“Smart rounds falling at Mach 9.”
The standoff with the two Fenrirs, Hroze and Yarun, continued from there, but the two were slowly backing away.
The Jotunn M facing them remained stationary, its main cannon still trained on them.
In the midst of this stalemate, red-hot warheads rained down from directly above. The propulsion unit, having detached from the cluster bomb unit, plunged down as a mass projectile. Immediately after, a large number of sub-munitions showered the surrounding area.
The two Fenrirs showed signs of noticing the warheads overhead just before impact. However, it was a combined attack with hypersonic missiles coming from a different direction. Smart warheads and cluster bombs churned the ground, blowing away the feet of Hroze and Yarun as they tried to escape.
Even so, the two Fenrirs kicked off the unstable ground and barely managed to evade. With movements exceeding the speed of sound in an instant, even hypersonic missiles couldn’t brake in time. Multiple mass warheads grazed the two, blasting away the earth.
And this seemed to be the decisive blow.
The two threat entities, already with diminished fighting spirit, turned around with tremendous speed.
A full-force retreat.
There, the pursuit forces of ＜The Tree＞ pierced through.
Jotunn M and the multi-legged machine groups scattered shells, and lasers filled the space vertically and horizontally.
Additional barrier-piercing missiles that had been launched flew in one after another, chasing after the fleeing two.
The Gigantia squad—Eurythea, Theia, Leia, and Themis—began their full-force bombardment.
Attacks were exquisitely coordinated to block the Fenrirs’ escape routes. Hroze and Yarun dodged the attacks as if dancing, but because of that, they couldn’t gain enough distance.
The calculation AI, having sufficiently observed the two’s athletic abilities, was predicting their movements. The accuracy of that prediction was improving with each passing moment.
“Amazing…”
The video was completely covered in explosions and dust clouds. Eve couldn’t make heads or tails of it anymore, so she could only watch.
For what it’s worth, each unit and the Fenrirs were displayed in wireframes. Especially Hroze and Yarun, whose movements were too fast to be seen at all.
“Barrier-piercing missiles launched by the attack aircraft, incoming.”
Smart warheads launched by Breidablik rained down, and hypersonic missiles and shells were fired in massive quantities, creating a hellish battlefield.
But even so.
“It seems ＜Iris＞ is predicting that this won’t be enough to defeat them, Onee-sama!”
“If only we could hit them…”
The problem was that the attacks just weren’t hitting.
Forcibly hitting them by blocking their escape routes wasn’t decisive, and when they concentrated, they could evade.
Unless they prepared something like a trap to stop their movements, they wouldn’t be able to take down these Fenrirs.
“I wonder if it would be difficult to restrain them with something like a capture net…”
“If we had known they had this much instantaneous power, we could have considered equipment to hinder their movement. As expected, dealing with threat entities is difficult,” Ringo replied to Eve’s grumbling. A species that doesn’t fit into the framework of existing creatures, and even exceeds the bounds of physical laws.
They were recognizing the rain of hypersonic shells and sub-munitions, accurately evading them, and presumably continuing to take optimal actions.
Unfortunately, most of the sensors that had been installed in advance had been destroyed by the bombardment. Therefore, information gathering was only being done by local automatons.
Even so, they would have gathered the minimum necessary data for future encounters with this Fenrir species.
Well, the best thing would be if they just retreated.
“＜Iris＞ is intentionally creating an escape route! It seems Hroze and Yarun have noticed it! What amazing abilities!”
“Both Hroze and Yarun are definitely trying to escape. ＜Iris＞ intends to let them go.”
＜Iris＞ was accurately driving the targets. While blocking their escape routes, she was creating a path to push them towards the Demon Forest. And the two were following that path, gradually increasing the distance.
“…What about future actions?”
“Yes, Ma’am. We will continue to apply pressure by deploying air power as is, and pursue them near the Demon Forest. After that, we will firmly defend the originally set defense line. We will construct defense facilities, patrol with defense aircraft, and establish a boundary. We plan to abandon the territory we pushed into during this battle and set it as a buffer zone, thereby showing our intention not to expand the territory any further.”
The ultimate goal of the plan was to push the Fenrir family back into their original territory in the Demon Forest. Extermination was also one option, but there was a possibility that the territory dispute between the threat entities would become chaotic again, so making them retreat was the best outcome.
“Onee-sama, escort fighters have reached the combat area.”
“Breidablik’s bombardment will be the last~”
“The fighter planes are starting their ground attacks~”
Furthermore, additional air power arrived overhead to drive them back. They didn’t have the attack power of hypersonic missiles, but supersonic missiles were still a sufficient source of damage. Some aircraft were equipped with unguided bombs, but they had no effect beyond dazzling, and since the Fenrirs’ movements were too fast to hit them anyway, they were just dead weight.
“The ground attack team is starting to drop missiles.”
The bombers opened their bomb bays wide and released the missiles they were carrying one after another. The missiles released into the air sequentially ignited their rocket motors and began flying towards their targets.
An overwhelming number of fire lines colored the sky.
Furthermore, the fighters lowered their altitude to strafe with machine guns, following after the missiles.
A large number of missiles approaching at supersonic speed, and multiple fighter planes.
Perhaps sensing the threat in this situation.
Yarun turned around and unleashed a flash. Hroze covered for Yarun, whose movements had slowed, with its own body.
“Yarun executed an attack resembling a fireball. Initial velocity, 800m/s to 1,000m/s. Multiple fireballs confirmed.”
“The ground attack team is falling!”
“Some missiles shot down~”
Anti-air attack. An explosion occurred in the middle of the bombers, which were densely packed for concentrated firepower, resulting in half of them being judged as shot down.
Furthermore, six fireballs exploded in multiple locations, engulfing the missile groups and fighter planes in flight.
“Bomber attrition rate 13%. Fighter attrition rate 7%. Missile loss 22%. Quite the attack power and range.”
“In return, it seems Hroze took another barrier-piercing missile…”
The pressure of the ground attack decreased, and the two ran off in one go during that gap. Hroze was bleeding because it blew away the missile with a body slam, but it fled with a momentum that didn’t make it feel the injury.
“＜Iris＞ reports. Yarun and Hroze have retreated into the Demon Forest.”
If there was no longer any movement obstruction by the shells, their maximum speed was supersonic. The two Fenrirs disappeared in an instant.
Although they ended up letting them escape, the operation objective was cleared with a perfect score in that they were able to correctly convey the threat of ＜The Tree＞.
“…Alright. A lot of things happened that were different from what I expected, but all’s well that ends well!”
“Yes, Ma’am. ＜Iris＞ has declared the completion of Operation Walking the Dog.”
In this way, ＜The Tree＞ succeeded in driving the Fenrirs back to their original territory while consuming a large number of automatons and shells.
If you simply compare the resources consumed, it was much more than the Prava Theocracy invasion operation.
Multiple Jotunns were heavily damaged, and three mockup-type Jotunn Ms were ultimately judged to be heavily damaged. The number of quadrupedal tanks and multi-legged tanks that were completely destroyed was too numerous to count. Of those, more than a hundred evaporated without a trace.
The consumption of shells and missiles goes without saying. The amount of energy poured in was also enormous. A corresponding amount of nuclear fusion fuel was also used.
Even so, compared to the resources that can be acquired in the future, it will not be a significant loss.
＜The Tree＞ has once again secured a vast amount of land as its territory. Although it has not been surveyed because it was under the Fenrirs’ territory, judging from the surrounding land prices, there should be considerable mineral veins sleeping there.
“Let’s check the results later, everyone. Is there any urgent work?”
“Yes, Ma’am. Everything is fine. Let’s have a congratulatory party first, including ＜Iris＞.”
We finally drove them back.
Aren’t the monsters in the Naro fantasy world too strong? Attribute compatibility is essential…
★Please check Twitter ( @Kaku_TenTenko ) and the recent status notes.
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