Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

Hong Lingyu looked up at Winters, his eyes brimming with tears. He reached out as if he wanted to embrace Winters's legs.

Winters's face was pale as he panted heavily, wiping the nosebleed with the back of his hand. Pointing at the head of Hong Lingyu, he entered a casting stance, "Dissolution."

Hong Lingyu's head was torn apart by an invisible colossal force.

"Cavalry!" Someone on the lookout tower pointed outside the wall and shouted anxiously, "Cavalry are coming!"

Hundreds of cavalry charged straight towards the city walls—these horsemen were armored only in barding, without cuirasses, helmets, not even saddles, doing everything they could to reduce weight.

Only then did Winters understand what the fire-stokers were plotting.

The walls of the fortress weren't rammed earth or hardened clay, but merely piles of soil already on a slope.

The Herders had only to dig slightly to gentle the slope, and the cavalry could charge straight over the ramparts.

Now, everyone was at the end of their tether, and these well-rested "light-armored" heavy cavalrymen were the fire-stokers' decisive blow.

With the speed of a full-on charge, the Herder cavalry stormed up the fortress walls. The horses, whinnying and foaming at the mouth, scrambled upwards.

One by one... almost a hundred horsemen leaped into the fortress in succession, rampaging along the wall, knocking aside both Paratu People and Herders alike.

Heavily armored soldiers were trampled to death alive, their screams too harrowing to hear.

Even Winters couldn't withstand such a powerful charge. Seeing a heavy-armored warhorse charging at him, he decisively leaped from the wall, tucking and rolling on the ground to absorb the shock.

At once, the wall was cleared. Herder cavalrymen charged toward the plank houses inside the fortress—the arsenal, the infirmary, and the command center.

The Herders that followed immediately planted their flag atop the fortress. The Herders outside the walls cheered joyously, some even overwhelmed, kissing the ground.

Winters looked towards the second rampart, where Lieutenant Colonel Jeska was positioned.

The charge horn! The shrill sound of the charge horn reverberated throughout the fortress.

"Uukhai!" The battle cry of the Paratu People shook heaven and earth.

Paratu soldiers, clad in plate armor and wielding heavy poleaxes, surged out from the Armament Cave beneath the wall, clamoring as they charged at the Herder cavalry.

[Deploy the reserve forces on the counterscarp], this was one of the four lessons Winters had learned at the Land Academy.

But do not forget, John Jeska was taught by the same master as Winters Montagne.

If the fire-stokers had their decisive hammer, the one-eyed had theirs as well.

One hundred twenty poleaxemen had been waiting for this moment since the start of the siege assault.

Before this, regardless of how dire the battle was, Lieutenant Colonel Jeska had not sounded the charge horn.

If the fire-stoker wanted to smash the Paratu People with one hammer blow, the one-eyed waited to shatter the fire-stoker's hammer.

The scattered Paratu soldiers regrouped behind the poleaxemen and launched a counter-charge, dragging the Herder cavalrymen off their horses one after another for the kill.

"Kill!" Winters took the flag from Heinrich's hands and led the charge towards the wall.

The rampart changed hands again, Paratu People stormed the parapet, while the Herders outside were still oblivious to the events inside the fortress, desperately climbing the wall.

"Grenades!" Winters shouted to the soldier beside him, "Do we have any grenades left?"

The besieging force of the Terdon Tribe was particularly vulnerable to grenade attacks.

The tumult, gunshots, and screams were deafening as Xial yelled into Winters's ear, "We've used them all up!"

Grenades were highly effective in fortress defense battles, but the stock of iron-shelled bombs carried by Jeska's company had been exhausted long ago.

Looking around and seeing the studded armor on the dead Herders, Winters had a flash of inspiration, grabbing the breastplate part of the studded armor and strapping it onto a powder keg.

The soldiers gradually understood what the Centurion intended to do.

"I'll get the powder kegs!" Xial pulled two people beside him, "You two, come with me!"

Studded armor, powder kegs, and fuses turned into makeshift bombs. Whether they would work, Winters didn't know.

He was just about to light the fuse when he suddenly drew a dagger, slicing the leather strap that secured the armor plates into pieces but just barely holding together.

Then he entered a casting stance, and the fuse began to hiss and burn.
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Winters held onto the powder keg, hesitating to act. As the fuse grew shorter and shorter, the Paratu soldiers around him couldn't help but close their eyes.

Only when the fuse was about to burn out did Winters throw the "studded armor grenade" over the wall.

A giant "boom" resounded as the powder keg exploded in mid-air.

Everyone on the wall staggered, their ears ringing and vision blurry.

The keg was too large, so the explosion was less than ideal—but it didn't need to be ideal.

The studded armor wrapping the keg was torn asunder by the blast wave, with each plate acting like a piece of shrapnel, radiating outwards in all directions.

Rain of death and steel fell upon the Herders outside the city. Like wheat under the scythe, they fell in swathes, many never standing again.

Even the Paratu People were stunned speechless by this brutal weapon.

"Again!" Winters, his eyes red, roared.

The Paratu hurriedly sought more studded armor and powder kegs.

"What are you doing, Montagne? Go capture the flag!" Lieutenant Colonel Jeska on the second rampart pointed to the southwest and yelled at Winters, "Get me the Herders' flag!"

Following the lieutenant colonel's direction, Winters then saw the Herder's banner flapping over the South Rampart.

The Herders that had reached the rampart were in disarray. Winters led his men, cutting down several and reaching the base of the flag.

The Herder standard-bearer, confident in his swordsmanship, flamboyantly flourished his sword, poised to meet the challenge from the Paratu champion.

But Winters's swordsmanship had been honed by back-to-back bloody battles to a pure and straightforward art.

He raised his arm, lifting the scimitar high, deliberately exposing his center as bait to the opponent.