Will the kemonomimi encounter Alien Ranch Story?

There was no mass exodus or surrender as Letania's supply lines had not yet effectively collapsed.

Smaller-scale attacks were brutally suppressed, preventing them from escalating further. However, even if Kazdel offered no resistance, no one could force them to take another step forward.

It must be said that compared to the forces that fought back and forth with Ursus on the northern front, the Kazdel army did indeed appear incompetent, a group of non-citizens.

Just as the general said, when those noble councilors sit in their mansions and use their walnut-sized brains to imagine wars thousands of miles away, they can't smell the stench of corpses and blood in the trenches. They will wishfully believe that the Kazdel people have created a modern army by copying other countries' equipment.

However, the legions composed of peasants, slaves, and outcasts were no threat at all. After all, all the lower classes they had seen since birth looked the same.

They were sallow and emaciated, with numb expressions and evasive eyes. Facing the master's whip, they looked as ugly and wretched as a mangled old dog. They had seen troops composed of such people before: corrupt, deceiving their superiors and brutal to their subordinates, a pack of unqualified hunting dogs.

For many aristocratic children, ordinary people seem to be born to look like this, as if they were born to live in places that are not luxurious.

But at least inside the solemn house, the food, while not delicacies, at least included meat and wine.

They should be born into a position above average in this country. Even the sons of impoverished nobles should at least be able to maintain a basic level of dignity and food. They are literate, have relatively strong physiques, and most of them possess certain combat skills in accordance with the martial customs of Letania.

The Sarkaz people they encountered were exactly as they remembered them, perhaps cleaner and more energetic than the serfs.

However, most of them are cunning and treacherous. If you dare to pay the full amount in advance, these mercenaries will make you disappear halfway through the journey.

Lacking credibility, they possess relatively decent combat strength and physique, and have some organizational ability, but their discipline is practically nonexistent.

They spend any money they have on taverns and brothels, never saving any. Their only redeeming quality is their tattered equipment; they rely on sheer numbers to win battles.

This is how Letania and most of the world's nobles perceive the lower classes and the Sarkaz.

They probably know less about the Sarkaz soldiers of Kazdel than they do about the Sarkaz succubi in their own city's red-light district. It would be a miracle if the strategic plans formulated by such a group, based on news from the front lines, and the decisions they make based on assumptions, actually matched the actual situation on the front lines.

This practice even harmed their own people, the noble officers. When they stormed in with great fanfare, they were met with a crushing defeat at the border.

After defeating the enemy's elite border troops, what followed was not a swift and unstoppable advance, but a quagmire.

Those citizen-soldiers, who entered Kazdel based on the propaganda that portrayed them as a ragtag mob of emaciated serfs led by a few strong professional mercenaries, ran headlong into the Sarkaz militia, which was completely different from what had been portrayed in the propaganda.

They discovered that their side seemed to consist of a small group of noble knights and professional warriors leading a bunch of pale-faced good-for-nothings, while the other side...

While height cannot be improved in a short time, muscle can. Each of them was sturdy, ruddy-faced, and well-nourished. The discipline and organization honed by long-term industrialized agricultural production gave them the impression of being a regular army, while their side resembled a group of militia.

Every noble and commoner officer at the front understood this. However, every noble son sent to reinforce from the rear was unaware of this and believed his colleagues were exaggerating and making excuses for their defeats—

Until they ran headlong into the hands of the mountain infantry division, but usually, this unfortunate fellow didn't have the chance to learn from the lesson and experience while still alive.

"They're trying to break out again. Which squad is on this mission this time?"

"Squad 8." "Okay, send them up." The mountain troops didn't carry heavy equipment because they simply couldn't bring it up. This was also why the enemy hadn't included the mountains on both sides in their defensive line, as the enemy might be able to cross those areas. However, it was difficult to carry heavy equipment.

That would only create live targets for the artillery of land-based ships and mobile fortresses, and the enemy wouldn't be able to stop them from breaking out.

However, that applies to normal legions; it doesn't apply to the enemy they are facing now.

Soon, the high-speed landship attempting to break out saw a small group of people rushing down the mountain. They were riding warhorses and carrying long spears, looking like a group of knights charging towards the fortress.

The rapid-fire weapons on the land-going ship felled half of the men, but the cavalry still managed to rush to the side of the ship, their spears plunging heavily into the ship's running gear.

The built-in azimuth charge transformed the shroud into a terrifying jet of metal that pierced through the thick wheel hub, while the knight wielding a lance was blown backward with a thud, and his misguided companions, along with their spears, were plunged into the machine, turned into a pile of flesh mixed with fire and steel.

"Bang... bang bang bang..." With the heavy sound of machinery snapping and breaking, the landship slowly slowed down. "Second batch, prepare! Which squad is it this time?"

"Squad 11," armed with their drawn lots, sent another group of men rushing down the hillside. Using anti-armor spears modified from mining tools, they successfully brought the landship to a stop, leaving those inside stranded in the wilderness, isolated and helpless.

Unable to advance or retreat, and even more afraid to leave the protection of this iron shell, they successfully thwarted the enemy's attempt to break out in batches with two 20-man squads, totaling 40 lives.

From a strategic perspective, this is very cost-effective and simple, but from a tactical perspective, it is very difficult to execute. Exchanging 40 people for a land-based ship is a trade-off that anyone can make, but for the people carrying out the mission, it is a suicide for 40 people.

If 40 people are not enough, the remaining assault teams that were drawn will take turns carrying out the task until the target is destroyed and stopped.

As for those who tried to escape under the cover of night, no one cared. The patrolling cavalry on the outskirts would deal with them. Even if one or two were lucky, the winter landscape of Kazdel would teach them a lesson.

Moreover, for these Letanians, every Kazdel village was a hostile stronghold, and every Sarkaz and Ursus they encountered, even the Iberian immigrants, was an enemy.

Iberian swordsmanship, Ursus's heavy hammer, and Sarkaz's poison arrows would all become their nightmares. Not to mention, they are now also using their ingenuity to modify those mining tools into decent weapons. For example, the explosive spears used by the mountain people are a typical example.

"One week, seven days, this is the fifth day now, two more days until we retreat." Two days later, let the aviation sorcerer corps at the field airfield finish the job.

Chapter Thirty-One: The Y-12 Bomb

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For a whole week, not a single fleet member was able to break through. This valley was an excellent defensive stronghold, making it difficult for the enemy to penetrate. It was also a suitable harbor for the fleet to rest and resupply. Although Terra's land-based ships did not need to consider sea conditions, they still needed to consider natural disasters.

The risks of a fleet anchoring in the wild are extremely high; not everyone is Halsey, the Typhoon God.

Most importantly, there is a refining facility left behind by the Leitania Enterprises in this valley, which can provide the fleet with on-site fuel replenishment.

Normally, to trap the fleet inside, it would require breaking through the multiple lines of defense in front of the valley head-on. However, unexpectedly, the Kazdel mountain infantry bypassed the valley from both sides.

Such mountainous terrain makes it difficult to carry heavy weapons. In other words, the Leitanian officers, considering that troops lacking heavy weapons would be unable to stop the fleet's attack and would ultimately become like pancakes caught in a pincer movement, did not pay much attention to the defense of the mountains on both sides.

Unexpectedly, they were trapped inside by the enemy at the cost of lives, unable to break through or rush to the aid of friendly forces under heavy attack. To make matters worse, the morale of the fleet's officers and men began to waver.

To be fair, the sacrifices made by the mountain infantry were negligible compared to the cost of a siege, especially when infantry, lacking heavy weapons, were fighting against a fleet. Normally, attacking a fortress with a fleet stationed there would require at least three divisions, and even then, there was no guarantee of success if the entire division was wiped out.

Even stopping the enemy's breakout and attack would come at a great cost in terms of casualties.

In reality, the number of lives lost by the mountain people was less than a thousand, accounting for less than one-eighth of the total casualties of the entire division. In modern warfare, this was not a resounding victory, but it was at least a very acceptable cost in terms of casualties.

However, the experience of every warship attempting to break through being met with the same 20-man cavalrymen wielding suicide weapons and having their legs broken gave the fleet's officers and men a different impression, and the same pressure was placed on the mountain people's frontline troops.

In statistics, it's like Simpson's paradox: the overall trend and the detailed trend present a counterintuitive opposite state. The soldiers on the front lines cannot see the battlefield from a global perspective. They can only see one squad after another going out and never coming back, watching helplessly as their comrades are either crushed by land-based ships or blown up by their own weapons.

For the fleet's officers and soldiers, it was as if the enemy's manpower was inexhaustible, a group of monsters that seemed to have crawled out of hell. No matter how many they killed, in the next minute, 20 identical people, whose appearances even seemed familiar, would rush over with weapons.

The land-based ships with their legs broken blocked the roads and became cover for the assault cavalry. This meant that the cost of each attack was actually decreasing. After a week, everyone in the base and the fleet was numb.

When this place was chosen as the base, the need for terrain that was easy to defend and difficult to attack was taken into consideration. But now we are trapped inside, and the access channels cannot support the entire fleet to rush up at once. In that case, even if all the mountain infantry rushed up as bombs, they would not be able to stop us.

As a result, this passage has now become a death trap. If it were just a simple sneak attack, the front-line defenses could easily turn around and block the enemy at the gate. But the problem is that the front-line defenses are under simultaneous and fierce attack and urgently need fleet support, while the fleet is blocked on this road.

The Letanian generals, who initially viewed Kazdel as a small elite force of Ursus immigrants leading a large group of mercenaries and peasant soldiers—a truly formidable enemy—never considered what to do when such a deployment was subjected to a combined three-pronged attack: mountain raids, flanking maneuvers, and frontline assaults.

Are you kidding me? A bunch of peasants who've never been to military school can pull off such precise teamwork?

Their demon king is dead; they couldn't possibly have pulled off such a brilliant coordinated attack, nor did they have a force capable of executing it.

As a result, the generals didn't need to go into the trenches to fill in the gaps, and the frontline troops really did suffer such a triple attack. The frontline defensive positions were bombarded by air and ground forces, the fleet was blocked at its doorstep and couldn't get out, and the logistics line was attacked by another militia group that didn't even have horses—they used the traditional Sarkaz skills—no horses? Aren't there plenty in the enemy's logistics stations?

A week later, the front lines were breached, and the aviation mages' field airfield was built right on their doorstep. Due to Terra's harsh natural environment and deadly Originium environment, the aircraft had many weaknesses:

Because the range of kilometers is limited by the warlock's power rather than fuel, the combat radius is also limited.

Because it would inhale Originium particles, causing the engine to fail, it cannot use a piston engine;

The actual payload is low because it needs to carry too much unnecessary equipment on Earth.

It requires multiple operators, so coordination has always been an issue, making it impossible to execute precision strikes such as dive attacks.

It has only one advantage: fearless pilots and a boost in ammunition power during cluster bombing. However, using azide charges does not offer much improvement when the payload is limited.

So... through the joint efforts of Master Nian and Master Ke, a new type of wet-component bomb for dealing with fortresses and fixed positions was developed.

Its unique feature is that its power is so low that it feels like scratching, while its weight is so great that it feels like a heavy bomb. Its unique advantage is that the power of cluster bombing and the power of individual precision attack are two different levels.

As the bombing continues, the number of Originium particles in the atmosphere increases, then quickly reaches its peak, and is then triggered by subsequent bombings to produce a discharge effect.

Ultimately, the target area will form a ground-hugging thunderstorm, accompanied by powerful EMP interference and random electric arcs striking any person carrying a metal object.

The first shot might produce a small arc of electricity, which then spreads out a large number of Originium particles. The second shot will produce a finer and longer arc. The third shot will produce a continuous arc at the point of impact, saturating the area with Originium particles.

If carpet bombing is carried out, then when the bombs explode, there will be almost no flames or lightning, and when the aircraft returns, there will be a carpet-like arc storm behind it.

If it is a joint bombing by multiple aircraft, the scene will form a three-dimensional thunderstorm belt. The electric arc will quickly spread along the surface of the warship and the metal conductive equipment, or even break through the insulation layer, causing huge damage to the warship's external equipment, power facilities and personnel.

Since we can't break through the armored tortoise shell, let's just not bother. Cut off the power, kill the people, and burn all the observation, aiming, and weapon equipment. That's no different from destroying a warship.

However, because this type of bombing requires a considerable reaction time, it has very low lethality against moving, high-speed targets, and its power decreases exponentially as the size of the bombing squadron decreases.

Old Xia gave it a very long and tedious name: "Isok's Large Charge Shock Wave Three-Dimensional Bomb." Pilots and bombardiers never used the full name; they referred to the bombing process as follows:

"First Squadron enters the airspace, commencing initial high-altitude horizontal bombardment..." Five expensive high-altitude aircraft swept across the sky, "dropping 'Mr. Stranger'."

"Mr. Stranger is loaded into the launch tube... 3... 2... 1, launch!"

This high-altitude aircraft can only drop one of these bombs, used as an initial boundary to create a cluster bombing environment.

The subsequent normal bombing group would carry two bombs for the first round of carpet bombing, and its arc storm would knock down any soldiers exposed outdoors with metal on their bodies. This is why the front-line positions only lasted for 7 days.

When soldiers realized that they would die faster with weapons and armor, they would not hesitate to take off their protective gear and drop their weapons. When the locals rushed up, the people on the position didn't even have time to pick up their equipment.

Moreover, even if the heavily armored soldier is not electrocuted due to the Faraday cage effect, he will be burned alive inside the armor because the large current will continue to pass through the high-resistivity metal outside and heat up rapidly. The delicate weapons will melt and be damaged as a result, and according to the basic principles of electricity, the most delicate and fragile parts will be destroyed first.

After three rounds of bombing, the casualties on the position may not be great, but all the precision equipment such as staves, Originium devices, and magical cannons, and even communication and lighting equipment, will need to be sent back to the factory for repair or simply scrapped.

Even ordinary swords and crossbows would be burned and deformed if struck repeatedly by an electric arc, although a deformed sword could still be used to cut. But... are you planning to defeat an enemy force equipped with rifles using a machete?

Several explosions followed in quick succession, and noticeable Originium particle interference began to appear near the blast points. To put it bluntly, a large number of particles appeared that were glowing even in sunlight. "Originium contamination weapon, put on protective gear!"

As a supply base and fleet base, these facilities are not lacking. The Terrans have many ways to deal with Originium contamination, the most important of which is a respiratory filtration system. However, protective equipment is not cheap, which means that most industrial and mining enterprises are reluctant to equip their workers with it. Ultimately, this is not a problem that can be solved by cheap activated carbon.

Everyone rushed nervously into the nearest shelter, took out the protective gear they had been given earlier to defend against natural disasters and Originium contamination weapons that the enemy might throw out, and put it on.

"Just a few hits? These Sarkaz are underestimating us!" Could it be that they actually think these contamination weapons can be effective on the battlefield?

"They're still behind!" The anti-aircraft gun positions were doing their utmost to intercept the level-flying bomber formations. At this altitude, the bombers carrying heavy alien bombs had little chance of evading, and planes were constantly being hit, rolling down in trails of black smoke. However, every operator managed to drop their bombs before losing control.

The biggest advantage of the Stranger Bomb is that there is no need to consider the bombing accuracy. As long as the area explosion reaches the target, it relies on the power released by the environmental Originium energy, rather than the bomb's own yield.

It's all about adapting to local conditions. Terra is full of high-energy matter clouds, so it would be strange not to find a way to utilize them, right? In essence, most large-scale magical devices also use this kind of energy.

The Originium Particle Cloud that spreads through the atmosphere is like a super-giant planetary-level solar energy storage module. Sunlight is its main energy source, and it can be rapidly activated by stimulating it in a specific way, turning it into a magical effect that humans can observe.

However, compared to wet detonators, manual guidance is far less efficient in every sense.

Soon, more bombs exploded everywhere, and a layer of gray cloud enveloped the positions and bases. The rising smoke and dust intertwined with Originium particles, and occasionally flashes of electric arcs indicated that the energy levels of some high-density points in the area had reached saturation.

Then came the third, fourth, and fifth rounds of bombing, with planes continuously dropping bombs. Eventually, the entire base was shrouded in a layer of booming thunderclouds.

The intense anti-aircraft fire stopped at the start of the third round of bombing. This man-made, small-scale natural disaster, the thunderstorm, would last for several hours, and if the alien bombs continued to be dropped, it would extend its duration further.

However, once it reaches saturation, its power will not increase further, meaning it is not very destructive to permanent bunkers and city-level blocks.

Conversely, this also means that these things can be thrown into cities at will, disrupting electricity and water supplies, blocking roads and communications.

Thunder roared and lightning flashed, as if a natural disaster had struck. At first, the Leitanians did not associate it with the bombs, but simply thought they were unlucky and had been struck by a natural disaster.

However, after being ravaged by these small natural disasters several times in a row over several days, almost destroying all the facilities around the entire base and mining module, and with the warships also suffering severe damage, they realized that this was the effect of some kind of tactical weapon. Once they realized this, their morale completely collapsed.