Chapter 142: The Invading Armies

Chapter 142: The Invading Armies

The academy interface changed before the four empires had finished reorganizing after Round Five.

Noah expected another spread of invasion markers across the planet, but only four appeared this time, one inside each empire.

The number beneath them made the meaning immediately clear. Round Six would deploy one hundred thousand Draeven soldiers through four major invasion forces, placing roughly twenty-five thousand troops against each empire.

Noah focused on Viridian first as the sky above one southern region filled with transports. What descended did not resemble an expedition preparing to raid a province, because the landing operation continued for hours without any sign of slowing.

Infantry secured the perimeter while armored carriers rolled from heavy transports. Tanks followed in organized groups, and long columns of trucks moved ammunition, fuel, medical equipment, engineering supplies, and replacement parts away from the landing field.

Artillery batteries were assembled several kilometers from the main camp while command vehicles clustered around tall radio masts.

Engineers began widening nearby roads before the last transport aircraft had even departed, turning the landing zone into the center of an expanding military network.

Noah watched the operation develop and understood what twenty-five thousand soldiers allowed Draeven to do. The enemy no longer had to choose between advancing and protecting its rear because it possessed enough manpower to perform both tasks simultaneously.

The new aircraft drew his attention next. They were smaller than the transport airships and far faster, with some climbing high enough to disappear against the sky before turning toward the interior.

Others remained lower and followed roads, rivers, and settlements across the region.

Several passed over Viridian formations without attacking, which told Noah that they were searching rather than simply hunting whatever happened to be beneath them.

The Viridian commanders reached the same conclusion once reports from distant observation posts began arriving. Large camps were broken apart, troop concentrations were moved beneath tree cover, and reserve formations were told not to remain gathered in open fields unless they were preparing to move immediately.

One regional camp reacted too late and paid for the delay. Several thousand goblins were assembling there before marching toward the projected front when two Draeven aircraft passed overhead.

The camp received no attack during the first flight, and some of the soldiers below assumed the machines were only scouts.

Attack aircraft appeared less than an hour later and immediately proved that assumption wrong.

Bombs struck the center of the camp before the first warning horns finished sounding. Another aircraft descended along the edge of the formation and raked wagons, tents, and soldiers with gunfire before climbing sharply away.

The attack lasted only minutes, but the damage remained after the aircraft disappeared. When the bombing ended, the camp had become a field of overturned carts, broken tents, scattered bodies, and wounded soldiers struggling toward whatever cover remained.

The surviving formations moved into nearby forests instead of attempting to reform where they had been hit. Noah kept watching them because the lesson had been immediate.

Viridian had just learned that the enemy have the capability to attack far behind the visible front through something in the sky. The commanders responded by treating concealment and dispersal as necessities rather than precautions.

The Draeven army began moving two days later, but it did not march as one enormous column. One armored group pushed toward a major river crossing while a second mechanized formation advanced along a parallel road leading toward a provincial town.

Another force moved east and remained close enough to support either advance if necessary.

The artillery and logistical center stayed behind under heavy protection, while a mobile reserve remained near the main base and stayed connected to the forward groups through radio and aircraft.

Noah saw the difference immediately because the enemy had divided without becoming isolated. Viridian could not destroy one formation and assume the others would remain unaware for hours, since every major movement was being reported across the Draeven command network almost as soon as it occurred.

Noah turned toward Varkesh and found the central empire already abandoning the idea of defending the outermost approaches.

Entire settlements along the most obvious invasion routes were being evacuated while carts carried food, tools, livestock, and military stores deeper inland.

Bridges were prepared for destruction without being destroyed immediately, allowing civilians and friendly troops to cross first. Local commanders waited until the routes were clear before assigning engineers to finish the work and move toward the next defensive area.

Several defensive regions appeared farther inside the threatened provinces. They were not continuous walls but areas where roads, rivers, towns, and reserve positions could support one another.

A commander forced from one location would still have another formation behind him rather than an empty road leading deeper into the empire.

Noah could see that Varkesh was preparing to survive multiple tactical retreats without allowing the front to disintegrate entirely.

Noah shifted north and found Skargrim behaving even more strangely.

The northern empire was allowing Draeven to enter one of its largest valleys while villages ahead of the invasion had already been emptied.

Food stores were gone, livestock had been driven into the mountains, and bridges behind the Draeven column remained intact until the enemy had passed them.

Noah followed one armored formation as it advanced deeper without encountering anything resembling a major army.

The road ahead remained usable, which encouraged Draeven engineers to keep the formation moving.

Bridges behind the column began disappearing only after the distance from the original landing zone had grown substantial.

One crossing collapsed during the night after the rear guard had passed. Another was damaged several days later, forcing supply vehicles to halt until engineers could repair the structure.

Skargrim was not trying to trap twenty-five thousand soldiers in one dramatic maneuver. Its commanders were allowing the army to extend its own supply routes before they began cutting at the connections behind it, and Noah understood that the strategy would require patience.

Luminous reacted to its invasion with priorities that would have seemed strange several rounds earlier.

One part of the Draeven army moved toward an industrial region containing engineering halls and several research facilities, yet Luminous did not immediately concentrate troops around every workshop and laboratory.

Instead, the western empire began dismantling them. Precision tools were packed into reinforced crates, drawings were copied and sent along separate roads, and skilled researchers were assigned to different evacuation groups so that one airstrike could not destroy an entire research results.

The captured airship project was broken apart again to reduce the risk further. Control mechanisms went inland by one route, engine components by another, while structural samples and technical records traveled toward different institutes.

Some buildings were left almost empty by the time Draeven reconnaissance reached the outskirts of the industrial region.

Noah watched soldiers enter facilities that still looked important from the outside and find little more than workbenches and discarded scrap.

Noah returned to Viridian as the southern campaign began taking shape. The first reconnaissance aircraft had already mapped several obvious defensive concentrations along the river system, and Viridian commanders answered by building more positions than they actually intended to use.

Empty camps appeared beside roads that no army intended to defend. Hundreds of cooking fires were lit after dark, old wagons were arranged into supply parks, and wooden frames covered with cloth imitated heavy weapons from the air.

Small groups moved visibly between those positions during daylight to make the deception convincing.

Noah understood the purpose before Draeven reacted because Viridian was no longer trying toobstruct connaissance operations.

The enemy aircraft returned and began recording the false concentrations. One empty camp received artillery fire the following morning, while another was struck by aircraft after reconnaissance identified what appeared to be several thousand soldiers gathering around wagons.

Most of the targeted position contained nothing worth destroying. The bombs demolished old carts, tents, wooden frames, and a few small goblin groups left behind to maintain the deception.

Viridian had not prevented Draeven from gathering information. Instead it begun making that information unreliable, forcing enemy commanders to decide which observations represented real military concentrations and which had been created deliberately.

That became more important when one Draeven armored group changed direction toward a false concentration near a tributary road.

The force advanced expecting to encounter a major defensive formation but found only a few hundred goblins waiting there.

They fired from concealed positions, conducted a tactical retreat through woodland, and left the Draeven armor to continue along a route prepared specifically for delay.

The bridge behind the column collapsed after the rear vehicles crossed, while another damaged crossing waited several kilometers farther ahead.

Noah found himself watching the Viridian commanders more closely.

The goblins were beginning to manipulate what Draeven commanders believed was happening. That represented a different kind of adaptation from simply learning how to survive stronger weapons.

The largest Viridian formation reached the main river three days later. Thousands of goblins had prepared defenses several kilometers beyond the western bank, while the bridge itself remained almost undefended.

Draeven scouts noticed the absence of visible resistance and advanced cautiously. Tanks stopped before the crossing while infantry moved through nearby houses and inspected the riverbank.

Engineers followed once the area appeared secure. The bridge exploded beneath them before the engineering vehicles could reach the central span, sending part of the structure into the river and leaving the armored formation stranded on the eastern side.

Artillery began firing almost immediately after the destruction. Shells struck suspected goblin positions beyond the river, but most landed on abandoned earthworks, false trenches, and observation sites that had already been emptied.

The real Viridian defensive zone remained farther back and concealed from direct observation. Draeven responded by beginning preparations for a forced crossing instead of wasting time searching for defenders who were not there.

Engineering trucks moved toward the river while infantry secured both sides of the road.

Temporary bridging equipment was unloaded as artillery shifted toward positions capable of covering the construction site.

Aircraft began circling overhead while engineers worked near the water. The first Viridian attack came after sunset, when crossbowmen moved along the riverbank under tree cover and fired at the construction crews.

Heavy bolts followed from concealed positions farther inland. Draeven machine guns answered immediately while searchlights swept across the banks and artillery illumination rounds turned sections of the river into pale daylight.

The goblins conducted a tactical retreat before the response could trap them. Construction resumed as soon as the firing subsided, forcing Viridian to search for another opportunity.

A second attack came from farther north several hours later. This time, a heavy projectile destroyed one engineering vehicle before its crew could move it away, but Draeven infantry pursued the attackers into woodland and found only abandoned firing positions.

By morning, part of the temporary crossing had been completed despite the repeated attacks. Viridian had delayed the operation and inflicted losses, but it had not stopped Draeven from continuing the work.

Noah widened his attention again and saw four different campaigns developing across the planet.

In Varkesh, the first Draeven armor had entered regions already emptied of civilians while regional armies waited deeper inland.

Skargrim continued allowing the northern invasion farther into the valley as destroyed bridges accumulated behind it.

Across Luminous territory, workshops vanished from threatened cities while armored columns approached industrial districts already stripped of their most valuable people and machinery.

Four Draeven armies were advancing, and four goblin empires were fighting them differently.

The goblins had spent earlier rounds learning how to survive unfamiliar weapons. They were now learning how to shape entire campaigns around an enemy that remained technologically superior and comes in greater number.

Viridian deceived reconnaissance while Varkesh prepared defensive depth. Skargrim stretched logistics, and Luminous protected the knowledge and industries that would matter in the future.

None of those strategies guaranteed victory, but each gave an empire a way to fight without accepting Draeven’s preferred battle.

Noah returned his attention to the river as the second day of the crossing operation began.

Draeven engineers worked beneath artillery cover while aircraft patrolled above the water.

Viridian groups continued appearing briefly along the banks, attacking equipment, observation posts, and exposed infantry before conducting tactical retreats through prepared routes.

The temporary bridge grew section by section despite every interruption. Behind it waited thousands of Draeven soldiers, tanks, armored carriers, and artillery pieces preparing to cross into the first major Viridian defensive zone of Round Six.

The academy interface remained visible at the edge of Noah’s awareness. More than ninety-nine thousand Draeven soldiers were still alive despite days of movement, airstrikes, raids, demolitions, and skirmishes.

Round Six had barely begun, and the unfinished bridge already represented the scale of the problem ahead.

Noah watched it stretch farther across the river and understood that the goblins would first have to prove they could outsmart technologically superior enemy.