Chapter 396: Let’s Just Destroy It. (3)
Raynon, the commander of Linderstein, stared blankly at the massive trebuchets lined up in the distance and muttered to himself.
“What… what is this? What’s going on?”
He could have never imagined that such trebuchets would suddenly appear out of nowhere.
“Is it… magic?”
It was said that mages above the 8th circle, those revered as Archmages, could use warp magic to transport objects and people. However, there wasn’t a single 8th-circle mage in this kingdom. After all, the 8th circle was a realm so rare that perhaps one individual in a thousand years might achieve it.
“What in the world is that?!”
He shouted angrily, but no one could provide an answer.
One moment, they had been hammering and crafting something; the next, massive trebuchets had materialized. Who could possibly explain how that had happened?
Of course, it was possible to construct trebuchets locally. However, such makeshift devices would look crude at best and wouldn’t be effective for attacking a fortress of this scale.
No one could even guess what kind of technology had gone into these trebuchets.
“No, it can’t be real. It has to be a fake. Look at it how bizarre does it look? And those stones it’s obvious they gathered them for some other purpose.”
Raynon bit his lip hard as he mumbled to himself.
The structures vaguely resembled trebuchets but appeared skeletal, as if made from connected bones. While they were enormous, their strange, spindly frames didn’t seem capable of delivering a powerful strike.
Turning to the anxious soldiers, Raynon shouted,
“Do not worry! Look at that! It’s absurd! That thing cannot break down the fortress!”
At his words, the soldiers nodded in agreement. They too doubted such a contraption could hurl heavy stones effectively.
Still cautious, Raynon added to ensure the soldiers didn’t let their guard down,
“They might throw rotting corpses or lightweight objects laced with poison! Prepare to clear it away immediately!”
Using corpses and poison to spread disease within a fortress was a long-standing tactic. While the strange trebuchets might not launch heavy stones, they could likely hurl smaller projectiles with ease.
Following Raynon’s orders, the soldiers hurriedly formed teams and donned gloves and masks made from deerskin.
As the fortress soldiers busily moved into position, Ghislain stood observing the Galvanium trebuchets, a smile formed on his lips.
“Our first real trial? This should be interesting.”
The power of these trebuchets had already been proven in his previous life. The enemy would be utterly stunned, as if their spirits had been wrenched from their bodies.
Just then, Dark, who had been on a reconnaissance mission, relayed a message telepathically.
“Master! The pursuit force has reached the spot we passed earlier, the one near that canyon.”
“They’ve reached the western vicinity, then.”
Though their massive force was swift, it wouldn’t matter. They would fail to achieve their goal.
Linderstein would fall today.
“There are enough stones.”
To destroy a fortress of this size, relentless and overwhelming attacks were necessary.
Hundreds of knights and thousands of soldiers had gathered massive stones from the area, using horses and nets to haul them. Some had even ventured as far as nearby mountains to carve out boulders.
“Begin.”
At Ghislain’s command, the soldiers attached counterweight stones to the trebuchets. The knights assisted by imbuing mana to load the enormous boulders onto the launchers. Their involvement sped up the process considerably.
The 4th-circle mages that had been brought along cast reinforcement and weight-increasing spells on the counterweights and boulders, making them even sturdier and heavier.
It was a scenario they had trained for repeatedly. Moving with seamless coordination, the soldiers shouted in unison.
“Trebuchet One, ready!”
“Trebuchet Two, ready!”
…
“Trebuchet Ten, ready!”
Once everyone was prepared, Ghislain raised his hand forward.
“RELEASE!”
The knight beside him echoed the command with a booming voice.
“RELEASE!”
Fwoooom!
With a deafening roar, the boulders shot forth.
Linderstein’s soldiers froze in place as they watched the sight unfold before them.
They had been doubtful, but enormous stones were truly being launched not corpses, not poisoned contraptions, but actual, massive stones.
As the projectiles traced arcs through the air, it felt surreal like something out of a dream.
And that dream shattered with an ear splitting crash.
BOOOOM!
“Aaaahhh!”
BOOM! BOOM! BOOOOM!
The battlements crumbled, sending debris scattering everywhere. Soldiers caught in the impact screamed as they were flung aside.
Those were the lucky ones. Some soldiers were crushed beneath the boulders, their bodies completely obliterated.
“It’s it’s a real siege weapon!”
“Take cover! Move out of the way!”
“Scatter, quickly!”
The soldiers of Linderstein, clustered tightly around the outer walls to prevent the Fenris troops from scaling them, were caught completely off guard when a massive stone suddenly came hurtling toward them. There was no time to evade.
Before they could regain their senses, another volley was already on its way.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
“Arghhh!”
The soldiers, unable to dodge in time, were crushed under the rocks, their bodies reduced to mangled heaps. Several sections of the ramparts had already been obliterated, leaving grotesque remnants in their place.
The speed and destructive power of the attack were unlike anything produced by conventional trebuchet. It was far too fast and far too powerful.
Boom! Boom!
The walls cracked and crumbled, and the soldiers’ screams filled the air.
Raynon, watching the scene unfold, trembled uncontrollably.
It felt like he was dreaming. Everything seemed to move in slow motion. His vision was filled only with the fragments of the shattered fortress and the mangled remains of soldiers.
It was beyond belief.
“How… how is it capable of such destructive power…?”
No ordinary Trebuchet could inflict significant damage on this fortress. Yet, the strange trebuchets used by the Fenris forces demonstrated incredible destructive power.
Bit by bit, they were dismantling the enormous fortress wall from the top down.
Raynon’s dazed stupor was interrupted by the urgent shout of a knight standing beside him.
“Commander! You must issue orders immediately!”
Because they hadn’t anticipated the presence of siege weapons, they were completely unprepared. They had only planned to defend against the Fenris Count and his knights scaling the walls.
Yet, the Fenris Count himself was nowhere to be seen. Only the relentless barrage of stones pounded the fortress incessantly.
This left them helpless.
Snapping out of his trance, Raynon shouted, “Use our trebuchets! Attack their formations! And tell the soldiers to retreat to the base of the walls!”
With such an attack, it was impossible to stay near the walls. Their first priority was to seek shelter.
At Raynon’s command, the soldiers finally moved, retreating to the area beneath the walls.
Screeech…
Thoom! Thoom!
The trebuchets of the Roderick forces launched stones toward the Fenris army.
Truthfully, Raynon did not have much hope for the attack. The Fenris forces were positioned well outside the range of their trebuchets, which was the very reason they hadn’t used them until now. They had only been prepared for a direct charge from the Fenris forces.
Yet, the Fenris trebuchets had been pounding the fortress from that great distance without pause.
“What… what are those things to have such range…?”
Between the speed of reloading, the sheer power of the attacks, and the extended range, it was overwhelming. There was simply no comparison.
It was an utterly one-sided attack. There was nothing they could do from their position.
“Mages! Can the mages do anything?!”
The mages of the Roderick forces all shook their heads.
The highest-ranking mage remaining here was only of the 4th circle, while the rest were 2nd or 3rd circle. And even then, only a handful of them were left; the most skilled had all been taken by Marquis Roderick.
Boom! Boom!
Raynon could only watch helplessly as the walls crumbled before his eyes.
Neither the soldiers nor the knights, nor even the ballistae or trebuchets, could do anything. Everything they had prepared was utterly ineffective.
Boom!
The Fenris trebuchets targeted and destroyed the Roderick forces’ trebuchets with pinpoint accuracy.
Boom! Boom!
Even the massive ballistae positioned around the walls met the same fate. The stones weren’t hurled haphazardly; they struck their targets with astonishing precision.
“How could such trebuchets even exist…?”
The technological gap was several magnitudes apart. It was impossible to stop such weapons.
Boom! Boom!
After destroying Linderstein’s siege weapons, the Fenris army began concentrating their fire on several sections of the wall.
Raynon knew all too well what that meant.
“E-Everyone, form up and prepare for combat!”
Fear began to spread across the faces of the soldiers as they carried out his orders.
Boom!
After hours of relentless bombardment, several sections of the wall finally gave way.
Crash!
Part of the wall collapsed under the concentrated attack, leaving rubble below. Though debris blocked some areas, the height was low enough for mounted soldiers to cross.
Ghislain, seeing this, pulled at the reins of Black King, a cold smile spreading across his lips.
“Let’s go.”
Neighhh!
Black King let out a triumphant cry and charged forward, followed closely by the knights and soldiers of Fenris.
Thud, thud, thud, thud!
Raynon could do nothing but watch. Any attempt to climb the walls and launch a counterattack was a futile dream.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The remaining Fenris troops continued to hurl stones to suppress the defenders.
With their weapons destroyed and the walls unreachable, Raynon’s face turned ashen with despair.
“This… this is the might of the Strongest Estate of the North, Fenris…”
Hearing only rumors, they laughed in scorn. They had dismissed the Fenris forces as poor countryfolk playing at war.
But the ones who had been mistaken were themselves.
The army that had survived relentless wars in the harsh northern territories had honed their skills to an unimaginable degree.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!
The ground trembled as nearly ten thousand cavalry advanced. Linderstein’s soldiers gasped for breath, trembling uncontrollably.
The legendary army was coming, the army known for slaughtering enemies without mercy.
Unconsciously, the soldiers began to step back.
And then it happened.
Neighhh!
With the resounding cry of a horse, a single man surged through the gap in the collapsed wall.
Boom!
“Aaaahhh!”
Ghislain charged directly into the enemy ranks. With a single sweep of his spear, the Roderick forces’ formation was thrown into chaos.
Boom! Boom!
The Fenris trebuchets had already ceased fire. Yet, the Roderick soldiers were too preoccupied evading their attackers to even think of holding their ground.
Every swing of Ghislain’s spear, suffused with mana, rang like thunder.
The force was so immense that even grazing a soldier left deep marks in the ground.
“Monster!”
“It’s the Count of Fenris! The Count of Fenris is here!”
“Run! We can’t win against him!”
The Roderick forces immediately recognized the man at the forefront as Ghislain.
Mounted on his massive black steed with his blazing red eyes, his distinctive figure was known throughout the kingdom.
The soldiers of Roderick, already demoralized by the collapse of their fortress, could do little to respond.
And following Ghislain’s lead, the Fenris knights poured into the opened breaches of the walls.
Boom!
Charging forward, they mercilessly tore through the Roderick army.
“Aaaahhh!”
The defenders, prepared only for a siege, lacked cavalry or heavy infantry capable of halting the knights’ onslaught.
Watching his soldiers fall apart so easily, Raynon screamed in frustration.
“Fight! Fight, damn it! We outnumber them!”
But his cries were futile.
When the rest of Fenris’ Cavalry joined the fray, the Roderick forces crumbled like sand castles in the tide, slowly washing out to the sea.
“Aaaahhh!”
“Spare me!”
“Run away!”
The soldiers of Roderick abandoned the battle entirely. The fall of the fortress shattered their morale, leaving them no will to fight.
As the soldiers fled, it became nothing more than a massacre. Those unable to escape were easily hunted down by Fenris cavalry.
Raynon, tears of rage streaming down his face, fled with the remaining knights.
The fortress, the heart and pride of Roderick, was lost. And they hadn’t even put up a proper fight.
“It’s all because of those trebuchets!”
Had they known of Fenris’s advanced siege weaponry, they would have prepared differently. They wouldn’t have fallen so pathetically.
“You’ll see! I’ll report this to the Marquis and”
His words were cut short.
A man with red hair suddenly appeared beside him.
“So, here you are! You’re the commander, right?”
“W-Who are you?!”
“I’m Kaor. The man who is stronger than Gillian. Don’t forget that, even in the afterlife.”
Gillian, who had been left behind to defend the Fenris territory, was widely known as the “White Lion.” For Kaor, this battle was an opportunity to spread his own renown.
Unfortunately, Raynon failed to grasp Kaor’s words.
“What? The White Lion, Gillian?”
“I said I’m Kaor!”
Though Gillian’s moniker as the White Lion was famous throughout the kingdom, Kaor’s name was unfamiliar to Raynon.
Before he could offer any further response, a blade flew toward him.
Squelch!
“Urgh…”
Raynon’s head was severed by Kaor’s enraged strike. Even in death, he didn’t understand why Kaor had been so upset.
“I’m stronger, got it?”
Those were the last words Raynon heard before darkness claimed him.
With their commander dead, the remaining Roderick soldiers were utterly broken.
They discarded their weapons and fled. Those who failed to escape threw themselves to the ground, crying out in desperation.
“We surrender!”
“Spare us!”
“We will serve Fenris!”
Realizing they couldn’t outrun the Fenris cavalry, the surviving soldiers groveled on the ground, pleading for mercy.
With the enemy completely subdued, the Fenris knights and soldiers raised their weapons high, shouting in triumph.
“We’ve won!”
“The fortress is ours!”
“Hurrah!”
Their faces were alight with joy. Taking down a fortress as famous as this one in just a single day felt like a dream.
Though they had known the trebuchets were powerful, seeing their full might in actual combat exceeded their expectations.
Ghislain set aside his spear and smiled as he praised his soldiers.
But taking the fortress wasn’t the end. There were still battles to come.
“The pursuit force will arrive soon. We need to prepare for them.”
At Ghislain’s words, the cheers quieted. But it wasn’t out of fear. Their expressions still radiated confidence.
This level of discipline, the ability to restrain their excitement at their commander’s word, showed their growth.
Ghislain glanced around with a satisfied look before giving his next order.
“Disassemble the trebuchets and build medium-sized versions on the walls. Let’s give the next enemy a proper surprise.”
The soldiers moved quickly at his command. There was no time to even tidy the battlefield.