Counterfeit Hero

Everyone could see that those faint traces of life were slowly draining away from the wounded soldier’s dimming eyes.

"Will we... win...?"

This was the last sentence left in this world by the soldier whose entire chest cavity had been blown apart. He never got to hear Fran’s answer. His pupils dilated as his body convulsed violently.

Fran knelt in the mud, gripping that filthy, gradually cooling hand in a deathlike clasp.

He really wanted to tell this soldier, and everyone present, that not far behind them the Front Army had already concentrated the strength of more than a dozen divisions, and that a large number of units were still racing here under the stars and moon.

He also wanted to tell them that the Front Army had a plan that would make a man’s blood boil.

It wouldn’t be long before those enemies who had invaded this country and defiled this land would be surrounded, would fall into a desperate situation they could never have imagined even in their dreams. They would wail, they would struggle, they would surrender, they would wag their tails and beg. They would be blasted to ashes under the wrathful artillery!

But he could not say it. Simply because he could not prematurely expose that damned strategic intention.

The Western Alliance people still did not know that the Fei Alliance Joint Army had already thrown all its reserve strength into this theater, so they were still launching mad assaults on Sunset Mountain and still massing their troops toward the east.

And once they found out that when they smugly thought the Fei Alliance Joint Army’s reserves were pinned down by Frenso Town, those reserves had already silently concentrated ahead of schedule at Sunset Mountain, they would become alert. They would reevaluate Frenso Town and the other sectors of the line.

If they saw through the entire operational plan and pulled their main forces back, then the western line of Phoenix City would revert to its original defensive posture. The Leifeng Star Army, already riding the tiger, would lose its chance to dismount. In the end they could only feed division after division into that gigantic meat grinder on the western line of Phoenix City, until they ran out of ammunition and food.

To let the situation at Sunset Mountain remain in this precarious, teetering state—watching the warriors, in silence and despair, use guns, artillery, knives, fists, even their teeth to defend this line—was, for Fran, undoubtedly a form of torment.

This was the hardest twenty-four hours of his life.

All he could do was lower his head, clenching the lifeless soldier’s hand with all his strength. Every second of passing time carved a bloody wound across his heart.

Six hours had already gone by. What would happen eighteen hours from now?

Would that be a miracle?

In the next assault, how many troops would those Western Alliance bastards throw in? On the Western Alliance jump-off positions a few kilometers away, how many follow-on units had already arrived?

And that unit called the Judgers—when would they be committed to battle? What kind of crisis would their appearance bring to this line?

All this he did not even dare to imagine.

In the silence, a group of men moved through the trenches and came up to Fran.

"General." A staff officer at the front of the group halted before Fran and called softly.

With the arrival of these men, a sudden stir ran through the trench. Many soldiers crowded close behind them; many warriors who had been resting on the edge of muddy pits sprang to their feet, their eyes tracking their movement, flashing with delighted light.

Fran placed the dead soldier’s hand back on the stretcher, straightened his clothes for him, and watched as the medics carried him away. Only then did he raise his head and stand up. Before him, several Chuckna officers were standing at attention in solemn silence.

Fran nodded. Having already received the message from headquarters, he was not as excited as the warriors around him. He knew these were officers of the support units dispatched by headquarters, but this batch coming up consisted of only two Chuckna Armored Groups and one bandit army Special Forces Camp.

Several officers from the Chuckna Army 10th Army 102nd Division did not need him, a Chuckna Admiral, to say anything. He extended his hand toward a bandit army Major standing at the front of the group of officers.

"I’m Fran."

The young officer in a blue uniform reached out and shook Fran’s hand. "Stiller, commander of the bandit army First Armored Division’s Directly Subordinate Special Forces Camp."

"I heard you only just arrived on Leifeng Star; I didn’t expect you to be at the front so soon." Fran studied the young officer before him, his gaze flickering. Regarding headquarters’ proposal to use this Special Forces Camp as the main combat force when the Judgers appeared, he was far from confident.

So in the next attack, the Judgers would show up?

In the distance, the Western Alliance Forces that had already receded like the tide were now too quiet—so quiet it made one’s heart sink.

"Showing up early isn’t as good as showing up at the right moment," Stiller said lightly. "Compared to resting in the rear, we’d much rather deliver Bellif a head-on beating!"

A head-on beating?

The officers and men around them looked in astonishment at this sharp-eyed officer. Most people here didn’t know much about the bandit army and found this officer’s relaxed tone rather strange.

This Major was too composed and too confident. Did he really not understand how perilous the fighting at Sunset Mountain was?

Stiller kept his eyes straight ahead, ignoring the various looks around him.

The horrific scenes on the Sunset Mountain positions might be terrifying to ordinary people, but to Stiller they were nothing new.

Scenes like this he had seen far too many times in the four-year War of National Defense in Leray. Fear was out of the question; if anything, there was even a faint sense of familiarity and intimacy.

More than that, there was excitement.

This twenty-five-year-old Major met Fran’s startled gaze, a calm smile appearing at the corner of his lips.

Several years ago he had been a warrior of the Sixteenth Division’s Special Reconnaissance Battalion, had followed Fatty to Miloke to rescue prisoners of war, fought at Galileo, and had also charged with Mezrich at the Mythical Army’s command cluster.

With his rich combat experience, he had already become Deputy Company Commander when Torick was still the platoon leader. Now he was commander of the bandit army First Division’s Directly Subordinate Special Forces Camp.

The soldiers under his command, although not as monstrous as those few hundred freaks of the army’s direct Special Forces Camp equipped with Twelfth Generation Rampage Mecha, were still elites among elites. Most of them had already reached the level of civilian Mechanical Knights when they joined the bandit army. After undergoing training in Mecha Martial Arts, in terms of rank they had surpassed the former Mechanical Commanders.

Stiller was by nature fierce and fearless. Before, when he piloted a Seventh Generation Warrior, he had already charged around recklessly; now, driving a Ranger equipped with a magnetic instrument and various advanced systems, leading a bunch of Mechanical Warriors who had mastered control skills ahead of their era, he simply didn’t know the meaning of fear.

The men in this trench didn’t know that just half an hour earlier, when news came that an entire hundred Judgers had been annihilated at Frenso Town, the first reaction of him and his warriors in the bandit army First Armored Division’s Special Forces Camp wasn’t amazement or respect, but a string of curses and spitting on the ground.

This gang of fearless bastards were practically crazy for a chance to cross blades with the Judgers. The First Division and the Second Division had even bet on who would be the first to grab a Judger and give it a savage beating. Yet who could have imagined that their detestable superior Fatty, leading a bunch of freaks piloting Rampage Mecha, had beaten them to it.

Standing now on the positions of Sunset Mountain, Stiller felt no other emotion—only the gloom of seeing a girl who was already in his hands deflowered by someone else.

Seeing the relaxed expression on Stiller’s face, Fran’s heart skipped a beat. "It seems the bandit army’s morale is very high. However..."

He frowned slightly and, in a voice only Stiller could hear, said, "The Sunset Mountain Defense Line is twenty kilometers long. If the Judgers choose somewhere else, I’m afraid your Special Forces Camp, Major, will find it hard to arrive in time..."

"That is a problem." Stiller nodded and said blandly, "So the first thing I did was come to see you, General Fran, because I wanted to discuss something with you."

"Discuss what?" Fran asked.

"My unit is already prepared," Stiller checked the time, turned his head to the west, and said expressionlessly, "Now we just need to launch a counter-assault and, with concrete action, deliver a formal challenge to those metal heads!"

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