Industrial Cthulhu, starting from the island lord

Chapter 763 Fire

"Advance, get close and fire!" Isabella shouted the order.

After saying that, she pulled on the reins, and the horse trotted away.

The knights followed.

This place is on the edge of the battlefield; it's still several thousand yards to get close to the enemy camp.

The knights steeds forward at a brisk pace and arrived at the front of the battle line a few minutes later.

The battlefield was deliberately cleared, so their actions were naturally discovered by the enemy.

There were fewer than a hundred riders in this line, and the other side's response was rather perfunctory.

The soldiers in the front row were already in armor. They simply placed the wooden chevaux-de-frise in front of them and stared intently at this side with their spears.

Several cavalry units behind them were mounting their horses and would come to drive them away once they had straightened their ranks.

No one believed that these few dozen men would charge directly into the enemy lines, even though they were fully armored—there were at least several thousand men on this front line, and just standing there and letting them hack and slash would exhaust these few dozen men to death.

Isabella led her soldiers forward, and when they were less than a hundred meters away, she raised her hand.

The knights pulled on the reins in unison, and the entire column came to a complete stop.

Some soldiers on the other side drew their bows, and a few arrows were fired.

The knights remained motionless, and most of the arrows missed their mark, with only a few striking the armor with a crisp sound.

The distance was a bit awkward; it was too far for muskets, and the arrows posed no threat to the well-equipped knights. The guards weren't really keen on attacking to drive them away, so they just stared at each other.

Anyway, the Imperial cavalry will be able to attack soon; we just need to wait a moment.

They can't just rush in, can they?
The soldiers just stood there, weapons in hand, looking across the way, utterly bored.

One hundred meters is not far at all; they can clearly see everything the other side is doing—for example, all the knights on the other side have raised their guns.

"Damn it, Tissos!" the soldiers cursed and scrambled to find cover.

At this distance, the muskets were indeed not very accurate, but they had a lot of men on their side!

With so many people, you could hit them even with your eyes closed. On the other hand, there were only a few dozen people on the other side. As soon as we raised our guns, they scattered.

In other words, they can attack from this side, but they can't attack from this side.

But before they could even make a move, gunfire erupted from the other side.

"Why so fast!?"

It takes at least half a minute for a musket to be loaded and fired, but the other side just raised their gun and opened fire.

In an instant, bullets rained down like a wall, their warheads whistling through the air—a sight only those with superhuman abilities could barely see. The Imperial soldiers only saw the front ranks fall one after another, with clouds of blood mist bursting into the air.

The propellant charge of this rifle cartridge was quite high, and the bolt-action rifle, after numerous improvements by Castells, was essentially at the level of the last World War on Earth.

In terms of accuracy and range, it was far superior to the firearms of that era. During this war, Castells opened up a large supply, allowing this weapon to appear before the eyes of the Imperial soldiers for the first time.

Strictly speaking, the penetration depth of this rifle is somewhat excessive; when it comes to killing people, almost all of them are penetrating wounds, and the effect of tearing the wound is not very good.

But at this moment, it had an unexpected effect: bullets often had to penetrate multiple soldiers before losing their kinetic energy.

Because the enemy was positioned so densely, this volley of fire resulted in over a hundred casualties.

The knights did not stop after firing; they pulled back the bolt, ejected the spent cartridge, chambered a new bullet, and pulled the trigger again.

Just moments later, the next wave of fire came.

The Empire's battle lines stretched far and wide, and soldiers on both flanks stared in disbelief as knights fired from horseback. "They...they can fire without reloading?!"

"Impossible, do they have an unlimited supply of bullets in their guns?"

From the moment they raised their guns to the moment the two waves of fire were unleashed, less than half a minute passed. Soldiers fell one after another, but their comrades felt not fear, but confusion.

what happened?
Are they firing?

Why did the person next to me suddenly collapse?
The scene was beyond their comprehension, making it difficult for them to understand the current situation.

And the time they had to react had run out.

Some observant people noticed that the knight at the front of Tiss's side was carrying a strange weapon with a ring of barrels.

Galahad's path to transcendence is [Knight], and his most useful transcendence ability is to allow his horse to share his physical enhancements while riding a horse.

It's not very useful in extraordinary battles, but it's a god-tier skill when charging into battle.

For example, at this moment, Galahad is wearing full armor and carrying a heavy machine gun—a weapon that a horse cannot carry on its back; it can only be placed on a base and pulled along.

At this moment, Galahad was not only riding a horse and holding a Gatling gun, but also had several huge ammunition boxes beside him—the horse was carrying nearly half a ton of weight.

But it looked relaxed, and even sensed its owner's movements, so it lowered its head.

A deluge of bullets instantly tore through the air.

The sound of a Gatling gun firing is not like the sound of a gunshot because its firing rate is so fast that the bullets are fired in a continuous line.

A hand-cranked Gatling gun wouldn't normally reach this speed, but Galahad is a superhuman, so he can crank it fast.

The bullets whistled through the Empire's lines, as if they had eyes, precisely targeting and killing the Empire's officers.

—As a superhuman, Galahad possessed dynamic vision and muscle control far exceeding those of ordinary soldiers, and he brought this Gatling gun to its limit.

The shooting only lasted a short while before it ended, not because the knights ran out of bullets, but because there was no one left standing in front of them.

The gunfire stopped, and the battlefield fell silent. The soldiers in the distance stared blankly at everything, the roar of gunfire still seeming to echo in their ears.

This involves an entire front, hundreds of people.

He just died like that?

"Forward." Isabella spoke coldly, charging forward at the head of the charge, with the knights around her following closely behind.

The sound of orderly hooves finally brought the soldiers back to their senses, and they looked up in horror at the charging knights.

Their armor gleamed in the sunlight, the gunpowder smoke from their guns had not yet dissipated, and the sound of horses' hooves was like a death knell.

The soldiers' most primal fears were finally awakened, and they screamed and scattered in all directions.

Many people were terrified and charged at the knight, only to be trampled into mincemeat by his hooves.

Many more people crowded towards their allies, forming an even larger mass of flesh.

The knights occasionally fired a few shots around them, as if herding a flock of sheep. Wherever they charged, a path would be cleared.

Those who did not make way for them then forged a path.

Blood stained every nail on the horseshoe.

The Empire's front lines collapsed.

(End of this chapter)