I will be crowned king

The fire and smoke are still spreading, but the screams and the charging cries of the soldiers are gradually being replaced by the roar of the steam core and the endless billowing steam.

The roaring steel monsters were still wreaking havoc on the battlefield, but there were fewer and fewer opportunities for them to continue to show their cruelty. Realizing that individual soldiers could not pose a threat to these monsters, the New World Army began to retreat in an orderly manner, exiting the battlefield. Conquered position.

On the other hand, the Judgment Knights, whose existence has been completely exposed, no longer cover up, and openly approach the surrounding light sources; in the midst of the raging sea of ​​fire, these ferocious monsters, which are completely black and glowing with metallic luster, are finally fully revealed. In front of the frightened New World Army.

Two flat-firing cannons, four revolving steam repeating rifles, track links sufficient to traverse most trenches, 19 mm thick new armor, a nearly eight-meter body, and an approved crew of nine people...

And the beginning of everything was the steam core miniaturization project that was finally completed by the Holy See in the ninety-ninth year of the Saints calendar.

This is also the final content of the "Steam Core" in Saint Isaac's notes - "The moment it is only the size of a bedside table and has at least three-quarters of its original kinetic energy, it will be the moment when the entire world is turned upside down."

The Holy See, who was convinced of this, spent countless efforts, manpower and material resources, and finally completed the creation at the end of the ninety-ninth year of the Saints calendar that even Saint Isaac could not complete by himself, and incidentally completed the creation of Saint Isaac in The last weapon he designed before his death was the Land Cruiser.

According to the crazy people in the monastery, this weapon was born for the future that Saint Isaac called "upside-down": it is the hammer that ends all wars, it is the engine that starts a new war, and it is the last step to bury the ancient dark age. The pen is the beginning of a brand new, more terrifying and bloody dark age.

But in the eyes of Grad Manfred, the real situation is far from as beautiful as the madmen describe...

"...One of the tracks of the second team was damaged, and the car body was stuck in the traffic trench of the second position. Two engines failed. Emergency repairs are being organized, and the vehicle is temporarily incapacitated!"

"...The fourth team was ambushed by the enemy during a flank assault. One of the armors was penetrated by a cannon, and the other three armors were damaged to varying degrees..."

"...the fourth team failed to forcefully break through the fort and was stuck in the fortress unable to move. There are enemies around who are suspected of trying to organize a siege and are requesting reinforcements..."

...A series of bad news was continuously conveyed to Grad's mind through those gifted with semaphore and insight abilities, causing the grand leader who originally had high hopes for this new weapon to completely give up on "destroying the position" in the first place. "To completely disrupt the New World Army and inflict heavy damage".

In his opinion, this kind of weapon is very good, but it is far from the so-called "end of all wars"; even if you don't talk about its ridiculously high failure rate, nearly a quarter of it has been lost in the first half hour of the battle. Anchor, the so-called "unrivaled" combat power...

Well, that's about it.

The firepower of two smoothbore cannons and four steam repeating rifles is ferocious enough, but if the enemy has even one six-pounder field gun fixed in the fort, it will pose a threat; the 17mm armor is very thick , but it's not invulnerable; even without it, grenades or soldiers climbing on top of it can still pose a threat.

But this does not mean that the madmen in the monastery are wrong. They may have directly quoted Saint Isaac's description; for an "old friend" who has been dead for hundreds of years, the muzzle-loading artillery at that time was not bad. In the ordered world of black technology, this kind of weapon is indeed invincible - provided you can really build it.

To truly unleash the terrifying power of this war machine, we must build an army with it as its core, an army equipped with direct-fire artillery, steam repeating rifles, and a large number of conventional weapons... That is the future of the Holy See's Jihad Army. .

While the enemy was being driven out of their position, the Judgment Knights squads, who finally had some breathing room, also requested to postpone the attack and take a break; after all, nearly a quarter of their combat strength was scrapped at the beginning of the battle. The seemingly unstoppable Land Cruisers might be annihilated if they go down.

"This is absolutely not okay!"

Without giving his men any room to refute, the seemingly easy-going and talkative Grad Manfred refused: "Don't you understand? It is precisely because the enemy has withdrawn from their position that our situation has become much more dangerous. , because the enemy's artillery positions can finally bombard the entire area indiscriminately!"

"I know what you are worried about, don't worry...Steam core miniaturization is a technology that the Holy See has spent countless efforts to successfully develop. Even if the heretics in the New World got it, they would not have the ability to use it, let alone the so-called leakage of the technology-this It’s simply impossible.”

"boom--!!!!"

Almost as soon as he finished speaking, with a thunderous roar, the high ground on the left and right sides of the distant position suddenly lit up with continuous fire.

The artillery bombardment of the New World Army finally began.

…………………………………………

Under the deafening artillery fire, Louis personally led the assembled cuirassiers to meet the retreating army, his gloomy face was extremely ugly.

Although the enemy's attack was delayed by artillery bombardment, the entire New World Army was on the verge of losing control; in the dark night, most soldiers did not know what happened. They only knew that the forward position had been severely damaged, and more than half of the troops sent for reinforcements had suffered casualties. completely annihilated.

Such a terrifying probability of casualties, not to mention now, is enough to cause the entire army to collapse on the spot even at a glance... The power of fear erodes their hearts bit by bit, spreading rapidly throughout the entire legion like a plague, and the extreme emotions of the group will Cause a large-scale chain reaction.

Although the command system has not yet been completely paralyzed, different forms of riots have begun to occur in the army at various positions... The awakened soldiers refused to assemble, and the self-righteous officers actually wanted to make meritorious deeds and acted without permission to "ambush" the lone soldiers. The Land Cruiser ended up colliding with a friendly force that happened to be passing by because of darkness...

"Sir, we must organize a breakout immediately!"

Fabian suddenly raised his right hand and stopped the young knight who wanted to continue approaching the battlefield. He stared into his eyes righteously: "The people of the Judgment Knights are still rushing towards the headquarters. Once they are attacked by If we conquer, we will lose more than just what we have in front of us, we don’t have time!”

"Breakout, how are we going to break out?" Louis also said with a cold face:

"You also understand the situation. The enemy will penetrate our entire position at any time. Even if we block it with all our strength, it will only delay time... Turning around and breaking through will only make the legion a target that the enemy can slaughter at will!"

"Then leave the troops that can block the enemy, attack the Judgment Knights at all costs, and buy time for the legion."

"Stop...Okay, who to send?!"

"I."

Fabian said calmly without any hesitation.

The young knight was silent.

"...This is not acceptable. The Storm Legion is one of the core elites of the New World Legion. If it suffers heavy losses, it will have an indelible impact on the legion's combat effectiveness."

Louis' expression was a little dazed, and the anger just now seemed to have been replaced by the innocence he once had: "Let me do it, my words..."

"Don't be joking here, sir." Fabian said lightly: "Thank you for your strength and comfort, but..."

"I'm not kidding! This is no consolation!"

"This is a joke!"

The deputy commander of the Storm Legion suddenly took a step forward, grabbed Louis' collar with his bloody right hand, and stared into the talented man's eyes:

"Lord Louis Bernard, I know very well that you are an excellent sea knight talent, and I also agree that you are an excellent leader, but please do not use your will to destroy what Lord Anson Bach has worked so hard to achieve. Achievements!"

"If anything happens to you here, the Free Confederacy will never win this damn war; as the deputy commander of the legion, I will never allow such a thing to happen in my hands!"

Feeling the blood flowing from his neck, the young knight's expression seemed to be suddenly awakened; his mouth was pursed tightly, and Fabian's determination was reflected in his trembling pupils.

"...Have you really thought it through?"

"This has nothing to do with my thoughts, but under the current conditions, there is no better option with less loss."

The young knight remained silent, turned around, waved to the cuirassiers behind him, and walked towards the direction where the legion was gathering.

Fabian, who was left alone, did not leave immediately. He covered his injured hand, took out a dagger and gauze from his arms, picked out the fragments embedded in the flesh one by one, and bandaged them himself without haste.

Ten minutes later, a hurried Lisa appeared in the trench with more than a dozen fully armed figures; the girl deliberately avoided her eyes from his injured palm, took out the only meat can left in her arms, opened it and handed it to him. Passed over: "Here!"

"Thank you, Miss Lisa."

He chuckled and took the canned meat with one hand: "The next battle may be difficult. Are you and your guard company ready?"

"You can do it at any time. Lisa is a good girl and has already prepared it!" The girl snorted coldly, as if she felt slighted, but she couldn't help but glance at the blood soaked in the gauze:

"But you...are you really okay?"

"No problem, but thank you Miss Lisa for your concern."

Fabian nodded slightly and glanced silently at the figure aside: "Whether we can turn defeat into victory does not depend on me, but on your intelligence, Mr. Roman."

"Although I don't doubt your intentions,...you wouldn't deliberately do something like giving false information in order to take revenge on Brigadier General Anson Bach, right?"

Regarding this question, the frosty-faced Roman seemed too lazy to answer; but when Lisa started to stare at him with malicious eyes, the loyal adjutant still snorted coldly:

"There are plenty of ways to kill him, but you don't need to be so mean."

………………………………………………………………

Red Hand Bay, direction of the port.

"What, the Land Cruiser unit was suppressed in the enemy's outer position, unable to break through immediately, and was successfully broken through by the opposite party. How is this possible?"

In the cabin of the Compassionate Heart, Sir Philus looked at the intelligence that had just been sent with a look of astonishment. He was surprised and obviously disappointed: "Didn't that group of lunatics in the monastery say that this thing is an epoch-making war machine that can easily destroy any enemy?" The army?"

"I don't know, but according to the information sent by the grand leader, this does not seem to be the case." The attendant replied casually, with a strange look in his eyes as if his consciousness was still stuck at the moment when he was proposed to by someone:

"The failure rate of this new weapon seems to be very high. At the same time, the enemy responded very quickly, finding a way to deal with it reluctantly, and using a wide range of covering bombardment to block the regiment leader's idea of ​​a quick breakthrough, causing the battle to seem to be in a stalemate. …”

"A stalemate means failure." Philus said with a wry smile on his face: "If we cannot quickly disintegrate the New World Army, the pressure will come to our side - inform us, let the Knights of Judgment attack across the board, and break through Anson Bach and Anson Bach as soon as possible. Freya Moses Field’s block!”

"A breakthrough across the board?"

The attendant was stunned for a moment: "But, didn't you say that if we attack now, we are likely to be..."

"Anson Bach will catch our flaw... Yes, no one expected that this guy's domain law would be insightful." Philus sighed:

"A conjurer can actually awaken to the laws of insight. No wonder his enlightenment mentor is a black mage. I don't know if it's a blessing or a misfortune that he didn't follow the path of black magic... But no matter what, we must react."

"If the New World Army is allowed to escape so smoothly, we will never have a chance to force out Apostle Rune - so no matter what, we must take action now, and we must not completely break through the New World Army!"

As if hesitating for a while, Philus suddenly raised his head: "Tell Wuying that his people can start taking action now; the main force will help them contain Freya, and the rest will be It’s up to them.”

"Even if Anson Bach has really advanced, it won't take long, and he may not even understand his own laws thoroughly. The blasphemous mage in this state is at most a large high-level spellcaster, and he is not As difficult as the Thirteen Council."

"clear!"

The attendant nodded vigorously and turned around to convey the order, but suddenly he remembered something and stopped: "Wait a minute, sir, I remember that the Holy See's order mentioned that Anson Bach needs to be captured alive."

"Oh, is it so?"

Philus looked dazed for a moment, then sighed heavily: "That's such a pity."

"so……"

"Tell Wuying that no one will be left alive." Philus wrote lightly:

"In order to prevent the scandal of ruling the Knights' disobedience from leaking out, let Anson Bach disappear completely."