When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

#336 - Battle of Moncruz (VII)

In the forest on the southwestern corner of the fortress, squads of war monks marched in neat steps, appearing on the edge of the battlefield.

They wore uniform silver-gray wrought iron breastplates, holding long spears at the ready, their footsteps mechanical.

“First Spear Division, align with me, close in to the right!”

“Fourth Holy Musket Division, extend one arm's length to the right.”

Amidst the continuous whistles and commands, in about three minutes, the Black Hat First Legion swiftly transformed from a marching formation into a combat formation.

Three hundred spearmen formed a 50x6 formation in the center, while two hundred holy musketeers formed two 20x5 horizontal arrays on the flanks.

In front of the forest, the Black Hat First Legion, led by Victor, had basically completed its initial deployment.

Meanwhile, Rudylow, having been unable to restrain himself and firing a volley at the knights, was still trying to restore discipline.

Behind them, Myura led 200 mountain boar riders, arrayed on Rudylow's left, responsible for protecting their flank.

With Heilwyn absent, the highest-ranking noble was Count Perini of the Arco family.

Count Perini, a Kushite, had been ordered to stay outside, a result of being ostracized by the other knights.

In the end, he became Heilwyn's last hope. Upon receiving command, Perini immediately realized that it was still possible to escape.

The enemy had not yet fully deployed, and Heilwyn might not even be able to get out of the fortress.

However, remembering the blockhead knight and his giant eagle behind him, Perini shuddered and dismissed the idea.

He still had to charge! Perini surveyed the battlefield and made his decision.

“Don't form dense ranks, we're charging immediately. Do you have longbows?” Perini shook his head, asking the others.

A Frankish knight said with a mix of mockery and sarcasm, “I'm not like the herdsmen; I don't use such cowardly weapons.”

“What about you?”

“Haha, no need.”

“A mere longbow? Is the lance such an inconvenient thing?”

After asking around, only about thirty Kushite knights had brought this skill, which was usually only assessed in the arena.

Helpless, Perini could only instruct his compatriots, “When you reach the front, shoot arrows, bring down the first rank, then slow down immediately.

We don't have time to change lances, so we'll have to let the Frankish knights reap the rewards!”

After checking their armor and grabbing shields, which were useless but provided psychological comfort, the knights raised their lances and began their charge.

On the vast plain in front of the fortress, the thunderous sound of hooves echoed as nearly a hundred transcedent knights and over a hundred squire knights launched their attack.

The thundering hooves covered the three hundred meters in moments, and clouds of dust gradually approached the two formations.

“Attention, one hundred and fifty meters!” Perini shouted. Before he could finish, seven or eight arrows were already flying.

“Don't shoot! I told you to shoot at the front!” Perini yelled angrily at the Kushite knights.

One hundred and twenty meters, one hundred meters, eighty meters…

Through the gaps between the charging knights, Perini saw a row of Y-shaped gun rests being set up, with dark muzzles pointing at them.

After a moment of inexplicable palpitations, Perini instinctively ducked down, burying his head in the horse's mane.

“Praise the Holy Wind!”

Forty holy musketeers shuddered simultaneously, the muzzles of their guns pushed skyward by the recoil of the bullets.

Amidst the banshee-like shriek, a keen-eyed knight saw several black dots rapidly approaching, but before he could react.

A lead bullet pierced his breastplate, creating a cavity in his flesh, the enormous impact forcing blood and pieces of meat to spray from the wound.

From Perini's perspective, it looked like a blood arrow shooting out of the knight's chest.

Then, the knight let out a dog-like howl, clutching his chest, unable to even sit up straight, and slid off his horse.

He was clever enough to pull his foot out of the stirrup at the last moment. Another knight, hit in the stomach, wasn't so lucky.

His ankle was caught in the stirrup, and he was dragged along the ground by the frightened, galloping warhorse, his face and hands scraped raw.

Most horrifyingly, Perini watched as the intestines spilling from his stomach caught on a half-buried tree root…

Anyway, as Perini galloped past, he endured the nausea and mercifully gave him a quick death with his sword.

“Assault step!” With seventy meters passed, Perini suppressed the urge to vomit and roared.

At this moment, another seven or eight arrows flew out, landing in the Salvation Army's ranks, but causing little damage.

“What's going on?” Perini roared.

The young Kushite knights' voices were filled with sobs: “I'm scared!”

Without personally experiencing the blowing of the Devil's Wind, one would never know its terror.

Perini could only vent his fear through a war cry: “Don't be afraid, the Holy Father will protect us!”

“Kill—!”

With the final twenty meters, the banshee's shriek sounded once again.

The knights, halfway through their war cries, hurriedly lowered their heads, frantically praying not to be hit.

Straightening up, Perini shouted hoarsely, “Now, shoot!”

Dozens of creaking bowstrings were drawn, Perini placing his index, middle, and ring fingers on the string, an armor-piercing arrow with a chisel head notched between his index and middle fingers.

At such close range, there was no need to raise the bow. Aiming directly downwards, drawing the bow to his cheek, when Perini could see the faces of the Salvation Army soldiers, he released the string.

Twenty heavy arrows instantly felled a dozen spearmen and holy musketeers in the front row. Perini immediately slowed down.

Amidst the young Kushite knights' unwilling expressions, eighty Frankish and Layan knights charged straight towards the Salvation Army ranks.

“Anyway, it's all theirs. Even if we succeed in breaking the line, we won't get much benefit…” Perini loudly consoled the inexperienced Kushite knights as he decelerated and circled back.

“Boom—”

Perini felt something whizzing past his side. He turned his head and witnessed a scene he would never forget.

In the ranks of the holy musketeers, ten unsteady holy musketeers appeared.

The spring-powered guns in their hands were one-third shorter than ordinary spring-powered guns but twice as thick.

The volley guns, called hand cannons, could only be used by Saint favored with more than four units of holy power.

In a legion, there would only be a dozen or twenty of this level, and in theory, each legion would be issued five.

However, Victor felt that Rudylow's side would be impacted, so he gave his hand cannons to Rudylow in advance.

At this moment, ten volley guns with an output comparable to large swivel guns rang out in front of the formation, each barrel loaded with dozens of iron and lead pellets.

After Perini turned around, a rain of lead and iron pellets densely struck the Ibe knights charging straight at them.

“…The Holy Wind blows across the Devil's body,剥开the Devil's skin, revealing the filthy flesh!”

Perini couldn't help but recite this famous line from the Book of Gospels because the scene before him was too similar.

Wherever the Holy Wind blew, the sound of crackling explosions resounded. Thick armor instantly shattered into pieces on the ground.

Their originally sturdy muscles were torn into strips of flesh by the buckshot.

Warhorses reared up and neighed in pain. The forty knights in the first two ranks seemed to have been swept by a giant palm, falling down simultaneously and stiffly.

Behind the hand cannons, the ground was littered with wailing knights.

However, even with the increased number, even after sacrificing accuracy and range, they still couldn't instantly kill the knights.

Most of the knights on the ground were wailing; they were mostly seriously injured, with few actually killed by a single shot.

Perini turned his horse around and ran towards the remaining knights, shouting as he ran, “There's still hope! Keep charging!”

Indeed, there was still hope, because the knights were so close, and the Salvation Army had fallen into temporary chaos after being shot down by the heavy arrows.

That one attack had been loud, but the casualties were similar to the sum of the previous two rounds of shooting.

If they continued to charge at this moment, they could still achieve their intended goal.

“It's a devil!”

“Quick, get the monks, we can't fight devils!”

“What about prayer magic? Monks, come quickly!”

After facing the bloody and cruel buckshot, most of the knights were shaken. Some cowardly knights couldn't bear it and took the lead in running back.

The others, seeing the people they knew running, followed suit. One led another, and everyone started to run in the opposite direction.

During this time, they were even shot in the back by the reorganized holy musketeers.

“Old Brother Myura, it's up to you!” Standing on a thick tree root, Victor shouted to Myura.

“Don't worry!” With a flick of the reins, Myura led two hundred mountain boar riders, riding riding horses and a small number of warhorses, and galloped out.

Upon discovering that they were being chased by fully armed black armored knights, the Ibe knights ran even faster.

Turning his horse around, Perini finally caught up with the knights fleeing towards Heilwyn and questioned, “Why are you running? We can still charge!”

“That's a devil; we're no match!”

“You didn't charge, so of course, you can stand there and talk without back pain.”

“Believe me, let's charge one more time. If we keep running now, we'll only be…”

“Get out of the way, you unclean one! It's all your bad command!”

A Frankish knight brushed past Perini, his whip intentionally or unintentionally flicking, striking Perini's cheek with a snap.

Touching the bloody whip mark, Perini, who had been calling on the knights and rallying the routed soldiers, instantly fell silent.

“Uncle Perini!” A Kushite knight ran to Perini's side. “Are you okay?”

Perini didn't answer. He touched his cheek, looked at the bright red blood on his palm, and laughed twice, as if angry and self-deprecating.

“It's okay. Gather all the Kushite knights; let's break through together, kill our way out!”