Chapter 851
Chapter 851
The indiscriminate bombardment, which had lasted for a full hour, finally came to an end. The armies of Count Austin and Count Duke had launched at least a thousand explosive bundles at Mulan City. In truth, they hadn't used up all their explosives; their trebuchets had all broken down. The machines simply couldn't withstand the strain of such a high-intensity, continuous barrage.
To the naked eye, Mulan City was a devastating sight. Sections of the city walls were scorched black, and many of the houses near the inner walls lay in ruins—nearly a hundred had collapsed from the explosions. The relentless bombardment had finally damaged the sturdy, meter-thick walls, brutally tearing four or five holes in them. Of course, the explosions hadn't created gaping breaches, but rather chipped away at the corners. Of the thousand-plus explosive bundles that had fallen upon the walls, only twenty or thirty had detonated properly, but that was more than enough to cause casualties. Among Shen Lang's two thousand soldiers, over twenty had been killed in the blasts, and nearly two hundred were injured.
Count Austin and Count Duke exchanged glances, then gave the order.
“Charge the city!”
“Attack!”
At their command, the twenty-thousand-strong army surged forward like a tidal wave, charging madly toward the city walls.
“For the Empire, for Duchess Dybas, for the Great Emperor Solon, kill every last Easterner!”
The massive army advanced with a peculiar rhythm, their pace quickening as they closed the distance to Mulan City, soon entering the four-hundred, then three-hundred-meter range. It was then that the eighteen trebuchets in Mulan City finally unleashed their power. (The other two had been destroyed during the enemy’s indiscriminate bombardment.—Author’s note)
“Ready! Ignite! Fire! Fire!”
The moment the command was given, a thunderous roar echoed as massive explosive bundles were hurled one by one toward the enemy. Each bundle weighed over fifty catties, all wrapped in asbestos cloth to prevent them from being ignited by enemy fire. Each contained twenty-five catties of explosives and twenty-five catties of shrapnel—hundreds of fragments. These huge bundles soared through the air in high arcs, crossing the city walls and landing fiercely amidst the charging enemy ranks. What followed was a truly earth-shattering explosion.
*BOOM! KRA-KOOM!*
The ground, which had just settled, began to tremble violently once more. The force was far greater than that of a grenade. Twenty-five catties of TNT combined with twenty-five catties of shrapnel was powerful enough to level a small building. The thirty-meter radius around the explosion became a kill zone. Crimson blood bloomed like flowers, spraying in all directions as countless enemy soldiers were torn to shreds and sent flying. With this single trebuchet volley, Mulan City had killed hundreds of enemy soldiers.
Watching the scene from a high vantage point, the faces of Count Austin and Count Duke merely twitched. They had anticipated heavy casualties in today's battle and believed that no matter how many of their own men died, it would all be worth it. This was a war between races, and if they didn't eliminate these Easterners today, their influence would soon spread in all directions. But no matter how gruesome the scene, the outcome of the battle would not change. The destruction of the Easterners' Empress City was a foregone conclusion.
***
North of the Green Wave Peninsula.
The eight thousand Amazonian knights led by Shen Lang swept south like a tidal wave, their speed unparalleled. The Amazon Isles were truly unique. Not only were the people's bloodlines closer to those of ancient humans, but even their warhorses were different. The Amazonian warhorses were far superior to those of the outside world, incomparable in both size and speed. They stood around 2.7 to 2.8 meters tall and weighed over 1.5 tons. A warhorse of this stature could be called a behemoth. It even surpassed the Earth's Shire horse, the largest breed in the world.
While Shires were ill-suited for the battlefield and better used for transport, Amazonian warhorses were incredibly ferocious in combat. They possessed powerful frames and achieved astonishing speeds when charging. While an ordinary warhorse in this world could charge at a speed of only 15 meters per second, an Amazonian warhorse could reach an incredible 25 meters per second. Even carrying two riders and clad in iron armor, their speed remained astounding.
With such size and charging speed, they could easily crush enemy forces and tear through any military formation. Of course, such powerful warhorses were not numerous. This time, Queen Eda had given Shen Lang eight thousand warriors but only four thousand warhorses. It had taken hundreds of ships to transport them here.
At that moment, the six-li wall of Chunhwa Pass was already in enemy hands. When Count Austin's army marched south toward Mulan City, they had left two thousand soldiers behind to guard the pass. Their objective was to prevent the Easterners in Mulan City from escaping in that direction. The man in charge of defending the six-li wall of Chunhwa Pass was a commander. A former attendant to Duchess Dybas and a highly skilled warrior, his name was Burke.
Burke's family had been vassals to the Russo family for generations; he was of noble birth. However, as he was not the firstborn, he could not inherit the title, so he had grown up by Duchess Dybas's side as her attendant warrior. He was also exceptionally clever and handsome. Though he would never admit it, he harbored feelings for Duchess Dybas. He knew he could never marry such a noble woman, but he would have been content just to be her lover. Of course, he had not succeeded. The nobles of the Sauron Dynasty were notoriously promiscuous, but Dybas, despite her peerless beauty and stunning figure, was not particularly interested in romantic affairs. Though she was aware of Burke's fawning, she did not punish him, instead sending him to the army.
Although he followed his orders without complaint, Commander Burke secretly resented Count Austin. Why had he been left here instead of being taken along to attack Mulan City? He wanted to flay every Easterner there, to burn them to ash. He hated all Easterners because Shen Lang had slept with the woman he adored, Duchess Dybas. Even though it had been for the sake of the Emperor, Burke believed that a lowly Easterner like Shen Lang deserved to be burned at the stake ten thousand times over. Shen Lang wasn't fit to touch even a single one of Duchess Dybas's fingers.
Since there would be no more fighting here, Commander Burke could relax. Inside his quarters at Chunhwa Pass, he had closed the door, removed his armor, and was indulging in a private act, the image of Duchess Dybas vivid in his mind.
“Dybas, my Duchess, I want you. My mistress, I can make you lose your mind. You must give me a chance to prove it.”
Just then, the cup on his table began to tremble.
*What is this? An earthquake?*
*Thump, thump, thump.*
The vibrations in the ground grew stronger.
*Bang!*
The door to his quarters burst open, and his deputy commander rushed in. He stared, startled, at the Commander and the portrait before him.
*Who is the woman in that portrait?*
But the deputy commander showed no great surprise. Such things were common in the army; in fact, he had seen far worse.
“Commander, the enemy has appeared!”
***
Commander Burke led his two thousand warriors up the six-li wall of Chunhwa Pass and looked to the north. One by one, then in a flood, black figures appeared. From the walls of Chunhwa Pass, the enemy was still indistinct, but the warriors at the mountaintop outpost could see them much more clearly. Eight thousand Amazon warriors, riding two to a horse, stretched out as far as the eye could see. They were surging southward like an all-consuming wave.
*Bwoooooo.*
“Enemy attack! Enemy attack! To your battle stations!”
When they were still two thousand meters from Chunhwa Pass, four thousand Amazonian warriors leaped from their warhorses and charged madly toward the walls on their own two feet. Without rest, without gathering into formation, they headed straight for the city. What was astonishing was that even on foot, their speed was not much different from that of the horses, and their charge was incomparably swift. They uttered no war cries, only ran.
As the distance closed, the defenders on the walls of Chunhwa Pass, nestled in the mountain valley, could finally see the enemy clearly.
“Amazon warriors? H-how can this be? According to the ancestors' decree, aren't the Amazons forbidden from ever stepping foot outside their own lands? Why are they here?”
The mere mention of Amazon warriors filled Commander Burke with rage and humiliation. He had been to the Rite of Procreation three times, but not a single Amazon warrior had chosen him, and he had returned empty-handed each time.
“Ready! Nock your arrows!”
At Commander Burke's order, the two thousand men on the walls began to fire.
*Swish, swish, swish, swish.*
But their efforts were futile. The volley of two thousand arrows was not dense, and the Amazon warriors were running too fast. They covered over ten meters per second, making it impossible for anyone but a master archer to hit such a fast-moving target. And even if an arrow did hit, it was meaningless. The Amazon warriors, being close to ancient humans, could easily block the arrows with their shields. Just a few dozen seconds later, the four thousand Amazon warriors reached the base of the city wall. The wall was not particularly high, but it was still five meters tall, and they had no siege ladders or ropes. But what happened next stunned not only Commander Burke, but Shen Lang as well.
*Damn it, are they really this strong?*
The warriors of the Saman tribe could use grappling hooks to scale walls, and some could even climb them with their bare hands. The Second Nirvana Army could do it too. But the Amazon warriors didn't need to climb. They simply accelerated on the ground, leaped, and ran straight up the wall to the top. It was like the world's most spectacular display of parkour. They planted their feet and sprinted up the vertical wall, then hooked their hands over the top and vaulted over. And for the Amazon warriors, this was just an ordinary technique. The Amazon generals were even more impressive, leaping directly from the ground to land on top of the five-meter-high wall. Of course, Mulan could do this, but dozens of Amazon generals were all capable of the same feat.
Mere seconds after their charge began, thousands of Amazon warriors swarmed onto the city walls in unison.
Commander Burke roared.
“Draw your swords! Kill the enemy!”