Steel, gunpowder, and spellcasters

Chapter 206 The Final Act (Part 1)

The southern highland fortress that once belonged to the Parat people is now quiet.

The barbarians followed suit, not lighting lamps or fires to obscure the layout of the ramparts from the attackers. Instead, they set up bonfires in the open area outside the trenches, leaving no place for the attackers to hide.

The Paratul were determined to reclaim the Southern Highlands, and the Hed were equally aware of this.

Under the cover of night, undercurrents surged.

A shooting star streaked across the sky with a long trail before disappearing in an instant.

"Kill!" A desperate roar came from somewhere.

The war drums thundered and the bugle calls pierced everyone's eardrums.

A group of humans leaped out of the darkness, carrying makeshift wooden ladders, and roared as they charged toward the fortress: "Uukhai!"

The red light of the North Highlands fortress flashed, and sporadic gunshots rang out.

However, the range of muskets was insufficient to reach from the North Highlands to the South Highlands, where the troops could only provide morale boosting for their allies.

Amidst the deafening shouts of battle and the blaring of drums and horns, the fortress remained silent, like a wild beast lurking in the shadows.

The moment the Paratians crossed the fire, the beast bared its fangs.

A series of bowstring twanged from the ramparts, and the Paratus at the forefront were shot down one after another.

The fire was quickly extinguished, and everyone in the darkness became blurry shadows.

With shaved heads and red bands tied around their left arms, the Paratu soldiers charged over the bodies of their comrades, shouting as they rushed toward the trench.

The battle has begun, but Winters remains inactive.

He lay prone on the earthen slope, tilting his head to listen to the sounds of another battle.

Military police and standard-bearers Charles and Heinrich stood behind Winters, followed by the other soldiers from the two centurions, and then Andrei and Mason's troops.

The JASKA squadron ambushed two hundred meters from the southeast corner of the fortress; any further and they would be exposed.

As planned, the death row inmates first launched a feint attack on the northeast corner of the fortress.

Once the barbarians' attention was diverted, it was Jessica's turn to launch their attack.

The shouts of battle gradually faded away—this is normal.

Because once face-to-face combat begins, everyone clenches their teeth and purses their lips, unable to utter even the shortest curse.

Instead of shouts of killing, there were muffled thuds of blunt weapons hitting human bodies and screams of agony.

Winters gently rubbed the hilt of his sword with his thumb. He still felt nervous, excited, and afraid, but he had learned to be patient.

Apart from the musketeers, all of his men had been equipped with one-handed swords and shields, and were covered in all the armor they could find.

Extra-long spears are useless in night battles, and the same goes for halberds.

Lieutenant Colonel Jessica walked up from behind, bending over.

Winters turned around and gave a slight salute.

The lieutenant colonel gently patted Winters on the shoulder and asked in a low voice, "Do you see where the cannon is?"

"No...it's okay, it's right there anyway."

Officially, the raid on the South Highlands fortress was commanded by Colonel László.

However, Colonel László is currently essentially a walking corpse, so the actual battle plan was drawn up by Lieutenant Colonel Jessica and Lieutenant Colonel Robert.

Both lieutenant colonels agreed that capturing the South Heights fortress was an impossible task.

If we hold it tonight, the Heds can take it back tomorrow. With our current forces, we can't afford a war of attrition.

However, we can look at it from a different angle: the threat of the South Highlands fortress lies not in the fortress itself, but in the cannons on the high ground.

After capturing the fortress, the White Lion immediately pushed the cannons up to the high ground and bombarded the "floating bridge" over the Palatul camp.

A test firing just before dusk sank two pontoons. This was a threat the Paratians could not tolerate.

Conversely, as long as the cannons can be destroyed, it doesn't matter if the high ground fortress is given to the barbarians.

What the Parat people need most right now is time. If they can gain just two more days, the bridge can be built to the other side of the river.

The foremost bridge pier is less than fifty meters from the east bank; it's really just a hair's breadth away.

Someone waved a torch down the hillside, then disappeared in the blink of an eye.

This was the agreed-upon signal; Winters and Lieutenant Colonel Jessica exchanged one last glance.

"Go!" Winters ordered softly.

He removed his shield, crouched low, and moved closer to the trench.

Charles carried five spare weapons, and Heinrich rolled up the military flag; the two followed closely behind Winters.

Winters' actions were a silent signal; his warriors filed out from their hiding places.

Unlike the death row camp, the Montagne team did not blow horns, beat drums, or shout battle cries; they simply crouched low and marched quickly.

More than a hundred infantrymen stretched out in two loose straight lines on the hillside, their footsteps rustling softly.

The wall remained silent.

The quieter it was, the more tense Winters became.

They were less than ten meters from the fire, and now they could no longer hide their bodies.

“Wet blanket!” Winters whispered the order, reaching out without turning his head.

Charles spread out a wet blanket, ignored Winters's demands, and strode forward to smother the fire.

A sickeningly loud, tooth-aching sound came from the wall.

"Raise your shield!" Winters rushed over and pulled Charles behind him, immediately using a megaphone to shout, "Watch out for arrows!"

Before he finished speaking, arrows rained down like a storm.

Winters raised his shield to protect his faceplate, and with three crisp sounds, three arrows were deflected by his shield and breastplate.

He felt as if he had been hit by a stone three times, but was otherwise unharmed.

The other fires nearby had also been smoldered out.

Winters roared, "Attack!"

There was no longer any need for concealment. Heinrich unfurled the military flag, and the piercing bugle call sounded.

"Uukhai!" Montagne's team broke into a burst of speed and charged toward the wall.

The Paratites had considered the possibility of the fortress falling, so the walls facing the camp were lower and the moat shallower.

But it remains a daunting project, one that requires risking one's life to complete.

Run twenty steps forward, and another volley of arrows rains down.

This time, Winters only heard a crisp sound. He wasn't afraid of arrows; he was waiting for the gunshot.

The Montagne team was entirely armored, some even wearing a layer of lamellar armor over their plate armor. Unless it was a lucky hit or a perfectly aimed shot, arrows were unlikely to cause any damage.

With less than ten meters from the trench, Winters saw a flash of red light on the rampart in front of him.

"Raise your shield!" he roared, instinctively raising his shield.

Gunshots, like popping beans, rang out from the fortified wall.

"Boom!"

Winters felt his left arm go numb from the impact. The lead bullet pierced through the outer iron plate and the inner wooden plate of the shield, finally shattering against his left breastplate.

Even though his breastplate wasn't penetrated, Winters still felt a tightness in his chest.

His worst fears came true: only the Red River tribe of the White Lion was equipped with large numbers of firearms, and only the Red River tribe had a sufficient stockpile of gunpowder.

The presence of musketeers on the ramparts means that tonight we will have to clash head-on with the Red River tribe.

Montagne's team, which suffered no casualties from arrows, was instantly felled by more than a dozen men with muskets.

"Ladder!" Winters' eyes widened in fury, but at this moment, he could only press forward bravely: "Grenade launcher!"

"Uukhai!" The soldiers carried ladders across the trench.

The ladder has an iron hook at the top; once it's stuck, it can't be pushed off.

The Montagne soldiers, shields in hand, began to climb upwards.

"Uukhai!" Eighteen grenadiers swung their arms and threw the hissing metal bombs into the wall.

A series of muffled explosions rang out inside the fortress.

The grenadiers were selected from the strongest men in the entire battalion, and Winters gave them a simple order: throw all four grenades within one minute.

The two-pound iron-cased bombs flew in arcs behind the wall, but failed to kill the enemy on the wall as Winters had expected.

Meanwhile, the musketeers and archers on the wall were also returning fire.

Lead bullets and arrows flew everywhere. Even though Winters's deflection technique had improved somewhat, he still couldn't deal with so many stray arrows and bullets.

He simply abandoned the deflection technique, waving his arms and shouting, "Climb the wall! Climb..."

"Watch out!" came Charles's exclamation from behind.

The next second, with a loud bang, Winters was thrown over by the blast wave.

Not far from where he had just been standing, a grenadier was blown in half, with dirt, bits of flesh, and blood flying everywhere.

"Are you alright?" Charles frantically searched Winters' body for wounds: "Blood!"

"It's nothing! It's not my blood." Winters felt as if he had been hit hard in the chest by a leaden steel pipe, his breathing became labored, and the ringing in his ears even drowned out Charles's voice.

what happened?
Winters didn't need to ask; anyone could understand at a glance.

The grenadier had just lit the fuse when a lead bullet pierced his neck. In his last moments before falling, he mustered his last strength to tuck the grenade under his body.

That blood-stained face once belonged to a Wolf Town man named Mihaly. A Protestant, a sharecropper, nineteen years old, very clean, and unmarried.

Pain, anger, and helplessness—these were the only emotions Winters could feel.

He strode toward the wall.

"Lieutenant Colonel, you are not allowed to go up the city walls!" Charles tried desperately to stop Winters, but he couldn't: "You can't go!"

Heinrich, carrying the military flag, followed silently behind the centurion.

The wall was less than three meters high. The barbarians on the wall knew that the height wouldn't kill anyone. They also had no other defensive equipment, so they desperately used muskets and bows to kill the attackers.

Winters picked up a shield from the corpse and climbed up without a word.

The two soldiers holding the ladder were taken aback at first, then held on to the ladder even tighter, not letting it sway at all.

The ladder was slippery because it was covered in blood.

The archers and musketeers on the other side of the rampart noticed the centurion's conspicuous armor and turned their guns toward Winters.

Winters struggled to maintain his deflection technique, carrying his shield and gritting his teeth as he climbed upwards.

"How did he get up there again!" Lieutenant Colonel Jessica was furious upon seeing this. "Didn't I strictly forbid him from going up the city walls?!"

No one dared to answer.

The lieutenant colonel shouted to the second wave of Cellini's team that had arrived on the battlefield: "Lieutenant Cellini! Take the other wall!"

Although the South Highlands fortress was rudimentary, it was still a star-shaped fortress. Attacking either side of the fortress alone would expose the sides and even the back to the other side.

Lieutenant Colonel Jessica's plan was to have Andre put pressure on the other side of the wall, in order to reduce the pressure on Montagne's team.

Mason's team arrived late, and the musketeers took up their positions amidst Lieutenant Mason's shouts and began to suppress the barbarians on the ramparts.

As Winters was about to reach the top of the ladder, he looked up and saw only the dark muzzle of a gun pressed against his forehead.

A fierce barbarian, holding a musket, with a ferocious expression, was about to pull the trigger.

Winters was maintaining the deflection spell and there was no time to switch to another spell.

In desperation, he grabbed the barrel of the gun and desperately pushed it upwards.

The barbarian pressed the launch lever, and the lead bullet grazed his helmet. Even through his gloves, his palms stung from the impact.

Winters gripped the barrel and pulled with all his might. The barbarian, equally determined, gritted his teeth and refused to let go.

The stalemate lasted less than a second before Winters roared and forcefully "pulled" the barbarian off the wall.

The barbarian musketeer fell heavily to the ground below the city walls and was instantly killed by a hail of swords from the Paratians.

But until his last breath, he held tightly to his musket and never let go.

“[Herd] White Lion!” The barbarian squeezed out an incoherent sound from his throat, and then died.

"Long live!" shouted the Paratians below the wall.

Everyone below the wall witnessed Centurion Montagne's "heroic feat".

"Long live!" the musketeers shouted along with great enthusiasm.

Winters was completely unaware that the crowd was cheering for him.

He leaped onto the city wall and drew his sword.

He felt no joy of success, only boundless anger: the small space inside the fortress was teeming with barbarians.

The white lion knew they were coming, and it was waiting for them.

His soldiers continued to climb the ramparts, and Winters had no way to get them to retreat.

Their mission is not yet complete, and it is impossible for them to retreat.

"Come on!" Winters roared as he charged toward the enemies on the ramparts. "Come and kill me!" There was no room for reasoning anymore; only one side could survive.

A barbarian musketeer saw Centurion Paratau charging toward him and hurriedly raised his gun to fire.

He pulled the trigger but realized he hadn't attached the match cord, so he reached for the hilt of his sword. Before he could draw his scimitar, Winters' gauntlet sword was already piercing his chest.

The blade pierced between his ribs and into his lung, leaving a horrific wound. The alveoli were forced into his trachea by atmospheric pressure, and the barbarian musketeer, vomiting bloody bubbles, slowly slumped to the ground.

The man who killed him had already drawn his sword to kill the next person.

As more and more Paratians scaled the walls, the barbarian archers and musketeers suffered heavy casualties, drastically reducing the pressure on the others outside the walls.

The barbarian archers and musketeers were unarmored, and none of them could withstand a single blow from Winters.

Winters didn't even dodge those non-lethal attacks, relying entirely on his sturdy armor to withstand them.

The barbarian's slash at his shoulder armor, arm armor, and chest armor would only cause him great pain.

In exchange, his sword strike would kill the barbarian.

After taking down more than a dozen enemies, a vacuum had formed around Winters, and the archers and musketeers on the ramparts were desperately trying to escape him.

The barbarian leader shouted at the top of his lungs, "[Herdos] These two legs are powerful! Shoot them with muskets! Shoot them with muskets!"

The sound came from below the wall, but Winters on the wall couldn't see where the barbarian leader was.

He fired three steel nails in the general direction, and the annoying sound never came again.

The Paratites had already occupied an area on the wall, and Andrei had climbed up as well.

Upon seeing the large number of barbarian soldiers inside the fortress, Andrei couldn't help but burst into curses.

The barbarian archers and musketeers had retreated to other areas of the fortified walls, while armored barbarian soldiers wielding swords poured up the stairs in droves.

Winters looked around; the walls only had gun mounts, not cannons.

However, the scouts only saw the white lion move the cannon into the fortress, but not that it moved the cannon away.

"The death row camp is quiet! It's just us left!" Andrei grabbed Winters: "Where are the cannons?"

"It's been moved!"

Andrei panicked: "Then what do we do?"

"It's inside this fortress!" Winters' face was hidden beneath his helmet, and Andrei couldn't see his expression. "Fire in!"

During the conversation, the barbarian soldiers shouted and charged up the ramparts again: "Woo-ka-ha!"

The strong barbarian soldiers at the forefront raised their warhammers high and hurled them at the Taumash in front of Winters.

Poor Taumash raised his shield to parry, managing to block only the first blow. He then attempted a counter-attack with his side sword, but it was blocked by his breastplate.

The strong barbarian took the straight thrust head-on, then swung his arm and smashed Tao Mash's brains out with a hammer.

Seeing all this, Winters shook off Andrei, raised his sword and lunged at the barbarian wielding a hammer, striking the man's neck with all his might.

His sword was already dull, and the barbarian soldier had a neck armor. Only sparks flew, but no blood was drawn.

The barbarian soldier intended to use the same trick again, but Winters' sword strike was so powerful that it made him stagger.

Before the barbarian could regain his balance, Winters grabbed the barbarian's helmet and unleashed a devastating Disintegration spell.

The hammer-wielding barbarian's head was instantly torn apart inside his helmet, and red and white blood flowed out from the gaps in his armor.

The other barbarian soldiers around them were so frightened that their legs went weak, and they not only did not dare to move forward, but also took a few steps back.

Winters reached for the barbarian's warhammer; his gauntlet sword was beyond repair.

"Please use this." Someone behind me handed me a hammer.

Charles had climbed up the wall at some point.

Heinrich, carrying a military flag, also came, along with Ish, Samkin... all the survivors came.

Winters took the hammer and suddenly burst into laughter.

He ripped off the barbarian soldier's helmet, which was covered in red and white substances, and threw it at the barbarians inside the fortress.

"White Lion!" Winters Montagne roared, his voice piercing the clouds and splitting rocks. "So what if you knew I was coming?! I'll still beat you to a pulp!"

"Kill!" Winters lunged at the barbarians in the stairwell.

"Long live!" the soldiers of Montagne roared in unison.

The outnumbered attackers not only failed to hold the city walls, but instead pushed the defenders off the walls—in a localized area.

The staircases and corridors inside the fortress are narrow, making it difficult for even a large number of people to move around freely.

Those at the forefront, in direct contact with the enemy, had almost no room to maneuver. When blunt weapons came crashing down on their heads, they could only raise their shields or even their arms to take the blows.

The attack only has two lines: one is a downward smash, and the other is a horizontal thrust forward, leaving no room for the user to swing left or right.

In less than three minutes, Winters, who was at the forefront, had been hit countless times.

His swordsmanship instincts made him subconsciously avoid vital points, yet he still inevitably became dull and numb.

He used his magic without reservation, reaping lives like a legendary court sorcerer.

He no longer used Disintegration or other terrifying spells; instead, he devoted all his "magic" to the most efficient spell, which he practiced the most—Arrow Spell.
He launched the arrow technique almost directly at the target's forehead, making it impossible for it to miss or for him to dodge.

Despite being outnumbered, the Parat people, with their doomed spirit, somehow managed to gain a slight advantage over the barbarians.

People were packed so close together that the barbarian musketeers, fearing friendly fire, dared not fire.

The barbarians realized this too, and one voice shouted desperately, "[Herd] Don't be afraid! Shoot! Kill them all! Shoot the leader!"

The barbarian musketeers hesitated, then the voice roared, "[Herd] Get out of the way! I'll take over!"

A gunshot rang out in the corridor inside the fortress, shaking the wooden ceiling.

The Herd man to Winters' right front was killed on the spot, and the voice roared again: "[Herd] Keep going! Hit him! Hit the two leaders!"

Urged on by the voice, one of the Hurd musketeers gritted his teeth and fired. Lead bullets struck the wooden wall, sending sawdust flying.

The other musketeers gritted their teeth and picked up their muskets.

Winters and Andre exchanged a glance and charged forward in perfect unison.

We are surrounded by our own people; there is no way to retreat. Only by fighting to the death can we have a glimmer of hope.

Several more gunshots rang out.

Andrei was tall and strong, and he charged forward recklessly, knocking the enemies in front of him off balance.

Winters followed closely behind Andrei, making sure he wouldn't get hit in the back or on the back of the head.

Winters saw the barbarian who had shouted. When he was ten paces away, he gripped the steel nail and raised his hand.

A flash of cold light, and the barbarian's eyes became bloodshot holes. He leaned against the wall, slowly sat down, and his head drooped limply.

The barbarians in the corridor scattered like birds and beasts, scrambling and crawling away.

"Haha." Andrei leaned against the wall, his laughter coming from inside his helmet, sounding muffled. "Are we doing alright, buddy?"

“Always the best.” Winters and Andre bumped fists.

"Tick tock, tick tock."

It was the sound of blood dripping onto the ground.

Andrei raised his arm to bump fists, then tilted his head as if giving a wry smile: "I said... why does it feel numb?"

His right arm was now a mangled mess; a 30-gram lead bullet had pierced through his arm guard, exploding inside his muscle and leaving a horrific wound.

Blood flowed into Andrei's gloves and dripped onto the ground.

Winters frantically removed Andrei's arm armor and used his belt to stop the bleeding.

"I can't help you, buddy," Andrei said nonchalantly, sitting on the ground. "The rest is up to you."

“Stop talking…stop talking…” Winters seemed to be crying, but his face was hidden under his helmet and no one could see it.

Blood loss left Andrei exhausted. He whispered, "I need to rest for a while..."

……

At the same time, Lieutenant Colonel Jessica also climbed the wall.

The lieutenant colonel scanned the fortress with his single eye and already understood the general situation.

"As expected." The lieutenant colonel asked, "Where's the cannon?"

“It’s not on the wall,” the wounded soldier beside him replied.

"And what about Centurions Montagne and Cellini?" the lieutenant colonel asked again.

"They're attacking the fortress."

"It's impossible to retake the Southern Heights!" Lieutenant Colonel Jessica said to the messenger, "Send the signal!"

The messenger listened to the order and carefully took out a wooden box containing three signal flares.

The messenger found a fire and lit it.

Three green signal flares shot into the air with a sharp whistle and then exploded with a loud bang.

A moment later, another red signal flare shot into the sky with a sharp whistle and exploded.

Not from the east side of the fortress, but from the west side!
“Uukhai!”

“Uukhai!”

“Uukhai!”

The earth-shattering battle cry of Palatul rang out, not from the east of the fortress, but from the west.

The thunderous sound of horses' hooves, like an avalanche, was approaching the southern highland fortress.

"Uukhai!" A black-armored cavalryman wielding a short musket leaped into the fortress, not from anywhere else, but from the very spot where the barbarians had stormed in during the day.

The breach that the barbarians had blown up was hastily repaired with only wooden palisades. This was because the breach on the west side was closer to their main camp, making it convenient for transporting troops and artillery.

The idea that the Hed attacked from the west and the Paratists from the east is a cognitive trap.

But the Platut people are determined to break in through the western gap today.

The black-armored cavalrymen leaped into the fortress, each holding a short musket. After firing two shots with a "bang, bang," they immediately drew their sabers and began to slash.

After him, more black-armored cavalrymen leaped into the fortress, firing two shots before drawing their swords and slashing to kill.

The barbarian garrison at the fortress also noticed something amiss, and the musketeers and archers rushed to the west to build a wall.

Following the forty-odd black-armored cavalrymen were thirty-odd Dussac light cavalrymen, including Pierre, Anglou, Bel, and Vahika.

Afterwards, hundreds of Paratul swordsmen and halberdiers poured into the fortress.

The László Brigade has arrived.

The attack on the death row camp was a feint, and so was the attack on the Jessica Battalion.

Colonel László's regular army battalion and Lieutenant Colonel Caster's pistol cavalry were the main attacking forces.

Robert's squadron was responsible for bringing up the rear.

This was originally a plan to "draw the enemy's attention with the death row and the Jessica Battalion, while the main force would launch a surprise attack from the flanks and rear to recapture the fortress in one fell swoop."

However, this plan has now failed because there are simply too many barbarians in the fortress, too many for the Paratul to clear out in a short time.

Meanwhile, White Lion's reinforcements could arrive at any moment.

The plan could only be to use the main force to draw the enemy's attention, giving the JASKA battalion an opportunity to destroy the artillery.

Hundreds of cavalrymen rushed into the narrow fortress, making it extremely crowded.

The cavalry's movement was hampered, and they were instead dragged off their horses by the barbarians who fought on foot.

Lieutenant Colonel Custer also realized that something was wrong. His original plan was to crush the defenders in one charge, but the number of defenders was beyond imagination.

There's no way to retreat now; the battle has turned into a chaotic free-for-all, and it's a matter of who can hold out the longest first.

……

With the barbarian soldiers defending the fortress caught in a pincer attack, Winters's pressure was greatly reduced.

He led the survivors in a rampage through the fortress.

"Cannon!" someone suddenly shouted excitedly from behind.

Inside a large warehouse inside the fortress, four golden twelve-pound bronze cannons lay quietly on the ground.

"Nail! Hammer!"

Charles frantically searched and found six large steel nails used to destroy artillery.

Each nail was thicker than a thumb, making them ideal for dealing with the relatively tough bronze cannons.

"Nail them all to the ground!"

Without hammers, they used knife handles and stones to quickly nail the fire gates of the four bronze cannons shut.

Winters took out the spell materials and cast a Molten Iron spell on each cannon to ensure that the shells could not be inserted into the barrel.

Having done all that, he felt as if all his strength had been drained in an instant. "Let's retreat. Our mission is over."

I originally intended to finish it in one chapter, but I found that I still couldn't fit it into one chapter; the emotions were too long...

Thank you to all the readers for reading, subscribing, recommending, voting, tipping, and commenting.

[A map of the Battle of the Styx has been drawn, which can be found in the chapter comments and reader community for this chapter.]

There are also illustrations for the battles in this chapter, but they will be drawn a little later.
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(End of this chapter)