm anti-aircraft thauguns started firing in the general direction of the enemy, others fired in completely random ones.

With losses mounting up and no enemy in sight, an order to retreat was made for the battalion. Magipanzers started backing up amid enemy fire, though not everyone could keep calm under such disastrous circumstances. The entire situation turned into a disorganized retreat soon afterward, with the remainder of the battalion struggling to get out of the jungle.

A line of flaming Stallions and Knights covered the road.

>>

Przemo1232 was here~

0700 April 5th, 2020 CE

0630 Sun 5th, 196 AE

Afvalin, Elven Nation

“Can the Army stop burning down every single damn town they see?! We won’t get any useful intelligence at this point!”

The head of the Elven Intelligence Department, Anfalen Inaneiros, had rushed in a few minutes ago and demanded a meeting with the head of the Elven Army Department.

“The Army is just doing its job. We are cleansing the inferiors away and we are doing it just fine. No need for your department to poke their head into things they need not be concerned about. In fact, you should use your brains for something better. The advancement department is doing a fine job.”

“Intelligence is a very important part of warfare. Would you please at least keep the buildings intact and have some survivors?”

“I will consider it. Now get out, I have important business today.”

He waved him away.

In the Elven military, the Intelligence Department wasn’t really respected by any of the other military departments. The other military departments felt that the money spent on the Intelligence department would be better off spent in their departments. They could gather intelligence about the battlefield all on their own by using recon units.

Anfalen was worried. From what his intelligence agents could gather was left from the destroyed human towns, a lot has changed. It was highly likely that the human Empire no longer existed. It was now divided into the Mach Imperium and Magus Imperium. They should be currently fighting the Magus. But that wasn’t what truly concerned him. He looked at the headline of a human newspaper. It was one of the few intact things his agents found in the wrecked human towns. His translators were able to translate the entire newspaper text to elvish.

“UNITED STATES OF AMERICA DEFEATS MACH IMPERIUM WITHIN DAYS OF INVASION”

This "United States of America." It was worrying. The newspaper article described them as having advanced weaponry beyond a person’s imagination. They could probably be linked to the helicopters that destroyed an entire battalion of magipanzers.