Reborn as a Mechanist with a God-Tier System-Chapter 222: Escalation [4]
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The sky rained fire and blood.
But this time, even as the rebel army fought another epic and intense battle against the Federation Army, Leon didn’t bother to join the fight with Major Kai receiving orders to secretly cover for him.
Nobody noticed the absence of a single mercenary.
Afterall, everyday soldiers died in the thousands. It was impossible to keep track of a single Mechanist.
This was even more so with the decision of the Order of Iron mercenary squad to bail out of the war.
At some point during the battle, an anonymous truck dropped by the building where the Order of Iron mercenary squad previously stayed, dropping 3 crates of materials at the entrance of the building.
The Doom Rover v0.1 quietly slipped the crates in without attracting attention.
Amid the chaos, Leon locked himself in his room which he already turned into his new workshop, working non-stop.
A few hours later, his System lit up with a thread of new notifications.
DING!
~----~
[You have constructed a complete Magnesium Nanite! ×30!]
[You have constructed a complete Mosquito i7 pac 3060! ×12!]
~----~
Leon multitasked, working on upgrading his A.I, constructing both his new blueprints, and also drafting the idea to upgrade the musculature and design of the Doom Rover v0.1.
The supply crates that were delivered contained materials for him to freely construct magnesium nanites and the mosquito i7 pac 3060s.
Engrossed in his work, Leon soon lost track of time, right until the intense battle finally ended.
Today, the clash between both armies was even again as the Federation Army retreated with even casualties on both sides.
That afternoon, Iron Reef recorded a sudden surge of reinforcements numbering in the tens of thousands, the first in days as that briefly buoyed the morale of the rebel army, igniting the previously dying embers of their passion.
At the end of the battle, Ren Nora climbed the stage on the grand square again as he had another passionate speech where he motivated his soldiers.
He urged them to stay fighting and believe in the process, he promised them that victory would come when they least expected it.
While most of the army blindly followed him still, some of the more perceptive soldiers were beginning to notice a trend.
’The General hasn’t said anything about challenging the Trial in days!’
They shuddered at the implications of their own thoughts. ’Has he given up?’ They dared not think further down that thought train.
They dared not entertain it but the evidence was there.
This did not escape Ren Nora’s notice though as he was extremely perceptive to the reception of his soldiers to his speeches, but he let that narrative build.
This was another layer in the war of psychological warfare.
If there were spies of the Federation Army already in Iron Reef, they would be able to notice the growing narratives and report to General Sylvari Charr.
It was all part of Ren Nora’s plan.
The moment Ren Nora finally took the bold step and decided to enter into a partnership with the mercenary with the bold plan, he decided to go all in and factor it into his misdirection attempts.
He wanted to keep the Federation Army and General Sylvari Charr guessing.
When his entourage finally started leaving to base, unknown to all but only 2 people- him and Major Kai, a certain mercenary snuck into the entourage in one of the unassuming trucks as Leon got his first access to Iron Reef’s data centers.
Following the blueprint of their plan, once he was inside the military base, Leon snuck into the data center but he stayed quiet and inert to avoid detection from both the rebel soldiers and any possible spy of the Federation Army.
Only when the veil of night came did Leon move.
He went to work, laying the building blocks and foundations of the plan as he started implementing the early phase of the plan.
Since he had to work alongside other senior engineers, Leon was made to wear a mask while Ren Nora simply told the veteran engineers there that the strange masked man was a specialist that he brought for help.
He named Leon the new head of engineering, but he forced all the engineers who knew of Leon to maintain secrecy about his existence.
Ren Nora placed all the senior engineers who knew of the masked engineer on 24/7 surveillance. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮
Behind the scenes while the war raged, Ren Nora and Leon were already implementing a brave and ambitious collaboration.
Leon worked non-stop till he was tired.
...
The next day, Day 8.
March 28th, Year 583 A.G.
Another day, another battle as even more lives were lost.
This was the price of war, the casualties and death was ceaseless.
Every day, more people lost siblings, more soldiers lost friends, more parents lost their children, and more survivors lost their comrades not knowing when they would be the ones to die next.
They didn’t give up though, they stayed united.
Despite their unity, the tension was palpable in the city.
The longer the war dragged on, the more morale and sanity degraded, giving way to trauma and desperation, forcing the soldiers to cope in different ways.
Even the Federation Army was not left off the hook as the fierce resistance from the rebel army gave them headache.
None of them expected the war to last 8 days.
Though it didn’t seem like it, the soldiers of the Federation Army were also reeling from the heavy casualties that they suffered with each assault.
To the outside world, they once had this aura of inevitability around them but this aura and myth was already shattered in the course of the 8 days of the still ongoing war.
This also affected the soldiers themselves.
They were beginning to feel the weight of defeat more, the lack of decisive victory despite the presence of a C Rank Ascended weighed on them heavily.
The more the war dragged on, the more it became a battle of who had the most mental defense and martial discipline.
It became a test of willpower.
And while all of it happened, out of sight of the Federation Army and General Sylvari Charr, including the rebel army itself, undercurrents churned in Iron Reef as 3 men cooked a crazy and ambitious plan to end the war.
There were only two outcomes to the crazy plan- either it failed and the army lost, resulting in all of them dying or either it worked and Ren Nora succeeded, becoming the first C Rank Ascended to emerge from the free folk.
The presence of a single C Rank Ascended in the rebel army would change everything.
Then, the Freegrid Collective would no longer be toothless. They would become a force that was capable of posing a threat to the Omnicore Federation.
As a C Rank Ascended, if the Federation truly went all in to destroy Iron Reef despite his presence, even if Ren Nora could not protect the city against the Federation Army’s true overpowering might, he could escape and get revenge.
A single C Rank Ascended when unhinged can cause a lot of damage to any faction in the world no matter the amount of C Rank Ascended that they have.
Ren Nora believed that the Omnicore Federation won’t dare completely antagonize the Freegrid Collective any more if he became a C Rank Ascended.
Under pressure, they fought.
Under pressure, they worked.
And under pressure, they plotted in the dark.
...
Time moved fast.
The days rolled past like the opening pages of a book and in the blink of an eye, 4 days passed and it was Day 12.
...
[Special Appreciation to SlickOne for the Golden Tickets, thanks man!]
