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Something has gone terribly wrong, or someone is cutting me off. Kyle would not entertain the possibility that all fifteen had betrayed him immediately.

The alarm bells still ringing in his head, he began to prepare his forces with more intensity, training them directly and improving their weaponry and armour. He established a similar arcite training chamber to the one he had set up in Raktor, which effectively doubled up as a storage space for arcia crystals as well.

A week had already passed with no reply, fuelling Kyle’s sense of insecurity. He had the belief that his underlings in the Seven Snakes would be able to handle everything, even an entire civil war. After all, if push came to shove, they had a direct tunnel system that allowed for the transportation of evolved hobgoblins directly from the Culdao Peaks, boosting the numbers of the Seven Snakes immediately.

What did not sit right with him was how the messengers completely disappeared off the map. The simmering sense of impending danger was heightened when a report of a missing stealth hovercraft came in.

“When was the last check-in?”

“About two hours ago.”

“The one that was doing the Fegram route?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Were there any known anomalies in the manufacturing of that hovercraft?”

“No, sir, nothing major noted.”

Kyle furrowed his brows. First I lose my messenger, then my hovercraft goes missing. “Prepare a search party. I’ll lead.”

However, as much as they scoured the area, they could not find it. It was as though it had completely disappeared into thin air. It was only when Kyle actually manually scanned the forest floor that the route flew over that he found traces of an explosion and a small fight. Blood was smeared on some of the forest branches, with dozens of footsteps leading in all directions.

Feldon too was in the search party, checking on all the hints as he discovered another left behind part, embedded into a tree trunk. “Someone knows about our stealth hovercraft AND can take them down.”

This was disastrous – with an entire stealth hovercraft missing, it would mean that the design had been leaked. Kyle had, as always, implemented a failsafe in all of his hovercraft, but self-destruction only occurred upon tampering with the engravings. An astute arctech designer could still easily glimpse the concept of the stealth engravings without having even to touch the hovercraft.

“Have all subsequent hovercrafts fly at a higher altitude. We can’t run the risk of being hit by surface-to-air attacks like this anymore.” Kyle ordered the pilots. He also redrew the routes, making sure the pilots moved in a zig-zag fashion in order to throw off whoever was attacking them.

However, Kyle already had an inkling for which organisation was doing this to him. It can only be Nest.

Ever since the war started, he had not heard much updates from the old Nest Informant, proving to be slightly useless in terms of keeping track on the positions and movements of all Nest hitmen and squads. The only thing of note that he recalled was that the boss, Nox, had formed a military division of his own, acting as a special task force.

With Kyle already dominating the black market supply in major towns, villages and residences in the region, it was inevitable that Nest would eventually catch wind of Desham being a hotspot. “We need to prepare for an eventual assault. Nest is the one cutting us off slowly.” Kyle explained in a meeting.

There were too many things to prepare – repairing the city’s point defence system on the outer walls, creating enough gas masks and sealed bunkers to protect against a chemical attack, enough cannons and machine guns to fire back at any assault.

While Desham grew stronger with each passing day, Kyle continued to chart out his next move. Should I return to Raktor?

Returning alone to Raktor was a dumb move in his opinion – if the messengers were already annihilated, it means someone or something had their eyes on him. If he was forced into another transcendent duel, it would mean that he would lose even more control.

As he was planning in the underground tunnel base, a series of distant booms could suddenly be heard, shocking the workers and hunters.

“What was that?”

“Is someone testing a weapon? A bomb?”

“Are we under attack?”

Kyle rushed out on the stealth hornet in his Version 0 exosuit, launching up into the air to see an approaching military force in the distance, rampaging through the fields directly headed for Desham.

Fourteen warmachines rumbled through the rolling fields of Desham Tuffs with the Versian Military banner flying high above, though they did not set the fields ablaze in any form of scorched earth strategy. The posture and the care with which the army moved forward only told him one thing. They are here to conquer Desham.

[Citizens of Desham, under the authority of President Mornero, in accordance with Clause 4.08 of the War Economy Bill, all production facilities and output must be directed with the military as the highest output. You have found to be hoarding goods and supplies against the war effort!]

Kyle didn’t bother being upset about the obviously false declaration, knowing it was just a pretext of invasion; a justification for their righteous suppression. “Get everyone into battle state alpha. This isn’t a drill any longer!”

Makoa and Feldon kicked into action, gearing up the various forces under Kyle, with Hayden leading the mortar brigade in the city, calculating the distance to fire.

Thirty arctech wagons from the enemy rushed forward, creating a parallel to the walls of Desham by establishing sturdy metal barriers that had been prepared beforehand. Arctech tools were used to dig out trenches, providing cover and fortified locations to begin a siege on Desham.

[Boss, we should sortie now and break them before they get dug in!] Feldon suggested, knowing that once the division of the Versian Military had spread out into its four bridgades covering the cardinal directions, Desham would be completely cut off from its farms, tanking its food supply.

“No, let them encircle. Continuously hit them with mortar strikes, but no one is to push out under my command.”

“What about the refugee camp?”

“Ignore them – they can stay or run. It’s their choice.”

Kyle did not care at all about the refugees who had refused to work for him or move to the Keru Forest to join the new logging company. He didn’t have enough resources nor manpower to worry about protecting them – Kyle wasn’t one to protect strangers either way with no benefits in it for him.

As such, Diya was left saddled with the hard choice, in the end electing to not do anything. The refugees slammed at the walls and the gates as they screamed out in panic, stampeding over their own people as they were split. Many began to run off into the forest to join the logging company out of fear, while others simply prayed to whatever gods they believed in, hoping that a miracle would save them.

The Versian Military was equally ruthless, firing a barrage of mortar and cannon fire at the city. Cannonballs ripped through the refugee camp as it tore up makeshift tents and squashed people into unrecognizable corpses, causing widespread panic while the remaining refugees began to disperse, fleeing in every direction.

Nox stood at the helm of the division, glancing in derision of the fleeing refugees. This was the special division, fully composed of Nest operatives loyal only to him. Kris Greyborn thinks he can use refugees against me?

Nox had zero qualms about killing Versian citizens – to him, he had one objective alone assigned from President Mornero: control Desham. “Surround the town! We’ll perform continuous siege. Command Tent to be in the north. Each brigade covers a direction. Ensure no stealth hovercraft makes it past us!”

As the encircelment proceeded as plan into the evening, the Nest soldiers cowered under the withering fire from wall guards who tried to snipe them at range, though the penetrating power was low. The first parallel was placed at a significant range, close to two kilometres away.

Under the pinkish night sky, the arctech digging machine rattled violently as a near hit almost took it out, soldiers ducking instinctively as the dirt of the fields were dug up all around them, showering them in fertilizer and soil. Yet they pressed on, creating a blockade around Desham to ensure nothing got in nor out.

Yet as it continued on, Nox became more and more confused while he waited in the temporary command tent, overseeing the entire movement on an arctech-lantern lit map as officers continuously reported in their observations.

“No sign of any enemy activity in the south!”

Are they really not going to try and complete the encirclement? What are they waiting for?

He had half expected his division to be bombed and attacked in full force while they were still undefended, yet he was almost given free-reign over the outskirts of the city.

No matter what plan they have, encirclement of Desham is still my best option. Nox still followed the standard military doctrine of the age, besieging it while creating a defensive position for himself. The moment they try to sortie out to attack us, I will-

“We’re under attack!” One of his officers reported. “They are pushing out of the city towards our south brigade!”

“Get the south to fallback immediately. Draw them in! Have the west and east immediately collapse on the flanks. North brigade to assault the walls now!”

The division kicked into action, with each of the well-trained brigades executing the movements with confidence and clarity. Sure enough, Makoa’s troops were now out on the field, fighting hard as they rolled out their own form of cover, metal barriers shoddily made from the steel factory.

As they were flanked by the three brigades, the wall guards also supported them, suppressing the flanking Nest soldiers who had to deal with converging fire.

The entire south of Desham became embroiled in a fierce battle with bright pellets and green point defence bolts illuminating the night, with Nox dedicating all of his mortar resources and warmachines towards the effort. “Annihilate them!”

However, just as the warmachines began to push out from the first parallel towards Makoa’s forces, an unknown attacker slammed the warmachines with a direct hit, the projectile tearing through the armour and blowing up the liquid arcia flame fuel inside. The burning crew screamed as they tried to crawl out of the hatches of the warmachine, only for the dazzling blue flames to consume them again into ashes.

The brigades were unfazed by the sudden attack, immediately launching flares from mortars that exploded in mid air, creating a kaleidoscope of colours that looked almost like fireworks.

Except that now, the spotters of the brigade could clearly see the incongruity of the stealth engravings “326, 88! Fire!”

The mortar squads loaded airburst projectiles, forcing the stealth hovercraft to swoop in and out to dodge the burst rounds, their fragmentation pellets threatening to kill the hornet with a direct nearby burst.

Nox had a grin on his face, having already experienced fighting against stealth hovercrafts before. You think I don’t know how to fight against Hwa Dynasty’s airforce?

He didn’t know how Kris Greyborn, a herbalist from Raktor got his hands on such equipment, but Nox had prepared well in advanced, connecting the dots after his various branches told him about how unknown criminal groups were suddenly dominating the black market through a severe blockade by the Yual Dominion’s forces.

He should only have a few hovercraft – at most three. Including the one we took down earlier this week, there should be one more…Nox finally realized why they allowed the encirclement to happen: they wanted to spread out the troops away from the command tent.

“High alert! There will be a potential ambush here!” Nox roared to the officers, scaring them into action. Just as they scrambled to grab their weapons, the roof of the makeshift command tent burst apart, a rain of acid dissolving through the fabric and metal pillars, causing the foundations to collapse around Nox.

The officers and soldiers aimed up the sky, firing flares and guns wildly, hoping to hit the hovercraft. As the first flare from the command tent shot up to reveal the stealth hovercraft, Nox’s jaw dropped as he watched close to twenty men drop from what seemed like two dozen stealth hovercrafts, except some of the shapes were different. Is that a fucking mineral ant?!

Nox leapt out of the way, rolling and recovering as a huge arctech armour suit landed right ontop of him, smashing into the ground and kicking up a large dust cloud. Through the cloud, the engravings on the glistening steel armour flashed neon blue and green, the Advanced Arcia Crystal powering the various enhancements as it traced through runic lines.

The armour suit brandished a lightning sword, the arcs of energy crackling between the tip of its blade and the earth as the wearer glared right at Nox.

“Time for payback.”