With the irritating peacocks destroyed, the Morpho were able to freely strike at the Federacy’s reserve position, only to stop upon receiving a report from their forward observer units and set their sights on a new target.
There were still fleeing soldiers and the units that were defending them in the bombardment zone, but firing to separate and isolate them would be easy. A Morpho was well-equipped to destroying the rats’ nests, but it was too large to eliminate every last skittering one, so there was no need for the Morpho to chase down units after they’d been scattered.
With the Kampf Pfaus decimated, the Morpho no longer needed to change position, and they aimed their long barrels on the spot.
<<Radar reading detected.>>
…A radar reading?
The next moment, a bombardment of shells penetrated the Morpho’s gigantic form—fired by the last Kampf Pfau the Federacy never deployed in any of the fronts, as a backup to counter the Morpho.
“How stupid are you, you dumb hunks of scrap metal? Did you really think we’d use all our aces for artillery support against the Morpho?!”
“That covering fire was meant to lure them out, too. Use this chance to take out as many Morpho as you can!”
It was a brave counterattack using their artillery forces as bait. The Kampf Pfau’s operators, who completed their firing schedule with bloodcurdling expressions on their faces, instantly raised their spades to switch to another position, riding along the train tracks to vanish from the enemy’s sights.
Without air superiority, the Kampf Pfau didn’t have the means of confirming whether it hit its mark or not. But even if, at worst, it failed to take the target out, it kept the Morpho in check and suppressed their arrogant control over the battlefield at the very least.
They may have been mass-produced at this point, but Morpho were still precious few in number. As the Morpho were wary of counterattacks, their bombardment became sporadic again. They began switching positions as well, moving their fourteen-hundred-tonne massive forms around so as to avoid being hit.
Having been spared from the shower of lightning and steel, the soldiers resumed their retreat.
✦ ✦ ✦
A deafening exhaust noise, akin to a fearless dragon’s roar, approached them from behind.
It was in one corner of the Harutari reserve position, supported by conscripted Vargus—old, female, and child soldiers, as it was inadvisable to send the artillery and armored division troops they’d recovered back out to fight yet. The infantry troops hiding within the trenches, attempting to hold off the next incoming wave of Legion, all turned around to look.
The noise was simply that overbearing.
“What’s that?!”
“Shit. That’s…!”
Those who didn’t know that model had never heard such noise before. And those who knew it regarded it with both awe and loathing. The heavy, rumbling steps of its multiple legs quaked the ground like the galloping of a destrier. Its special, high-output power pack allowed its unusual weight to strike with surprising speed.
It wasn’t a Vánagandr, and it wasn’t Legion, either, of course. Once one heard it and laid eyes on it, they would never forget its presence. This loud, overbearing roar—
“Azhi Dahāka…!”
“The Nouzens finally let loose their man-eating dragons…!”
“Devour them!”
✦ ✦ ✦
The operators all shouted out of their units’ external speakers at full volume in unison, in an act of psychological warfare. The voices of men and women intermingled together in a battle cry that was both gallant and ominous as their metal-black forms strode past the trenches. Unlike a certain someone who conducted herself like an empress, the Onyx warriors didn’t waste their time on something as meaningless as painting their units in their own colors. They didn’t need such superficial embellishments to prove themselves, as the countless achievements they made on the battlefield spoke solemnly of their might.
Like a dragon baring its fangs, they attacked the Legion armored division from both flanks at once. They tore into them, devoured them with all the ease of closing a maw. They achieved this with their unnatural speed and the might it afforded them.
Azhi Dahāka.
Much like a Vánagandr, it was equipped with twin 120 mm smoothbore machine guns and stalwart armor. But the difference was it wasn’t a two-seater, but a single-seat unit, where the operator handled both piloting and firing at once. And—
✦ ✦ ✦
“Crawl and wait for our hooves to crush you, you pieces of useless scrap! The Crazy Bones Division is upon you!”
✦ ✦ ✦
The Azhi Dahāka’s armor had a thickness that was not much different from a Vánagandr’s. Still, with its combat weight of seventy tonnes, this giant dragon used its legs to push the large Löwe into the ground from overhead. The impact of their landing and weight cracked the Löwe’s relatively thin top armor, smashing the Löwe into the snowy ground, where they twitched like dying insects crushed underfoot.
Having crushed the enemy, Yatrai operated his Azhi Dahāka to jump to the next target, with his lieutenant staying behind to swerve his turret and finish off the unfortunate Löwe with a close-range shot.
Yes, they jumped. Despite their weight, they leaped and jumped like warhorses, freely moving about the snowy battlefield. Despite being heavier than any Vánagandr or Löwe, they had a high-output driving system that was capable of moving that weight with speeds that rivaled the Legion. That was the Azhi Dahāka’s most striking feature.
But of course, that meant its fuel efficiency and maintenance costs were destructively awful. On top of that, its control system was extremely sensitive, and its power system was difficult to handle and prone to problems if its output dropped even a little.
It also required robust operators capable of withstanding its overly high, excessive acceleration and its intense inertia.
The machine weighed seventy tonnes because of its powerful driving system, the cooling system needed to match it, and the buffering system that kept the unit from destroying itself. With these, it achieved an extreme amount of speed that would shake up any operator, making it impossible to control the machine with just experience and intuition.
This was a guaranteed monster, only created with the backing of the noble Nouzen clan’s wealth and influence and controlled by their unique bloodline.
Having been struck from the flank, the Legion detachment was split in two as the Azhi Dahāka dug into them. Their vanguard had already been bitten into and was in the dragon’s gullet, beaten down one after another by the Azhi Dahāka. Meanwhile, the two vanguard units of the Crazy Bones Division tore through the enemy group, slipped out of the enemy ranks, and then took a sharp turn to once again bite into the scrap monsters’ flanks like hungry sharks.