Chapter 166: The Blood-Stained Somme River (4)

The battle had already raged for fifteen minutes, and the initial momentum of the assault had long since faded.

The front lines twisted into jagged formations, the battlefield drenched in blood, mud, and corpses. In this chaos, the allied army’s advantage in numbers became increasingly apparent. They continued hurling wave after wave against the Black Armored Legion’s defenses, waiting for the exact moment the line finally buckled under the pressure.

Twice, the allied forces came dangerously close to breaking through by sheer attrition.

The first crisis erupted on the left flank.

Several light infantry units that had landed from the side merged together and launched a pincer assault under the cover of intense suppressive arrow fire.

“Hold the line! Left flank! They’re about to break through!”

The three division commanders had been temporarily pinned down elsewhere. Vastly outnumbered, the soldiers on the left flank were crushed beneath overwhelming pressure as the defensive line bent inward, nearly torn open.

Then a holy radiance suddenly descended over the entire position.

“The Mother Goddess cherishes all living souls. You shall not be troubled by pain!”

A solemn hymn drowned out the chaos of the battlefield, echoing beside the ears of every soldier in the Black Armored Legion.

Warmth flowed through their bodies. Exhaustion vanished as renewed strength surged into their limbs, while wounds visibly healed before their eyes. Even fatal blows that should have severed arms or legs now left only shallow cuts across the skin.

“It’s Lord Kayan!”

The soldiers turned in delight.

The refined and approachable priest who normally appeared scholarly and mild-mannered was now striding directly toward the front line, holding aloft a simple cross-shaped staff.

“Steady the formation! Leave this to me!”

The entire left flank of Coldsteel City stabilized by sheer force.

Kayan charged into the thick of battle, leading from the front despite wearing nothing but cloth robes. His face burned with fervor as he sang sacred hymns.

Anyone who mistook him for a mere support priest because of his glasses and modest clothing would have paid dearly for the error.

The heavy cross-staff in his hands whistled through the air with terrifying force.

Boom!

Every sweeping strike sent several allied soldiers flying. Under that monstrous strength, shattered chainmail and broken blades exploded in every direction.

Kayan alone sealed the breach.

The second crisis unfolded on the right flank.

Knight Finley’s barbarian cavalry seized an opening during a rotation in the defensive formation. More than three hundred cavalrymen attempted to crash straight through the exposed gap and collapse the entire line in one decisive charge.

But before they had even reached half speed, over a dozen massive pillars of flame erupted from the ground without warning.

The leading cavalry ranks were instantly swallowed whole.

The riders caught in the center were burned alive on the spot, reduced alongside their horses to twisted black silhouettes. Even those near the edges of the attack fared little better. Their normally obedient warhorses panicked under the terrifying heat of elemental fire, rearing violently and throwing their riders before bolting in every direction.

The entire cavalry formation collapsed into chaos.

“Hold formation! Damn it, hold formation!” Finley roared furiously as he struggled to reorganize his troops.

Yet just as they barely regained control, before they could even reform properly, another threat emerged. 

From the depths of that eerie forest behind them, a cavalry unit suddenly appeared without a sound. Every rider wore a black hood and faceplate. Half-hidden within the thick fog, they looked like grim reapers emerging from death itself.

Before the barbarian cavalry could react, the mysterious riders raised their arm-mounted crossbows in perfect unison. Shhk! Shhk! Shhk! A storm of bolts rained down.

The damage this time was even greater than the fire pillars. More than twenty cavalrymen screamed as they tumbled from their saddles.

“Enemy light cavalry! Counterattack!”

The barbarian riders shouted in rage and panic as they turned their horses around in disorder.

But the ghostlike cavalry unit struck once and immediately withdrew. Without lingering for even a moment, they vanished once more into the fog-covered forest and disappeared completely.

Finley broke out in cold sweat. That forest was far too strange. He did not dare pursue. Forced to retreat with the remnants of his cavalry, he circled away from the woods in humiliation and no longer dared approach that deadly zone.

***

“They have an elementalist, and at minimum Silver-tier!” the leader of the allied mage corps reported grimly to Pascal.

Gold-tier champions. A melee priest more ferocious than most warriors. Now a Silver-tier elementalist and a phantom cavalry unit that struck and vanished at will.

Pascal clenched his jaw. The endless stream of tricks emerging from Coldsteel City filled him with growing unease.

Although the battle had fallen into stalemate, the allied forces still retained overwhelming numerical superiority on the frontal battlefield. At this point, retreat was no longer an option. The only thing left for him now was victory.

His hand gripped the sword at his waist tightly as he stubbornly rejected his officers’ suggestion to slow the assault and transition into positional warfare.

At this stage of the war, casualties no longer mattered.

The archduke himself had once told him that excessive compassion was the greatest taboo for a commander.

No matter how strong the rebels of Coldsteel City were, their stamina would eventually run dry.

“Fenrir, unless you want to crawl back and be scolded by the archduke, get over there and eliminate the enemy commander immediately. Mage corps, concentrate all magical power on their main formation. Bombard them continuously and cover Fenrir’s advance. Do not give their commanders a single moment to breathe!”

Fenrir merely snorted coldly. “Don’t order me around, old man.”

Slowly, he drew his sword. It was a magnificent blade of icy blue crystal. Frost mist continuously condensed around the weapon, chilling the surrounding air.

At that same moment, as though they had somehow overheard Pascal’s orders, the five formations of the Black Armored Legion on the southern bank suddenly began shifting formation under the shouted commands of the division leaders.

The lines on both flanks slowly withdrew while Hank’s Second Division and Rehanna’s Third Division moved forward to form a new central defensive position.

Meanwhile, Little Donnie’s Fourth Division, together with the Fifth and Sixth Divisions led by Kayan and Renee, pulled back toward the phantom forest, forming a massive crescent-shaped defensive line.

Pascal’s eyes lit up immediately.

They were voluntarily tightening their defenses?

In siege warfare, a force that suddenly contracted its lines usually signaled exhaustion and the beginning of collapse. Could it be that the potion they had drunk earlier was merely some stimulant that temporarily overclocked the body’s potential, and now the side effects were beginning to surface?

Unfortunately, the bizarre forest behind them remained too dangerous. The allied infantry simply did not dare approach it. As for the barbarian cavalry that had just been routed by the ghost riders, they now stayed as far away from the forest as possible, making any rear encirclement impossible.

At this point, nearly half of the allied army had already crossed the Somme River.

Fenrir walked to the riverbank and casually swung his sword toward the rushing water.

Crack. A massive sheet of thick ice instantly spread across the river’s surface.

Freezing flowing water was extraordinarily difficult, yet he accomplished it effortlessly. The display immediately triggered thunderous cheers from the surrounding allied soldiers.

“Lord Fenrir!”

Fenrir stepped calmly across the solid ice toward the southern bank. He had already spotted the black-armored commander on the other side.

Just another brute who had recently entered Gold-tier, nothing more. From the man’s wide, forceful swings alone, Fenrir could tell he still lacked proper control over his newfound strength. Even together with the red-haired woman, Fenrir remained fully confident he could defeat both of them alone.

Pascal nodded in satisfaction.

At the same time, from the corner of his eye, he noticed that the mysterious Kost and his ever-present bodyguard had disappeared from the formation at some unknown point. Whatever that man was doing now, Pascal could not care less. As long as he caused trouble for the enemy, that was enough.

Just as Pascal continued ordering more troops forward, preparing to crush the rebels with one final overwhelming push, a deep rumbling sound suddenly echoed faintly from the forest behind the rebel lines.

It sounded like heavy cavalry already in full charge.

But… how could cavalry possibly charge through a forest?

On the southern battlefield, Hank suddenly lifted his head. Understanding flashed across his face.

“Attention, everyone!” he roared across the battlefield. “Prepare to enter phase two!”

Little Donnie shouted excitedly, “Finally!”

The division commanders erupted with their full strength simultaneously, each using their own methods to forcibly drive the allied front lines backward for a short distance.

Then, in perfect unison, they folded the wing-shaped armor plates on the sides of their helmets inward, completely sealing their visors shut.

“Crouch down! Cover your ears!” Hank gave the final command.

At the same moment, the four division commanders each pulled out a yellow crystal from inside their armor and crushed it violently in their hands.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOOOM—!

Violent explosions erupted one after another across the northern riverbed along the thousand-meter stretch of Rowan Ferry. The shockwaves blasted entire sections of the riverbank into the air. Countless chunks of earth, shattered stone, and river water were hurled dozens of meters skyward before crashing back down like torrential rain.

More than seven hundred allied soldiers crossing the river or just reaching the shore were instantly torn apart by the alchemical explosions. Hundreds more were wounded by the high-speed metal fragments and devastating blast waves.

Even the Black Armored Legion soldiers, despite already covering their ears, suffered intense ringing from the explosions.

The forty or so alchemical bombs called Thunderclap, which Nolan and his forces had buried overnight beneath the northern riverbed, had blown apart not only the riverbank, but the allied army’s hopes of victory as well.

Screams of agony and terror instantly engulfed the battlefield.