“Freckles!” someone shouted, “He’s injured!”
“Don’t move him!” Brian roared, “I’ll check his injuries, you guys keep shooting.”
He handed the buqiang to the new recruit responsible for reloading behind him, bent down and waded to the other side. The injured man was still conscious, shivering and asking, “Captain, am I… am I going to die?”
The short spear had pierced his chest at a lower angle. It wasn't clear if it had gone all the way through, but seeing that his breathing was still smooth, it probably hadn't injured his lungs. During cultural studies, Prince Roland had briefly explained the functions of various organs in the human body and emergency measures in case of injury. In this situation, the best method he could think of was to leave it alone and wait for Nana Waxiaojie to treat him after the battle was over.
“Does it hurt?” Brian asked.
Freckles nodded with difficulty.
“Being able to feel pain means you won’t die,” the knight placed his hand on his forehead, “You should know Nana Waxiaojie’s abilities, right?”
“Yes,” Freckles barely managed a smile, “Everyone usually… wants to see her, so… I, I can see her too.”
“That’s right, so you have to hold on.”
After Brian finished speaking, he returned to the shooting window. The new recruit glanced back worriedly, “Shouldn't we bachulai the short spear?”
“bachulai is more likely to cause heavy bleeding, you’ll understand when you learn about these things,” he paused, “What we can do now is to defeat the enemy as soon as possible.”
……
Roland stood on the high platform and could clearly see the enemies surging towards the town like a tide.
Their speed slowed down significantly every time they crossed a row of bunkers. When they crossed the third row, the enemy’s flanks were completely exposed to the shooter’s crossfire.
Echo's ability was very obvious. Although the formation was stretched into a long line, most people were still running on the avenue according to the concentrated charge orders constantly issued by the witch.
People fell in batches every moment, and they were helpless. Facing the fortifications that could not be destroyed by swords and spears, the Tiffer militias could only endure casualties and continue to advance.
Three hundred meters after the third row of bunkers was the artillery position—within this distance, it was the kill zone covered by xiàndàn.
The lightning in the sky had changed the flag to a bright red.
The firing angles of the twenty cannons were lowered, spewing flames and thick smoke forward. Roland roughly estimated that the most skilled artillery crew could nèishè out a xiàndàn in twenty seconds, while the slower ones took about half a minute. At first glance, it seemed close to the firing rate of excellent artillery crews during the American Civil War, but the latter's three rounds per minute achievement was based on solid shot firing, and a lot of time was spent on resetting and repeatedly aiming the cannons. When firing xiàndàn, there was no need to aim or clean the barrel, so the rate of fire could be increased even higher.
But for the enemy, this was already a terrifying rate of fire. The damage of xiàndàn to unarmored targets was particularly astonishing. Almost every iron ball could penetrate two or three people. Pills could resist pain, but they could not suppress fear. When watching the people around them being shot into sieves one by one, even if they were full of excitement and desire for killing, they could no longer suppress the fear of life’s instincts. What’s more, they were not a tough steel force in the first place. Without the pills, these people were just a group of untrained civilians lacking actual combat experience. When half of them were lying on the charging road, deserters began to appear in the enemy army.
Fear spread like a plague. After the first one, the second and third appeared quickly. The front line completely stopped advancing and began to turn around and retreat. The artillery crew changed to solid shot again and fired at the center of the road, while the riflemen in the bunkers never stopped firing.
Piles of corpses fell on the avenue.
……
Le Wen’s anger gradually cooled down, and he began to feel scared.
More than twenty people initially discovered the witch who was creating chaos. She was wearing strange clothes and almost blended in with the surrounding scenery when she lurked in the woods. If she hadn't been following the main force forward, constantly guiding everyone to lean towards the center of the road, his men would hardly have been able to spot her.
Even so, she caused Le Wen a lot of trouble—he found that the witch's imitated voice was erratic and did not need to be emitted from her mouth. Sometimes it was on the left, sometimes on the right, and sometimes it even sounded from behind him. The content was also diverse, such as imitating his accent to issue orders, or the tragic cries for help from a militiaman.
But just as they wanted to surround her and capture her, the woman in white appeared again.
Le Wen relived the shocking scene of Lehman. Hoss being killed in front of him in the blink of an eye.
She held a silver-white light crossbow in her hand. As long as sparks and loud noises burst out, someone would fall.
The encirclement pocket was instantly torn apart, and everyone became startled birds for a while. Armor could not resist it, and shields were useless. The iron-clad round shield in Le Wen’s hand was broken in half. The small holes leaking light on the iron skin told him how powerful the opponent's weapon was. Comparable to it, perhaps, was only the heavy crossbow. If he hadn't subconsciously lowered his head to dodge, he would probably have become a corpse.
But a heavy crossbow cannot be fired in succession!
The white-clothed witch's ability to appear and disappear, coupled with a terrifying weapon that did not need to be reloaded, made Le Wen realize that he had no chance of winning. Once this awareness took hold, his anger quickly extinguished like it had encountered a cold wind.
“Take the pills and kill her when she shows up!”
While shouting this, Le Wen himself retreated, and when she focused her attention on those militiamen, he ran wildly towards the outside of the forest.
It was safer to stay with the main force. She would never dare to attack him in the crowd!
This forest also grew very strangely. The dense weeds were almost knee-deep, and the ground was covered with vines. One could easily be tripped. Stumbling all the way out of the forest, Le Wen looked ahead, wanting to join the main force, but the scene in front of him left him dumbfounded.
The militiamen whose drug effects had not yet worn off were retreating… no, they were running away. Those who ran slowly or had not reacted were knocked to the ground and mercilessly trampled by those who followed. They were like galloping horses when charging, and the same when running away. The turbulent crowd stirred up dust all over the sky, and he didn’t dare to step forward to stop them at all.
What exactly happened? Le Wen was stunned in disbelief. In such a short period of time, 1,500 people had completely collapsed? And this was under the influence of pills! Could the prince's subordinates all be monsters?
Just then, the sound of footsteps on the weeds came from behind him. He gritted his teeth and suddenly drew his sword and stabbed behind him—at this critical moment of life and death, this quick sword was even faster than ever, like a bolt of lightning. What greeted him was dazzling firelight. The sword was shattered by something, sparks flew everywhere, and then a stinging pain came from his sword-holding right hand. The feeling in his fingertips instantly disappeared.
When he moved his gaze to his arm, Le Wen realized that half of his arm was gone, exposing red and white muscles and bones, like blooming snake grass flowers. The woman in white walked towards him expressionlessly, and he couldn't help but take two steps back, and then tripped to the ground.
The witch put a foot on his shoulder, and the cold weapon pressed against his forehead. From this angle, Le Wen saw the other party’s face hidden under the hood.
So... beautiful.
This was his last thought before the gunshot.(。)