Chapter 65: The Artillery Theft is Complete, But Where Did That Cannon Sound Come From?

"What the heck? This ray is nothing special. You get instantly killed in infantry form, but switched to cavalry, the damage is just so-so!"

The player, having just completed his respawn, glanced at his death replay. Seeing that the necromancer had already been taken down, he curled his lip in disdain.

Earlier, when he joined Andre in charging the enemy line and watched the soldiers get instantly vaporized by that necromantic ray, he had thought the thing was some kind of terrifying powerhouse.

To his surprise, when operating in the cavalry state, he could actually withstand the beam head-on for three whole seconds!

That being the case, the lethality of this weapon wasn't nearly as absurd as he had imagined. He just wondered how other elite units, like sentinels, would hold up against it.

After this player was killed and respawned, the other players trickled back one after another.

Without exception, they all respawned after being gunned down by the enemy, which was only to be expected since they had been charging directly into the enemy formation.

Although, aided by mortar cover, they had pulled off an unexpected assault that successfully eliminated the necromancer lurking at the back of the lines, giving the guy almost no time to cast any other spells.

However, once the massive swarm of Black Eagle troops following close behind reacted, the players could no longer hold out.

Mechs, machine guns, and all sorts of chaotic heavy firepower were unleashed relentlessly upon the players. Even with the cavalry's thick health bars, they couldn't survive that kind of onslaught.

Still, right before dying, these cavalrymen managed to cut down as many necromantic soldiers as possible, and along the way, used grenades to flip over the foremost Pacifier mech.

When the Black Eagle Empire designed this type of mech, there was an obvious structural flaw. Having only three mechanical legs did save materials and reduce the mech's weight, but it drastically crippled its stability.

Even if a string of grenades couldn't pierce the mech's armor, the continuous explosions easily wrecked the crude mechanical leg transmission system, causing the iron can to capsize on the spot.

Glancing at the distant scene, Andre silently made a mental note of this discovery.

He had no idea what the mechs of the Cambutian Empire looked like, but he hoped they didn't have any ridiculous three-legged designs. If they actually did, he would definitely find a way to report it to the upper brass and demand an immediate change.

Lurking at the rear of the formation, mingling near the command post, an Abyss-class mage looked at the chaotic cavalry raid in the distance with lingering fear.

He had to admit that he had been somewhat spooked.

He had always felt that mages on the battlefield needed to fear artillery the most, since the vast majority of mage shields could not block incoming fire raining down from the skies.

Moreover, artillery had a much longer range than mages, often striking from beyond visual range, leaving one never knowing when a shell might drop right on top of their head.

Yet now, he never expected that a mage could actually be run through and killed by a cavalryman!

"Strange, is his spellcasting training just subpar, or is there something wrong with that cavalryman's spear? How could he possibly get skewered to death just like that?"

The Abyss-class mage stared at his fallen colleague in the distance, utterly baffled.

The standard spell Bone Shield, while lacking in spell resistance, possessed very high physical resistance. How could a defense that heavy machine guns couldn't penetrate end up getting pierced by a spear?

At that moment, Lieutenant Colonel August, who had been standing beside him, looked at the necromancer and his squad who had just been completely wiped out, along with the skeletons reduced to scattered wreckage all around, and said with a hint of sarcasm:

"Heh, it seems your sorcery skills are nothing special after all. Slaughtering so many civilians, and this is the pitiful result you have to show for it?"

"Honestly, if you had kept those civilians alive, the economic value generated by their labor would be far greater than dying off like cannon fodder!"

The Abyss mage shrugged, turned his face toward Lieutenant Colonel August, and replied:

"Lieutenant Colonel, the one who slaughtered them was that necromancer, not me. Besides, this was merely an accident."

"From another perspective, if these skeletons are used as laborers, the output they can generate would actually surpass that of those living civilians!"

To such remarks, Lieutenant Colonel August merely let out a cold snort, his dislike for these mages deepening even further.

As if to vent his frustration, he hurriedly urged the rest of his armored troops via radio to continue advancing, while also calling up the rear units that had yet to cross the bridge and catch up.

That bridge-laying mech was fine in other respects, but its failure rate was too high on the one hand, and its mobility far too poor on the other, making it difficult to keep pace with the main force during a continuous advance.

Furthermore, the bridge this thing could deploy was far too narrow, allowing only one mech to cross at a time, which completely failed to meet the empire's wartime demands.

"Have the 3rd Company advance with a battalion of infantry. Send the cyborg artillerymen from the anti-armor company as well, and use mortars to fire smoke screens to cover our men!"

"Be careful as you go in, and watch your step. The enemy might have planted plenty of traps in the town!"

After venting a couple of complaints, Lieutenant Colonel August resumed directing the battle.

These useless wizards couldn't produce any worthwhile results anyway. It was better to rely on his armored and infantry forces operating in coordination to capture this town step by step.

Following his orders, nearly ten Hunter mechs, accompanied by an entire battalion of Black Eagle infantry, quickly formed a combat array and slowly closed in ahead.

Unlike the Pacifier mechs, which were merely transitional products used mostly for armored reconnaissance, the Hunter mechs moved slowly but boasted heavier protection, and their electromagnetic spike penetration was formidable.

Should they encounter a troublesome target, the harpoon gun mounted on their backs could come into play, with a single shot powerful enough to pierce through any enemy bunkers and armor.

Aside from these Hunter mechs, a few Dreadnought mechs followed behind, training their long-barreled 75mm guns—which offered both pinpoint accuracy and high penetration—straight ahead, ready to blast away enemy firepower nests at a moment's notice.

Watching the enemy approach in battle formation from afar, Andre and everyone else in the town couldn't help breaking out in a cold sweat.

The enemies closing in this time were completely different from the bunch of skeleton soldiers before.

Just then, however, a notification suddenly popped up on Andre's system interface, showing that the mission he had assigned to destroy the enemy infantry gun had been completed by the players.

"Nice! They finally sniped that annoying gun!"

Seeing the notification, Andre excitedly clenched his fists. Without artillery support, the enemy's suppression capability would drop drastically.

Yet the very next moment, he suddenly heard the sound of gunfire ring out again.

"What's going on? Weren't the Black Eagle guns destroyed? Could it be..."

Staring at the sudden burst of explosions in the distance, Andre's jaw dropped in astonishment.