Chapter 310: Break Their Morale

As with every battle that happened in and around Marimgar, the runners were out in full force, grabbing munitions for the front lines from Kalli.

Only this time, the trucks had further to go.

However, what they found this time was nothing like what they found before. The usually collected and focused Coordinator was beatboxing along with the sound of plasma artillery from the city defence batteries while watching the camera feeds from the laser turrets on the walls.

They were too far for the defensive lasers to do anything, but the cameras on them still gave an excellent view of the battle.

"You seem to be in an unusually good mood, Coordinator," one of the runners noted.

"Indeed. We’ve had two returns to the resurrection pod so far, both lower level fighters. But we just surpassed fifty percent of the Giant Army in total casualties.

Confirmed casualties that is.

If they don’t have a reinforcement line behind them, we’re going to crush this battle, and then I can send an entire strike force to go teach the Frost Giants a lesson. This was definitely their idea, and they’re the only ones who are fully enthusiastic about the fight.

Look over here on the western front. The other Giants are already preparing to pull back, and the Sand Giants are shifting left, away from the Frost Giant battle lines.

They’ve made it look like regrouping to prevent gaps in the lines, but they’re only pulling inward from one side.

That’s going to leave the Frost Giants isolated in about fifteen minutes, and we’ve already got them fighting on two fronts, thanks to the speeders and flight suit teams. As soon as the far western flank pulls inward or retreats, I’m sending another speeder team over there, and they can wipe out Frost Giants, while the more durable earth magic users exhaust themselves against our warriors.

They’re not nearly as deadly as that ice storm that is brewing over by the coast, though the sand storm looked like it could actually deal a lot of damage.

The thing is that I don’t know if they’re holding back because they needed the mana for defence, or if they’re holding back because they’re trying to doom the Frost Giants. The two motivations are entirely different, and mean very different things for the way that this battle is going to go.

If they’re just waiting for the Frost Giants to be weakened enough before they put their full might into attacking, we’re going to need to redeploy troops to bolster that section of the line.

But if they’re using all they’ve got to defend and draw out the battle then we’re good as we are."

The runner nodded. He hadn’t been in here long enough to get the full picture of the battle, but he understood that the art of warfare was stressing the Coordinator to her mental limits.

Honestly, this was not her area of expertise, but she was doing her best, and she was the one with the most access to information.

So, while Kalli didn’t want to be the one making the battle plans, she was the one that they could spare from the actual battle, and all the team leaders had agreed to the deployment at the start. Most of the orders were being given on that level, and Kalli was only instructing them when there was an issue.

But she was in charge of the runners, and making sure that nobody ran out of supplies.

Bandages, solid ammunition, Reggie’s spare power armour suit.

He hadn’t actually needed it yet, but it was in the truck that was working his section of the battlefield, just because everyone was certain that he would need it sooner or later, and there would be little time to wait.

Ironically, because everyone knew that Reggie had spare armour waiting, they were all watching to see how fast his was getting damaged, and that was leading everyone around him to pay more attention to the condition of their equipment, not just Reggie.

So, while they were wearing through shields at an impressive rate, the rest of their gear was actually in rather solid condition.

Then, something unexpected happened.

A shot from the Air Defence Batteries landed far too close to the battle, knocking down dozens of warriors and sending a few to the resurrection pods, but completely devastating the front lines of the Stone Giants on the western flank.

As one, they began to retreat and reform their lines, while the humans pushed forward to regroup around their fallen friends.

They didn’t immediately give chase, in case the idiot on the guns wasn’t done shooting at them, but that gave the Giants the opportunity that they needed. They turned and ran, retreating from the battle, and causing a chain reaction that drew more from all along the lines, causing a general retreat.

Kalli didn’t even have to sound the order to hold, that was done by the team leaders on the radio, and soon the Frost Giants were the last ones still engaged in combat.

Then, even they began to retreat.

It was clear that the battle was lost, the humans were simply too strong to be overcome, and they hadn’t even made it to the city yet. If the forces in the field were this strong then taking the city, with its high walls and heavy guns, would be even worse.

They could not afford the losses anymore, not if they were going to keep up their positions.

Instead, they would go after factions that they could actually eliminate, and complete their mission that way, while working on replacing the warriors that they had lost.

Despite their size, Giants actually grew up fast.

Give them three years, and they would have a fresh batch of juvenile warriors ready for training. Five years and they would have a whole new regiment.

They just needed to get through the trials.

The common consensus among the Giants was that the trials were nearly done, and then they would have all the time that they needed to recover in the time that came after they had proven themselves.

So, they couldn’t afford to lose too many now.