Chapter 1578: Strait War
Three years later—
Young Sector 101 — Planet Verillion
Clackclackclack
The ground itself shuddered from the east, trembling as if a giant beast had stirred beneath its crust. An instant later, a massive wave of compressed air burst forth, sweeping across the battlefield like an invisible hammer. It struck the lines of soldiers with merciless force, sending men stumbling backward several paces, boots dragging trenches into the dirt.
No bones were broken, no blood spilled by the quake or the shockwave—yet the soldiers of the Silver Army felt a far deeper wound, one to the heart itself. Panic rippled through the officers and generals manning the western approaches, and as if bound by a single string, they roared in unison:
"It’s another artillery barrage! Brace yourselves!!!"
Swoooooo~
Their warning had barely left their throats when the sky answered. From beyond the jagged ridges of the mountain chain, a tide of meteors spilled forth, burning trails carved into the heavens. They cascaded like a celestial waterfall, painting the firmament in blinding light before dipping into a deadly arc.
The soldiers froze for a fraction of a breath, their awe drowned swiftly by dread.
"Oh no, not this again..."
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Thousands of blazing meteors rained down upon the rear of the Silver Army in a storm without mercy. There was no precision in their fall, no careful targeting—yet none was needed. Dropping into a churning ocean of soldiers, each fiery stone guaranteed to claim the lives of men, crushing bone, tearing steel, and scattering souls alike.
At this place —the fabled Gate of the West— the Silver Army stood. The ground beneath their boots was a narrow band of shallow land, scarcely a few kilometers across, but it was the only bridge between the planet’s two greatest continents. For decades, this narrow strip had been the graveyard of ambitions. The Allied Armies had pushed and bled and fought here, but never managed to plant their banners in the soil of the final continent. The strait was the wall, and for the infantry, it was unbreachable.
True, warships prowled the skies and oceans freely, raining destruction into the depths. True, powerful Martial Emperors flew above, diving into enemy ranks to sow chaos. But almost always, their daring charges ended the same: with their bodies shot from the sky, torn apart by brutal retaliation. Victory on this world could not be claimed through tricks or terror. There were no civilians to terrify here—every man and woman was a soldier. The only path to triumph was to seize the ground and hold it, no matter how much blood it demanded.
That was why today’s onslaught fell. To the east, the Allied host assembled, a tide several times larger than the Silver Army. Twelve armies stood side by side, their uniforms distinct, their banners proud. Each fought with its own weapons, its own battle doctrines, its own hard-won experience. Even their very blood carried gifts and curses unique to their lineages. Ordinarily, such diversity was a recipe for chaos. To weld such forces into a single blade was thought impossible—too much pride, too many egos, too many empires unwilling to bend.
Yet here, somehow, it worked. The twelve armies moved as if compelled by a single, unseen hand, a hidden will that bound their pride into obedience, forcing them to fight shoulder to shoulder.
Every army bore a role: some hurled themselves at the front lines in brutal charges, others unleashed thunder from their artillery lines far behind. Some rose into the skies to counter enemy fliers, while still more tended wounds, kept supplies flowing, and steadied the line with logistics. The eastern front became a living hornets’ nest—each hornet with its own sting, darting and striking in its own way, yet all united by instinct toward the same goal.
And that goal was simple: to seize the strait before day’s end.
"Damn it!" one of the Silver Army generals bellowed, spittle flying as his eyes tracked the devastation tearing through his ranks. His fists clenched around the rail of his command post until the steel bent. "It’s the heavy artillery—the cursed hallmark of the Falling Star Empire! If we don’t crush them now, we’ll never withstand this wave!"
And so, the plan of the Allied Armies revealed itself. Two of their strongest divisions had been placed at the very front—not to break through, but to hold, to endure, to crawl forward step by bloody step whenever opportunity allowed.
Meanwhile, while the Silver Army—the proud arm of the Shattering Meteor Empire—struggled to shatter those immovable lines in the shallows, another Allied army, hidden behind the mountains, unleashed their famed heavy artillery. Each barrage hammered the Silver Army’s back lines, grinding their formations between an anvil and a hammer with merciless rhythm.
Since the very beginning of the day, the Silver Army had miraculously avoided any serious losses on the front line—the place where the clash was supposed to be the most brutal and merciless. Their formations at the front still held firm, as though unshaken by the tide of war.
Yet, while the vanguard stood unbroken, the rear ranks had been ripped apart, shredded again and again under the relentless bombardments. At least ten thousand soldiers had perished already, their corpses littering the shallow grounds like broken dolls, and still the Silver Army had been forced to reform its lines not once, but several times, desperately patching holes that kept tearing wider with each strike.
ClackClack
"Not again!" one of the generals shuddered, his voice carrying both rage and despair as he felt the tremor of another incoming artillery barrage. His unit had barely been replenished after the last massacre, and now yet another wave was descending upon them. The sense of inevitability gnawed at him, a weight pressing on his chest, for he knew this was no ordinary attack—it was a deliberate grinding down of their very will.
Without hesitation, the general abandoned what he had been doing, his cloak whipping in the air as he ascended skyward and darted west. His destination was a raised platform, a command dais that overlooked the chaos of battle. At its center stood a polished, extravagant table, its surface covered with maps, markers, and the faint glow of tactical inscriptions. Around it gathered several figures, each clad in gleaming silver armor that shimmered beneath the dust-choked skies. They formed a protective ring around one presence in particular.
"Marshal!!" the general landed with a thud upon the platform, his voice cracking with urgency. "You must do something about those cursed artillery—if you don’t, we may lose the strait before the day is over!"
"....."
The man they all called Marshal slowly lifted his face from the map spread across the table. His eyes narrowed, sharp with fury, as he turned toward the panicked general. His voice came out low and cutting, heavy with contempt. "Do you think I am blind, that I cannot see the battlefield with my own eyes?"
The Marshal was an intimidating figure, towering and broad-shouldered, his presence alone enough to quiet lesser men. Unlike his generals and soldiers who dutifully kept their helmets on, his own helm rested upon the table, exposing the disturbing visage beneath. His skin was pale, almost sickly, his square jaw casting harsh shadows in the dim light. His eyes were not the eyes of a man but of a predator—slit like a serpent’s, glimmering with cold menace. From beneath the skin of his face, the bones of his jaw jutted outward grotesquely, and four massive fangs pierced through his cheeks, visible for all to see. His neck was no less dreadful, a grotesque amalgam of sinew, flesh, and bare bone, as though nature itself had recoiled at his existence.
Any man stumbling upon the Marshal asleep might mistake him for a shattered corpse, abandoned by life. But here, now, his aura crushed such illusions. It radiated raw vitality and terrifying might, proof that not only was he alive—he was a beast of war incarnate.
Another general, standing close to the Marshal, exhaled heavily, breaking the silence. "We’ve tried to carve a path for hours, Marshal, but every attempt has failed. Two entire armies guard the artillery’s ground. Any strike team we send—whether suicidal shock troops or swift warships—ends the same way: utter annihilation. Even the tunnelers, those who burrow beneath the soil, were intercepted and destroyed."
"No solution?!" the frontline general barked, his eyes wide with disbelief. He had only seen the slaughter at the edge of the strait; he hadn’t realized the larger noose tightening around them. "Then why not call upon His Majesty? Send him the coordinates—let him command the planet-spirit itself to crush their cannons, to drag them into the depths of the earth!"
"We have already overburdened the planet-spirit with demands since the war began," another figure from the Marshal’s retinue said grimly, shaking his head. "Were it not for its intervention, we could never have survived the last offensive. But now we must abandon that path, or at least hold it as our very last resort. If we continue to drain its strength, the spirit may fall into a deep slumber, unreachable for thousands of years. If that happens, this planet will become nothing more than dead stone beneath our feet."
The frontline general’s face drained of color, veins pulsing at his temples as his voice cracked into a furious roar. "What does that mean? What does that mean for us?!" He slammed his fist against his chestplate, his voice echoing across the platform. "Are we truly going to lose the strait today?!"