Chapter 273 — Explosions and Flame
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 4
Amid the ceaseless thunder of explosions, the blood-colored cloud front was rapidly closing on the walls. Soldiers in the watchtowers could already see through their binoculars the horrifying sight of the foremost monsters spiraling upward through the air and scattering as they fell. When a special wooden stake planted in the center of the minefield, marked with a flag, was also shrouded in the foul tide of corrupted magic, the second alarm rang out. Knight Byron's voice, full of vigor, resounded along the entire wall: "Enemy in position—catapults, prepare to fire!"
With a series of twanging sounds as the winches were released, the specially made small catapults sprang into action. One after another, head-sized crystal bombs traced long arcs through the air, falling into the distant battlefield shrouded in ominous black-red smoke. The next second, continuous and even more astonishing explosions erupted across the battlefield. Vast flashes and thunderous flames seemed about to tear that cloud of smoke and dust apart, whipping up storms of shrapnel and heat among the horde of monsters.
"Rewind the winches, continue firing!"
"Keep firing, Balto—rewind the winches, keep firing!!"
The shout of his comrade jolted Balto from his daze. This knight of the Typhon Empire felt his heart pounding, blood surging in his chest. He stared blankly at the distant plain now covered in explosions and flame, a single thought filling his mind: this was the battlefield they faced?
Balto mechanically carried out his motions. Operating a catapult was not difficult, and for a knight of astonishing strength, cranking a winch was no challenge at all. Yet as he reflexively tightened the winch and reloaded the crystal bombs, he felt his mind slipping beyond his control, a numbness slowly creeping into his thoughts.
This was not the battlefield he had imagined! Nor the battlefield he had experienced!
He was Typhon's elite, a knight who had been through a hundred battles. He was no green recruit, no country militiaman who had never seen the world. On the border between Ansu and Typhon, he and the soldiers he led had weathered all manner of crises. Though the two nations had not formally gone to war, their private skirmishes had escalated to the point of bloodshed. On those small battlefields unacknowledged by either side, he had faced blades and shed blood with his own hands—but no battlefield had ever been like this.
The two sides were hundreds of meters apart, yet the fighting had already begun. Blood and fire, thunder and explosions engulfed the entire field. Those nameless monsters charged fearlessly through the blasts, while the defending soldiers kept pouring more thunder and explosions upon the enemy.
And it was not even time to draw swords yet.
Of course, this world had battle mages, and mages in combat could conjure lightning, flame, arcane missiles, and the like to strike enemies at range. But how many battle mages could a battlefield hold? And how many times could a single battle mage cast spells of such magnitude?
Here, spells on the level of an Inferno Blast could blanket the entire battlefield!
Balto had once imagined himself being pushed onto the walls by the Ansu to take part in a defensive battle: with enforcers at his back, he and his Typhon comrades would hold swords and blades at the front as a shield wall, and only by desperately swinging their weapons could they avoid having their heads cut off by the enforcers and carve out a chance at survival. He had never imagined he would be operating a catapult here—much less that the "stones" these catapults hurled were such terrifying things!
Balto suddenly recalled that afternoon, when he had been carrying those crystal bombs and his hand had slipped, dropping several "iron balls" onto the brickwork. A cold sweat of belated fear broke out all over him.