The commander of the Kandla Empire's expeditionary force, Duke Makaros, lowered his head and looked at the battle report in his hands. His originally tanned skin was now as dark as the sky outside due to his gloomy expression.
The atmosphere in the tent seemed to have frozen in time. Everyone held their breaths and didn't even dare to breathe. They were afraid of attracting Duke Makaros' attention and causing the volcano to erupt.
However … a volcano wasn't something that wouldn't erupt if you didn't want to.
After a while, Duke Makaros put down the battle report and narrowed his eyes to look at the faces of the other Kandla Empire's expeditionary force officers in the tent. They all lowered their heads and groaned.
The other officers in the tent couldn't help but shiver.
In the Kandla Empire's military headquarters, other than Grand Marshal Kanber Sudirman, Duke Makaros had the highest status and prestige.
This time, the Empire's military headquarters allowed him to personally lead the expedition to the Kingdom of Ruhr. This undoubtedly meant that the Empire's military headquarters placed great importance on this expedition.
However, the expeditionary force of the Kandla Empire had suffered a blow to the head on the first step of the expedition.
The six frontline armies that were split into six different directions to advance towards the Kingdom of Ruhr had all suffered disastrous losses within three days.
Saint Joan's legion of the fourth frontline had suffered the least losses. However, after being ambushed by the Kingdom of Ruhr's army, they had lost more than four thousand soldiers on the spot. The number of lightly injured soldiers added up to more than ten thousand, causing Saint Joan's legion to lose nearly half of their combat strength.
The ones that suffered the most losses were the Goldeagle Legion and the Crimson Sun Legion of the third frontline army.
The Goldeagle Legion had lost more than ten thousand soldiers due to their heavy injuries, which was equivalent to half of their forces being crippled.
The Crimson Sun Legion's losses were slightly less, with more than seven thousand dead. On the other hand, the number of heavily injured soldiers wasn't as high, only around two thousand. From this point alone, one could see the cruelty of the battlefield.
In comparison, the loss of manpower was not as great as the loss of resources. It was a greater blow to the two legions.
In the fierce battle, the Golden Eagle knight regiment had lost a total of sixty three large transport Magic Cars and the most important Magic Cannons had been destroyed by eighty nine of them. The high firepower that the Golden Eagle knight regiment relied on the most was now close to being scrapped.
The Scarlet Sun Regiment was even more straightforward. Of the five hundred large transport Magic Cars they had, over a hundred had been destroyed in the battle and there were over two hundred that couldn't operate normally after the battle.
Like this, the Scarlet Sun Regiment's most famous large transport Magic Cars had been scrapped.
Most importantly, due to the rupture between the Kandla Empire and the New Flyer, the New Flyer withdrew all support from the Kandla Empire.
This was reflected in the large transport Magic Cars. Now there wasn't a single official maintenance department for the New Flyer in the Kandla Empire.
These large transport Magic Cars were all purchased from the New Flyer and now that they were broken, they couldn't rely on the New Flyer to fix them, so they could only think of a way themselves.
But although there were several companies in the Kandla Empire that were secretly developing large transport Magic Cars and had some results, it was impossible for them to reach the level of the New Flyer in terms of technology.
Moreover, even if they had the technology to repair them, the Kandla Empire couldn't find any suitable parts.
With the current level of the magic machine industry in the Kandla Empire, there were many parts that they couldn't make.
So like this, the Scarlet Sun Regiment had lost most of their battle strength.
If one were to summarize the results of the Six Frontline Armies, out of the 130,000 people who participated in the first battle, they had only experienced one battle, but they had already lost more than 40,000 people and countless materials. They had lost close to half of their combat strength.
This result was without a doubt very shocking to the Kandla Empire.
Even before the battle began, they had already expected that this battle wouldn't be easy because the New Flyer would definitely support the Kingdom of Ruhr.
But no one would have thought that this battle would be this difficult. In just the first battle, the Kandla Empire had suffered such serious losses.
What was even more terrifying was that the Kingdom of Ruhr's losses were almost zero!
Because from beginning to end, out of the one hundred and thirty thousand soldiers of the six front armies, not a single one of them had clashed with the Kingdom of Ruhr's army.
In other words, the various armies of the Kandla Empire had been passively beaten from beginning to end. They hadn't even touched the Kingdom of Ruhr's army.
There was no doubt that this fact shocked everyone on the Candra Empire's side, even creating a trace of fear.
But this wasn't the most shocking thing.
What caught the attention of the Kandla Empire's army was the third front army.
The Goldeagle Regiment and the Scarlet Sun Regiment hadn't even been ambushed. Instead, they had suffered such terrifying losses in the battle with the Kingdom of Ruhr on the Indra Great Plains.
This result meant that the Kandla Empire's most important advantage in numbers was gone.
The Kingdom of Ruhr didn't even send out many people, yet it was enough to defeat the Kandla Empire's army that was several times larger than theirs. The Kandla Empire's army didn't even cause any losses to the enemy.
This meant that the battle strength of both sides wasn't on the same level, so the number of troops didn't have any meaning at all.
If the Kingdom of Ruhr's side kept having this kind of battle strength, the Kandla Empire's army wouldn't have any hope of winning.
Duke Makaros had a dark look on his face as he thought for a bit before suddenly looking at the Goldeagle Regiment's commander Gerald standing to his left.
"Gerald, tell me, what is going on with that strange Magic Car that you met?"
Hearing this question, Gerald thought of the monsters he met on the battlefield and he couldn't help revealing a look of fear.
Even if it was a battle from three days ago, he still felt a strong sense of powerlessness when he thought of it.
When he first saw those strange Magic Cars, Gerald was only doubtful. He had ordered his subordinates to attack with the Magic Cannons.
But then those strange Magic Cars told him that they weren't on the same level.
Under the wild attacks of the Goldeagle Regiment and the Scarlet Sun Regiment's Magic Cannons and Magic Rockets, those strange Magic Cars had easily blocked all the attacks. With a single counterattack, the Goldeagle Regiment and the Scarlet Sun Regiment suffered heavy losses.
With such an exaggerated difference in battle strength, it even made Gerald suspect that these fellows were demons that the New Flyer had pulled from another world!
But of course this was an illusion. The fact was that the New Flyer already had these terrifying military magic machines that people couldn't think of a way to stop or defeat.
Hearing that Duke Makaros wanted him to describe that thing, Gerald gaped his mouth and became stunned for quite a while. He didn't know how to describe it at all.
Seeing Gerald in a daze, Duke Makaros gave a dissatisfied snort.
"What?
Gerald, have you been beaten silly by the Rudson people?
If you're afraid, scram back to the empire for me, don't embarrass yourself here! "
Gerald trembled as he came back to his senses. He quickly shook his head and said, "No, no, no, Lord Duke, I'm not ….. Only you want me to describe what that strange Magic Car was ….. I don't know how to describe it, but ….. I really can't think of a way to deal with those things."
"You mean that we have no chance of winning against those things?" Duke Makaros raised a brow as he asked back.
Seeing the killing intent in Duke Makaros' eyes, Gerald could only give a bitter laugh and give a nod.
"Yes, Lord Duke. I feel that if we face them head on, we have no way of resisting those terrifying things."
Hearing this answer, the other regiments in the tent couldn't help revealing looks of surprise.
Although most of the officers in the tent had participated in the battle with the Kingdom of Ruhr and had suffered losses, they knew that the Kingdom of Ruhr had many powerful military magic machines. They had all kinds of strange attacks that they couldn't do anything to.
But Gerald had said that he couldn't stop those "strange Magic Cars" at all, wasn't this too much of an exaggeration?
Could it be that this kid Gerald had lost the most, so he was exaggerating the strength of the enemy to hide his own weakness?
If the Scarlet Sun Regiment's commander Narorov hadn't been in a coma and couldn't participate in this meeting, would he have used the same tone as Gerald?
Duke Makaros was clearly very dissatisfied with Gerald's answer, so he said with a strong snort, "Gerald, according to what you said, shouldn't we immediately retreat?
We can't beat the enemy anyway, right? "
Everyone could tell that this was obviously sarcastic sarcasm. However, after thinking for a while, Gerald nodded hard and replied with a very serious expression, "Yes, Your Excellency Duke.
I feel that ….. in a situation where we don't have the ability to deal with them, choosing to retreat for now is a wise choice. "
Duke Makaros was instantly filled with rage. He slapped the table beside him and pointed at Gerald as he cursed, "Gerald, if you keep shaking the morale of the army, do you believe that I won't immediately take you out to be dealt with by military law?"
Gerald still wanted to defend himself, but another officer standing beside him pulled his arm and stopped him.
Seeing that Gerald lowered his head and didn't say anything, Duke Makaros gave another cold snort. He looked over everyone and said with a sunken face, "Our Kandla Empire's army, since we've already attacked, we can't retreat before we get results!
If anyone dares to shake the morale of the army in the future, don't blame me for being merciless! "
The group of generals and officers obeyed the order.
"Now, let's discuss the next battle plan. Look here ….."
Duke Makaros walked to a huge map hanging on one side of the tent. Just as he opened his mouth to speak, the tent's curtain was suddenly pulled open. A messenger of Duke Makaros's personal guard rushed in with a panicked expression.
Without waiting for Duke Makaros to ask, the guard had already knelt on one knee in front of Duke Makaros and said in a panic, "My … My Lord, I just received news that Sven West City was attacked by an unknown army …"
Everyone in the tent was shocked.
Sven West City was where the expeditionary army's logistics warehouse was located. It was equivalent to the expeditionary army's foundation. Now that Sven West City was attacked, then …..
"How's the supply warehouse?" Duke Makaros hurriedly asked.
"The supply warehouse …. The warehouse was completely destroyed in the attack …."
The answer from the personal guard's mouth caused the tent to fall into a deathly silence.