The Systemless Squad and its many armies arrive at Central Spire only to find the battle is already well underway. A full revolt from the Sleeper Slayers has shaped the battlefield to a massive degree.

This is absolutely excellent.

The war begins.

First, a whole squadron of fighter planes and bombers heads toward us, ready to intercept and decimate our forces before we can reach the base itself.

But they clearly don’t seem to recognize the fact we have five gigantic kaiju beasts on our side. Four of the beasts, all but the one Rare is riding, split off our formation and race towards the planes. One of them shoots spikes from its back and obliterates several planes all at once. Another one reaches up with its claws and catches a plane--then instantly cleaving it in two.

One of them roars in the direction of some bombers, and its deep grumbles rattle the planes so much that they spin out of control and collide into each other.

Truly a sight to behold, I shall say.

The rest of us advance, and split into various flanks that will create a pincer maneuver. With the U.S. military occupied with destroying the Sleeper Slayers already fighting them, they do not have a good chance to retreat in time for our two left and right flanks to enclose and capture them. Delta and Julie will lead the left flank, while Guk and Abby will lead the right. Rare and I will lead the forward advancing group who will distract the military from our true pincer movements.

The ruins of Central Spire emerge in view. Actually, I do not know if it counts as ruins when the structure just fell apart an hour or so ago. How long must something be destroyed before it can be classified as such? These are questions worth pondering, although not in the middle of a battle.

There is a particular treacherous part of this advancement that is likely to cause massive casualties, though, and is something that I dread as we approach it. There’s two tall mountains next to each other, and only a narrow gap to go through. The cliffs between them are undoubtedly lined with soldiers who will pick us off and possibly even try to trap us with attacks from both entrances, just like the movie Francis made me watch about the con with a heart of gold named Cameron Poe.

Each of the pincer flanks will ascend the mountain and try to fight through the cliffs themselves to gain the high ground. But it may be a difficult battle just to get up there. Getting to Central Spire is a major task because of these natural borders.

Before we can even reach the narrow pass, a round of bombers flies by and drops explosives on one of the kaiju, the one with the giant claws. They explode with great force on its body and it cries out in pain. But it does not manage to strike more than one plane down. They’re able to circle back around and launch a secondary load. The kaiju is killed and falls to the ground, crushing a few of our own troops.

I take out both my bows and arrows and fire at the bombers as they try to go back to their base and reload. With amazing precision, I shoot two arrows that go right through the cockpit and strike dead its pilot. It spins to the ground and explodes on the side of the mountain.

But the others get away. They’ll be back, and we need to be ready. Our helicopters, in this brief window of air normalcy, take off from our portable convoy helipad and race towards the mountains. They’re packed to the brim with the finest of Santa Barbaran elites, who will surely jump down with their extreme sports love of BASE jumping and get the drop on any forces perched up there--

Anti-aircraft turrets, two of them, shoot one of the helicopters down. It flies around in a tailspin and the Santa Barbarans all jump out... But they don’t make it to the cliffs. They each land, perfectly unharmed, on the ground right at the entrance.

...And then they are mowed down by a hail of gunfire and [Fireball] spells.

The other helicopter manages to dodge the anti-aircraft weapons and shoots a cluster of missiles that destroys one of the guns.

But as soon as it reaches the cliffs, it is shot at by all the soldiers camping out up there. Some of the Santa Barbaran Elites are able to jump out and reach the ground in time to start fighting. Others are shot and killed still in the helicopter. And the rest are incinerated when a rocket launcher blows the whole thing up.

A tragedy beyond belief.

My poor citizens.

And yet, now we know for sure that this pass means death if we approach it head-on. And the two flanks ascending up to each of these cliffs will be heavily damaged as well while they still have the low ground.

But you know what they say about people with the high ground: they always underestimate our power.

I activate [Geowarp] on one of the cliffs and turn them from rock into mud.

The other anti-aircraft turret and dozens of soldiers fall to the ground, screaming and very dirty now that they are covered in goop.

And, being a multi-story drop... That clears them out for good.

The other soldiers, too far away to attack the bulk of the army directly with any real force, begin firing their puny little rifles and shooting rockets that are so easily deflected it isn’t even a problem.

A few well-timed shots from my two bows, and many of those troops are out.

Behind me, Rare’s Kaiju charges forward and, ignoring most of the gunfire entirely, smashes into the

They must be C-Ranks. I couldn’t imagine any Bs or As being this easy to defeat.

The left and right flanks climb up to the cliffs and now control the high ground. They are, in effect, completely unstoppable.

The rest of the army goes through the narrow pass with little difficulty. The forces on the ground are poorly defended, and I’m able to take care of them with a single amazingly thrown grenade.

In the sky, suddenly, I see a bright flash of light—and then my vision goes out completely.

It reappears after just a second, but now all through the air I see a trail of sparkles.

I have absolutely no idea what that is all about.

Finally, we reach the other side of the mountains, and into the canyon valley area known as Central Spire.

The battle is already raging. Tanks, mobile suits, system-using elites... the U.S. is at the peak of its power.

And still, we will defeat it.

The bombers from before have reloaded from their distant airfield and are coming back to greet us with heavy explosives.

I draw both my bows, ready myself to throw everything I’ve got at it. The others do too—

But then out of nowhere, I see a small figure in the sky smash into them and tear them all apart.

It’s... Mestopholees!

She’s here! And she’s... Landing. Right in the middle of Central Spire.

The final battle is here. And Mestopholees has kicked it off.

We’ll be there with you soon, my dear friend. We just need to fight through tens of thousands of powerful system-using soldiers first.