But despite all this, after fifteen hours, twenty hours, it inevitably had to come to an end.
And with more and more human warriors joining in, even stripping the portion of the area where the Chaos Array, equivalent to a gate, was located from his Divine Realm, this made the journey take even longer.
The clearest indication of this was the Rage Owl God’s boundless rage and strenuous efforts to move forward, but he found himself moving slower and slower, and indeed, the more he walked, the farther away he got.
But Gu Hang was still not satisfied.
At the current rate, the Primal Fury Owl would need about thirty-two hours to reach the humans.
This was already enough time for the main force led by Tadeusz to arrive at the battlefield.
But he did not want it to be this close to the limit.
Now was the time to start preparing for the upcoming battle in advance.
Under his will, the humans continued to advance.
Interstellar soldiers and Battle Nuns formed spearhead squads, suddenly breaking out of their positions and expanding the space. The elite special forces immediately followed, consolidating the position; and then, the ordinary soldiers of the 31st Airborne Division took over the secured ground.
At the same time, the interstellar soldiers and Battle Nuns would continue to charge outwards, and the elite special forces would follow up again…
This process repeated.
They were further expanding the territory they occupied.
On one hand, this delayed the Primal Fury Owl’s arrival at the gate, giving them more leeway for subsequent plans; on the other hand, as the occupied territory expanded, it also stripped away more parts of the Divine Realm, weakening the Primal Fury Owl’s strength.
However, when the position had been expanded to a depth of six hundred meters, they still stopped.
Gu Hang also needed to conserve his own strength.
Although his Spiritual Energy had increased by several levels since he was in the True Realm, it was still finite. Later on, he had to bring in fifty thousand people and countless weapons and equipment.
He did not want to consume too much before then.
So, apart from ‘transporting’ ammunition from outside to replenish it, he did not plan to do any more to eliminate the soldiers’ fatigue. The consumption was not huge, but with an excess of five thousand, it was still substantial.
The soldiers began to rest and fight in rotation.
Maintaining this six hundred meters of defensive depth was enough; there was no need for more.
But even though one third of the soldiers were always resting, the ordinary Storm Beasts were still unable to break through the human defenses.
Artillery could always reduce their numbers from afar and in large amounts, preventing them from concentrating their forces for a charge. As soon as they revealed such intentions, whistling artillery fire would descend upon them.
Those that charged separately could not withstand the blockade of machine-gun fire.
If they got even closer, they were shot by rifles.
The monsters that died dissipated into the wind, waiting to reconstitute. Therefore, these monsters could not even use accumulated corpses as cover to charge over.
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Of course, the human side was not without casualties.
In those thirty-two hours, the soldiers of the 31st Airborne Division suffered nearly a thousand casualties.
The reason for this nearly 20% casualty rate was mainly because the Storm Beasts were too ferocious and fearless of death, and they did not need rest. These thirty-two hours were an uninterrupted battle, not to mention that the human soldiers needed to rest.
The monsters mindlessly charged forward, even if they could manage to launch a wind blast upon their arrival.
The most threatening attack method of these monsters was still the swarm charge. Although most of their attempts were dissolved under the bombardment of artillery fire before they could charge, the artillery ammo was not infinite.
Even though all the shells transported to the Polar Industrial City had been moved to the Evil God Realm, they still could not maintain the dozens of cannons firing non-stop.
Even with the Wind Falcons constantly delivering shells, they could not keep up with the current rate of consumption.
Even if there were enough shells, the lifespan of the gun barrels couldn’t withstand it.
In such circumstances, the Storm Beasts always found opportunities to carry out massive swarm charges.
The artillery couldn’t keep up, the machine guns couldn’t sweep them all, the rifles couldn’t kill them all, and still, a large number of monsters charged into close quarters.
Although they would eventually be annihilated, before that, the human warriors still incurred certain losses.
Thirty-two hours later, the loss figures had reached the scale of a thousand people.
A casualty rate of nearly 20%, would normally deal a serious blow to morale.
But on this unique battlefield, the situation was still acceptable.
First, there was the Governor, the star warriors, the Battle Nuns, the political commissars… all of these were hugely morale-boosting for the ordinary soldiers.
Furthermore, and more fundamentally, they were not engaged in a purposeless fight to the death here. They had a clear combat objective, and according to the Governor, reinforcements would arrive within thirty-two hours.
By then, it would be time for them to launch a full counterattack and utterly annihilate the Evil God monster ravaging the planet.
The soldiers believed this to be true because the Governor himself remained here and never left.
And indeed, the Governor was not bluffing.
Or rather, Tadeusz was not bluffing.
When he said thirty-two hours, it meant thirty-two hours.
Apart from the 31st Airborne Division, which had already infiltrated in disguise, conducted a hundred-machine airdrop, and even completed the occupation of the Polar Industrial City, Tadeusz had five more divisional and brigade-level units under his command:
The 9th Garrison Division, the 30th, 32nd, and 33rd Infantry Divisions, and the 35th Combined Brigade.
All together, that was about fifty thousand people, and they were quite well-equipped with heavy machinery.
They were the army that Pierre, the President of Polar Industries, learnt was gathering at the border of the North Territory.
Even before the 31st Airborne Division and the various elite Alliance forces took action, they had already driven into the North Territory, racing towards the Polar Industrial City.
Along the way, there were indeed some armed forces.
For instance, the Polar Industrial City’s guard corps, as well as militias from various settlements.
However, Tadeusz completely disregarded them.
As long as those local armed forces did not lose their minds trying to block their path, Tadeusz would not create unnecessary complications. His primary objective was still to coordinate with the airborne troops and reach the Polar Industrial City as quickly as possible.
If anyone was presumptuous enough to try to stop them, then Tadeusz would mercilessly order his troops to simply roll over them.
Nobody could stop their force in open field battle.
Especially when eighteen Lion Tanks lined up in a row and charged forward, followed by hundreds of Strider Combat Vehicles; they simply did not need to stop. Just pressing down on the accelerator and charging forward across the fields was sufficient.
The presumptuous fools could not withstand the heavy artillery from the Lion Tanks, nor endure the bombardment from the machine guns and heavy explosive rifles mounted on the Strider Combat Vehicles following behind.
Of course, since the enemies along this path had not been cleared, there was indeed some risk.
If the subsequent battle did not go smoothly, the army’s supplies would become a major issue.
But at least for the short term, there was no need to worry. Thousands of supply trucks from the joint logistics unit moving with the Corps were loaded with ammunition and followed the army.
Even with extreme caution, Tadeusz did not think anyone could hold out in the North Territory until they ran out of ammunition.
Of course, if the target were an Evil God, that might be a somewhat unnerving prospect.
Therefore, Tadeusz also summoned the 8th Division and the 25th Division from the Central Province, escorting even more supplies en route as backups.
By the time the Governor issued the orders, the Beijing Corps was not far from the Polar Industrial City.
And after thirty-two hours had passed, his forces had not only reached the designated position on the west side of the Extreme North Industrial City,
they had even managed to blow up the city’s western wall and then moved a kilometer into the city.
Gu Hang highly appreciated this.
Initially, the designated target location was the outskirts west of the Polar Industrial City, considering that it would take too much time for the large forces and heavy equipment to enter the city.
But now, blowing up the wall and rolling straight in was clearly a better approach.
The closer to the Chaos Array, the easier it was for Gu Hang to bring people into the Evil God Realm.