Chapter 659 - 410: The Bloody Night Before

From the perspective of the Capital City, shortly after the outbreak of battles in the Inland Sea region, the command center received chilling news—the Inland Sea Fleet was defeated.

This elite fleet of the World Government, used to guard the maritime gateway, consisted of hundreds of main battleships, thousands of naval aircraft, and hundreds of thousands of naval officers and soldiers, yet it was utterly crushed.

Not even a detailed battle report managed to come back.

Because the officers and soldiers of the Inland Sea Fleet at the frontline didn’t know what happened, only that the enemy attacked from underwater, with all countermeasures completely ineffective, and one after another, the friendly warships were sunk, resulting in the fleet’s forced defeat.

The Capital City is only over a hundred kilometers from the coastline, which sounds like some distance, but on a macro battlefield scale, it’s almost adjacent.

Previously, the Inland Sea Fleet had fully assembled to utilize their overwhelming maritime advantage to block the insurgents’ westward crossing, forcing them to pause their offensive or launch an attack from remote shallow areas.

If the insurgents’ offensive paused, that would be the ideal scenario.

With the abundant resources and war potential of the West District, major enterprises can efficiently arm a massive army and cultivate numerous Extraordinary Beings; once this reprieve is secured, a major counteroffensive can be launched.

If insurgents attack from the shallow areas, they would face the war fortresses built long ago; these places hold little strategic value yet are the inevitable paths for westward attacks. Attacking or not attacking will both be problematic for the insurgents.

The friendly forces can completely rely on layers of bunkers to exercise patience, using depth to drag the insurgent forces into a quagmire, inflicting enormous casualties on their troops.

As for the fall of the Inland Sea...

No one had ever considered such an event.

In high-level evaluations at the Capital City, the defeat of the Inland Sea Fleet was deemed impossible.

Insurgents didn’t even possess a single decent warship; how could they confront an entire fleet? Rely on kayaks?

Even if the adversary had an Apocalypse Level 1 Artificial Body implant capable of aerial combat, it was ultimately just one person with a very limited operational range.

Even with industrial cities manufacturing warships, it would still take years.

As for the insurgents’ grasp of a certain electronic virus, given its demonstrated strong dominance in the Iron Sun battle, the World Government Army was prepared early against it.

All devices relying on electronic systems for combat had manually set operations to the highest priority, and "offline" measures were implemented.

All interfaces for outside data interaction were sealed, entering offline mode with manual operations.

Devices so high in informatization that they can’t function without data interactions were simply deactivated, leaving no backdoor for the enemy hackers.

The impact of such extreme measures was immense, directly downgrading the army from informatization to mechanization.

Yet undoubtedly, it was worthwhile to counter the insurgent hackers.

Still, no one expected that despite handling to such an extent, considering all aspects, the insurgents managed to frontally defeat the Inland Sea Fleet.

The fall of the Inland Sea means the Capital City’s gates are open, insurgent forces can make a direct advance post-landing.

The Capital City originally remained far from the flames of war, with resource supply at high priority being a capital city, not much affected by the war in various aspects.

But once the Inland Sea fell, related news ignited the city’s panic like a wildfire.

On all major traffic arteries in the Capital City, innumerable military vehicles were speeding, with officers of the Capital Group Army hastily moving toward the city’s outer defenses.

The public communication bands, every broadcast, every television, and every radio were playing the same message:

"Here is an emergency evacuation directive, all residents of the Capital City please return home immediately, prepare water, food, and daily supplies, and await further instructions from community personnel. This is not a drill, repeat, this is not a drill!"

The evacuation order was issued too suddenly, leaving residents of the Capital City extremely anxious, be it civilians, sheriffs, or even soldiers, each having beads of sweat visible on their foreheads.

Initially, some thought it might be some farce, until countless white streaks crossed the skies, numerous fighter jets tore through the clouds, with heavy transporters carrying Titan Mechas flying over the city, everyone realized something truly happened.

The whole city plunged into chaos in a very short time, pedestrians rushing in panic, screaming as they pushed those around them to quickly return home, the crowded mobs separated families, with children’s cries rising everywhere, countless parents calling their children’s names, being squeezed unable to discern directions.

The roads were completely jammed by chaotic traffic, some abandoned their cars to flee on foot while some stubborn drivers kept honking, even losing their minds as they slammed on the accelerator, trying to push the cars ahead.

Former order abruptly collapsed under pressure, war’s shadow enveloped the city.

...

In the highest command center of the Capital City.

The atmosphere felt stagnant, suffocatingly oppressive.

The commanders of the Capital Group Army sat on each side of the long conference table, their expressions tense and solemn, each bearing deep anxiety, seemingly aged overnight.

The screens in the command center displayed holographic war maps of the Inland Sea, densely dotted with red markings as if mirroring the shocking battle scars, each mark representing a destroyed warship.