Chapter 850: Chapter 459: A Battle of Over Ten Minutes
After the Frost Leaf Bullet was fired, the brief silence lasted only a few breaths.
Then the earth began to tremble, not from the front, but simultaneously from all around.
Deep in the woods, behind the ruins, from the opened cellar entrance, and even beneath the soil, came heavy and dense sounds.
Thorn Knights appeared from all directions, and an Iron Wall-like encirclement was completed.
The warhorses accelerated, each step causing mud and water to explode, rapidly closing the few hundred-meter distance.
Some knights could even leverage vines to climb the ruined walls, run against the nearly vertical surface, and redirect mid-air, pointing their lances at the Red Tide Battle Array.
These monstrous knights, their strength mostly close to High-tier Elite Knights, any one of them on a regular battlefield would be enough to tear open the line.
And now they appear in droves, spreading rapidly within view, with dark red figures moving simultaneously, like an unreasonable tide from all sides.
Yet, the Red Tide’s phalanx showed no signs of commotion, not even any extra movements.
Second Legion Commander Gray stood beside the armored vehicle, his gaze sweeping calmly across the entire battlefield.
Upon confirming no new points of breakthrough, he raised his hand.
"Beep——!"
The sharp and clear whistle pierced through the noise of the battlefield.
The knight line began adjusting, a few fine lateral displacements.
The boots stepped into the muddy ground again, heels pressed firmly, and the Demon Marrow rifles were tightened, their pressure valves emitting a low hum.
Thorn Knights continued advancing, in their judgment, these were just weak prey.
Two hundred meters.
Gray’s hand fell.
The first salvo sounded, the entire swathe of air simultaneously torn open.
"Boom! Tear——ah——"
A Thorn Knight mid-leap was struck.
Dozens of Armor-Piercing Bullets hit him almost simultaneously, entering at different angles through the seams of the armor.
Upon the first impact, the roots on the symbiotic armor immediately contracted inward, barely wrapping around the impact point.
But the second and third impacts followed closely.
Roots were torn, armor was lifted, and the impacts converged within the body.
That body in mid-air lost its integrity.
Limbs were shattered, flesh and blood scattered outward, broken armor tumbling and flying out, losing any form even before hitting the ground.
Immediately, the steam-powered Gatling guns on the war vehicles began operating.
Metal torrents swept across the forefront along the ground.
"Clatter——clatter——rat-tat-tat!"
The most fierce charging unit of knights hit the fire coverage area head-on.
Their speed was abruptly severed the moment they entered the kill zone.
Men and horses tangled in vines were shattered together, a mist of blood spread over the charge line.
The expected close-range clash didn’t occur, nor did the sound of blades hitting armor.
Everything happened too quickly.
Those elite individuals close to Extraordinary Knights, before even reaching effective range, were blocked by stable and dense firepower, crushed within the rolling dust two hundred meters away.
Hans, atop the distant ruins, opened his mouth wide yet could emit no sound.
After a moment, his throat squeezed out a faint whisper: "It shouldn’t be like this..."
He anticipated a fierce fight, blade clashes, people rolling and roaring in the mud.
But what lay before him was completely different from the battlefield in his memory, beyond understanding.
Amidst the gaps between smoke and fire, a few Thorn Knights still pierced through the barrage.
They moved through the shadows of the ruins, no longer an orderly charge, but driven by an almost instinctive stubbornness.
Collapsed walls became temporary cover, broken beams used as platforms, roots spread among the rubble, forcefully tearing open several pathways.
Dozens of dark red figures approached from various directions.
They no longer cared about the battle lines, nor tried to regroup their formations.
Their sole target remained the steel behemoths halted at the forefront.
A knight was the first to charge to the front side of a tank.
A deep, twisted roar squeezed from his throat, his lance held high, then fiercely thrust towards the structure outside the track.
At the moment of metal collision, sparks exploded.
The lance tip merely grazed a shallow white mark on the armor, numbing the knight’s arm, yet unable to penetrate any layer of structure.
Another knight simultaneously leaped, attempting to climb the vehicle body.
Thorns grew madly from the gaps of the armor, barbs plunged into the steel plate, trying to entwine and lock.
Roots crawled along the welding seams upwards, as if searching for joints to gnaw.
The side-mounted submachine guns immediately opened fire.
A short tongue of flame sprayed close to the vehicle body, the nearby gunfire sounding exceptionally muffled.
The knight attempting to climb was hit in mid-air, crashing heavily to the ground.
Inside the driver’s seat, the throttle was pressed down.
The engine’s roar suddenly intensified, the tracks began turning, without any hesitation, directly rolling forward.
"Crack——splat——"
The sound of bones breaking was crushed by the thick steel.
Flesh lost shape under the weight, the roots not fully hardened were ground into the mud.
The mass of dozens of tons continued advancing forward, without pause.
Steel rolled over the blend of red and white flesh and dark red roots, the tracks re-engaged the ground without a trace of deviation.
On the other side, the coaxial machine guns swept across the remaining figures.
Bullets swept across the ground, breaking roots, lifting armor.
Bodies losing support rolled and fell, immediately swallowed by the advancing steel.
The tank moved along the preplanned path.
It drove over a muddy patch repeatedly flattened, the once-struggling figures now unrecognizable.
