I will be crowned king

"Um?"

Walking onto the port in the increasingly hot water, Lenore tried his best to keep his eyes open and stared at the Red Hand Bay, which was already burned to ruins as the heat wave rolled down.

The air seemed to have been distorted and filled with a temperature that made the skin ache, as well as dust visible to the naked eye; and after the roaring naval guns, the indiscriminate bombardment by airships, and the inexplicable pillars of fire raging, the entire town was no longer visible. Any place that is intact.

Such a battlefield is an absolute nightmare for both the offensive and defensive sides - the hot temperatures turn morale into an absolute joke, and the ruined environment and sea of ​​​​fire are destined to make it impossible for the troops to fully deploy, and no one can tell the difference. The battle of victory and defeat is repeated in endless pain.

Moreover, many soldiers reported that except for some refugees, there were no Free Confederate troops in the city at this moment. The enemy had already completed the orderly evacuation immediately after the attack; the person standing in front of them was a woman named Freya Moses. The Elves of Iser of Field.

Renault didn't know Freya, but as long as he was a Hantu, he would not be unfamiliar with the surname of the Yser royal family, let alone know what the Thirteen Council was; and because of his relationship with Leon, he also Participated in the aftermath of the Yser Court incident, and learned about the escape of a spell caster who almost destroyed the Court.

And now this fugitive from the Holy See is not only not dead, but he is also opposite him, and he is the target of his next attack!

"Let ordinary armies fight against spellcasters who can easily destroy a city. The Judgment Knights...have they already regarded the Holy War Army of Hantu as consumables that can be squandered at will..."

"Master, please be patient!"

The sweaty family knights on the side heard his complaints and quickly came closer to remind: "The main force of the Judgment Knights has moved to a position close to the port, less than a few hundred meters away from us - they have many masters of insight abilities. It will be discovered!”

"It doesn't matter. Is it possible that they will punish them harshly just for such a trivial matter? Don't they need the knights of Hantu to work hard for the Ring of Order?!"

Leno snorted coldly, but his voice was obviously much lowered. Of course, it was also because of the heat: "How is the situation in the army? How many people have successfully landed?"

"About eight thousand people, but they all only have the most basic equipment, and..." Resisting the coma and suffocation caused by the heat wave, the family knight handed the last cold wet towel to Renault:

"With the current temperature in the town, I am afraid that more than three-quarters of our troops will be reduced without waiting for the enemy to take action."

Three quarters? It should be all of them... Renault frowned as he took the towel. Of course he knew that this was a euphemism for the knights: "If this continues, no matter how many troops are sent to land, they will only die. Has the Judgment Knights given any How to deal with it?”

The knight paused and shook his head with regret.

So Renault's brows furrowed even more.

In the final analysis, I...no, it should be that all the Holy War officers present basically had a dismissive attitude towards the plan of the Grand Master of the Judgment Knights.

What's unexpected, what's adaptable... The other party seems to have no idea how big the gap is between one or two thousand people and four or five thousand people; the chaos caused by unplanned temporary actions will have terrible consequences and consequences.

This is not difficult to understand. After all, the Second Public Order Conference was already in the forty-seventh year of the Saints Calendar. The disarmed Holy See was left with only a group of inquisitors who were good at "hunting", plus the thousands-strong Order of Judgment Knights. ——The top combat power is naturally absolutely crushing, but the concept of group operations has long been lost.

What's more, because of the rise of Clovis, the military theories and various strategies and tactics of the Order World in the past fifty years have continued to improve with the improvement of production levels, weapon research and development, and war intensity; in the past, tens of thousands of people It was enough to start a decisive battle, but it was nothing now. Often the strength of one side was tens of thousands of people... It was no longer something that the Holy See could imagine today.

Today's Jihadi Army obviously has the shadow of the Holy See trying to regain military power. If they do not intervene, this army can operate more or less autonomously, but the price is disintegration, and the struggle for power between the various legions and the forces behind them; and the consequences of intervention , is already obvious.

Leon Francois is very simple, but simplicity does not mean stupidity. It was because he saw through the nature of the Judgment Knights that they had no control over the Grand Legion but still wanted to seize power by force, so he decisively ordered a quarter of the troops to land. ; Even if the Hantu Jihad Army does nothing in the end and can take the lead in sending troops to reinforce in the chaos, it is already worthy of the aid and loan given by the Holy See...

Renault sighed. The last thought of "fighting for the Ring of Order" was completely wiped out at this time. He began to think about how to get in touch with Anson Bach on the opposite side to reduce Hantu's involvement in this holy war. Loss.

If we can take the opportunity to eliminate the threat from the empire and the Holy See to Hantu, even if Anson Bach is really a false believer and a spellcaster, so what? It seems that my father has a private agreement with a certain force, waiting for the holy war to enter a stalemate stage, causing the empire to be severely weakened in the new world...

"Notify the following troops that they must come and assemble as soon as possible after landing, but there is no need to make any battle preparations; the Judgment Knights will urge them and let them solve the problem - otherwise the 40,000-strong Hantu Jihad Army will be annihilated. It will be fine. , the defeat of the Battle of Red Hand Bay will affect the entire Holy War Army, the face of the Judgment Knights and the Holy See, and there must be no room for loss!"

………………………………………………………………

Outside the city of Red Hand Bay, the defense line of the New World Army.

Louis Bernard stood alone in the brightly lit trench, his expression extremely ugly.

Red Hand Bay has turned into scorched earth, and the enemy is already gathering the last of its forces to completely massacre the remaining forces of the Free Confederacy. Important friends and loved ones are risking their lives to buy time for themselves, hoping to win a turning point and turn defeat into victory. …

But the reality is that a full hour has passed since the retreat. The few elites who escaped with him after all the troubles and efforts to break through the encirclement have only assembled a force of over 10,000 people, and most of them are direct descendants of Yangfan City. What's left is still a mess, with no clue as to what happened, let alone fighting.

With such an army, not to mention fighting against the Holy War Army that is about to land, and the Judgment Knights that have already landed, it is unknown how many people will survive tonight.

In fact, this is because Louis is too pessimistic. If he knows that the Holy War Army on the opposite side is also in chaos, and the Judgment Knights themselves are trapped in the port by their own people and cannot move forward, it is not difficult to find that the New World Legion has already performed at a super level, and in the same situation Unprepared, the nearly 30,000-strong army had at least been mobilized. It was just unable to organize an attack and breakout. The defense was absolutely no problem.

In his mind, Louis and Freya, alone, were fighting hard against hundreds of Judgment Knights and airships in the sky, avoiding the enemy's siege while also blocking them, wandering on the edge of life and death every moment.

The actual situation is not to say that it is completely consistent with his guess, but at least it is completely opposite; Freya openly suppressed all the Jihadists who tried to land with one against ten thousand; while Anson was playing a simple game with the difference machine on the steam airship. In the addition and subtraction math game, Philus, who was worried about being caught with a flaw, did not dare to let the airship continue to approach, for fear that a fatal flaw would be found.

The two sides, who were both afraid of having their cards revealed, had reached a delicate balance of terror. On the surface, the Free Confederacy even had the advantage - after all, as long as the Holy War Army was not allowed to advance, Anson's plan would be considered successful.

But Louis didn't know the situation, especially since Lisa had complained more than once. She took the guard company and the grenadiers and wanted to rush back to protect Anson, but Fabian persuaded her not to act rashly.

But in the face of the girl's dissatisfaction, the young knight felt only deep self-blame... His best friend had already staked his life for the common goal and cause, but he was so incompetent that he could not even fulfill the minimum mission, and completely failed him. Full of passion and trust.

And just when this feeling of self-blame was about to reach its peak, and his whole body was about to collapse under the pressure, what he was waiting for was not the good news that the entire army was assembled and on standby, but a slightly unexpected piece of bad news.

"……What?"

The frowning young knight stood up suddenly and looked at Fabian in front of him with a puzzled expression: "You...say it again?"

"The front of the northwest position is under an unknown attack, sir." The deputy commander of the Storm Legion repeated, his calm face can make people feel his solemn mood at the moment:

"Our two peripheral reconnaissance posts have been annihilated by the enemy. Almost a company of soldiers are at a loss. If nothing unexpected happens...all of them should have been killed."

"...how long ago?"

"Ten minutes ago, excluding the time it took for me to rush over and deliver the message, the battle should not even last five minutes." Fabian took out his pocket watch, placed the dial that was penetrated by a stray bullet on the front and handed it to Louis:

"It is really the personal belongings of the soldiers on the first line. It is kept in the left pocket - without him, the number of missing and killed soldiers would be one hundred and sixty-one."

"One hundred and sixty-one..."

Louis murmured softly and took the pocket watch. The bullet holes on it were not big, but they were not the lead bullets he was accustomed to. They looked more like steel or brass:

"Why do you say they were killed?"

"No deserters, sir, no deserters." Fabian emphasized expressionlessly:

"I'm just an ordinary officer who is going around, an incompetent deputy to Brigadier General Anson Bach; but even a person like me knows after participating in so many battles that no matter how tragic the battle is, it will definitely be... There are deserters.”

"Generally speaking, if skirmishers and line infantry use free fire to kill one hundred and sixty soldiers at night, it would probably require a fierce and bloody battle of two or three regiments. If the number of casualties reaches the scale of a company, and the commander has not yet issued an order to retreat and break out, it can probably be regarded as a serious dereliction of duty, and execution on the spot is not excessive if found."

"And such a battle, even if it consists entirely of cavalry, will usually last from thirty minutes to an hour; being able to end a battle within two hours is definitely a resolute act for a commander; there is no strong command The quality and the cooperation of the soldiers are absolutely impossible."

"The most important thing is to launch a surprise attack in a silent way without being noticed by the enemy, which further tests the basic level of an army. The volume of the barrel is determined by the shortest board, and the upper limit of the army is also determined by the shortest board. The soldiers at the bottom—and the weapons in their hands."

"I still remember that Brigadier General Anson Bach would rather not have military pay and get credit, but insisted on converting the Storm Army...ah, it was just the Storm Division at that time, replacing our Leyden rifles with Leopold breech-loading rifles, and replacing bulk rifles with The ammunition was replaced with paper-cased custom-loaded ammunition, and I tried every possible means to buy artillery pieces from my superiors, not wanting to waste even a small cannon."

"Facts have proven that his decision was absolutely correct. These weapons greatly improved the combat effectiveness of the Storm Division, which had only two to three thousand men at the time. This led to the great victory at Eagle Point City, the great victory at White Tower City, the siege of Carindia Port and all subsequent victories. …”

Fabian talked about the past with an expressionless face, and every sentence seemed to have nothing to do with the current situation, and he was chatting irrelevantly.

Louis, who was originally calm, had a flash of panic in the corner of his eyes.

There is an army that is not too large, but not too small, approaching the position. Their firepower is extremely fierce, and the quality of the soldiers is very high. They can put a reconnaissance company in place without the soldiers being aware of it at an extreme time. The group is destroyed.

And...no one is spared!

"I already understand the situation. Thank you for reminding Deputy Commander Fabian, but you don't need to go around in circles next time when you report." Taking a deep breath, the young knight said in a deep voice: "To put it bluntly, how can you tell Anson Bach Report, just tell me what you want!"

"clear."

Fabian nodded, but his expression clearly didn't look like he had listened.

"We need to respond immediately to this mysterious army with unknown circumstances. If you guessed correctly, it should also be part of the Judgment Knights, and it may also be covered by a steam airship..." Louis pursed his lips tightly:

"What's your suggestion?"

"I don't have any suggestions... When Commander Anson Bach is here, it's never my turn to make any suggestions." Fabian shook his head expressionlessly:

"But I can tell you another important piece of information. According to our 'inside' information on the Holy War, the Judgment Knights arrived in the new world this time, bringing not only a steam airship, but also a steam core-based New equipment born due to technological advancement.”

"New equipment?"

"We don't know the specific situation. We only know that its code name is 'Dry Land Boating', and its name..."

"...It's called a 'Land Cruiser'!"