I, the prince in distress, send money

Chapter 363 The Knight's Lament
War is like playing cards; you have to see what cards you have in your hand, and at the same time, estimate what cards the enemy has.

In this game of "Dou Dizhu" (a popular Chinese card game), Seba realized he had miscalculated his opponent's cards; the Bagnian player's royal flush had not been played.

Before sending more knights to support the southern front, Seba believed that the Bagnians' heavy artillery was tied down by their allies and that even if they could fire on the southern front, they wouldn't be able to fire many shots.

Judging from the activity and the scene on the eastern front, the Bagnians' heavy artillery had been firing continuously.

At this crucial moment that will determine the outcome of the battle, if the knights can break through the enemy's defenses and launch another charge, then even if the enemy's heavy artillery turns its muzzle, they will not be able to fire many shots due to the overheating of the cannons, the consumption of explosives, and the physical strength of the loaders.

However, what is the cause of the continuous thunder rumbling coming from the rocky highlands?

Realizing something was amiss, Seba instinctively took a few steps forward on his horse, his mind blank.

The sound... that continuous, thunderous roar that seemed to roll across the sky, was clearly and undeniably coming from the direction of the Rocky Heights!

This is a true barrage of heavy artillery, the roar of a siege behemoth, a power strong enough to tear the earth apart and shatter steel!

"impossible……"

Seba's lips moved as he muttered to himself, his knuckles turning white from gripping the reins too tightly.

He suddenly looked up, his bloodshot eyes fixed on the rocky highlands.

Smoke rose from the high ground, and with each thunderous boom, a blinding muzzle flash appeared in the smoke, like the open eyes of a demon from hell!
He was wrong, terribly wrong!

The Bagnians' heavy artillery was not tied down by the Minieses on the eastern front at all!

Those deafening cannon fires and towering plumes of smoke were all a carefully orchestrated deception. All their heavy artillery was now aimed at the elite knights he had just thrown into the battlefield, the ones who carried all his hopes and last bargaining chips.

And his knights... Seba's gaze, filled with endless fear and despair, suddenly turned to the rear of the southern battlefield, to the reserve assembly area on which he had placed his high hopes.

That place is the perfect firing range for the heavy artillery group on Rock Heights!
Hundreds and thousands of Leterian knights, clad in heavy plate armor and wielding lances and spears, along with their equally well-equipped squires, mounted infantry, and cavalry, converged like a torrent of steel on the relatively open, gentle slope.

Under the command of knights of various ranks who were qualified to carry the square banner, they had just completed their initial assembly and formation, and were preparing to charge forward with overwhelming force against the crumbling Hegland defense line, utterly crushing the enemy's last resistance.

The knights' armor gleamed, their warhorses were magnificent, and their banners fluttered in the wind.

They are the pride of the Kingdom of Retelia, an invincible blade on the battlefield.

Full of confidence and high morale, they were ready to launch the decisive charge and present the glory of victory to the king and the gods!
However, all of this seemed so fragile and insignificant in the face of the god of war who descended from the heavens.

Boom... Boom... Boom... Boom... Boom...

On the rocky high ground, the siege artillerymen completed a test firing at top speed. After confirming that the artillery coordinates were correct, their roars were no longer sporadic probing, but a dense, torrential downpour.

Twenty heavy siege cannons, each weighing twelve or sixteen pounds, under unified command, unleashed a devastating salvo, showering their "greetings" upon the exposed knightly assembly ground.

There was no fire, no explosion.

There were only blurry black shadows tearing through the air, almost invisible to the naked eye.

Those were solid cast iron shells, each weighing twelve or sixteen pounds. They were imbued with terrifying kinetic energy, carrying the will to destroy everything, tracing deadly arcs, like a divinely punished iron plow, fiercely "ploughing" into the dense and glorious ranks of the Reteria knights.

Pfft... Sizzle...

The first sixteen-pound cannonball, with a piercing whistle, struck precisely beside a knight lord who was holding a square flag high and giving a passionate final speech. The cannonball did not explode; it simply... ran over him!
Like a hot knife slicing through butter.

The knight lord and his magnificent warhorse vanished instantly, the cannonball easily tearing through the expensive plate armor, tough flesh, and hard bones, leaving only his two legs hanging from the stirrups below the waist, and the hindquarters of the warhorse crashing to the ground.

The gushing blood and fragments of internal organs splattered like ink across the astonished visors and armor of the surrounding knights. The square flag representing command, along with the arm holding it, was torn into the air by the immense kinetic energy.

This is just the beginning.

The second cannonball struck immediately afterward, but instead of hitting the knight, it struck the chest of a warhorse clad in magnificent armor.

Before the unfortunate warhorse could even whimper, its chest burst open like a watermelon struck by a giant hammer. The heavy carcass and the rider on its back were violently thrown into the air by the enormous impact, crashing into the crowd behind them like rag dolls, causing chaos and disarray.

The third, the fourth... the shells transformed into messengers of the god of war, weaving freely through the dense crowd.

*Pfft!* *Crack!* *Boom!*

The dull thuds of impact, the cracking of bones breaking, the groans of armor twisting and deforming, the mournful cries of warhorses falling to the ground, and the short, agonizing screams of humans being crushed or severely wounded in an instant, instantly replaced the previous battle cries.

A single cannonball could pierce through three or four knights charging side by side, knocking them down like a string of candied hawthorns. The immense kinetic energy would not only kill the target directly hit, but the flying armor fragments and severed limbs would sweep around like deadly shot.

Another shell might strike the hard ground, then, with terrifying residual force, bounce and tumble at high speed on the ground like a giant iron ball.

Wherever it passed, the leg bones of warhorses were easily broken like withered branches, and knights were swept down and crushed. A "death corridor" paved with severed limbs, broken armor, and splattered blood was instantly formed in the once orderly ranks of knights.

There was no fire, no smoke, only pure, cold, physical destructive power.

The torrent of steel was as fragile as paper in the face of this rain of iron falling from the sky.

Seba stood frozen on his horse in the mountains of the rear, his body ice-cold, as if he had fallen into a bottomless ice cave.

He watched helplessly as his elite knightly force, which he was so proud of and had built with countless efforts and the kingdom's resources, was crushed and pulverized like wheat being thrown into a millstone by the heavy artillery of the Rocky Heights.

The sturdy plate armor that the knights were so proud of was like a child's toy in the face of the solid shot from the siege cannons, easily pierced, torn, and twisted.

The warhorse neighed and collapsed, crushing its rider into a bloody pulp. Squires and infantrymen vanished in droves, like leaves swept away by a whirlwind.

The deafening roar of the cannons, each boom like a hammer blow to Seba's heart. Each shot meant that his strongest hand was being mercilessly torn apart and destroyed.

His meticulously planned final offensive, the decisive blow he had placed his hopes on, had not even been truly launched before it was reduced to nothing and a bloody inferno by the cold and precise "royal bomb" of the Bagnians... the roar of those twenty silent and deadly siege cannons.

The winds of Rocky Heights still carried the smell of gunpowder and blood, brushing against Chris's calm face.

Below, in Seba's world, all that remained was a despairing roar and a crimson expanse.

The knights were indeed very brave.

They inherited the glory of their ancestors, basked in the glow of chivalry, and regarded cowardice as the greatest shame.

Even in the inferno of roaring cannons and flying flesh, they still managed to drive their weary bodies and frightened warhorses forward with their iron will and desire for victory.

However, what poured down from the rocky highlands were not ordinary arrows or musket pellets, but divinely wrathful siege cannons.

This is something that courage, armor, and martial arts can no longer withstand.

Baron Carlisle was panting heavily. Beneath his heavy plate armor, sweat had already soaked through his inner lining, mixed with bloodstains that he couldn't tell if it was his own or that of his enemies, making it sticky and cold.

Carlisle had just smashed the head of a Hygrand halberdier with his heavy two-handed greatsword, hot, viscous liquid splattering across the gaps in his visor. He raised his numb arm to touch the visor and looked around.

He had only two bloodied family knights left by his side. The knights' squires had long since fallen, and most of their precious warhorses had either died in front of barbed wire and chevaux-de-frise, or been torn apart by muskets and those damned tiger-squat cannons.

The three of them, along with several other knights nearby who had also lost their mounts and were badly wounded, were using a makeshift shelter made of corpses and broken chevaux-de-frise as cover, engaging in a desperate tug-of-war with the Hygrande musketeers and halberdiers who were constantly surging in from behind the defensive line.

Every breath was accompanied by the burning pain of gunpowder and blood. Inside the helmet, in the narrow field of vision, there were swaying enemy figures, thrusting halberds, and flashing muzzle flashes of muskets.

My ears were filled with the clanging of metal, the dying screams, and the incessant banging of flintlock pistols.

They had broken through the first line of defense, but were now stuck on this damned second line, unable to make any progress.

The enemy's resistance was more tenacious than imagined. The musketeers in green uniforms seemed to know no fear, and their volleys of fire were like icy tides, constantly draining the life force of the remaining knights.

"Hold on, reinforcements are coming! Reinforcements are on their way!"

Carlisle roared hoarsely, both to encourage his remaining companions and to bolster his own spirits. Victory was within reach; if only he could hold on a little longer…

at this time……

A thunderous roar, far more intense and deafening than any previous artillery barrage, rolled in from the front... or more precisely, from the direction of the higher, rocky hills, like the wrath of the gods!

Carlisle's heart sank.

That sound… He instinctively turned around abruptly in the gap as he parried a thrusting halberd, looking towards the direction of the assembly point.

That one glance became the last nightmare of his life.

Through the billowing smoke and rising dust, he saw the gentle slope where the assembly point should have gleamed with the light of steel, teeming with the majestic figures of warhorses, and fluttering with banners of glory…

At this moment, the area is being repeatedly "plowed" by black death trails that are almost invisible to the naked eye!

There was no fire, no smoke from explosions, only pure, cold destruction.

He saw a familiar square flag with a golden lion emblem... it was the flag of his friend, the brave Viscount Leonardo da Vinci.

The flag, along with the arm that held it, was violently torn apart by an unseen force and flew into the air.

He saw a huge black shadow crash into a group of knights who were ready to go, instantly clearing a straight "passage".

He saw the once orderly and majestic steel formation collapse instantly, like an ant colony wantonly trampled by a naughty child.

The knights fled in terror, colliding with one another! The cannonballs were like the scythe of death, mercilessly reaping lives with each strike, leaving behind horrifying bloody ravines and utter wreckage!
"Do not……"

Baron Carlisle muttered to himself in a daze, his two-handed greatsword almost slipping from his grasp. The color drained from his face beneath his helmet, leaving only a deathly despair.

The elite of the Leterian army... their last hope...

There are no reinforcements.

Their escape route... was also completely cut off by the Grim Reaper who descended from the sky.

Ahead lies a relentless enemy, growing ever larger with each battle, while behind lies their own elite forces, mercilessly slaughtered and already collapsing.

A chilling coldness instantly spread from the soles of my feet throughout my body, only to be replaced by overwhelming grief and despair!

"Ah ah ah ah..."

Baron Carlisle let out a heart-wrenching roar, a voice filled with endless pain, rage, and the madness of being mocked by fate. He ripped off his damaged and deformed visor, revealing a twisted face blackened by gunpowder smoke, covered in blood and tear stains, with bloodshot eyes.

"Knights!"

He glanced around at the two remaining family knights, who were also shrouded in despair, his voice hoarse yet carrying a resolute determination.

"In the name of the Sun God, for the honor of the Montfort family!"

He suddenly pointed to the hellish scene behind him, covered in artillery fire, and then suddenly pointed to the densely packed garrison of Hegland ahead.

"Charge with me!"

He raised his two-handed greatsword high, which was covered in brains and bone fragments.

"For Montfort, for the glory of the sun god!"

Two equally desperate family knights, driven mad by his madness, let out beast-like howls and raised their weapons.

Baron Carlisle no longer looked at the devastated inferno behind him; his eyes were fixed only on the green army formation ahead. With all his remaining strength, he let out his final battle cry.

"A death of honor!!!"

Without warhorses, the three of them were like three wounded lions, dragging heavy plate armor, stepping over the corpses of their comrades and enemies, ignoring the halberds thrusting and the lead bullets being fired from all sides, and with a desperate attitude, they launched a final, hopeless charge toward the densest part of the Hegland defense line.

Their figures, amidst the billowing smoke and flying bullets, appeared so small and tragic, yet they carried a final, indomitable gleam before being crushed by the wheels of time.

This charge is not for victory, but to prove the meaning of the knight's existence one last time before destruction comes.

Coincidentally, the knights fighting bloody battles on the front lines, battling tooth and nail with the players, all made the same decision.

Slightly behind, more than half of the Reteria Knights, still being bombarded, decided to continue forward to support Tongze, who was still fighting ahead, to either win or die with him.

After Chris discovered this, he was astonished by the tenacity of these Leterian knights, and then...

"Raise the North Wind rockets!"

The Borei rocket is the third improved version of the previous incendiary rocket. It changed from incendiary damage to high-explosive shock wave fragmentation damage. The blast radius was not increased, but rather reduced.

However, at the cost of a limited kill radius, the Borei rocket successfully improved its controllability, achieving an aiming error of no more than 100 meters from the actual impact point within an effective range of 2,000 meters, making it a practical high-explosive rocket and a tactical weapon of mass destruction.

Behind the rocky highlands, the rocket troops, which had been prepared in advance, immediately began to move. Ten minutes later, more than a dozen smoke trails rose into the air from there, first soaring into the sky, and then crashing into the battlefield.

(End of this chapter)