Chapter 307: Frightening Rapport (1/2)

Chapter 307: Frightening Rapport

Tan Lingyun took to the front, rushing headlong in to the fray. She didn’t have the dual knives she usually preferred, but had chosen a sabermech instead. Two daggers were replaced with two enormous titanium alloy broadswords.

A pale green light surrounded her suit like a cloud of vibrant energy. As beams of laser fire surrounded her, some found their mark but most were deflected by the shield. Being more advanced than the students, and certainly faster, she pierced the line and tore in to the enemy camp first.

The An Lun soldiers were able to mitigate some of Lan Jue’s damage due to the distance between them during the opening salvo. With Tan Lingyun, things would be more difficult to deal with.

The center of the soldier’s single-line battle array retreated, stretching them in to a thin arc shape. The entire contingent focused their fire on the Savage Goddess.

Fortunately, the three student squads arrived in time to give her backup. They approached from three directions, trying to box in the soldiers.

Tan Lingyun’s unit swept passed her and in to the fight with guns blazing. Like her, manifestations of their Discipline surrounded their suits.

It had been almost unbearable this last month. Not because of the difficulty of the training – though there certainly was that. For the entire course of the training they had been expressly forbidden from using their Disciplines. The power inside them felt bottled up and ready to burst. Now, at last, their Drillmaster had given them permission to pull all the stops, and they couldn’t be happier. This only deepened when they finally got to sense how much their Talent had improved.

The area around them was a deadly forest of laser fire. However, even with their advantage in numbers the soldiers couldn’t mount a counter-attack. They tried to mount a rush, to shatter the student surprise attack, but couldn’t.

Their commanding officer was Gao Lei. His mecha was a ball of a fire, with bright flames scorching the dark paint. He faced his suit toward Tan Lingyun and charged forward, while a group of soldiers nearby formed up and followed. Teams of five broke rank to face the Savage Goddess.

Were this a real fight, the mechas certainly wouldn’t have been so uniform. There would be specialists, scouts, defenders and strikers. Scores of different roles to round out a fighting unit. Uniformity failed to cover all aspects of a fight, leaving them weaker overall. In the end this was a training exercise, and the suits were identical to preserve fairness. The soldiers would have to depend on superior tactics and formation to win.

The rest of the soldiers formed up in to groups of five, with twenty suits becoming four strike teams. They retreating while maintaining cover fire.

They didn’t separate, instead working well as cohesive, five-man teams. This give them both an element of defense as the soldiers were able to tackle threats from all directions, but also the ability to rapidly switch targets and focus-fire a single enemy.

The tactic was proved successful when one of the student fighters’ suits began to smoke, as their Discipline was exhausted the concentrated fire took its toll.

The soldiers were all blazing fast in their reactions and deployment. They were separated in to groups of five, but worked like a single organism. They would advance and retreat as one, moving without flaw or hesitation to engage enemies as needed. Even when they focused an enemy, their rifle fire was all in one spot.

The NEU students also worked together, but not at the same level as the soldiers. They mostly relied on their Discipline and individual piloting ability. Amidst the mess of fire and the ever-changing terrain of the battle, they would dodge and re-engage. But these soldiers acting as though they were of one mind, to the point where all four groups would pick one target and assail them relentless until they feel, giving them no chance.

Alpha squad had yet to join in, but already two of their number were eliminated. It viscerally underlined their deficiency in the face of experience.