The Battle of Arcal Plain (2)
The mountain ridge above the canyon, which had been perfectly intact moments ago, suddenly exploded. What could possibly have caused it?
For Eric Smith, a man of the medieval era, there was only one answer that came to mind.
An ambush.
His complete lack of knowledge about modern warfare prevented him from reaching the truth—that a cannon fired from ten kilometers away had shattered the mountain. And so Eric Smith chose the most logical response an infantry commander could make when caught in an ambush.
“The enemy numbers aren’t that large! All officers, focus on calming the troops! The Wyvern Knights will fly above the canyon and search for the hidden ambushers!”
From Eric Smith’s perspective, it was a perfectly rational course of action. The South had no wyverns. High-quality horses were also nearly nonexistent there. Therefore, it was safe to assume the South possessed almost no mobile forces. At best, this ambush could only involve a few dozen or a few hundred men.
Besides, an ambush wasn’t something that could be prepared simply by arriving first. Collapsing a mountain like this would require several days of preparation at minimum. That was not something the slow-moving Southern main army—marching a hundred kilometers on foot—could have done.
In other words, the only enemies physically capable of reaching this location in advance and attempting an ambush numbered at most a few hundred.
“This is nothing more than an ambush of a few hundred men at most! Everyone, stay calm and maintain formation!”
And a mere few dozen or few hundred ambushers would be effortlessly swept away by the wyvern knights following behind. Clear out the ambush with the Wyvern Knight Order, then regroup and remove the boulders blocking the collapsed canyon. That was the most reasonable judgment in this situation.
If the army’s formation broke and chaos spread because of a mere few hundred enemies, the damage would be far greater.
Fortunately, the discipline of the Western regular army, forged through countless wars, was ironclad. The officers quickly began restoring order.
“All troops, regroup! Our skies are protected by the proud Wyvern Knight Order!”
“Show the cowardly Southern dogs the dignified and courageous spirit of the Western regular army!”
“From this moment on, any soldier who breaks formation or attempts to flee will be summarily executed under military law! Everyone, maintain your ranks!”
And that perfectly rational decision became the worst possible choice in this situation.
Gathering an army in front of a battleship’s bombardment… was no different from begging for suicide.
There was no warning before the second salvo struck.
“…Huh?”
Only a handful of knights with exceptional dynamic vision managed to catch the faint trajectory slicing across the sky.
The second barrage was far more precise. Eight shells slammed into both canyon walls, pulverizing them. Pitch-black smoke erupted dozens of meters high, shattering the unstable ground.
Rumble—!
Only then did the thought finally occur to Eric Smith that something had gone terribly wrong.
“An… ambush?”
The South had no high-circle mages. He had heard that the Southern leader, a man named Kyle Leopold, was an exceptionally powerful mage. But it wasn’t as if he was personally hurling spells from above, was it?
Then how could an attack of this magnitude…
A human mind simply freezes when faced with the incomprehensible. Even Eric Smith, once hailed as a renowned general of the Western front, could not escape that fate.
As he stared blankly at the collapsing canyon, chaos erupted behind him.
“Mages! Deploy defensive magic circles, now!”
“M-my leg! Aaaargh!”
“Save me! I don’t want to die!”
“I’ll cut down anyone who runs—”
“Shut up with that nonsense! If we stay here we’re all going to—”
“Father in heaven…”
The voices of commanders trying desperately to restore order. The screams of those crushed beneath collapsing cliffs. Soldiers whose minds had snapped, running wildly in every direction. Men praying to the sky.
The canyon had fallen into complete pandemonium.
Trapped with both front and rear blocked. An unknown power that was neither magic nor ambush. The terror that this force could descend upon them at any moment. Faced with incomprehensible fear, humans were bound to crumble.
And then the third salvo came crashing down.
This time the fire was far more accurate. One of the eight 305mm shells skimmed past the collapsed cliff and detonated directly inside the canyon. The ground flipped instantly.
Rumble—!
With a sound like thunder, the earth beneath glowed red-hot. The ground swelled, and massive heat began pouring out through the cracks.
The ordinary soldiers weren’t even given time to realize what was happening beneath their feet. The massive explosion that erupted like a volcano literally melted the bodies of those standing above it.
“…”
Even knights wrapped in dense aura and mages who had deployed defensive circles could not survive. Where the smoke passed, not even corpses remained.
Only then did Eric Smith finally understand the true nature of the attack raining down on them.
“It can’t be…”
A battleship. The South’s mysterious new weapon of unknown origin. The monster that had destroyed a fortress guarded by one 8th Circle mage and two 7th Circle mages in a single strike.
“But… how?”
The distance from the coastline to this canyon was at least eight kilometers. And it wasn’t just the distance—the mountain range should have completely blocked their line of sight. How could such precise fire even be possible?
It no longer mattered.
Eric Smith no longer had the luxury of pondering such questions.
The Dreadnought’s fourth salvo was already hurtling toward the canyon.
Boom—!
The overwhelming blast pressure of the 305mm naval guns melted the Western army’s elite troops. It was not a metaphor. Humans struck directly by the shells simply ceased to exist, leaving no trace behind.
Aura that could stop 20mm bullets and withstand 76mm shells? Before dozens of times the mass and kinetic energy, it was nothing more than a pretty, sparkling light—nothing more, nothing less.
Before the power of a battleship, there was no difference between an aura-wielding knight and a firefly.
By the time the fifth salvo landed, Eric Smith had stopped thinking entirely.
Survival instincts only activate when a path to survival is visible. In the face of overwhelming violence that crushed aura, shattered magic, and destroyed terrain itself, such things held no meaning whatsoever.
Explosions erupted between the canyon walls. It was a clear hit—no need to even check through a telescope.
“Third salvo, confirmed hit!”
As soon as Yohan reported, a busy voice came from beyond the crystal orb.
Second turret calibration confirmed accurate! All turrets, align firing angles with the second turret!
First turret, ready!
Fourth and fifth turrets, ready!
Fourth salvo, fire!
Once again the naval guns belched fire. Exactly fifteen seconds later, the canyon was once more engulfed in explosive smoke. This time three shells struck the exact center of the canyon.
Three consecutive explosions shook the earth. Could this place even be called a canyon anymore? The mountains on both sides had collapsed, filling the gorge with earth and sand until it was no longer passable by human feet.
The fate of those buried below?
“…I’d rather not imagine it.”
The battleship’s bombardment continued without pause. And with each successive barrage, the precision only increased.
Thus, roughly ten minutes later—
Tenth salvo, fire!
When the tenth volley slammed down, not even a trace of the canyon remained. Yet the battleship’s guns did not stop. As if determined to bury them completely, shell after shell continued to rain down on the now utterly destroyed terrain.
Yohan stared at the scene in a daze. The bombardment finally ceased after the thirteenth salvo.
His Grace the Grand Duke and the Imperial Guard will soon reach the canyon. Cease naval gunfire.
Yohan did not think that would be good news for any survivors inside the canyon.
He recalled once more the appearance of the ‘Imperial Guard’ he had encountered before. Ash-gray coats. Ash-gray steel helmets. Ash-gray masks. Clad entirely in those dull, hard colors, they possessed a strange sense of oppression that knights simply did not have.
If knights symbolized honor and power, their uniforms seemed to embody the ‘Empire’ itself. Especially those emotionless eyes that glowed red…
“Ugh, I absolutely never want to meet them as an enemy.”
Yohan shuddered and stopped thinking about it. He had no desire to learn more about the darkness of the South.
“Ughhh…”
Eric Smith groaned as he pushed himself up from the ruins. It felt like the morning after a night of heavy drinking—his head throbbed, his vision was blurry, and his entire body ached.
But this was not his bedroom. This was the middle of a battlefield. The moment Eric Smith realized that fact, he tried to stand.
“Survivor detected.”
Before he could, he heard a chilling, distorted mechanical voice that instinctively triggered pure terror.
When he barely managed to open his eyes, he saw the shattered canyon and the devastated army. And among the ruins, soldiers in ash-gray uniforms were moving about, searching for survivors.
Could they be a rescue team?
Clinging to that faint hope, Eric Smith tried to rise—only for his body to freeze solid.
“No survivors.”
With those cold words, a soldier clad in heavy armor and carrying a heavy machine gun approached a fallen knight. A burst of gunfire tore the knight’s body to shreds.
Eric Smith’s face turned deathly pale and froze in place.