Baiqiao and his soldiers stared dumbfounded at the Heroic Spirit Warriors appearing in the lightning.
Although these Heroic Spirit troops in the Alliance, which can appear suddenly, fearless of death, highly formidable, assisting humans in battle, have shown up more than once before. However, they mostly appeared in naval battles in the past, directly descending onto enemy starships to help in combat. Very few people have actually witnessed these spirits in person, and they are mostly Interstellar Warriors.
The mouths of the Interstellar Warriors are quite tight.
This has made the notion of ’spirits aiding humans’ rely a rumor, spread among a very small group of people.
On a broader scale, news about the spirits does not circulate.
At least, soone of Baiqiao’s rank knows nothing about it, let alone ordinary soldiers.
To suddenly see these spirits, it’s no wonder the soldiers were montarily stunned.
However, recognizing them as allies wasn’t difficult.
These Heroic Spirit Warriors, without a word, ruthlessly attacked those green skins.
Besides this friendly behavior, the spirits’ actions made Baiqiao and the soldiers feel a sense of closeness. Although these spirits appear semi-transparent and flickering with electric arcs, they are dressed in the uniforms of the Alliance Army in terms of appearance. Their tactical gestures and movents are also the sa as those of Alliance soldiers.
This familiarity quickly made Baiqiao and his soldiers consider these spirits as their own.
After just a mont’s hesitation, Baiqiao ordered his remaining troops to turn around and coordinate with the suddenly appearing Heroic Spirit Warriors to launch a counter-attack on the green skins.
Against the remnants of human troops, the beastn might have had enough strength to wipe them out completely. But after the spirits appeared, the situation completely reversed.
They counterattacked, destroying the orc ecological park in the underground base.
Once the mission was completely accomplished, the bodies of those spirits gradually faded and disappeared.
During this process, Baiqiao tried to greet them, but no spirits responded.
He could only regretfully keep this matter in mind.
...
After confirming the mission was complete, Baiqiao left the underground cave and reported to his superiors.
On one hand, he described the entire process of the mission, and on the other hand, he emphasized the discovery of the ’spirits’.
Baiqiao did not receive any comndation.
With such heavy sacrifices, the mission almost failed, and it was only completed thanks to the descending spirits; earning a comndation would be too difficult.
Of course, a final judgnt on his performance in this battle is yet to co. The military has specialized departnts conducting post-war investigations. Whether he’s seen as a war criminal, or as a commander who faced strong enemies and harsh environnts where failing the mission wasn’t his fault; or if his command was excellent, achieving targets under impossible conditions...
These all require specific evaluation based on the situation.
Baiqiao wasn’t particularly worried about this.
From receiving the mission, to the battle’s start, until its end, he felt no regrets. Neither his command decisions nor the valiant sacrifices of his whole regint were problematic. As long as the reports are properly reviewed, the military police wouldn’t trouble him. Perhaps the only issue would be the high casualties and the mission’s completion through bizarre ans, leaving him with a lack of high praise.
On the contrary, Baiqiao was more concerned about those spirits.
What exactly was going on?
But the superior’s reply soon ca.
They didn’t provide any explanation, just said they were aware of it and instructed him to require his troops to keep what they saw and heard confidential.
Just like that?
The superiors demanded secrecy, so he surely wouldn’t say more; instructing his soldiers to do the sa was a given.
However...
No confidentiality agreent signed, no special confidentiality training, nor serious emphasis on the consequences of leaking secrets... Just verbally requesting confidentiality made Baiqiao suspect its effectiveness?
Over six hundred people! Once back, who knows if soone might say a few words after drinking, making it easy for secrets to leak.
Smiling wryly, he shrugged it off, realizing there wasn’t much else he could do. He could only strictly communicate the requirents, keep his own mouth shut, and beyond that, he had no better solutions.
He continued reading the response from his superiors.
In his submitted report, he also emphasized that his regint suffered heavy losses, basically losing their combat capability.
He hoped that upon seeing his regint’s current condition, the superiors would send in plenty of new troops to fill up his regint, allowing them to quickly regain combat strength and join the front-line battles.
But he understood, the chances of this were very low.
His regint not only now had very few people left, but everyone was injured. Rather than replenishing over three thousand troops, equivalent to an entire reserve regint to them, it would be more practical to break them up into other unit setups, which might be more convenient.
However, neither of these ideas materialized.
The order given to his regint was an address at a rear landing site, approximately a ten-hour journey away. By then, a transport ship completing the transportation of ground forces and material supplies would also take them back into space.
This left Baiqiao sowhat in disbelief.
His part in the Ancache campaign was over.
This was not what he wanted.
He wanted to participate in the war; he longed to make a na for himself.
The Ancache campaign was, so far, the most important battle in the expedition. As a lieutenant colonel, commander of an infantry regint, he couldn’t possibly achieve accomplishnts that would affect the entire campaign. Even his troops’ appearance on such a level of a battlefield ant they were consumables, quickly running out.
But even so, he wanted to participate in the war.
According to the Alliance’s old conventions of recording achievents, on such battlefields, as long as one fought on the front lines, every minute and second persisted in battle and military missions was an achievent.
This may sound cruel, but he was indeed willing to lead his troops onto the fiercest battlefields to earn achievents.
After all, compared to front-line soldiers, as an officer, his survival rate was much higher.
The ideal situation would be to fight on the front line, lose a batch of troops, and the rear could supply replenishnt troops to his regint. A steadfast regint and commander, with a rotating flow of soldiers. Ultimately, spending several Terra Days on the frontline would earn him a significant accumulated achievent, a substantial reward.
In the Alliance Army, the promotion path is very smooth, but not everyone can rise easily. If everything proceeded routinely, he might foresee the end of his career. Perhaps in the future, with accumulated seniority, he could retire with the rank of colonel or senior colonel in a deputy division commander or deputy chief of staff role.
As for becoming a General?
He probably had no hope for that in his life.
But he wanted to be a General, very urgently.
The great battle on Ancache VIII was his rare opportunity.
But now, it was gone.
No matter how unwilling he was, he could only comply and board the transport ship back.
Only when he returned to a massive transport ship and heard so news at the officer’s club did his lancholy during the journey turn to relief:
"On the ground’s front battlefield, every 3 minutes and 27 seconds on average, one regint would be wiped out. The death rate of major and lower-level officers like division commanders reached 88%. For ordinary infantry regints like yours under C-class divisions, it’s estimated you’re skewing the average."
Upon hearing this figure, Baiqiao remained silent.
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