Chapter 527, Major Changes

Chapter 527, Major Changes

Ossena and Thadius soon met at the starport of Wing Star.

After completing some paperwork, the two chatted for a while.

What they were talking about was the war in front of them.

"The Governor has already set out from the Wrathful Owl Star?"

"Yeah." Ossena responded, "It will probably arrive in two days."

"Then it should be time."

Hearing this, Ossena still looked a little melancholy.

She sighed, "How wonderful it would be if we didn't have to fight."

Thaddeus did not respond.

He and Ossena had worked together for decades, and even though they had never deliberately cultivated a personal relationship, they would not have any other exchanges except for work contact. But after all, they had a revolutionary friendship for decades, and they were comrades.

Because of this, Thadius understood that the reason why Ossena expressed such emotion was not because the Prime Minister of the Union was weak.

But there is a little bit of reluctance.

Over the years, the economic development of the entire Dragon Eagle Star Region has been very successful. The development of various places has been good and bad, but overall, it has been able to adapt to local conditions and strive to move in a better direction as much as possible. Ossena has worked hard for this, and now there are good results.

Although most of the resources within the alliance have been tilted towards the war in recent years. Although the war has not officially started, everyone in the alliance knows that they will have to fight with the "Iron Fury Stone" in the north sooner or later. The gap in strength between the two sides is still not small, so they have to squeeze resources, build armaments, and expand the army in order to have the strength to fight.

Even though the alliance has invested a lot of money in armaments, the main environment is still peaceful after all, and the mass production of armaments has also stimulated economic development in disguise. Although this kind of stimulation is somewhat unhealthy, it is still a real development.

Once the war actually begins, the situation will obviously be different.

Thinking of this, Thadius also sighed.

The next second, his heart hardened again.

He said to Ossena, "This is a war that cannot be avoided. If we do not prepare, the armored warriors will descend upon us."

"Why did the Iron Armored Regiment continue to expand to the north and west after sweeping across the Spider Web Universe, instead of heading south? It's because we have always been vigilant and prepared for war. We are a tough nut to crack, so the war didn't come to us."

“But this can’t go on forever.”

"More than three years ago, the three founding chapters, Infinity, Blood Angels, and Bats, all arrived on the northern battlefield, and each sent out a company. The Black Crusaders even had a squadron in place, with thousands of Black Crusaders, commanded by a fleet marshal. He also took on the command of the entire western battlefield. Under his leadership, the combined strength of the seven surrounding chapters, as well as a large number of Astra Militarum and Imperial Navy, formed the main force of the northern battlefield;"

"On the Western Front, the Phoenix Chapter, the parent group of the Phoenix, sent out a very large force, led by the current Phoenix Lord: Su Lie. There are also many chapters gathered here, most of which are Phoenix's daughter chapters. Although they did not raise their flags, the general intention was to avenge the 'Bauhinia' and 'Star Breaker' chapters that perished in the great rebellion a hundred years ago. In addition, the Inquisition was unwilling to fail and swept in again. They invited the famous Death Legion and mobilized more than 4,000 battle sisters of the Blood Rose."

"Calculated in this way, the combined strength on the Western Front is even stronger than that on the Northern Front."

"That was probably when Iron Fury Stone was closest to failure. At that time, our military and political departments were also dragged into meetings with the General Staff day and night to discuss whether we should also join the war and join in the fun from the south. After all, not to mention the war situation, we still did not have a wide range of mobilization forces. Large-scale participation in the war in the Spider Web Universe brought us great political pressure from the level of the empire and the Universe government. Prime Minister Ossena should know this much better than me."

Hearing this, Ossena nodded continuously.

Indeed, the alliance had a difficult time during that period, and she was the one who bore the brunt of the political pressure.

The higher-ups, whether it was the central government of the empire or the government of the universe, had been urging the alliance to send troops as soon as possible. Even though Gallardo, who had been persuaded by Mr. Gu, had helped to relieve some of the pressure in Holy Terra, the alliance was still having a hard time.

Gallardo was even having a hard time. Not to mention that he had not been able to get a seat in the Supreme Council for the past four years, his position as Prime Minister of the Ministry of Military Affairs was also a bit precarious. There were many factions and forces within the Ministry of Military Affairs. They would also question why Gallardo wanted to withstand all the pressure for the Alliance?

However, this pressure soon disappeared.

It was not that there was any change in the alliance's behavior, but that the situation on the two main battlefields in the north and the west had changed dramatically.

On both fronts, each had its own legendary military group participating, and in the following year, the war situation was completely stabilized. No matter how powerful the Iron Armored Corps was, it could not continue to win on both fronts at the same time.

The scope of their military activities was squeezed, and they even launched a massive counterattack on the two battlefields, pushing the Iron Wrath Stone's forces back to the Spider Web Universe in one fell swoop.

At this time, the alliance was not under much pressure. The mainstream public opinion believed that the Empire had gathered such a powerful force, and the current war situation was also favorable to the Empire. The Iron Fury Stone who dared to rebel had entered the countdown to its demise.

It didn't matter whether the alliance joined the war or not. If they didn't join the war, they would have one less force to share the fruits of victory. Moreover, they could use this to attack Prime Minister Gallardo... Why not?

The 'constant meetings' mentioned by Thaddeus refer to this stage.

The Alliance would also be anxious, worrying that they would not have enough time to rush in and eat the cake; Gallardo in Holy Terra would also feel anxious and contacted the Alliance several times, asking if they needed to change their strategy.

And it was at this stage that Gu Hang, as the supreme leader, made a decision: continue to maintain the previous strategy.

Under his leadership, the Alliance maintained strategic focus.

Afterwards, the overall changes began to become incomprehensible.

In the first few months, the empire's momentum on both the north and south fronts was so strong that even Humphrey Paul had to temporarily avoid the limelight.

Although no crucial battles were fought, the Empire had made great strides in recovering some rebellious planets, which had greatly boosted morale.

The Ironclad Regiment avoided the imperial army's offensive, which certainly saved their valuable manpower, but it also somewhat undermined the "reputation strategy" they had adopted in the past.

People couldn't help but start to murmur. Although the Iron Fury Stones had made a big noise, compared to the huge size of the empire, they were still only a local force in a remote corner. Now the empire has not yet fully mobilized its war machine. If necessary, the empire can send more forces. But right now, you Iron Fury Stones are already looking like you can't stop them. How can people believe you?
The situation in the past where the locals surrendered when the Iron Armor's troops arrived was gone. On the contrary, in the northern war zone, a star zone with more than a dozen worlds, linked together, simply raised the banner of rectifying the chaos. The local forces began to resist the officials and garrisons sent by the Iron Armor, and actively contacted the imperial army.

The commander of the northern front, Marshal Alma Ewing of the Black Crusaders, agreed to the request and let the company of the Infinite Regiment participating in the operation in the northern theater of operations be responsible for this matter.

When this team of blue-armored warriors arrived at the target star zone, things went relatively smoothly at first. The elite warriors of the 100 founding regiments were quite strong, and together with the fleet and the Star Army troops under their command, they immediately reversed the situation where the local "anti-rebellion forces" were violently suppressed by the Iron Armor forces.

It is estimated that it won’t take long before the entire star region will be taken back.

Just when everything was going smoothly, a fierce riot suddenly broke out at the bottom of one of the hive worlds in the star zone.

There is a cult group that jumps out to cause trouble at this time.

At first, the Infinite Warriors didn't take this seriously enough. The Iron Armor's forces hadn't been completely eliminated yet, so that was definitely the highest priority. A cult riot at the bottom of a planet's hive... To be honest, rebellions like this were happening all the time in the entire universe.

This is a problem, but it is obviously not of high importance.

However, the evolution of things soon exceeded people's expectations.

Subsequent intelligence showed that most of these rebellious thugs were humans, but the local planetary defense force also reported some abnormal situations, indicating that there were some non-human beings among the thugs.

They look like a combination of humans and some insects, with skin that is either purple, blue or green. In any case, they do not look like normal humans.

These guys usually serve as the backbone and commanders in the cult's organizational structure.

This is something that people have to care about.

But before the Infinite Warriors could escape from the suppression operation on another planet, the situation suddenly deteriorated to an irreversible point.

A large number of Void Zerg began to appear among the cultists, and the entire world lost contact in a very short time.

Then, when the Infinite Warriors realized the seriousness of the matter and rushed to the galaxy on a ship, they encountered a Zerg fleet at the jump point of the galaxy.

This was an ambush that they had never foreseen, and the Infinite Warriors were defeated miserably, with no one surviving.

Immediately afterwards, this Zerg fleet launched a fierce attack, quickly wreaking havoc in the entire star region, and began to launch offensives towards surrounding star regions.

As luck would have it, the area where the Void Zerg's hive fleet was wreaking havoc was exactly blocking the attacking line of the northern imperial army.

coincidence?

No one would think so.

The battle on the northern front suddenly became intense.

The scale of this hive fleet is actually not that large, at least compared to several particularly large hive invasions that have occurred in the history of the empire.

However, this was enough to bring the northern battlefield led by Marshal Ewing to a stalemate.

Brutal wars broke out on dozens of planets in an instant. From the star map, it seemed as if an irregular line with jagged edges was drawn in the northern part of the Spider Web Universe.

The Void Zerg are not reasonable, and they are a threat that cannot be ignored. They are attacking the north with their fangs and claws. It is impossible for humans to ignore the threat of these brainless insect beasts, otherwise they will eat everything they see on the road and destroy every planet they pass through.

They were originally here to fight a rebellion, but from that moment on, the battlefield on the northern front inexplicably turned into a desperate battle with the Void Zerg.

Almost at the same time, the Ironclad Legion gathered strength and launched a series of counterattacks on the Western Front.

The Iron Armor Regiment was almost fully mobilized.

On the Western Front, not only can one see the figures of defected Space Marines from three different regiments, but most importantly, according to reports from the battlefield, the Iron Legion itself has deployed at least tens of thousands of Space Marines on the Western Front!

This is relative to the normal strength of ten regiments!
These defectors dressed in black and grey armor used their superior forces to repel and even destroy several Phoenix Regiments on many occasions.

In a siege battle, they even annihilated an entire company of the Phoenix Regiment!

The Western Front, which had been advancing rapidly, not only failed to continue advancing into the heart of the Spider Web Universe, but was instead driven out.

Captain Su Lie was not just a name for nothing, he quickly gathered his troops and found the right opportunity to deliver several severe blows to Tie Kai, thus curbing the retreat of the entire front line.

But he is not a god. In terms of the strength of the Space Marines, there is still a big difference between the two sides.

Although the Phoenix Lord had six different chapters of Space Marines, no one was going to fight with all their troops. From each chapter, there were only one or two companies, and at most five or six companies. Adding them all together, the number of Space Marines was only over two thousand at most.

In the previous battle, there were more than 800 casualties.

Although they also killed or wounded thousands of Ironclad Space Marines, the troop strength ratio between the two sides was still nearly ten times.

Su Lie could only be thankful that although the number of Space Marines was much different, the navy, the Astra Militarum, and the enemy's large-scale mortal forces were not much different. Otherwise, he would not even be able to stabilize the front line and maintain a stalemate, and he would probably be beaten out of the Spider Web Universe with one blow.

But despite this, he couldn't care less about his face and kept asking for more reinforcements from the rear, from the surrounding universes, and from Holy Terra.

Without sufficient reinforcements, he would be driven out sooner or later.

(End of this chapter)