plumnovel #274 - You come and I go
#274 - You come and I go
Facing the Jeannedarcburg army retreating like a tide, the War Monks did not pursue.
After the horns sounded from the rear, the War Monks quickly halted and retreated back to their previous defensive line.
The wounded War Monks were transported to the rear for treatment, while the rear ranks of War Monks who had not participated in the battle were rotated to the front.
The Black Hat Second Legion, which had suffered the most damage, was transferred to the rear, replaced by the Black Hat Sixth Legion.
Amidst the cooking smoke, the War Monks, who had marched all morning and fought for half an hour, were finally able to sit down and drink some hot soup.
As for the Holy Gunners, after drinking the sleeping oat porridge containing potions, they fell sound asleep in hastily built grass sheds.
They needed to use this method to quickly recover their Holy Power, hoping to return to the battlefield as soon as possible.
Stepping on the muddy ground, the sky grew darker, and the oppressive humidity made both men and horses feel suffocated.
Boreaux gently stroked his restless horse, his face ashen as if he were wearing a bronze mask.
"Lord Boreaux," a knight beside him handed a strand of silk to Boreaux.
His fingers caressing the tough silk thread covered in mucus, Boreaux rubbed it between his thumb, index, and middle fingers, pulling out a viscous white strand.
Looking around, in the dim light, Boreaux couldn't determine how many of these spider silks they had placed in the bushes.
"Execute all the farmers from earlier."
"Execute all of them? Why?" an adjutant asked in surprise.
"These silk threads couldn't possibly have been set up temporarily. They set up this position long ago, waiting for us to come." Roaring and tearing the silk thread in his hand, Boreaux's gaze pierced through the bushes. He saw Bellard's blood-soaked corpse. "These farmers deceived us!"
Before long, screams of agony echoed from the rear of the battle formation, including pleas for mercy and shouts of "Salvation Army, Victory!"
The hot, bloody smell made several monks sitting and resting feel nauseous.
The leader of the monks, a monk with a Mediterranean 'Pauly Shore' haircut, stood up. "Lord Boreaux, what should we do next?"
"How many did we lose just now? Have all the fleeing soldiers been reorganized?" Boreaux asked the newly appointed Templar Commander of Jeannedarcburg.
The Templar Commander nodded nervously. "We lost seventy-three Transcendent Knights, thirty-eight of whom died, ten were seriously injured, and twenty-five are missing.
Of the 77 knights who returned, more than half are slightly injured and in a state of exhaustion after using potions, and will not be able to return to the battlefield for at least three hours."
After just over half an hour of fighting, out of 550 Transcendent Knights, only 400 were still combat-ready.
"The infantry will continue to attack." Taking a deep breath, Boreaux calmed down. "Don't give them a chance to breathe. Have the Night Watchmen clear the spider silk in the bushes."
"Do they still have the ability to fight?"
"Damn it, have the armored soldiers push them onto the battlefield, do I have to teach you that?" His lower eyelids twitching, Boreaux spoke with considerable anger.
Taking a few deep breaths, he slowly exhaled a breath of stale air. He clapped his hands, and a baron dressed as a minor nobleman in leather armor stepped forward and knelt on one knee.
"Take the longbowmen and continuously shoot arrows from the side of the battlefield, suppress and harass them, and lure them to fire the Devil's Wind."
According to the oldest and simplest principle of equivalence, Boreaux believed that there must be a price to pay for the so-called Holy Gunners blowing the Devil's Wind. It couldn't be used without a cost.
Amidst the Templar Commander's scolding and reprimands, a Transcendent Knight with a slap mark on his face passed through the crowd and came to the armored soldiers.
A few minutes later, the armored sergeant, with whip marks on his face, waved his long whip fiercely, calling the Night Watchmen sitting on the ground to get up.
It took almost a quarter of an hour for the scattered Night Watchmen to gather again, and with bitter faces, they once again set foot on this bloody land.
In the middle of the bushes were the corpses of hundreds of Night Watchmen, some of whom were seriously injured and dying, still making meaningless wails.
"Holy Father, bless me." Kissing the statue of the Holy Father hanging on his chest, a Night Watchman cautiously stood in front of the verdant bushes, using a hook spear and axe to clear the spider silk entangled in the bushes.
More than three hundred longbowmen, including some low-level Transcendent Longbowmen, quickly sneaked through the forest on the side, arriving at the side of the Salvation Army's formation.
The baron put his thumb ring on his finger, nocked a long arrow on the bow arm, and drew the longbow into a full moon shape.
"Swish—"
An arrow streaked across the sky like a shooting star, landing at the feet of the Black Hat First Legion War Monks on the left flank.
At the same time, the horns sounded again, and the battle continued.
"Traitors! May the devil bless you!"
"Die!"
"For victory!"
"Idgrami! Habiha!"
In this open space, a hundred meters long and wide, the sounds of slaughter, mixed with Layan, Frankish, and Orcish languages, rang out once again.
The Night Watchmen and the Salvation Army seemed to be playing tug-of-war. Whenever the Night Watchmen surged in like a tide, they would retreat under the Salvation Army's flood-like offensive.
Stone bullets and lead shot flew through the crowd, and tears mixed with blood flowed on the ground.
But they did not pursue. Before reaching the limit of the knights' charge range, they would retreat in an orderly manner, which made Montiac overjoyed and Boreaux's face even more unsightly.
At the edge of the battlefield, wave after wave of arrows rained down on the Salvation Army's position.
For the Salvation Army, most of whom were equipped with helmets and iron armor, the arrows mostly only caused minor injuries, but they still had a considerable impact on overall combat effectiveness.
When the armored soldiers were once again reorganizing the fleeing soldiers, they were surprised to find several ancient small catapults appearing on the battlefield.
These were parts that the Salvation Army had found in the warehouses of Mayor Town, which Horn had been waiting for in Gray Furnace Town.
Under the day and night work of the craftsmen in Gray Furnace Town, they had pieced together these four small catapults.
However, these four catapults were not used to launch stones.
The long ropes connected to the long poles were held in the hands of several strong men. They slowly pulled down the leather pouches of the catapults, placed several jars inside, and lit them with lamp ropes.
A sturdy Salvation Army soldier, with a white bandage wrapped around the arrow wound on his thigh, veins bulging, grabbed the long rope of the catapult with his companions.
"Taste this, you bunch of rats who only dare to shoot arrows!"
At the estimated time, a dozen jars flew into the air, scattering and landing in front of a clearing in the forest.
Mixed with phosphorus stone, wine, and charcoal, Horn had failed to create ideal Molotov cocktails, but accidentally created poison smoke bombs.
The pottery jars shattered, and faint flames lit up. A yellowish mist burst open, engulfing the edge of the forest.
Pasrik stood at the edge of the battlefield, his hands held in a crescent shape relative to each other, his eyes glowing with magical power, and black blood flowing from his nostrils.
"Wind!"
The leaves rustled, and the poisonous smoke seemed to take shape. Instead of dissipating, it moved towards the forest like a tentacle.
After a brief silence, violent coughing and the sound of heavy objects falling came from the smoke.
Several archers with saliva drooling from the corners of their mouths staggered out of the forest.
Before they could run a few steps, their legs gave way and they fell to the ground, their bodies trembling twice before becoming still.
"Vile wizard! Damned sorcerer!" Seeing the longbowmen fleeing in the forest, Boreaux punched the tree next to him.
Although this poisonous smoke only killed twenty or so archers, the smoke blocked the view, making it difficult to shoot as they had just done.
In three waves of back-and-forth tugging and strikes, the Salvation Army's formation hardly changed.
On the other hand, the Night Watchmen, those who were injured and lost their combat effectiveness, were close to occupying a third of the total number.
"I'm sorry, Your Excellency, cough cough cough, these Salvation Army soldiers are too despicable. The bowstrings are all breaking..." The baron leading the longbowmen looked gray and knelt on one knee in front of Boreaux.
"I don't have time to listen to your nonsense," Boreaux said impatiently. "I told you to go to the forest over there. Did you scout anything?"
The baron hurriedly told him everything he had just seen, Horn's orc scouts were wiped out by Bellard, and there was no time to stop these longbowmen.
"You mean, behind the slope, you saw the sorcerer Horn?"
"Yes." The baron endured the itching in his throat. "I saw him with my own eyes. He was wearing armor with a sun pattern. Even if it wasn't him, he must be an important figure in the Salvation Army."
"And the only things protecting him are a few carriages?"
"Yes."
Boreaux suddenly smiled.