"Very well, Major Richthofen. I wish you victory and glory."
Lieutenant Hoffmann gave a military salute, and Violet returned it.
She unslung the anti-tank sniper rifle from her back, set down the two ammunition pouches at her waist, drew two bayonets, and vanished into the woods like a ghost in the blink of an eye.
Lieutenant Hoffmann watched the direction where Violet had disappeared and signaled the rear with a few hand gestures.
He motioned for everyone to begin moving northeast, maintaining cover.
Meanwhile.
Violet was steadily approaching the watchtower along the treetops.
50 meters.
30 meters.
10 meters.
5 meters.
The Germania sentries on the watchtower had no idea someone was moving through the treetops right beside them.
"Swish! Swish, swish! Swish!"
Four small knives flew out from the treetops, each one burying itself in a sentry's neck. One knife per man, and the guards on the tower were taken down instantly.
"Hans? Hans, are you alright?"
A Germania sentry at the base of the tower heard something collapse above and called out to check on the situation.
Within those few brief seconds, Violet threw another handful of throwing knives, gripped her two bayonets tightly, and leaped down from the treetops.
The throwing knives immediately took down the sentries who had come to investigate.
The sentry in the ground guard post also sensed something was wrong and reached to open the door.
"Hey, what's happ—"
The door was only half open when Violet sidestepped into the room, sliced the soldier's windpipe and carotid artery with a backhand strike.
"What...!"
As she burst through the door, two other Germania sentries who had been playing cards reacted, reaching for the rifles set aside nearby.
"Slash! Slash!"
The two bayonets in Violet's hands flew straight toward the sentries.
One embedded itself directly in the forehead of the first sentry, while the other pierced the forearm of the second, pinning him to the wall.
"Agh! Damn it!"
The sentry was just about to reach out and pull the bayonet out when another blade came flying, pinning his other arm to the wall.
It was the same knife that had just killed the other sentry, its blade still coated with a white-and-red gelatinous substance.
"Aaargh!!"
"Bang!"
Violet smashed the butt of a captured rifle directly into the sentry's head.
Taking advantage of his daze, she tore a piece of fabric from another corpse's uniform, rolled it into a ball, and shoved it into the sentry's mouth.
"Clatter!"
Several other members of the fire team rushed into the room, taking in the blood-spattered walls and floor, and the sentry pinned to the wall.
"Phew, good job, Major Richthofen."
Lieutenant Hoffmann breathed a sigh of relief and slung his submachine gun back over his shoulder.
"Dreylman, Gordon, go interrogate this fellow. I'm giving you five minutes. Everyone else, maintain vigilance and clear the area."
"Sir!"
Faint, muffled screams soon began to echo from inside the small cabin.
A few minutes later...
"Let's move. We aren't far from our mission objective."
According to the sentry, the approximate location of the frontline general headquarters was about 16 kilometers northwest of this watchtower.
If they quickened their pace, they were expected to arrive between 1:00 AM and 2:00 AM, an hour or two from now.
Once there, they would wait for the other squads until 3:00 AM.
If no trace of the other squads was found by 3:00 AM, it would be assumed that they were unable to reach the target location for some reason, and the fire team would go to ground.
If no other squads were found before midnight the following day, it would immediately be assumed that all members of those squads had been killed in action, and the fire team would launch an attack on the general headquarters before dawn to disrupt their strategic deployment.
"It's a bit too quiet along this route. We haven't seen a single sentry, let alone a patrol."
Lieutenant Hoffmann muttered under his breath, a sudden sense of foreboding gripping his heart.
Just as the lieutenant was wondering what felt wrong, Dreylman, who was walking in the lead, made a hand signal to halt.
Everyone immediately stopped and sought cover where they stood.
Dreylman waited a moment, then made a hand signal to advance.
The members of the squad crept forward quietly.
"Look over there."
Following the direction of Dreylman's finger, they saw an area blazing with light.
Looking closely, they could even make out soldiers patrolling the perimeter.
"Pull out your binoculars and take a look."
Hearing Dreylman, everyone pulled out their monocular folding binoculars and looked toward the distant camp.
Good grief, they wouldn't have believed it if they hadn't seen it.
The camp wasn't illuminated by searchlights—it was lit up by a ring of tank headlights lining the barbed wire perimeter!
This defense wasn't just airtight; it was practically made of titanium-alloy!
Lieutenant Hoffmann also saw the absurdly heavy defenses through his binoculars.
"Fritz, Karl, stay here. The rest of you, strip down to light gear for reconnaissance and look for weak points in the defense."
The squad quickly scattered, leaving behind a pile of gear and two wide-eyed guards.
"The defenses in the camp are even more terrifying than the intelligence reports indicated. The entire Empire 7th Armored Army is on this front line, and the garrison bases of two of its armored divisions are right next to the general headquarters."
Zhurong's voice echoed in Violet's mind.
"With such a massive force combined with the original guard unit, the mission is already impossible to complete, let alone execute."
Violet felt a tinge of helplessness.
"There is a way—use the Hector Plasma Macrocannon.
Blow up the entire encampment directly, and all three divisions along with the command system will be wiped out."
Zhurong thought for a moment and proposed this option.
"Plasma Macrocannon?"
Violet was a bit puzzled. She knew what plasma was, she knew what macro meant, and she knew what a cannon was, but combining all three went a bit over her head.
"It's an oversized plasma cannon. I currently have one strike opportunity available with it.
The shell this thing fires looks very much like lightning, and the strike is initiated directly from outside the atmosphere, leaving no trace whatsoever.
No one will suspect it was us."
(The shell of the Hector Plasma Macrocannon looks very much like a blue pillar of light. In a world where energy weapons have yet to be invented and magic exists, it would easily be attributed to other causes rather than a weapon.)
Violet was stunned for a moment.
"What is the kill radius of the plasma macrocannon?"
"An explosion equivalent to 1,200 tons of TNT... let me calculate... the kill radius for exposed personnel is about 2.5 kilometers, and the kill radius against bunkers is about 600 meters."
Zhurong calculated briefly and gave an approximate lethal range.
"Hmm... if we strike the headquarters directly, this lethal range should be enough."
Violet looked at the encampment three kilometers away and roughly estimated the strike coverage.
"I've already memorized the latitude and longitude coordinates of the headquarters' temporary fortifications."
Zhurong chimed in.
Violet thought for a moment and made her decision.
"If the other squads fail to rendezvous tomorrow night, we'll use the plasma macrocannon to blow up that encampment."
While Violet was fretting over how to "quietly" deal with the Germania Southern Front General Headquarters, the members of the other squads weren't feeling particularly optimistic either.
Some were hanging in trees, observing the camp through binoculars.
Others were lying low in the grass playing scout, but could barely see anything.
However, they had all reached a very obvious conclusion.
Although the constant flow of general-rank officers indicated that this was definitely the general headquarters, but...
Even a fool could see something was wrong here! Whose headquarters has a garrison of three divisions?!
Every single reconnaissance member of the squad was dumbfounded.
How were they supposed to fight this?! Their K Unit consisted of a single reinforced platoon, and they were supposed to fight three armored infantry divisions?
(Corps, Army, Division/Brigade, Regiment/Battalion, Company, Platoon, Squad/Team. A division/brigade typically has around 10,000 to 20,000 personnel, while a platoon typically has 30 to 50 personnel.)
Even if every single person in their squad were replaced with a Senior Mage, this mission would still be impossible to complete!
Not to mention anything else, just look at the circle of tanks parked around the camp—that was over four hundred tanks!
Two team members hanging in trees observing the situation recorded the approximate troop strength in the camp and immediately hurried back to the assembly point.
By then, the other team members had also returned and gathered.
"About a hundred Type V tanks, over two hundred Type IV tanks, and a few dozen Type III tanks—roughly four hundred tanks in total.
There are also about several thousand field infantry in the camp, and nearly twenty thousand logistics personnel and tank crews."
Lieutenant Hoffmann held a scrawled note, looking at its owner, Gordon.
Gordon shrugged, indicating that the situation was urgent and the sloppy handwriting wasn't his fault.
Lieutenant Hoffmann looked around at his squad members.
He thought for a moment.
"Mission failed, we are preparing to withdraw..."
Lieutenant Hoffmann dropped his hand powerlessly.
"Before we leave, we'll leave them a little gift.
Set up the two mortars and fire a rapid barrage at the enemy headquarters.
Rig booby traps beneath the mortars, and Gordon, get ready to fire the green flare."
A green flare signified mission failure, and all surviving personnel were to immediately withdraw.
"Sir!"
The squad members began methodically laying booby traps, setting up mortars, measuring distances, and adjusting firing data.
"Rat-tat-tat—bang! Crackle-pop-bang—rat-tat-tat-tat-tat..."
A faint sound of gunfire suddenly drifted from the distance.
Along with the gunfire, green flares flashed in the sky a kilometer away.
"Hurry! Fire as many shells as you can, and pull out immediately in 30 seconds!"
The gunners had just finished loading the mortar shells with auxiliary charge rings when, hearing this order, they began cramming shells down the barrel one after another as if they were worthless.
"Bang-bang! Bang-bang! Bang-bang!..."
The crisp sounds of iron tubes slamming rang out as dozens of mortar shells flew toward the encampment.
"Fall back!"
Since the other squad had already fired a green flare, firing another one of their own would only needlessly expose their position, so they skipped it.
The two machine gunners ran in the front, followed in the middle by the two snipers and the demolition team, and at the rear were the mortar crew members who had previously carried the shells and tubes, now gripping submachine guns.
"Rat-tat-tat—bang..."
Gunfire continued to echo from the distance, spreading from a single point to multiple directions until it was impossible to tell where the sounds were coming from.
A second green flare soared into the air.
That green flare was nearly two kilometers away from the fire team; if not for it being a special high-flying flare, it would have been questionable whether they could even see it from so far away.
Seeing the other flare, the squad members picked up their pace.
They had to withdraw before the enemy reinforced their defenses, or they wouldn't be able to escape.
Are you kidding? They were just doing a job for a paycheck, who was going to risk their life for this?
Their fire team consisted of seasoned marksmen pulled from other units; they weren't part of some suicide squad trying to redeem themselves.
Besides, if they had any real grudge against Germania, there wasn't much to speak of.
Germania's rule over the occupied territories was similar to that within its own borders—there was absolute zero inhumane treatment or forced labor exploitation.
The battlefield wasn't all that extreme either; no biological or chemical weapons had been used, and although the treatment of prisoners was poor, there was no abuse or random slaughter.
(If you ask why, it's a contest of being the lesser evil.)
(The state of Germania could be referenced against the German Empire at the start of the war, but slightly better; its military state could be referenced against Nazi Germany after the Manstein Plan.)
However, things do not always go as planned.
A third flare shot into the sky to their front right, only a little over a kilometer away...
That was the only path left for their withdrawal.
Moving there now, however, was tantamount to suicide.
"Everyone, ditch the heavy weapons, rip off your rank insignia and military badges!
Fall back! We're pushing deeper into enemy-occupied territory!"
Lieutenant Hoffmann practically screamed the order.
Everyone knew what kind of person the lieutenant was.
He came from a military family; his father had been a major general serving in the Drubesia Army, who perished under artillery fire during the war against Germania.
After losing his father, the lieutenant had sworn to end this damned war.
The squad members fell silent for a few seconds, then began shedding their heavy weapons.
The mortar crew's heavy equipment was already gone, the demolition team abandoned their Soviet-style single-use anti-obstacle rockets and satchels, and the machine gunners discarded their heavy machine guns and ammunition.