I, the prince in distress, send money

Chapter 429 Hot Weapons Are Really Useful

As Diu Ni Rem led his men to the outer edge of the military camp, facing the swamp, he had just led them into the front-line command post on the high platform when, before he could even find a window to observe the battle, the ground beneath his feet began to tremble even more violently.

Diu Ni Rem paused for a moment, then immediately rushed to the nearest observation window, took out his binoculars, and looked out of the military camp.

Accompanied by a chilling rustling sound of scales rubbing against mud and wet grass, it surged in like a tidal wave from the dark swamp at the edge of the camp.

The sound grew louder and closer, eventually transforming into a strange, primal shriek formed from the roars of countless Lamia snake-men.

"Fire flares! Fire flares now!"

"Throw you Rem!" he roared.

In fact, because players make up more than half of the Holy Expeditionary Army, this army is highly subjective, and some people were already making preparations when Diu Ni Rem was assassinated.

"Whoosh... Bang..."

At the same time as his command, a sharp whistling sound pierced the night sky.

Ten magnesium powder flares were launched into the air and then exploded violently, releasing a dazzling, cold white light that instantly illuminated a large area around the camp as if it were daytime!
The sight before her made Rem, who was experiencing a major battle for the first time, hold her breath.

Beyond the chevaux-de-frise and shallow trenches surrounding the camp, the once quiet swamp, exuding the scent of humus, was now completely boiling over. Countless Lamia snake people, like a black torrent surging from the abyss of hell, were crashing into the human defenses at an astonishing speed.

They slithered swiftly through the dark swamp, their dense scales reflecting a chilling, eerie sheen under the cold light of the flares. Layer upon layer, one after another, they formed a surging, roaring tidal wave of snakes, so numerous that it seemed to threaten to completely engulf the entire camp.

"Fire, fire quickly!"

The shouts of the frontline players and NPC officers sounded particularly shrill amidst the deafening roars.

A deafening roar erupted from the human defenses!

……

Almost at the same time the cannon fired, in an inconspicuous tent in a relatively remote area of ​​the military camp, the young military judge Jacques suddenly sat up from his cot.

The dull thud did indeed cause his heart to stop for a moment, completely pulling him out of his sleep.

"Enemy attack, from the direction of the swamp!"

The sound of soldiers running and shouting could be heard outside the tent.

Completely wide awake, Jacques practically rolled off the bed, armed himself in a matter of seconds, and rushed out of the tent. The sight before him made Jacques gasp.

At this moment, the entire military camp seemed like a giant beast that had been awakened, rising up in anger with great momentum. The soldiers surged towards the defense line in the direction of the swamp like a flood that had burst its banks, their footsteps heavy and chaotic.

In the sky, several newly launched flares were slowly descending, illuminating part of the camp in a stark white light. Amidst the interplay of light and shadow, figures moved about, creating an atmosphere of apocalyptic chaos and tension.

The air was thick with the pungent smell of gunpowder, blood, and the stench unique to swamps.

"The front lines! To the front lines!"

Jacques shouted loudly to the soldiers around him, his voice hoarse with tension. He raised his command sword, determined his direction, took a deep breath, and ran towards the direction where the gunfire was most intense.

Instead of rushing towards the high platform of the front-line command post where the supreme commander was located, he ran towards a relatively low, simple breastwork defense line made of mud and logs, guided by his intuition and sense of duty.

That place is one of the defensive nodes formed by players and some NPC soldiers.

When he ran breathlessly behind the defensive line, he witnessed a scene he would never forget.

By the light of the flares and the glow of the braziers burning behind the breastwork, he saw rows of flintlock musketeers pressed against the damp, cold wooden walls and earthen mounds.

Their faces showed a mixture of tension, excitement, and a hint of fear, but their hands holding the guns remained remarkably steady.

An officer in plate armor and a Roman-style helmet brandished his sword and roared at the top of his lungs, trying to make his voice penetrate the deafening noise of the battlefield.

"Ready, hold your ground, fire on my command!"

The officer's calm demeanor reassured Jacques somewhat, and he began to look up at the outside of the breastwork.

Then he saw a scene that resembled hell.

Under the light of the flares, countless Lamia snake-men were frantically charging at the barricades and shallow moats; their ferocious faces, shimmering scales, and brandishing weapons were clearly visible.

The oppressive feeling that surged in like a black tide made Jacques feel suffocated.

He could even clearly see the cruel and ferocious light flashing in the vertical pupils of the snake-men in the front row, and smell the strong fishy odor emanating from them.

Just then, the officer's sword came crashing down, like snapping a taut bowstring.

"put……"

The moment the order was given, the whole world in Jacques's eyes seemed to be lit up by orange flames, and at least twenty flintlock musketeers in front of him pulled their triggers at the same time.

The deafening roar of the salvo hit Jacques like a solid wall, slamming into his eardrums and chest. He instinctively took a half step back, his pupils contracting instantly from the intense flashes of light and the deafening noise!
He could see that each flintlock musket spewed out a blinding tongue of fire half a meter long, and thick white smoke rose up instantly like an explosion, engulfing most of the soldiers' figures.

Twenty—no, hundreds of gun muzzle flashes along the entire defensive line—merged into one in an instant, forming a destructive wall of fire in front of Jacques, forged from steel, flame, and will.

The whistling sound of lead bullets tearing through the air pierced the smoke of gunpowder.

Immediately following was the chilling sound of a lead bullet piercing flesh.

Through the gaps in the smoke, Jacques could see the wave of snake-men charging at the front, as if they had been struck head-on by an invisible hammer.

Their bodies jolted suddenly during the charge, their scales shattered, and flesh and blood flew everywhere.

Some snake-men had their upper bodies burst open with bloody holes and fell backward, while others were twisted and rolled by the enormous impact of the lead bullets.

A dense barrage of bullets swept across, instantly creating a bloody, mangled death zone in front. The serpent-men's charging tide seemed to have crashed into an invisible wall of steel, and its momentum was halted.

The thick smoke, carrying the acrid smell of sulfur, hit Jacques in the face, causing him to instinctively hold his breath.

He watched as the soldiers who had finished firing skillfully retreated to make way, and the soldiers who had finished reloading immediately took their place, their guns once again protruding from the firing ports on the breastwork, awaiting the next order to die.

The officer's shout rang out again, piercing through the clamor of gunfire.

"Loading, quick! Next column ready!"

Jacques leaned against a stake supporting his tent, his heart still pounding, his palms sweating as he gripped his sword hilt.

Even though it wasn't the first time he'd experienced the cruelest and most violent aspects of war so closely, the destructive power that erupted in an instant, the uniform, iron will, and the cruel reality of life being as fragile as paper in the face of barrage of bullets still made him feel tense and excited. Meanwhile, Rem was frowning as he watched the fierce fighting on the front lines. The volleys of musketeers, while awe-inspiring, couldn't truly stop the advance of the Serpent Men's tide.

"Artillery, where are our artillery?"

The voice just fell,

Tiger Crouching Cannon immediately responded to his shout.

These light artillery pieces, deployed at the forefront of the defense, with their low firing angles, were the first to unleash a muffled roar.

Sparks flew, thick smoke billowed, and shrapnel swept out like a deadly rain of iron.

The snake-men, who were at the forefront and only forty or fifty meters away from reaching the camp's barricades, seemed to have been slashed by an invisible giant scythe. A large number of them fell instantly, their severed limbs and mud flying everywhere. Their shrill screams were drowned out by the even greater clamor.

Immediately afterwards, the three-pound and six-pound field guns deployed at the later positions roared even more powerfully, spitting out long tongues of fire from their muzzles, and the heavy solid iron balls, carrying terrifying kinetic energy, roared out and slammed into the surging snake tide.

Wherever the iron ball passed, flesh and blood flew everywhere, carving out horrifying bloody alleys. Whether it was hard scales or a strong snake body, everything was fragile in the face of the absolute impact.

Each shelling creates a brief, bloody, and devastating blank space within the dense swarm of snakes.

Even though the number of snake people was astonishing, and their inherently cold-blooded racial characteristics allowed them to crush the corpses and blood of their companions, ignoring the heavy casualties, and continue charging with astonishing ferocity, quickly filling the gaps torn open by the artillery fire.

However, faced with the bombardment of hundreds of cannons of all sizes, the serpent people's wave crashed into a seawall, leaving most of them stranded on their way to charge. Only a small portion crossed the rain of shells and crashed solidly into the barricades and barbed wire defenses.

The snake-men at the forefront were mostly warriors with relatively thick scales and a more robust physique.

Their eyes burned with a bloodthirsty fervor, as if they believed that as long as they smashed through these wooden and wire barriers, they could tear the fragile humans to shreds.

However, what awaited them was a trap far more insidious and despairing than lead bullets and cannonballs... Among the Holy Army, many players had played World War II games and were proficient in setting up barbed wire and chevaux-de-frise.

Let alone snake people, even a light tank wouldn't fare well if it rammed into them.

The obstacles, made of sharpened wooden stakes bound together and deeply driven into the soil, resembled menacing fangs and were the first to meet the snake-men's attack.

The snake-man charging at high speed crashed into the pile, its thick snake body causing the outermost wooden stake to shake or even break.

But the sharp thorns also mercilessly pierced their relatively soft abdominal scales, causing them to let out a shrill cry of pain. Their charge came to an abrupt halt, their bodies writhing in agony, which in turn blocked the path of their companions behind them.

Some strong snake-men who tried to force their way through the barricades were often pierced by several wooden stakes at the same time, struggling in vain like giant insects nailed to a specimen board.

In addition, there are silent killers, densely scattered among the barricades, and sharp iron spikes beneath the barbed wire gleaming coldly in the light of the flares.

The serpentine nature of their movement means that their enormous bellies inevitably crush these areas.

These sharp iron spikes easily pierced the scales and skin of the snake-man's lower body, digging deep into the flesh. Every inch they advanced was accompanied by excruciating pain and new wounds.

Many snake-men writhed and convulsed in agony, trying to shake off the iron spikes embedded in their flesh, but only made their wounds tear wider, and blood quickly stained the mud beneath them.

Their rolling bodies became stumbling blocks for the subsequent snake-men's charge, causing even greater chaos.

Snake-belly barbed wire—this is the true nightmare of human defenses.

This specially made barbed wire is not laid vertically, but at complex angles, low and dense, with countless sharp barbs.

It wasn't specifically designed to target the crawling characteristics of snakes, but the barbed blades wrapped around the wire mesh were precisely designed to target snake people.

When the snake-men try to squeeze through the gaps in the barricades or crush the barbed wire to continue their charge, their snake bellies inevitably get caught in this deadly trap.

The tough wire instantly wrapped around their thick snake bodies, and the sharp barbs, like countless tiny poisonous hooks, clung tightly to the gaps in the scales and pierced deep into the flesh.

The more the snake-men struggled, twisting their bodies in an attempt to break free or move forward, the tighter the barbed wire wrapped around them, and the deeper the barbs pierced them. Their pride in their serpentine strength became an amplifier of their pain.

Sharp wires pierced the flesh and severed blood vessels, while barbs, like maggots clinging to bones, tore at the flesh. The snake-man's shrill, distorted screams rose and fell, far more desperate and painful than the cries caused by artillery fire and bullets.

After all, if hit by cannon fire or lead bullets, the snake-man would die cleanly and quickly, without feeling much pain. But the barbed wire in the snake's belly is the complete opposite... It doesn't have the ability to kill immediately, but it will cause small wounds to any unlucky person who steps into it over a long period of time.

In an instant, a hellish scene of pain, death, and frantic struggle unfolded within a few dozen meters in front of the human breastwork defense line.

For the musketeers and archers on the human defense line, these snake-men, struggling painfully within the barbed wire and with their movements restricted, were perfect live targets!

The officers seized the opportunity and shouted orders.

"Flintlock musketeers, fire freely!"

In an instant, the continuous bursts of flintlock musket fire rang out again, and thousands of orange-red muzzle flashes, like giant rings of fire blooming in the night, illuminated the entire front line in a crimson glow.

Amid the chaos, a few exceptionally strong or agile snake-men attempted to leap over the deadly trap.

Using the incredible elasticity of their snake bodies, they leap suddenly from the ground, attempting to overcome the height of the barricades and barbed wire.

However, humanity's defenses are not limited to just one obstacle.

The leaping snake-men often become excellent targets for flintlock volleys while in mid-air, their silhouettes clearly visible under the flares.

Even if they manage to dodge bullets, they often land in areas with denser barbed wire behind them, or run directly into melee players behind the second or third breastwork.

Snakemen are stronger than regular soldiers, but they are absolutely no match for a well-prepared and fully equipped player in a one-on-one fight.

Not to mention that only a very small number of snake-men can successfully overcome all the obstacles and reach the players, so there are far more melee players than snake-men, and many of them have to share one snake-man.

Because of this, after a snake-man warrior jumps over the barbed wire, it will take him no more than ten seconds from the moment he lands to the moment he is turned into mincemeat.

Rem could see it clearly from the high platform. Although the number of snake people was still terrifying, and the waves of their charge came one after another, the momentum of the snake tide was forcibly contained, scattered, and consumed in front of that death zone made of barricades, barbed wire, and caltrops.

Human artillery continued to bombard the rear of the snake horde, preventing new reinforcements from rapidly assembling.

The musketeers calmly loaded, aimed, and fired, picking off the snake-men who were struggling and confused in front of the obstacles one by one.

The spearmen and swordsmen stood ready, prepared to stab or chop at the few remaining snakemen who had managed to break through the barrier but were now exhausted.

well.

Diu Ni Rem nodded in satisfaction. These worms only looked scary. In a direct fight, they would just be some fat meat with scales.

(End of this chapter)