Chapter 590: Chapter 343, Creeping City
The commander of the Tianma Fleet providing orbital support in Korolya made a judgment that wasn’t really problematic.
The Navy couldn’t possibly exchange fire with the surface’s anti-orbital firepower under these circumstances.
It was unrealistic.
With an entire planet’s surface that “never falls” as defense, without resolving the anti-orbital firepower and the Void Shield, this battle couldn’t be fought.
The Void Shield was actually a secondary concern; even if it were broken, they could simply hide the anti-orbit cannons in the Bottom Nest District, distributing them so they could still exchange fire.
Is the Starship tough, or is the planet’s surface tough?
This was obvious.
They demanded the Land Forces deal with the anti-orbital firepower or else they refused to continue fighting, which wasn’t an unreasonable demand.
But…
Having fought in Fino City for so long, the brothers in the Land Forces clearly understood just how terrifying things inside the city were.
Although they weren’t trying to independently seize Fino City, but merely to enter the Nest Capital to find and destroy the anti-orbit points and preferably shut down the Void Shield, General Hans simply couldn’t estimate how many people under his command would have to die to achieve this goal.
It was said that the Star Realm Army wasn’t afraid of sacrifice, but the key issue was if they all died, what about the matters that followed?
Moreover, who could truly not fear death?
They hadn’t been able to enter the Bottom Nest District of Fino City for two years. If they forced their way, the Bottom Nest District would swallow up everyone daring to enter.
And even as elite as the Star Realm Army was, it couldn’t withstand a war with casualty rates so high they were fundamentally incalculable.
At first, these Star Realm Army units gathered around Fino City, extremely anxious, afraid that a Plague Army of tens of millions might rush out, and then things would become uncontrollable.
But that scenario never happened.
It had been a year since they retreated from the Nest Capital and the orbital strike failed, and since the Navy had refused to continue fighting, and the situation around Fino City was surprisingly calm.
Although this calm was quite nerve-wracking, those Plague cultists had proven their fierceness. Not dealing with the Bottom Nest District’s issues over the past few years allowed the enemy to develop the Void Shield and anti-orbit cannons. Now, with the entire city in their hands and silently working for a year, who knew what other major activities they could have prepared?
But despite being anxious, what could be done?
The Star Realm Army couldn’t just station so many people indefinitely in this place where no war was happening.
As the issues with the other Nest Capitals worsened, and since there had been no movement in Fino City for a long time, gradually, units were redeployed elsewhere to suppress the Cult and the Rebel Army.
But even with disturbances elsewhere, they didn’t dare to relax too much in Fino City. Even now, at the times of least activity, there were at least five million from the Star Realm Army and ten million from the Planetary Defense Force “basking in the sun” and keeping watch.
Many people, like Lucy Lee Ko Xi, could indeed see that Fino City was a huge ticking time bomb.
Nobody knew when it would explode, but without a doubt, there would be a time when it did.
However, when the day of the explosion finally arrived, everything still felt so sudden and overwhelming.
And that moment was right now.
Li Kexi was still gazing distantly at the massive Nest Capital, lost in thought about the past, when he suddenly felt the entire city seem to move slightly.
He snapped out of his reverie instantly.
At first, he suspected that he might be seeing things.
That would’ve been quite normal. The air in Korolya was filled with yellow dust. Non-toxic, or to say its toxicity was negligible, but no one wanted to inhale a noseful, a lungful of dust. The troops were issued corresponding breathing masks to filter out these harmful particles, while some of the local Defense Forces without such equipment had no choice but to wrap scarves around their faces several times to make do.
And this dust, lingering in the air, made the sunlight projected from the sky dim and obscured all day long, making it difficult to see clearly.
Seeing illusions after staring at something for too long in such abnormal atmospheric refraction was quite a normal occurrence, wasn’t it?
But what happened next mercilessly shattered Li Kexi’s last bit of wishful thinking.
He saw the entire Nest Capital come to life!
Those steel structures that were motionless in his sight began to warp and writhe right before his eyes.
Considering that he could see such twisting from so far away, one could imagine how terrifying the distortion would be up close.
A great unease rose in his heart.
What was going to happen next?
He didn’t know, he didn’t know at all.
He rushed back to headquarters, urging his subordinates to quickly bring back intelligence.
Even though they had completely withdrawn from the city, they hadn’t completely relaxed their surveillance over Fino City. The main base was set up dozens of kilometers away from the city, but at closer range there were outposts; inside the city, there were even a few surveillance points. When pressured, they would temporarily withdraw; when the pressure eased, they would go back and establish a few more observation points. In any case, they couldn’t be completely ignorant about this den of evil.
The situation was very grim.
All the surveillance points were out of contact.
And the troops from the advance encampments were experiencing air raids by the enemy emerging from the Nest Capital. A massive swarm of Plague Flies enveloped the advance encampments. The military’s air defense firepower was already doing its utmost to cover the brothers in the advance encampments, with some artillery units even loading airburst shells to strike around one kilometer ahead of the advance camp’s position. As the Plague Fly Swarm generally didn’t fly very high, airburst shells detonating at heights of around ten or twenty meters could inflict substantial damage on these flying creatures, the size of a human’s torso—especially since they liked to move in dense formations.