Chapter 53

The guard mech team, who had rushed over from the residential area, was also stunned. Before them, nearly half of the mechs lay destroyed and the corpses of multiple comrades lay strewn about. What had happened here? Did their target escape?

It was too late to chase after him, plus, they had parked their vehicles far away from the battlefield in order to hide their whereabouts and most of the vehicles in the camp had been destroyed by the consistent bombardment of the jets with the rest having been taken by the Lazoole Society. It would be impossible to catch up using just their mechs...

Bach looked over the destroyed camp and the fires that could be seen in the distance, with a sigh, he made his way to his men and signaled for them to start cleaning up the battlefield. Their underhanded attack could be considered a success, the enemy had lost their residential area and their leader was dead. A huge blow had been dealt to the morale of the Lazoole Society.

But he couldn't be happy, let alone proud of this battle. He had lost many men and mechs, they also weren't able to capture Ajax, who was the main target of this attack in coordination with the guard mech team. This was something that would be a headache to explain to Leonard.

He had planned to smoothy destroy the Lazoole Society as they slept their drunken state away and then move on to unify the border under one banner, but it seems like this plan will be delayed...

***

The saw was rising and it was already dawn by the time Ajax and the others arrived at the mining area. When they arrived, they saw that the mining area was also under attack from the Hell's League, however, there weren't as many troops.

Seeing that a whole convoy of mechs and operators had arrived to the mining area, the attacking party from the Hell's League decided that it was time to go. Ajax did not give chase as he saw it as a meaningless endeavor to chase this small group of operators. He instead ordered the convoy to stop.

The operators defending the mining area were stunned when they saw so many vehicles and people coming from the camp, not knowing what happened. Even if they came to provide backup, did their family members really need to tag along with them?

"Open up!" Ajax ordered as he hopped off the semi-truck, falling to his left knee as fatigue combined with the damage to his mech had started to bore down on him.

The operators in charge of defending the mine quickly opened up the gate since some of the operators there had bore witness to Ajax's battle and capture of the mining area. The originally small parking space of the mining area had become congested as the vehicles drove in one after the other.

This was not a place for people to live in; the environment was horrendous, the ground was full of potholes, the air was polluted, and broken stones and rocks lay strewn everywhere. There was no infrastructure whatsoever, and miner's quarters were just some simple containers stacked and welded together.

Since the mining area had fallen into the hands of the Lazoole Society, the miners hadn't come to work in fear of the Hell's League and awaiting the day it would be taken back by them.

There were some defensive facilities present since Bomen had tasked people with placing barbed wire, building several sentry towers, digging a handful of bunkers, and reinforcing the gate a few days ago. But if the Hell's League's next attack here were to be on the scale of the attack on the camp, these defenses would collapse.

The only decent thing was the simple hangar where a Knight-Level Hyperdynamic jet was parked. By now, the operators defending the mining area had learned about the fall of the camp through other operators and were in disbelief.

Those with family members immediately searched around the crowd and vehicles, wanting to know if their loved ones were among the survivors. This was a giant punch in the gut for many operators and wailing was heard from different operators.

"Wha-what the fuck happened?!" A middle-aged operator had tears in his eyes, and his voice was hoarse. He had been in the mining area for about a week, the thought of returning to the camp to see his family in the near future was the only thing that occupied his mind and kept him going. He did not expect to hear such devastating news.

Everyone looked at Ajax, whether they were defending in the mining area or had just narrowly escaped death. None of them knew why the camp had caught fire and was attacked, and only some who had been able to listen to Bomen's last words knew how Bomen died. Ajax was the person with the most say here.

When Ajax was about to dismount his mech to explain, the operator on the sentry tower issued a warning, which made everyone's hearts jump. Could it be that the people from the Hell's League had returned with reinforcements? Though they were struck with grief, they quickly prepared for battle.

However, the ones who had come were also survivors of tonight's attack. They came from the business district and there were two mechs and more than a dozen off-road vehicles, totaling less than fifty people.

Ajax thought that these people came to support him on their own initiative, but he didn't expect that these people had been survivors who had escaped from the attack on the business district that was now occupied by the Hell's League.

"You lost the fucking business district?!" Ajax asked in a commanding voice as he dismounted from his mech. In the night attack, the Hell's League brought heavy troops and most of their mechs to attack the camp. Both the mining area and the business district had been feint attacks, so there were not many troops attacking.

How could it be that the mining area, which had inadequate defense facilities, withstood the attack from the Hell's League but the business district with better defenses did not?

"Didn't you also lose the camp?" The lead mech said to Ajax in a confrontational tone which made him frown slightly. Who could this guy be, he'd never heard his voice before.

"Ajax, he is Antoine Paxton, one of the first operators to join the Lazoole Society. He is also in charge of the action team and rarely returns to the camp, spending most of his time outside on missions. I often heard him and the Boss quarreling when he was contacted." Monkey informed Ajax in a low voice.

Ajax nodded silently, accepting the bitter truth, but decided not to answer the question, asking his own instead: "How did you lose it? Where are the rest of our men?" He had noticed that there was no trace of someone who had fought a battle on these people. The mechs and their clothes all seemed brand new.

Since they didn't seem to have fought, why did the business district fall? The defeated operators who were questioned looked at each other without speaking, and Antoine in the mech also had a complicated expression. He didn't get along well with Bomen because he had known about the time when Leonard had offered an olive branch to Lazoole Society before and had tried to persuade Bomen to agree to Leonard's demands.

After all, if they had the support of the Ashlin Group, they would be much more comfortable and it would be much easier to make eddies, not needing to work hard every day. But Bomen would rather die than be Leonard's puppet, and even cursed Leonard out.

He felt that Bomen was ignorant and was the reason why making money had become so hard, leading him to trouble Bomen by refusing certain orders and missions. If it weren't for the fact that most of the people in the Lazoole Society had turned to Bomen, he would have turned against him long ago.

There had been an incident in the camp about a week ago that had caused Bomen to summon all of the operators that were outside on missions to come back and defend the Lazoole Society, but he had purposefully delayed for several days.

After returning with some people, he saw that the business district's conditions had improved, providing better food and drinks and being treated as if it was a place for vacationing.

With the recent problems he had faced, Bomen didn't want to argue with Antoine. Yesterday, Bomen had temporarily returned to the camp to hold a dinner party, placing Antoine temporarily in charge of the defense of the business district.

This pissed Antoine off, why should Bomen get to go out to eat, drink, and party, leaving all the work to him? In addition, he hadn't even seen the shadow of an enemy since he had returned, and still, Bomen didn't allow them to return to their daily routine of going out on missions. This was hurting his pockets very much.

So that night he had decided to go out for dinner with those who were loyal to him, randomly assigning two people to patrol as they got drunk. Then the people from the Hell's League came over at midnight and found that there were barely any patrolling operators in the business district, so they launched an attack and rushed into the operator's quarters, killing many of them in their sleep.

By the time Antoine and his party had returned, it was too late. The entire business district had been occupied by the Hell's League, and they were almost surrounded. Antoine had no desire to counterattack, so he fired a few shots casually and ran to the camp with his men.

But when they arrived at the camp, they were met with the grizzly scene of a nearly destroyed camp occupied by enemy troops. So they chose the next best place to go to and ran to the mining area.