Another Worldly Summons

Chapter 109: Rolling Thunder

Nurzaga Empire, Philades
January 27, 1642

With the massive catastrophe not only hitting ASEAN, which halted all of their full-blown bombing campaign for almost two weeks, peace and tranquility blanketed the skies of Nurzaga, giving them much-needed respite and reinforcing their defensive lines and their ranks with new recruits. Massive amounts of weapons immediately flowed from S'vam in order to support their ever-growing army in defense against ASEAN. Though they're not spared from the catastrophe either, massive infrastructure damage also occurred, thousands dead on their side. S'vam only released their stockpiles as they themselves have their facilities damaged; thus, maintenance of them under controlled environment is impossible. Also, there are fears of ASEAN attacking from the sea again, making their stockpiles in grave danger and needing to be distributed rather quickly as they began abandoning coastal regions of the country.

Qazar, now the de facto general of the southern front, is leading almost 60,000 men, facing ASEAN's massed formation over the northern regions of Southern Philades. It's unknown how many are there, but it's believed to number a few thousand soldiers beyond the thick fog of war with the enemy forces.

Right now, there is a heated debate on the situation. "Information about ASEAN losses in Esthirant, Duro, and their homeland is said to be immense. It has stopped their offensive. The disaster was their own undoing. It's retribution of the gods! We must move while they're unable to reinforce themselves!," these are the current suggestions in the past few days. For the majority of Nurzagan, despite already being badly beaten, they still want to go on the offensive, something Arde and Remille wouldn't do. Rather, it makes themselves smarter than the actions done by the people here if Remille said so, much more foolish than picking a fight with ASEAN.

"Commander Qazar, we should request S'vam's support for another breakthrough attempt to inflict damage to ASEAN! It would boost our morale," urged one of the officers.

Finally, it was his turn. Qazar sighed internally. It wasn't the direction he had hoped for. He wanted to reel them, but given the dire situation, he realized it was best to avoid provoking ASEAN any further, as capture could lead to severe consequences due to his potential perceived antagonistic view against them. "It's quite the opposite. We can't be certain ASEAN military aren't prepared or supported. We can't even discern if they are lying in wait, ready to ambush our armies in the open like mice lured by a cat." It was a cautious approach, but not entirely unfounded. For Qazar, even if ASEAN weren't reinforced or supplied as they claimed, engaging them now would still result in significant losses of men and materials. He sought to avoid that outcome. Instead, he aimed to conserve his forces, dragging the war into a quagmire on their own land to bog down ASEAN. The objective: prolong the conflict, and force them to seek peace or negotiations to jump ASEAN's side as defectors.

"And if we attacked, we would have to establish a long line of logistics bases again, something that is time-consuming, resource-intensive, and a manpower grabber in the current situation. With the time we had — a window period without going on offensive, we could have train our newly recruited men to fight better, as they're not enough to replenish our losses. We can't allow senseless losses. We aren't Parpaldia; we don't have the population to support continuous replenishment of our soldiers," he said to them. "On the other side, ASEAN advancing will have to do the same build support bases and logistics line. We can attack them from behind, wither them as we cut their logistics line. The deeper they go, it would be impossible to advance or capture our lands, so I wish to have more manpower by then to defeat them," he concluded with his suggestion.

People nodded in response, some dissatisfied, but pressing is basically as disadvantageous as it seems. They could have recaptured territories but with losses and greenhorns, leaving on the other side a window period of ASEAN going on the offensive. They could have better-trained forces with larger numbers too. But something too complicated for some to understand.