Chapter 307 - 67: Below Wayne Mountain
Chapter 307: Chapter 67: Below Wayne Mountain
Tanaros had no time for grief. As a true Beastman of the Purple Blood Royal Family, a craving for war was etched into his very genes.
Moreover, Tanaros himself had previously taken several Beast God Potions. The human cannon fire and the deaths of his personal guards, rather than plunging him into sorrow or fear, only ignited the frenzy deep within him.
Tanaros shoved aside the personal guard who had fallen on him and raised the scimitar in his hand.
"For the Prince! Long live the Empire!" Tanaros roared, his Silver-tier battle aura carrying the sound in all directions.
AWOO!
AWOOO!!!
Although the human artillery was terrifying, it wasn’t entirely a bad thing for the Beastmen.
The first wave of attacking Beastmen numbered more than four thousand!
Although this group was concentrated, with such large numbers, very few Beastmen had directly experienced the terror of the Magic Crystal Cannons.
On the contrary, after the Energy Balls landed, the stench of blood activated the Beastmen’s bloodlust. The Beast God Potions they had taken earlier now began to show their full effect.
The green mist hovering over the entire Beastman Corps began to turn black, and a cacophony of howls rose from the Beastman positions.
Once the Beast God Potions took full effect, discipline was out of the question. Thousands of Gnolls began a suicidal charge towards the human camp atop Wayne Mountain.
"For the Prince! For the Empire!"
...
Robson stood on Wayne Mountain, completely unfazed as he watched the Beastman Army surging up from below.
He, Lord Robson, had been transmigrated for so long and had seen his fair share of grand spectacles. How could a scene like this possibly frighten him?
This was true for Robson, and it was true for the entire Human Corps.
It wasn’t frightening. It was almost laughable.
A few months ago at Thermopylae, the Beastmen who came to attack the city were far more terrifying than this group of Gnolls.
That was an army of tens of thousands of pure Purple-blooded Beastmen!
Even under those circumstances, Robson’s first and second regiments had perfectly completed their defensive mission, to say nothing of a small-scale scene like this.
"Draw bows! Draw bows!"
"Bow and Crossbowmen, ready!"
"Bow and Crossbowmen, ready!"
...
Robson didn’t even need to issue a command. The human Non-commissioned Officers all around began ordering their Soldiers to make preparations.
This was the power of the Mount & Blade system. As the saying goes, gold is easy to come by, but a good general is hard to find. But with the help of the Mount & Blade system, a Tier Six Soldier could become a competent Non-commissioned Officer with just a little training.
This was also why Robson wasn’t worried about a future talent shortage. As long as the NCOs in the army received further training, the current military system could be almost perfectly transplanted to his territory’s development. As for how to train them, Robson already had a few ideas.
Ais looked at Robson. Originally, this battle should have been commanded by Ais, the commander of the first regiment.
But with Robson present, the chain of command was now ambiguous.
"Just do what you were going to do. If I have any issues, I’ll raise them directly." That was all Robson said.
’Ais has learned by my side for so long,’ Robson thought. ’Since I’m here anyway, I might as well see how he performs.’
"Yes, my lord!"
With Robson’s support, Ais’s heart swelled with heroic ambition.
This was the first time he was truly commanding a battle on his own.
Ais’s eyes were fixed on the Beastman Corps ahead. A few stray arrows had already begun to fly from the Beastman side towards the human formation.
But the distance was too great, and they fell short of the human formation completely.
’Six hundred paces...’ Ais thought to himself. ’This distance is already within the range of the Magic Crossbows.’
"Ais, at this distance..." Fioro, who was standing beside Ais, started to remind him, but was cut off by Robson’s outstretched hand.
Robson had likely figured out Ais’s intentions. The enemy density was still too low; he didn’t want to waste arrows.
Seeing Robson’s gesture, Fioro said no more.
Although the two were brothers, thanks to the excellent upbringing provided by Baron Odogin, all the children of the Odogin Family understood one thing above all else: rules.
In the army, Robson was the commander-in-chief. Right now, they were a general and his commander, not brothers.
A general’s right to speak was in the war room, not on the battlefield.
’Four hundred paces...’
"Order the first regiment’s Magic Crossbowmen to open fire!" Ais raised his rapier, looking towards the Soldiers with the signal flags and horns.
This was precisely why Robson had implemented these systems: to allow even ordinary Non-commissioned Officers to command large armies.
"Yes, sir!"
After receiving the order, the messenger Soldier returned to his position and began to wave the flag and blow the horn.
"Fire! Fire!"
Soon, the commanding shouts of Non-commissioned Officers could be heard from the encampments of the first regiment all around.
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
With a sound of tearing air, hundreds of arrows from the human camp shot into the sky, forming a black ribbon.
However, because Wayne Mountain was quite wide, the black cloud of arrows this time was not as shocking as the one at Ancient Dumu Town.
As the arrows passed through the green mist, their speed was drastically reduced.
But this didn’t stump the human NCOs.
The NCOs of the first regiment took the initiative and changed their plan. The arrows were no longer fired relentlessly at a single spot like at Ancient Dumu Town. The pillar of raining arrows began to sway from side to side in a dispersed attack, as if trying to sweep the entire battlefield before Wayne Mountain.
Although the green mist significantly weakened the crossbow bolts, one mustn’t forget that Robson’s batch of Magic Crossbows were products of the Edward family—standard Frankish Weapons.
Sturdy, durable, and immensely powerful.
Even though the crossbow bolts were significantly weakened, they still retained their terrifying power.
When the sky-blotting rain of arrows fell, the Beastmen’s dilapidated shields were instantly pierced, and miserable screams inevitably rose from the Gnoll formation.
If this were an ordinary army, seeing this world-ending scene would have probably caused their morale to collapse, and they would have begun to retreat. Then, Robson would only need to dispatch his Cavalry Team to end the battle.
However, the Beastman Army before them was no ordinary one either.
Humans had technology; the Beastmen had courage.
Facing the sky full of human arrows, the Beast God Potions now began to take effect. It was rare to see someone as ruthless as Prince Odoruo, who had distributed the potions to every single Soldier.
No matter how deadly the arrows were, it was impossible to end a Gnoll’s life in a single shot.
Under the influence of the Beast God Potion, the Gnoll Warriors’ sense of pain plummeted, and their bodies’ potential was greatly unleashed.
As long as an arrow didn’t pierce their brain, they could still take a couple of steps even if it pierced their heart.
Of course, this method came at a price. If they endured the damage with the help of the Beast God Potion, their bodies would later suffer damage far exceeding the initial injuries.
It was essentially a method of overdrafting one’s life force. The toll of ignoring an injury to a single arm, for instance, could be enough to kill the Warrior.
But damage far exceeding the present was, after all, a matter for the future.
In the current situation, after one volley of arrows, two-thirds of the Gnolls at the vanguard were still charging forward. A moment later, half of those remaining collapsed.
"Fire at will! Fire at will!"
The Magic Crossbows were incredibly tedious to reload. After the first volley, the Tier Six Frankish Watchers who used them certainly couldn’t stand idle.
The entire army had a contingency plan for this situation. As the crossbows were set down, the Frankish Watchers immediately drew the longbows from their backs and aimed at the charging Beastmen.
To Robson’s surprise, the enemy’s casualties didn’t decrease at all after they switched from the Magic Crossbows.
Some Gnolls had now crossed the three-hundred-pace mark.
This was the optimal firing range for the Frankish Watchers.
As Tier Six Soldiers, the Frankish Watchers were certainly not ordinary people. Basically, every single one of them was a Divine Archer.
After the previous volley of crossbow bolts, many Frankish Watchers reflected for a moment. Soon, people started shouting all around, yelling things like "Aim for the head!"
It didn’t take long for these words to spread throughout the army. What followed was a bloody scene in front of the human camp on Wayne Mountain.
The Gnoll Warriors who entered the three-hundred-pace range had their heads blown apart by a single arrow from the Frankish Watchers!
And Frankish Watchers or Frankish Elite Shooters like these were not uncommon in Robson’s army.
For a time, the Gnoll army, wreathed in green mist and protected by the Beast God, actually began to stagnate!
Of course, this was all only temporary.
Although Robson’s archers were extremely skilled, their firing rate was too slow. Moreover, there weren’t enough auxiliary troops to help his Soldiers reload the crossbows. Sooner or later, the Gnolls would break through with their numerical advantage.
After giving another order, Ais looked to Robson.
Robson nodded.
"Well done," Robson affirmed.
The current situation was quite good. ’Even if the Gnolls manage to charge up later,’ Robson thought, ’my Tier Six Infantry and Heavy Infantry Corps are no mere decorations.’ Thanks to that earlier batch of Centaurs, the camp walls were a solid two meters high.
With these advantages, even if the rest of the Gnolls broke through, the first and second regiments would make them regret ever being born.
To better train Ais, Robson decided to be a hands-off manager. He opened his Mount & Blade panel, which was already flooded with green notifications.
That last volley of arrows had directly produced more than a dozen Tier Seven Soldiers, all of them Archers. Robson now had several dozen Frankish Border Watchers left, and he estimated that all of them would probably reach Tier Seven by the end of this war.
Once Robson went to his enfeoffed territory in the future and found some Magical Beast Meat, he could immediately establish an Extraordinary Corps of over a hundred men.
One of the markers that defined a Viscount Clan was having an Extraordinary Corps!
In just a few months, Robson had walked a path that took others several generations to complete.
Just as Robson was engrossed in his Mount & Blade panel, the cry of a griffin pierced the sky.