The Ares II Powered Armor lumbered slowly through the dense forest. It was coated in a startling, gaudy layer of pure gold, a brilliant, arrogant hue that offered absolutely no camouflage in the woods. Its only discernible effect was to announce its presence from miles away: Come and destroy me!

Its squat, round body resembled an oil drum, to which four thick arms and legs had been crudely appended. It looked less like humanoid armor and more like a steamed bun upon which four fried dough sticks had been haphazardly stuck.

To behold soldiers moving across a battlefield in such suits must have been comedic. They looked like a brigade of adorable, cartoonish infants!

The shoulders, elbows, hips, knees, and ankles of the armor were all banded with segments considerably thicker than the adjoining limbs. Thin plasma nozzles were slotted haphazardly across these key joints, making the design look disjointed no matter how one viewed it. It was obvious that massive plasma engines were housed within these limbs, providing brute-force propulsion. Most conspicuous was the carapace-like hump on the armor’s back, featuring three fist-sized plasma vents that occasionally spat out plumes of ghostly blue fire.

In the command center, the experts chuckled softly. Based on the placement and size of the plasma vents on the Ares III suits, the knowledgeable ones instantly recognized that these weren't the miniaturized engines designed for powered infantry armor. Instead, they appeared to be light combat vehicle engines somehow jury-rigged into a single unit. Beneath the meter-wide protrusion on the back, there was likely at least one main engine module salvaged from a medium-class vehicle.

Because these vehicle engines were so bulky, the Ares III Powered Armor stood an astonishing four-and-a-half meters tall.

"Is that a suit of single-soldier combat armor, or a single-pilot bipedal vehicle?" Toxic Wolf sneered in cold amusement. "Hmm?"

Heckoms remained unperturbed. "It is certainly single-soldier armor. We shall judge it by the outcome of the battle!"

Gu Xiechen’s attention wasn't on these technical minutiae. He was fixated on the silver markings tracing across the Ares III suits—those familiar silver lines. The multi-layered circular magic arrays, emitting a faint, spectral glow—this was the unique Divine Rune array system employed by the Vatican Curia, capable of massively boosting the Ares III's defensive capabilities!

Glaring irritably at Amphitrite, Amphitrite gracefully nodded toward them. His lips moved slightly, communicating in silent speech, "Yes, we intervened!"

The bulky, enormous Ares III suits advanced slowly, taking heavy, deliberate strides. But since all their motive power came from the transplanted vehicle engines, while undeniably powerful, this type of engine lacked the necessary finesse for subtle power modulation. Consequently, the Ares III's movement carried the reckless momentum of a charging rhinoceros. Several times, they couldn't turn in time and slammed straight into towering tree trunks, shattering the massive trees and bringing them down with deafening crashes.

Gu Xiechen let out a cold laugh, deliberately making sure everyone heard him.

"Soldiers wearing this armor for combat—the Romanians will know they’ve arrived from a hundred kilometers away! Perhaps we should rename them 'The Loggers'?"

The generals aligned with the Toxic Wolf faction responded with synchronized, sharp bursts of laughter, their pitch variations identical. The generals supporting Heckoms, however, simultaneously fell silent, their faces hardening. Hundreds of eyes glared murderously at Gu Xiechen, gazes sharp as blades, wishing they could cleave his body into pieces.

In contrast, the Hercules I armors a dozen kilometers away on the other side of the dense wood moved with an almost ethereal grace. They relied on a single, relatively compact central engine, with seventy percent of their remaining power derived from micro-engines distributed throughout their frames. Every joint housed an engine dedicated to that specific system, all utilizing a unique energy output regulation system for precise, efficient power delivery. They moved through the forest as nimbly as living beings. The five scout suits leading the charge made no extraneous sound whatsoever as they advanced, flowing through the thicket like water, not even scraping a sliver of bark.

Their specialized black coating subtly shifted color to match the forest background, allowing the armors to virtually melt into the surroundings, making them almost impossible to spot with the naked eye.

The two armor columns gradually closed the distance. When the forward scout teams were approximately three thousand meters apart, the bearded Captain's squad uniformly raised their high-energy laser rifles and agilely scaled the nearest trees, moving with the dexterity of monkeys. As they climbed, the armors’ five-fingered manipulators flexed and gripped with fluidity, indistinguishable from human hands.

Toxic Wolf applauded forcefully, remaining silent, while the generals of his faction joined in with applause and cheers. The mobility of the Hercules I armor was truly astonishing. After donning these suits, a soldier's maneuverability was increased by at least threefold. A regular soldier certainly couldn't scale a forty-meter-tall tree in just a few seconds like these suits had just done.

Heckoms’s expression turned grim. He shot an annoyed glance at Gu Xiechen.

Gu Xiechen, Jinkly, and Amphitrite all smiled at Heckoms, radiating an air of complete control over the situation.

The bearded Captain shouldered his rifle and aimed at a golden armor three thousand meters away, which was charging recklessly toward a large rock, only to crash into it clumsily, shattering half the stone while tumbling over itself. The Ares III's coating was so dazzlingly conspicuous that it required no optical aid; normal human eyes could spot them from kilometers away.

Through the armor’s integrated battlefield command system, the fifty scouts allocated their targets within one hundredth of a second. Everyone simultaneously unleashed a sustained burst toward the heads of their respective targets.

Fifty blinding streaks of white laser tore through the air, lancing toward the heads of the thirty Ares III scouts from the Gu Group.

The struck Ares III suits simultaneously erupted with thick, blue energy shields. The lasers struck the shields, sparking a myriad of flares. Faintly, a few blue energy arcs flickered within the laser beams before the shields suddenly fractured, allowing the lasers to slam directly into the armor chassis.

Gu Xiechen leaped up suddenly, exclaiming, "Impossible!"

Jinkly, his face dark, grabbed Gu Xiechen’s arm and forcefully pulled him back into his seat. Amphitrite shot Gu Xiechen an irritated look, finding his reaction overly dramatic.

The Divine Rune arrays on the Ares III suits suddenly flared with dazzling silver light. The incoming lasers struck this thin silver glow, causing it to ripple continuously, yet showing no sign of failure.

Then, several invisible blue beams shot down from within the lasers. The Divine Rune array flickered violently, as if an electric bulb had been struck by lightning. Several critical nodes on the array suddenly exploded, allowing the white laser beams to pierce through and strike directly into the armor’s head—the housing for the concentration of data collectors and observation instruments—blasting a clean, transparent hole through it. The thirty Ares III suits convulsed briefly before collapsing heavily onto the ground.

Gu Xiechen chuckled softly. On the screen, the fifty scouts from Hadwar Corporation accurately targeted the nearly one hundred Ares III units behind the first line, destroying them all.

Heckoms’s face turned pitch black, while large beads of cold sweat streamed down Gu Xiechen’s forehead. Jinkly stared furiously at Amphitrite, who looked bewilderedly at the display, completely unable to comprehend how this could happen. He had paid an exorbitant sum to bring in several Bishops from the Curia who specialized in Divine Rune arrays to envelop the armors in an astonishingly powerful magical matrix. Of course, these Bishops hadn't used their full capabilities, but even so, this array shouldn't have been penetrated by ordinary high-energy laser rifles!

The Ares III armors in the forest began a rapid charge. They raised their standard weaponry—the 100mm high-energy particle cannons designed for medium-sized vehicles! Only the salvaged vehicle engines mounted on their backs could withstand such extreme energy output. Even combined, the Hercules I's micro-engines could never supply that much power.

The Ares III's maximum sprint speed reached an astonishing three hundred kilometers per hour, a capability also related to their weaponry; they carried only one type of heavy cannon.

But this was a dense forest, not an open plain. The consequence of the Ares III charging at full speed was that numerous units slammed headlong into tree trunks, snapping the massive trees in half, pulverizing the wood into dust, sending countless splinters flying everywhere. They unleashed continuous fire into the forest ahead, the barrage of shells blasting the woods into a maelstrom of dust and fire—the sheer impact was equivalent to a combined assault by a heavy armor regiment! Wherever the armors passed, swathes of forest trees fell in their wake.

Clap, clap, clap, clap. Gu Xiechen clapped loudly in appreciation, nodding toward Gu Xiechen. "A magnificent work! Truly astounding. So that's what they mean by 'blundering into trees'! But these suits are slated for deployment on Paradise Star. Alas... if they employ this headlong charging tactic on Paradise Star, those soldiers will be truly pitiful!"

Toxic Wolf pursed his lips into a smile, and his faction's generals echoed his scornful laughter. In the dense forests south of the Himalayas, the thickest tree trunks were barely the size of a man's embrace. The rampaging Ares III could certainly smash through these easily. However, the colossal trees in the primeval forests of Paradise Star averaged several meters in diameter. If the Ares III used the same tactics there, the outcome was easy to imagine—it would be a miracle if the soldiers' necks weren't snapped!

Heckoms took the coffee offered by his aide and downed the scalding liquid in one go. Whether it was the heat of the coffee or his own surging vitality, his face quickly flushed the color of solidified blood. The fine bone china cup dissolved silently into fine powder in his grip, dusting softly between his fingers as it fell.