Perhaps the Angels led by Nate Schumacher are just destined to be eternal runner-ups.

If Angels and Satan encounter each other on a confined battlefield and must fight to the death, Gao Yang estimates that the Angels have a slightly better chance of winning because Satan lacks pure combat personnel, with at least half of the team supporting roles.

However, pay attention to the "however," if the battlefield isn’t limited, and the two mercenary groups are free to showcase their powers to eliminate the other, Satan can play the Angels to death.

From the beginning, Satan’s policy was to form a small yet full-spectrum force, unlike those groups focused solely on combat, particularly lightweight infantry special operations. Satan aims to use any possible weapons, like tanks, artillery, airplanes; whatever is available can be used.

Moreover, Satan is an extremely rare mercenary group capable of all-terrain operations; whether it’s a vast desert, majestic mountains, freezing polar regions, or the hot and humid rainforest, Satan can adapt to any terrain.

But comparing the all-terrain combat capabilities, Angels aren’t bad, especially after James and Jesse Lee both got injured and left, Satan’s amphibious capability decreased. Although Angels also lost several members in the Donetsk battle, both sides have slightly reduced strength, so this aspect is a draw between the two mercenary groups.

Considering external organizational strength beyond the core team, Angels are currently thriving in Ukraine, already among the top forces in Donetsk, and also prominent throughout Ukraine. But after Russia secretly intervened in the Ukrainian civil war, the Angels’ strength is bound to weaken.

On Satan’s end, Satan’s directly controlled peripheral members aren’t as many as Angels, but Satan has a stable rear base in Somalia, the entire Skull Gang as allies, and the legal cover of the Solar System Company to expand the team at any time. So based on the external organizational strength alone, the two mercenary groups can basically count as equal.

But Angels owe their breakthrough in Ukraine largely to Satan; the Angels’ artillery group was captured by people led by Gao Yang, so how could Angels compare their external firepower strength with Satan?

As for weaponry, without Gao Yang, Angels wouldn’t even have enough arms.

The place where Satan truly surpasses Angels is the strong backing, or the allies. Let’s just say, the largest arms dealer in the world is Satan’s loyal ally, and the largest intelligence broker was cultivated by Gao Yang himself.

Besides, Gao Yang has a major source of wealth, a high-yield, high-quality diamond mine. Although the diamond market is quite unique, as diamonds as special luxury goods can’t be mass-marketed like other raw materials, Gao Yang can still consistently earn hundreds of millions of US dollars annually. That’s millions, only two coffee plantations compared to Nate looks like a pauper.

The worst part is now Nate’s plantations essentially belong to Gao Yang, as he mortgaged them for the cash he desperately needed.

So now if Angels were to compare basic combat power with Satan, there’s still something to compare, but it’s hard to say if they can consistently win life-and-death battles in a narrow scope. Angels are indeed a veteran mercenary group, decades of experience isn’t for nothing, but Satan has Gao Yang, the combat multiplier.

Being less confident in an encounter battle against Angels was actually Gao Yang’s humble thought, the psychological shadow left by Nate in the Bosaso battle was too big, leaving him unable to have absolute confidence in defeating Angels in close-quarters combat, so his choice was that Angels had a slightly bigger chance of winning.

This is Gao Yang’s own assessment, but in Nate’s calculations, it can’t be that way.

Nate is someone who values reputation; how could he compare himself with Gao Yang?

Speaking of comparing the most basic combat power of mercenary groups, Nate wouldn’t dare say Angels are stronger than Satan. The reason is simple, Satan first destroyed Butter Knife and then Cerberus, no matter the method used, based on these two records, who would dare not acknowledge Satan as the first?

Reputation, some care, some don’t. Gao Yang doesn’t care, he doesn’t care about rankings; Nate cares a lot, and his goal is to make Angels the number one mercenary group.

But Nate, this person, is extremely competitive, extremely proud, and extremely arrogant. However, precisely because of his pride, after finally becoming number one, he found the way he achieved this wasn’t as he hoped, nor did it truly reflect his strength, so he would rather abandon this pursuit of being number one for half his life.

Originally, Gao Yang planned to call Nate to hold him accountable, but considering Nate’s character, he thought better of it, figuring Nate must be quite frustrated now, so better not to add salt to the wound.

After reading the magazine for a while, Gao Yang chuckled, "Well, first is first, some things are unavoidable, with enough strength comes being first; no matter what, discovering we’ve been promoted to first does bring a little hidden pleasure."

Cui Bo laughed, "Pleasure’s plenty, but aren’t you planning to scold that kid Nate."

Gao Yang waved his hand, "Forget it, if you want to scold him, he’d want to scold us too; he can’t be first even if Aurora retires, how frustrating."

Saying this, looking at the medium-sized mercenary group rankings, Gao Yang suddenly said, "Hey, compared to us, Iron Madonna truly finds it lonely at the top."

In the fiercely competitive small mercenary group category, Satan became first. But in the medium-sized category, Iron Madonna doesn’t even have competition.

If being over a hundred counts as a medium-sized mercenary group, then there are quite a few in the world at this scale. Like the mercenary group led by Li Qiu also meets the requirement, but that’s just in size, just a bunch of assembled cannon fodder, not even qualified to be on the Mercenary magazine list.

So on the magazine’s medium-sized mercenary group ranking, there is only Iron Madonna’s name, all other positions are empty, powerful without rivals, isn’t that lonely at the top?

Looking at other mercenary group names and introductions, Gao Yang put down the magazine, sighed, "Iron Madonna isn’t easy to deal with, a few times heavily damaged, yet after a few days, they’re back to full scale and strength; I’m very curious how Hydra does it."

Little Donnie shrugged, "Money, fame, recruiting is simple, Hydra won’t die, Iron Madonna won’t extinguish, so to eliminate Iron Madonna, one must take down Hydra."

Gao Yang tossed the magazine onto the coffee table and slapped it confidently, "Sooner or later I’ll destroy it! Even if he truly has nine heads, I’ll twist them off one by one!"