pdf-ebookys #276 - Follow me to charge [4k 2 in 1]
#276 - Follow me to charge [4k 2 in 1]
Even Hoen had to admit that Beaulieu's judgment of the battle situation was incredibly sharp.
The charge of the Edict Knights, bypassing the position from the side, not only caused the War Monks to worry and fear for Hoen's safety, but also caused a certain degree of confusion in the command of several legions in order to stop the Edict Knights.
Beaulieu quickly seized this opportunity.
As the first rain of spring fell, Beaulieu just happened to finish drinking the last mouthful of Khan potion.
He drew a 屮 character on his forehead and prayed, "Father, I thank you!"
When he opened his eyes again, the piety in his eyes faded away, leaving only madness and anger: "All troops, charge!"
"In the name of the Holy Father, kill!"
"Wipe out these heretics!"
"After this battle, we'll go home!"
The armored soldiers shouted loudly, boosting the morale of the infantry.
Shaking the reins, feeling the rise and fall of the warhorse under him, Beaulieu's heart gradually accelerated.
The cold rain fell on the bird-beak helmet, seeping into the gambeson through the gaps in the armor.
The misty rain blurred everything, and the rumbling of spring thunder echoed in the gloomy sky.
His body rose and fell with the horse, and behind Beaulieu, 85 lancer squadrons, along with 150 squire knights, rejoined the battlefield.
They divided into two groups, approaching the left and right wings of the Salvation Army from two directions, like the venomous fangs of interlocking black snakes.
Behind them were the remaining two thousand Night Watchmen who could still fight.
In front of them were the War Monks, flustered by the sudden attack from the rear.
The distance of three hundred meters passed in a flash, the cold wind whistling, whipping up icy raindrops that pattered crisply against the knights' armor.
The Edict Knights couldn't distinguish whether it was rain or lead bullets, but from time to time two or three knights fell to the ground in blood.
The black plumes on their helmets swayed in the wind and rain, and the rain flowed down the seams of their armor, like streams of black streams.
The horses' hooves heavily pounded the muddy ground, splashing layers of mud, each leap seeming to trample on the hearts of the War Monks.
They could hear their own hearts pounding.
One hundred meters, seventy meters, fifty meters...
Crossing obstacles and bushes, their hooves were covered with a lot of cobwebs, but this could not hinder the speed of the Edict Knights in the front row.
Close, they could already see the steel wall composed of holy rifles and spears.
The breastplates of the War Monks gleamed dimly in the rain, and their faces, either stern or fearful, were covered by armor, revealing only pairs of numb eyes.
A drop of rain slid from the tip of a spear, splashing a puddle in a pothole.
"Assault!"
Suddenly, with Beaulieu's roar, the warhorses leapt into the air, and the knights grinned as they entered the final stage of the charge.
"Front kneeling and rear standing firing formation!"
Chuck, the legion commander of the Black Hat Fifth Legion, issued a sharp, explosive sound.
Gears turned, and firing pins exploded.
The rain in mid-air seemed to be attracted by something, and a vortex-like airflow sucked them into the gun barrels.
The pawls opened, sparks flew, and dozens of lead bullets burst out.
The lead bullets pierced through the raindrops, and several knights fell in response, their armor hitting the ground with a heavy thud.
Warhorses neighed, and the people on their backs rolled in the mud, clutching their broken wounds and screaming in pain.
His companions didn't stop at all, hundreds of knights leapt into the air, crossing over the fallen warhorses.
With the last ten meters left, Beaulieu straightened his body from a prone position, clamping the lance under his arm: "For the glory of Laya!"
"Hide in the spear phalanx... No, scatter, everyone scatter!" Legion Commander Chuck shouted hoarsely.
But it was too late.
Like a giant hammer hitting a mountain rock, the charging Edict Knights crashed into the ranks of the holy riflemen like thunder.
The huge impact caused the holy riflemen to fly up one after another, flying three to five meters in the air before landing, rolling more than two meters before stopping.
Their breastplates burst and shattered, flesh and blood splattering like mud, and their necks were twisted at the moment of landing, their spines and ribs piercing directly out of their skin.
"Spearmen, turn right, stab diagonally upwards!"
The Edict Knights were too fast, not only did the spearmen not even have time to hide in the spear phalanx, but the spearmen themselves could not change direction.
The flank was the biggest weakness of the Galar horizontal formation.
"Crack—crack—"
The V-shaped formation formed by twenty Edict Knights crashed straight into the spear phalanx.
The refined spears struck the charging Edict Knights, and the shafts broke instantly, wood chips flying in all directions, scattering across the sky.
Several spearmen on the right grunted and were forced backwards by their own spears, falling heavily to the ground on their backs.
Under the force of the recoil, the four or five Edict Knights at the front fell backwards from their warhorses.
But they quickly got up again, raising their knightly swords and killing the nearby spearmen.
"Devil's dogs!"
"Go to hell, heretics!"
The arming sword broke the moment it touched the knightly sword, and the Edict Knight kicked the spearman's calf.
The spearman's calf immediately bent backwards, and dark red flesh was exposed to the air.
"Ah—" Covering his calf, the spearman's wail was not finished when a silver light flashed and his head landed heavily.
"Sark? Sark! You, you devils!"
Seeing his younger brother's tragic death in the gaps of the crowd, Sark's elder brother's eyes turned red instantly.
"Come back, come back, form ranks, have you forgotten the military law?!"
Raising his spear, he rushed forward regardless, and the brigade commander's obstruction did not play any role.
"Ridiculous!" A cold snort from the knight came from his ear, and the horse's hooves were raised high, and the hard and heavy horseshoe kicked down head-on.
In the turbid snorting sound, he fell straight backwards, his back of the head heavily hitting his brother's stomach, his chest collapsed, blood spurted out, and his widened eyes looked at the dark sky.
The Edict Knights opened a gap in the spear horizontal formation, and the Transcendent Knights immediately poured in to tear it open.
While charging left and right, their speed was still decreasing at an alarming rate in front of the low-level Transcendent War Monks.
Soon several Transcendent Knights were dragged off their horses by halberds and spears.
Surround them, kill their horses, and they won't have any way, the division captain who had half his face cut off shouted loudly:
"Surround them, surround them!"
"Assemble!"
The Templar Knights blew the horns hanging from their waists, and the Transcendent Knights immediately turned back to assemble, using the Edict Knights as the blade, and rushed out of the encirclement that the War Monks had finally built.
The sound of hooves faded away, and the battlefield was quiet for a moment.
The War Monks of the Black Hat Fifth Legion looked at the corpses all over the ground in a daze and despair.
Among those corpses, there were only two corpses of Edict Knights, and the rest of the dozens of corpses were all War Monks.
Could it be that the Edict Knights were really so invincible?
Only when the Edict Knights charged up did the war really begin?
Going around a bend outside, and picking up the horse speed again, Beaulieu excitedly lifted the mask of his helmet, exposing his ferocious, ghost-like face to the air.
"Unclean! Accept your destiny!" Slaying a holy rifleman who was running away with his back to him with a sword, half of Beaulieu's armor was stained red with blood.
The knightly sword in his hand continued to slash and kill, and under the influence of the potion, he shouted like a madman:
"The fate of farmers is to provide everything for the knights! You are born slaves! Unclean!"
"Accept your fate! This is the arrangement of the Holy Father, and no one can disobey!"
Blood spread in the mud, mixed with rainwater, forming streams of dark red streams, flowing in every corner of the battlefield.
The dark red blood reflected the gloomy sky, and below the gray sky, Hoen's hand holding the telescope trembled slightly.
Looking down from his perspective, the Edict Knights were like steel knives piercing into a soft abdomen, and they cut open the entire Black Hat Fifth Legion in the blink of an eye.
The Black Hat First Legion on the left wing and the Guards Second Legion in the middle were slightly better, but only slightly better.
"The Guards Great Lift Rifle Squad, go forward to support the Black Hat Fifth Legion and cover the rotation of the Fifth Legion and the Black Hat Second Legion."
Putting down the telescope and handing it to Pasrik next to him, Hoen really couldn't bear to see these good lads who had eaten and lived with him for three months die in a bloody mess.
"Your Majesty, the Black Hat Second Legion may not be up to the task, and the Black Hat Sixth Legion has to be rotated."
Hoen's voice paused: "Why?"
"Most of the holy riflemen of the Black Hat Second Legion have exhausted their holy power, and it is difficult for them to even stand still, and the spearmen have consumed too much physical strength due to close combat."
Hakuto hesitated for a while, "Actually, the situation of the Black Hat Sixth Legion is not very good either, just better than the Second Legion. Our situation..."
"Not optimistic." Putting down the telescope, Pasrik took over Hakuto's words, "Hoen boy, you have to be prepared to evacuate in advance. According to our original plan, such a long time is definitely enough."
"Has the situation deteriorated to this point?" Covering his head that was dizzy due to the exhaustion of holy power, Hoen paled and supported the side of the carriage, "We were clearly about to win just now."
Pasrik still had a nonchalant attitude: "The one who laughs last wins. As for why, don't you know better than us?"
Hoen did not answer, he took two steps back and leaned against the side of the carriage.
Yes, he knew better than anyone else.
From morning to afternoon, the holy riflemen and spearmen kept replacing each other, relying on invigorating ointment to maintain their spirits.
On Hoen's position, there were always people fighting, always people resting, and even a considerable number of holy riflemen were sleeping.
By constantly rotating, Hoen tried his best to preserve the physical strength and endurance of the War Monks.
But the fact is that after more than 3 hours of continuous fighting, the War Monks have reached their limit.
In the previous commotion, the legions on both wings had command confusion to a certain extent.
Although Hoen issued an edict to prove that he was fine, the confusion in command and formation could not be recovered immediately.
This window of time was extremely short, but it was seized by Beaulieu.
He used the sharpest knife to stab into the softest ribs of the Salvation Army, and reversed the situation in one fell swoop.
The Black Hat First and Fifth Legions on both wings were on the verge of collapse, leaving only the Guards Second Legion in the middle still holding on.
The farmers and low-level knights exhausted the holy power and physical strength of the War Monks.
In the bloody killing field, even the holy riflemen who had exhausted their holy power endured their headaches, took out their arming swords and wooden shields, and fought in close combat with the Night Watchmen and Transcendent Knights.
They supported their tired bodies and were about to kill themselves into blood men.
The War Monks did not understand, they had clearly repelled the attacks of the Transcendent Knights one after another.
Were those successes just illusions?
Did the war only really begin when the Edict Knights charged up?
Shaking Hoen's shoulders, Pasrik's usually cynical old face was extremely serious: "Hoen, wake up! We can't bury all the good children on this battlefield.
If we leave now, we can preserve the three legions behind."
"Is it too late?" Hoen asked.
Pasrik shook his head: "It's too late. When the Guards Second Legion collapses, there won't even be a chance to retreat into Gray Furnace Town. Make a decision quickly."
"..." Standing in place, Hoen looked in the direction of Jeanne d'Arc Castle.
Pasrik frowned tightly, he impatiently grabbed Hoen's arm: "Speak up, the sooner you make a decision, the fewer people will die."
"..." Hoen muttered to himself, looking at the ground.
"What? What did you say?"
Taking a deep breath, Hoen raised his head, he looked at Pasrik, and said with a smile: "If I chose to preserve, I wouldn't be standing here, then I should be standing on the land of Marsh Town."
Pasrik was stunned, and the young man who stood in front of the boat leaving Jeanne d'Arc Castle three months ago overlapped with the person in front of him again.
"This is different from before..."
"It's the same." Hoen patted Pasrik's shoulder, "We don't know what's going on with Jeanne. If we all lose, where can we retreat to? The Great Marsh? What about the Protectorate Army that follows us, and the locals of Jeanne d'Arc Castle?"
Pasrik opened his mouth, but didn't say anything else.
"Aren't they afraid that I will die? Aren't they afraid that I will be attacked? Aren't they afraid that I will abandon them?"
Hoen walked to the carriage, took off his light breastplate, and put on the heavy Milanese three-quarter infantry armor.
"Then I will let them see that I didn't abandon them in the past, I won't abandon them now, and I won't abandon them in the future!"
Putting on his shoulder armor and gorget, and putting his arms into his arm armor, Hoen tied the Blood Veil Cloud around his waist, his eyes shining terribly.
"Armand, bring over my Papal banner!"
"Your holy power is exhausted." Pasrik followed up, "Even if you go, what's the use?"
"I once promised them." Hoen turned around, opened his arms, and let the Guards War Monks next to him help him put on his thigh armor, "Live with you, die with you."
Taking out the Radish Copper Seal from his pocket, he threw it to Pasrik: "If I die, give it to Jeanne. If Jeanne dies, give it to Madelaine. If Madelaine also dies, keep it yourself."
Turning over the copper seal, Pasrik looked straight at the words "Appointed by the Holy, Benefit Life and Death" on the copper seal, he raised his head, as if begging: "I don't want it."
"Old Man Pasrik, now is not the time to be sulking."
"Who is that? I am Chrispa..."
"Hahahaha."
First stunned, Horne burst out laughing.
He put on the final helmet and took the sun flag representing the Pope from Armand's hand.
Looking at Patrick's complex eyes, Horne slammed the flagpole on the ground, not knowing whether he was saying it to him or to himself:
"This is a battle that wasn't finished three months ago, and I have to finish it."
Turning around, in front of him was the First Guards Corps, the most elite group of war monks in the entire Salvation Army.
They had been waiting for a long time.
Each of them had at least one segment of breathing techniques, most of them wearing three-quarter armor of extraordinary knights, holding the finest spears and knight swords.
They were the Pope's guard, the final trump card, and the last reserve team.
The blood-covered cloud in his hand glowed with an unprecedented red light, reflecting on Horne's firm, blood-like face.
"Those who yearn for freedom, follow me..."
"Charge!"