Chapter 32

Of course, these people listened to Ajax, and the various team leaders called upon their operators one after another. In the Triangular Border, strength was king; as long as you are strong enough, you would earn enough respect.

Monkey was getting ready to return as well, but he was a timid man who often fidgeted when fighting. However, now that the place that had given him a home was in trouble, he was willing to lay down his life for it without much hesitation.

But Ajax stopped him, "You stay here to protect the wounded, load all the mechs that I destroyed onto the transport truck, and take them back when everyone is ready to return. They might be of use to me."

"SIR, YESSIR." The usually lax Monkey suddenly acted like a soldier and obeyed Ajax's orders without any retort.

In less than two minutes, everyone was ready to return. Ajax took the lead as he rode on the front transport truck towards the camp with nearly 60 operators in a convoy of about a dozen trucks.

On the way, Ajax also inspected the Reaper and found that it had only consumed about 17% of its total energy reserves. The purple energy blocks were worth their price. His mech had been operating at its maximum output for about an hour, and according to this consumption rate, a set of purple energy blocks could only last for six to seven hours of fighting at maximum output.

No wonder powerful mechs were such a rare sight, this thing was really fucking expensive.

If Bomen hadn't agreed to cover all his energy consumption, no matter how much money he earned, he wouldn't be able to buy energy blocks. So he couldn't afford to let Bomen and Lazoole Society die...

Not worrying about another ambush, the convoy advanced as fast as possible and they made it to the vicinity of the base camp in less than fifteen minutes.

Things were just as Ajax had guessed. As they approached the base camp, heavy gunfire and explosions could be heard.

"ALL STOP! Continue on foot from here on out." Ajax raised his hand and jumped out of the transport truck, quickly equipping his rifle. They were close enough to the camp, so there was no point in driving any closer and presenting the enemy with a living target.

The well-trained operators spread out quickly in groups of 6 as Ajax took the lead. He came to a high point and carefully observed the situation in the camp. He could see that there were at least 500 people from Hell's League at the entrance with hundreds of vehicles parked nearby.

Ajax was about to give the order to fire but he noticed that all of the enemy's bullets were being deflected by an invisible barrier. The camp had already activated the barrier, encompassing the entire camp like a glass dome, the bullets shot on it were only able to cause small water-like ripples on it before being deflected.

This was beyond Ajax's expectations, he never thought that Bomen would have actually installed a barrier device in the camp. The barrier device is extremely expensive and Ajax had only seen it once at the battle arena of the Apollo Academy. But that was a barrier with a small coverage area, and the energy required to maintain it was not much, with a blue energy block being enough to last for a long time without being attacked.

However, the one in front of him was a barrier that dwarfed that one, so its energy consumption should be comparable to that of a moving battleship. The required energy blocks must be of orange quality at the very least, if not red, surpassing the quality of the purple energy block.

That price range for such an energy block was at least in the tens of millions of eddies. Being able to spend such a large amount of eddies just to protect the camp showed that Bomen was a man who liked to prepare for the worst.

It was also due to this barrier that the Hell's League's surprise attack was delayed for nearly 30 minutes. However, the original dark blue curtain had become lighter and lighter, and the most violently attacked section had already become transparent in color. It wouldn't take long before they broke through.

Bomen had entered his Parallax-Level Roscoe-type mech, equipped with an exaggeratedly large 40mm Vulcan cannon in both arms, standing behind the camp gate, quietly watching the enemies in the distance.

On both sides behind him and on the sentry towers stood groups of armed operators from the Lazoole Society. Some of them were on vacation and in ordinary clothes, some were wounded, and some were even non-combatant staff. Still, they all took up weapons when the camp was in danger and came to the front line.

The main forces were protecting the business district, which was their source of income, while the secondary operators had been sent out to participate in the rescue. They were the last guards of the camp.

Looking at the barrier about to disperse, Bomen raised his 40mm Vulcan cannons as his heart sank to the bottom. Ever since he spotted the enemy, he has tried his best to get in contact with the outside world, but all comms were being jammed.

Even the only form of air support in the entire camp was destroyed after taking off. The Hell's League thought of everything that should have been thought of. This was a long and premeditated attack.

Although he had activated the barrier, he knew that it could only hold on for so long, it was impossible for a camp with only his mech to defend so many enemies.

However, Bomen was never one to give up in the face of adversity or overwhelming odds. He glanced back at the operators behind him: "Brothers, Hell's League broke its promise and united with a group of small and medium-sized organizations to attack our camp during peacetime and force us to surrender."

"I have been on the border for fifteen years and in all this time I have never surrendered, and I never will! We stand here bearing arms today and defending the residential area behind us. We stand here today to protect our families, the families of our brothers, to protect what is dear to us. We cannot retreat! We cannot Fail! We cannot surrender! Because if we do, they will be the ones to die. I will not allow that!"

"If they want to lay a finger on our loved ones, they will have to slaughter us first. But we will NOT go down without a fight and our brothers who are currently outside will avenge us. Men, today we are faced with certain death, but our deaths won't be without meaning. The living will always remember us! They'll remember our sacrifice! They will tell our stories! It has been an honor to work with you all these years, and if there is another life, then we shall be brothers in it as well!"

Bomen's words were like a fuse, completely igniting the already angry operators on the field. At this time, their eyes no longer contained fear, and all that was left was anger.

"We will fight to the death! We will not retreat! We will not surrender!" The crowd did not know who yelled first but in the next second, everyone on the field shouted in unison: "We will fight to the death! We will not retreat! We will not surrender!!!"

The shouts of a hundred people seemed to be able to penetrate the barrier and reach the heavens. It even suppressed the sound of gunfire and explosions.

Bomen raised his hand and they quieted down for a little. "You'll have plenty of time to see the dead when it's your turn to join them. So just try and keep the living alive, and give everything you've got to protect them." (TN: Tips hat to Mikazuki Augus from Iron-Blooded Orphans)

"TO THE LAST BULLET, TO THE LAST MINUTE, TO THE LAST MAN, WE FIGHT!" (TN: Tips hat to Red Tails)

"WE FIGHT!"

"WE FIGHT!"

"WE FIGHT!"

"WE FIGHT!"

The crowd erupted in cheers again. No matter the overwhelming numbers, no matter how low the odds, no matter how fruitless their efforts, they were willing to fight! And if they must die, then so be it...

The scene in the camp moved Ajax. No wonder more than a thousand people in the Lazoole Society obeyed Bomen's words. He was indeed an excellent leader and a person worth following.

"Ajax, let's help the boss; they won't be able to stop them with such small numbers." The other pilot whispered from behind, sharing everyone else's resolve. Many of them have been living at the border for many years, have already married, and had their families in the camp. If the camp was destroyed, then everything would be lost.

But Ajax shook his head resolutely: "Not yet. Just follow my orders. I promise the camp will be fine."

He had just observed the enemy forces: A total of twelve mechs and two tanks sent by Hell's League. The tanks are all Knight-level; they look like aid types, equipped with jammers. Their main function was to jam the signal on the battlefield, they had no combat prowess.

Among the twelve mechs, eight of them were Knight-level, three were Parallax-level, and one was at the Rakshasa-level.

.....

*TN: Hey y'all, I'm not sure about you guys, but Bomen's speech had me psyched. The original author's speech was rather....lackluster. You can't have a leader giving a speech to his men who will surely die in battle and have it be ass -_-. So, I took many creative liberties and stol- utilized phrases from one of my favorite movies and anime.

Hope y'all enjoy my efforts to give this novel emotion, I've been doing so for the entire novel, an example being the last chapter where I tried, to the best of my abilities, to make the enemies seem human. If I'm being honest, the whole novel may have been exciting in its original language, but it isn't in English. So like I said before, I'm pretty much rewriting this novel to my liking, still following the original plot and story, but adding a lot to it.

This chapter was originally about 700 words, with the speech and everything...as I said, rather lackluster. But with my creative liberties, I've raised it to 1600. Yes, I'm gloating, yes I'm praising myself, yes I'm happy.*