Chapter 848: Chapter 458: The Infuriating Trap
The morning fog pressed down outside the town of White Stone, the Church Court’s line of defense silent and still, the entire battlefield resembling a swamp made of piled bodies, with a quiet that chilled the heart.
At the top of the mill, there was a long-forgotten chimney vent.
It was a safety structure from an old era, designed to prevent flour dust explosions, now long devoid of purpose.
The inner walls of the flue were thick with accumulated black soot and moldy flour grime, the color like festering scabs.
Old Hans was stuck in this narrow flue.
This was a place the Church Court’s search parties would never glance twice at.
First, there was the smell, the sourness of rotting grains fermenting, the stench of dead rats, grease and soot mixed into a nauseating reek, perfectly masking the scent of living beings.
Even the most sensitive-nosed hounds would wrinkle their noses and turn away upon catching this scent.
Just to be safe, Hans covered himself entirely in soot and waste oil, leaving only his eyes exposed.
Through a barely discernible crack in the chimney, he looked out at the wasteland beyond the town, wanting to see for himself the town’s fate, no matter what it might be...
At this moment, Old Hans’s body was trembling, as he was witnessing Hell.
To the north of the town, in that muddy expanse, the massive line of flesh and blood was completed by defensive structures formed from various thorns.
Several hundred other children were neatly buried in the soil, some from the town, others from whereabouts unknown.
The spacing was deliberately maintained at even strides, arranged almost reverently.
Only their upper bodies were exposed, like crops waiting to be harvested, or like some carefully arranged sacrificial offerings.
Hans instinctively began to count, but quickly gave up.
His gaze began to subconsciously search for familiar faces.
The blacksmith’s young son, the baker’s daughter, the chubby neighbor aunt’s grandson.
One by one, names surfaced in his mind, kids he’d watched grow up, their past smiles still vivid, and yet now they were turned into traps, long stripped of their own consciousness.
The children clutched black alchemy explosive packages in their arms.
Those packages were too large for them, and some kids had to clasp them tightly with both arms.
Rough fuse wires extended from the explosives, collectively buried by the Church Court’s craftsmen into the soil behind, resembling ugly, cruel umbilical cords.
The Church Court knew very well about Louis and his army’s characteristics; war chariots could crush Thorn Knights, ignore mobs, and answer any threat with artillery fire.
But they could never open fire on a whole line of children.
If explosives were just buried underground, the Red Tide had other solutions; if replaced with adult believers, the Red Tide would unhesitatingly eliminate the target.
Only by placing the explosives in the children’s arms and tying the fuses to their heartbeats would they forcefully turn the battlefield from a military issue into a moral dilemma.
The children did not cry or make a fuss, not even trembling in the cold wind.
Each pair of eyes widened, their pupils displaying a murky gray-gold, unfocused, gazing blankly northward.
"Animals..."
Hans bit hard into his own hand, teeth sinking into flesh.
But he dared not make a sound, only allowing tears to silently stream down, washing away the soot on his face, leaving pale streaks on his skin.
Beasts cloaked in human skin.
They used children as shields, as landmines, as roadblocks to force Red Tide tanks to halt.
Suddenly, the earth began to tremble.
A black line slowly appeared on the northern horizon.
At first, it was just an outline, then gradually divided into colossal steel beasts.
They were the vanguard tank group of the Red Tide.
Their tracks ground against the earth, emitting a deep, rhythmic rumble, like the heartbeat of an ancient beast, one beat after another.
Hans watched those cold steel figures, a nearly tearing contradiction surging within his heart.
He’d heard from northern minstrels and Church Court propaganda about the immense power of these things, perhaps capable of defeating those Church Court beasts; he hoped they would.
But as soon as they opened fire, the children on this land would be instantly reduced to flesh and blood fragments.
And if they didn’t open fire, merely approaching would ignite the fuses, and the vehicles would be blown to pieces.
The Church Court was gambling, betting that the Northern Territory Lord named Louis still retained human compassion.
Indeed, the Red Tide’s army halted, only a few hundred meters away from the children.
Hans closed his eyes, unable to bear watching any longer: "It’s over... all over."
......
Red Tide’s Second Corps Deputy Corps Commander Vance, behind the war chariot, unconsciously found his breathing growing shallow.
Through the lens, the forward position was cut by the morning mist into slices of gray and white jigsaw puzzles,
The Church Court had transformed the whole land into a living trap.
The muddy ground was filled with cheval de frises woven from dark red thorns.
Those thorns were not dead plants, but slowly writhing, their surfaces bristling with barbs, like forcibly straightened, hardened blood vessels.
Among the thorns were stakes soaked in alchemical liquid, which upon being pressed by heavy objects, would automatically tighten, locking the tracks and tripping up the warhorses.
Further back was a layer of creeping gray-white mist adhering to the ground.
That was not naturally occurring fog but a low-altitude toxic mist mixed with hallucinogenic pollen and anesthetic agents.
Even fully armored knights, upon inhaling a few breaths, would become disoriented and lose the sense of time, turning into living targets.
Most terrifying was their path of advance, a line of children with only their upper bodies exposed.
Planted in the mud like stakes, they hugged black alchemical explosives in their arms.
