Chapter 311: Let Them Flee

For a long moment after the giants fled, the warriors of Marimgar simply stood in position, unsure what to make of this development. They had been expecting a brutal fight to the death, and what they had gotten was an aborted battle, where the Giants had left the battlefield with half of their numbers intact, and most of the major losses sustained against the artillery before the battle even began.

So, while they were all overjoyed that they didn’t have major casualties, they were somewhat let down that the battle had ended so suddenly, leaving them standing out in a field in the middle of the night.

Then, the slow sense of victory began to settle in over the city, and everyone began to return to the city, grateful to have survived another assault on humanity largely intact.

For the new arrivals, this was the first time that they had seen the guns of Marimgar in action, and the sight had shocked them even more than the sight of thousands of approaching Giants. The massive explosions of plasma in the distance, lighting up the incoming force, was a sight that they had never dreamed of seeing.

And the outcome, where they had enough healers and warriors to rotate out when someone was seriously injured, or their gear got too broken to continue at the front, was brilliant.

Yes, there were losses. But fewer than a hundred of them, and nobody got returned to level 0.

Not that most of the new defenders knew that yet.

They knew that there had been casualties, whose bodies had vanished after a few minutes. But they hadn’t realized that they were simply penalized in power and level then resurrected in the city.

That was something that hadn’t come up in the briefing, and nobody else had thought to mention, as dealing with the Giants was more important than dealing with emotional damage.

Which naturally meant that when they returned to the city, and found their fallen comrades helping the runners pack up the spare supplies into the back room of the Hall of Heroes, they had some serious questions about what was going on in Marimgar.

"Welcome home, team leaders. It’s good to see you all back here in one piece. Well, mostly in one piece, I’m assuming the missing members are in the healing pods to fix what battlefield magic could not.

I can see the questions in your eyes, so I feel that I should explain.

We have a resurrection pod here in the city of Marimgar, that will bring back the dead if they are close enough to the city. Therefore, none of the fallen were permanently fallen, they simply suffered the loss of a level, and ten percent of their stats.

Now, you do need to be careful of that. It’s not just physical stats that are deducted.

The intelligence suffers too, though that is a temporary loss, and so far it appears that the damage to the mind recovers, while the damage to the body can be rebuilt. But if you die more than once in rapid succession, you risk losing status as a Hero, or becoming mentally challenged to the point that you might not come back to full faculties.

It’s a lifesaving gift from the System, but not free.

I have prepared snacks for everyone, get your energy back up before you either start your day or head back to bed for a nap. The Giants are in retreat, but they might return, so the outposts are fully manned.

It’s unlikely that they’re planning to regroup, our scouts say that they’re headed in different directions, and not forming up as they get further from the city. But we won’t let our guard down.

However, there is one more thing that I would like to request.

I would like one strike team, entirely in speeders, to leave the city and launch a raid on the Frost Giants’ hometown. We know where it is, and we know that many of their warriors are still over here.

It’s a long flight, and well outside the safety range. But if we can successfully crush their infrastructure, we should be able to knock the Frost Giants out of contention for a top spot.

They have become a repeated threat to the city, and we simply can’t ignore it any longer.

The heroes were silent for some time, and then hands began to raise.

Sanchez stepped forward. "We will go, and take at least one of the flight suit teams in a utility speeder. Four flights, making a dozen assault speeders, four heavy assault speeders, and whatever utility speeders we need for supplies and the flight suits."

His team members nodded in agreement.

They had been separated last time, leaving him to be pulled to the city without them. But this time they would have their vengeance.

Quickly, four teams were assembled, and both veteran flight suit teams had volunteered.

That would give them more than enough firepower to deal with the Frost Giants that remained in the city, going by the estimations from the battle and the last time that they were there.

They didn’t have to wipe out the city, they just had to deal enough damage to it and the surrounding areas that the Frost Giants progress was crippled. And that was something that they should be able to do.

The Heavy Assault Speeders had Plasma Cannons that worked much like the Air Defence Batteries, exploding at the point of impact to deal area damage. But not on as large of a scale.

Still, even ten metres was enough to deal major damage to buildings.

Even buildings as large as those in a city for Giants.

Bringing ground forces would be too much of a risk, they were only going to make fast strafing runs at high altitude, and bombard the city from above. Which gave Sanchez some ideas.

"Hey, Coordinator, how about you fit some rocket pods to the heavy speeders? They’ve got a Pulse Cannon, and the dual plasma cannons, but having some rocket pods would give them a great burst of damage for clearing streets and large groups."

Now that was an idea the others could get behind.