I raised stunning young ladies, but they all wanted to possess me.

Looking at her solemn expression, and recalling her confident tone when she kissed him in the secret realm earlier, saying "If you want to kiss me, just kiss me," Gu Yan suddenly didn't know how to react.

He couldn't help but smile slightly and gently patted her shoulder.

He didn't say anything, but the meaning in his gesture was clear.

Yuzuru seemed to realize how seriously Gu Yan had taken his words, and a faint blush rose to her ears. However, she did not take back her words, but simply turned her head to look out the window.

"Now that you're awake, should we go check on the defenses?"

"The northernmost third line of defense is guarded by Marshal Sergei Ivanovich Kuznetsov."

"He is the commander-in-chief of the Russian Federation Icefield Commando Unit, and like me, he is a guardian of the third line of defense."

"You should get to know the people who are currently guarding this line."

Gu Yan nodded.

Yuzuru picked up the pheasant sword leaning against the door and was the first to walk out of the hall.

They walked through the path in the backyard of the Chiyomiya family's house, through the maple forest that shimmered silvery-white in the moonlight, and up the ridge.

After walking for less than fifteen minutes, the woods suddenly opened up before us.

Standing on the edge of the cliff, Gu Yan looked down and saw the entire third line of defense laid out before him without reservation.

It was a steel Great Wall he had never seen before.

Stretching from the foot of the mountain to the horizon, the main body of the defense line is an alloy city wall that is hundreds of meters high.

At intervals along the city wall stands a rune tower, its runes glowing with a dark golden light in the night, like countless eyes that refuse to close.

Behind the city wall were rows upon rows of heavy artillery positions, with cannon barrels densely packed together pointing to the sky, each barrel engraved with intricate runes.

Further away is the fleet.

It wasn't a fleet at sea, but an aerial battleship hovering in mid-air, its silver-white armor gleaming coldly in the moonlight.

Below the fleet were vast stretches of heavy mechs.

Those mechs were even larger than he had seen on TV, standing dozens of meters tall. They were parked on a dedicated maintenance platform, with maintenance crew crawling around on their feet like ants giving the colossi a final wipe.

But what shocked Gu Yan the most was not those steel behemoths, but the people.

Some people were patrolling the defense line, some were carrying ammunition boxes, and some were sleeping wrapped in blankets at the foot of the city wall.

Their uniforms were varied, including the dark green of Great Xia, the navy blue of Japan, the snow camouflage of the Russian Federation, and the tropical combat uniforms of the Southeast Asian coalition forces.

Soldiers from different countries were crammed into the same bunker, communicating in different languages.

Some people used Bactrian, some used Russian, and some used Japanese, but most of the time they used gestures and eye contact.

"The rune technician on the left is from the Great Xia Dynasty, surnamed Zhang. He just arrived the day before yesterday."

"The guy next to him carrying a sniper rifle is Vietnamese, his name is Nguyen something, he's been on the third line of defense longer than me."

"The man loading ammunition onto the mechs on the other side is Sergeant Semyonov from the Russian Federation. He's in charge of the heavy artillery positions on the third line of defense in the north, and he's here today to help with the mech maintenance."

"They sometimes argue, they argue using a translator."

"But during the war, Sergeant Semyonov's artillery support was never a second late."

She continued walking forward, with Gu Yan following behind her.

Every few steps she took, soldiers would stop what they were doing and salute her.

It's not the rigid military salute, but a more natural way of expressing oneself.

The young soldier carrying the ammunition box nudged his comrade's arm with his shoulder and gestured with his eyes, "Look, Lady Chiyo-no-miya is here." The Sakura technician, who was wiping the rune cannon barrel, climbed down the ladder, placed his hands on his trouser seams, and bowed deeply, his forehead almost touching his knees.

Several Daxia soldiers who were taking a break from their shifts peeked out from their bunkers, still holding lunchboxes in their hands. Upon seeing Yuzuru, they immediately put down their chopsticks and stood up, some even subconsciously brushing the dust off their clothes.

They didn't call her Commander, they didn't call her Lady, they called her Lady Chiyo-no-miya.

In Mandarin, the word "阁下" (your lord) carries a respectful connotation, but the tone also conveys a deeper sense of trust.

"The Southeast Asian United Army is stationed in that tower."

"Their main task is to provide flank fire support, and to use long-range artillery fire to buy time for the retreating troops when the defensive line is breached."

"Look further ahead, do you see that area with the most concentrated lights?"

"That was a heavy artillery group of the Russian Federation, personally commanded by Marshal Sergei."

"He was in charge of coordinating all the heavy firepower strikes of the third line of defense."

"Marshal Sergei is 67 years old this year and is the commander-in-chief of the Russian Federation Icefield Commando Unit."

"His troops are stationed in the northern section, about 30 kilometers away from here as the crow flies."

"He lost a leg in the Kuroshio Crevice when he was young, and now he walks with a prosthetic leg."

"He often said, 'I can lose my leg, but I cannot lose an inch of the northern section of the third line of defense.'"

Gu Yan remained silent for a long while.

He stood on the edge of the cliff, looking down at the steel Great Wall that stretched into the distance in the night.

The lights along the defensive line stretched out in a continuous line, like a galaxy that had been lit in the darkness and refused to go out.

We wandered around for several more hours.

The alarms sounded on the defensive line.

It wasn't the echo that came from afar like before, but rather an explosion that erupted from the base of the city wall beneath his feet, sharp and piercing, as if someone had shoved an alarm directly into his ear.

Gu Yan suddenly turned around and looked at the sky to the north.

The rift that Yuzuru had created less than two hours ago has reopened.

Wider and more ferocious than the previous wave, it looked as if someone had used an invisible knife to carve a deep red slash into the sky.

Dark red lightning surged at the edge of the rift, and with each flash of lightning, swathes of black tide surged out from within.

"impossible."

Yuzuru's fingers tightened suddenly on the hilt of the sword, and for the first time, a solemnity appeared in his deep brown pupils that Gu Yan had never seen before.

"The last wave of attacks ended less than two hours ago."

"The Kuroshio has never launched a second attack in such a short period of time."

The sky has already given its answer.

Steel colossi emerged from the cracks one after another, this time larger than the previous wave, their gears producing a deafening roar with each rotation.

The skeletal dragon hovered in mid-air, not three heads, but ten, its beating heart spewing dark red dragon breath onto the human battlefield with each beat.

Further into the depths of the rift, even larger and more imposing outlines were slowly coalescing. Their shadows had not yet fully appeared, but the oppressive aura had already caused the ground of the entire defensive line to tremble.

The swarm of bone-eating insects was the first to break through the crack.

So many of them that aerial footage turned them into a vast black ocean. They crawled close to the ground, spewing out pale green poisonous mist from the pores on their backs. The mist gathered into an endless green tide that surged toward the defense line.