Chapter 200 Hunters and Prey
“Freckle!” Someone shouted, “He’s injured!”
“Do not move him!” Brian roared, “I’ll go and take a look at his injury, you continue shooting.”
He put his rifle in the hands of the recruit at his side, the one who was responsible for loading, and lowered his waist to approach the injured soldier. The wounded, who still hadn’t lost his consciousness, asked in a trembling voice, “Captain, I… am I going to die?”
The short spear had pierced him at the lower pit of the stomach, it was unclear if it had gone through, however, seeing that his breath still seemed to be flowing freely, the spear must not have punctured his lung. During culture class, His Royal Highness had briefly described the various organs of the human body and which measures were to be taken in the case of an injury. The best solution Brian could think of at the moment, was to remain here and wait until the end of the fight, then allow for Miss Nana to come over and treat him.
“Does it hurt?” Brian asked.
Freckles nodded with difficulty.
“Since you can still feel pain it means you won’t die,” to reassure the Knight, he put his hand on Freckle’s forehead. “You should know about Miss Nana ‘s ability, right?”
“Uhhn,” With difficulty, Freckles was able to show a smile. “During times of peace, everyone… wants to go see her, putting it that way, I… I, I can finally see her, now.”
“That’s right! Therefore you have to persevere.”
When Brian returned to his shooting window, the recruit turned towards him and asked concerned. “Why didn’t you pull the spear out?”
“By pulling it out it is likely that instead of helping, it could cause massive bleeding, later in class you will also learn about this, and then everything will become clear,” he paused. “The best we can now do for him, is to defeat the enemy as quickly as possible.”
…
Standing on his heightened stage, Roland could clearly see the enemy rushing like a tide towards the town.
The moment they crossed the first row of bunkers, their speed slowed down a lot, by the time they reached the third row of bunkers, the enemy’s flanks were fully exposed to riflemen’s crossfire.
Echo’s task was quite obvious, even though the enemy’s force was stretched into a long line, most of them still acted in accordance with her unceasingly issued “concentrated charge” command, rushing along the road.
Every moment there were a lot of their people falling, and they couldn’t do anything about it. Having to face up against a fortification they couldn’t destroy with their spears and swords, Timothy’s militia force could do nothing except endure the casualties they faced and continue pushing forward.
After they passed the third row of bunkers, they crossed the 300 meters mark, which meant that now the cannons would now be loaded with canister shells. Among the gunner’s, stepping into this area was also known as entering into the death zone.
In the sky, Lightning had replaced her flag with one in bright red.
The angle of the 20 cannons were lying flat, their front spit out flames and thick smoke. Roland had roughly estimated, that the most skilled artillery group would be able to release one shrapnel shot every twenty seconds, while the slowest would needed around 30 seconds. At first glance, it seemed that they came close to the rate of fire of the best artillery groups during the American Civil War, but the latter’s three shots per minute were performed with solid shells, for which they had to clean the cannon repeatedly and aim it at the target once more. However, canister shells could be fired without aiming, and the cannon also didn’t need to be wiped, so it was only natural that the rate of fire would be fast.
For the enemy, such a rate of fire was terrible news. Furthermore, the canister shells’ kill and injure-rate without even aiming was especially astonishing, almost every iron bullet would penetrate two to three people. Although after taking the pill they could withstand a great deal of pain, the pills couldn’t also suppress fear.
When seeing how the people around them were slaughtered one after another, even if they were totally excited and thirsted after massacre, they were unable to suppress their body’s instinctual fear of death. Even more, they originally hadn’t been a iron-willed force, without their pills, these people were just a group of untrained, civilians lacking in true practical combat experience. When half of their force laid out on the road, the enemy began to flee.
Like a plague the fear quickly spread, what began with one person was soon followed by a second then a third, until the forefront eventually completely stopped with its assault, and instead wholly started to turn around and flee. Once again the artillery regiment changed their ammunition to solid bullets, aiming at the center of the road, while the whole time the bunkers had never ceased in their shooting.
Creating a pile of corpses laid on top of the road.
…
As Levin’s raging heart gradually cooled down, a feeling of fear began to grow within him.
In the beginning, more than 20 people had set out and discovered the witch wearing strange clothes, who created the chaos, hiding within the forest, almost perfectly integrating with the surrounding scenery. If she hadn’t moved forward along with the main force, always guiding the people to cram themselves together at the middle of the road, it would have been almost impossible for them to detect her.
Even after they had discovered her, she still caused considerable trouble to Levin. He found out that she didn’t need her mouth to imitate the voices and even more the sound drifted around without an anchored source. Sometimes, it was coming from the left, other times it would come from the right, and at times even came from behind him. The content was also varied, such as imitating his accent and giving orders or sending out a distressed call for help from a fellow militiamen.
But when they wanted to close in and seize her, the woman dressed in white appeared again.
Seeing her, Levin recalled the shocking scene of her killing Lehman Hawes.
In her hand she was grasping a silver-white “light crossbow”, and the moment she sent out a spark, with a loud bang, another person would fall.
The surrounding encirclement was instantaneously torn into shreds, all of them suddenly turning into frightened birds.
My armor doesn’t offer any protection, and using a shield also doesn’t work, the iron shield tied to Levin’s arm had been broken in half, seeing the hole in the metal told him how powerful that weapon really was.
I’m afraid the only weapon that can match up with this power is a heavy crossbow. If he hadn’t subconsciously lowered his head, he would have already become a corpse by now.
But a heavy crossbow can’t be fired off in succession!
With her hiding ability and her unrivaled weapon, Levin realized that they stood no chance of winning. The moment he became aware of this it felt as if he had met with a cold wind, his burning rage was quickly extinguished.
“Take the pills and kill her the moment she appears!”
Even though his mouth called to attack, Levin himself retreated, planning on running into the woods the moment she put her focus on the militia.
No, it should be even safer to stay within the large group, she will never dare attack me when I’m inside the crowd!
Furthermore, this forest seemed to have grown very strange, the thick weeds almost reaching to my knees, covering the vines below, as if they want to tripp me. When he finally was able to stumble out of the woods, Levin looked toward the front, wanting to hide within the large group, yet the scene in front of him left him stunned.
The drug efficacy shouldn’t have come to its end, so why are they… retreating? No that’s not right, it should be said that they are running away. Those who move too slow or haven’t responded have been mercilessly pushed to the ground and later trampled on. Previous during the charge they ran as fast as horses, but now with the escape it was the same, during their raging flight they were throwing dust into the sky. Seeing such a situation, he did not dare to come close to in the attempt to stop them.
In the end, what happened? Levin was unable to process the situation, in such a short time, how was it possible to entirely defeat the 1500 people? Even more, since all of them had taken those pills! Are the Prince’s men actually monsters?
At this moment, from behind him, the sound of someone stepping on weeds could be heard. Gritting his teeth, Levin suddenly drew his sword and stabbed with it behind himself. At this critical moment of life and death, his quick drawing technique was faster than ever before, like a flash of lightning. Nevertheless, he was still greeted by a dazzling flame. His blade was hit by something, sending sparks flying, and stabbing into his hand, instantly erasing the feelings from his fingertips.
When he moved his line of sight towards his arm, Levin saw that half of his arm was missing, exposing red and white muscles and bones, like a flower in full bloom. The woman in white looked at him with a blank expression. Unable to confront her, he couldn’t help but back up several steps, tripping over a weed.
The moment he laid still, the witch placed her foot on his shoulder and pressed her cold weapon against his forehead. From his perspective on the ground, Levin could see the face hidden under the hood.
So… beautiful.
Was his final thought as the gunshot rang out.