When the sky had just transitioned from pitch black to a hazy grayish-white, and a faint light erged from the distant horizon, barely allowing the outlines of objects to be discerned.
A sentry on the outer position of the town of San Lorenzo de la Parrilla yawned and rubbed his eyes.
He felt that sothing was wrong.
When he was on duty last night, the gentle slope in front of them was a flat expanse, with only scattered shrubs.
But now, it seed like sothing had been added to that slope. It looked uneven, as if it had been turned over by goblins, and there were several long, dark piles of earth.
“Hey, Pedro, co take a look.” He poked his comrade next to him.
“Look at what?”
“Look ahead. Doesn’t it look different from what I saw yesterday?”
The sentry nad Pedro poked his head out, squinting his eyes. He stared for a long ti but couldn’t make anything out.
“The light is too dim. I can’t see clearly. Maybe you’re seeing things.”
“Impossible!” the first sentry shook his head. “I’m sure it’s different there!”
The two argued, but finally decided to call their Platoon Leader, a Kingdom Army Second Lieutenant.
The Second Lieutenant was woken from his sleep and walked onto the position with an annoyed expression.
“What’s the big fuss?”
“Sir, look over there!” the sentry pointed into the distance.
The Second Lieutenant looked in the direction he pointed, but initially saw nothing unusual.
He cursed and slapped the sentry who had disturbed his sleep a couple of tis, but when the soldier insisted that sothing was wrong, he still went back and retrieved his binoculars.
When he next aid his binoculars at the slope, the sky had brightened a little more, and the sight that appeared in the lenses instantly cleared his mind of all sleepiness.
Magnified by the optical instrunt, he clearly saw several lines of sacks forming continuous lines on the slope.
Those were sandbags!
Looking past the sandbags, he could faintly make out several winding trenches!
“My God…” the Second Lieutenant’s face instantly went pale. “Enemy trenches! They… they’ve bloody well dug right up to our faces! Everyone to your positions! Prepare for battle!”
He imdiately ran toward the rear of the position and found a ssenger.
“Quick! Go notify the Battalion Commander! Hurry!”
He then took a military horse from another ssenger and galloped along the outer defense line of the town.
He had to confirm with his own eyes whether this was an isolated infiltration or an approach along the entire front.
The result chilled him to the bone.
The Saxons’ trenches had appeared on three sides of the town, excluding the rear!
On two of the flanks, the trenches were approximately two hundred ters from their position.
And on the front facing his own defense sector, the enemy’s trenches had advanced to a position less than two hundred ters away!
Soon, the Major serving as the Commander of the Kingdom Army Infantry Battalion garrisoned in the town was also urgently awakened.
When the Major, his uniform disheveled, rushed onto the position and saw the earthwork traces so close at hand, his mind went blank.
As a veteran, he knew exactly what this ant.
It ant the enemy possessed extrely strong organization and discipline to complete such a massive engineering feat overnight, right under their noses.
This was definitely the Saxon elite troops!
“Open fire! Fire on them!”
The Major recovered and roared at the soldiers around him: “Where are the heavy machine guns?! Use the heavy machine guns to sweep the area!”
However, when his order was given, only sporadic gunfire rang out across the position, and it soon ceased.
Because neither the riflen nor the machine gunners could find any target to shoot at.
Morin’s 1st Company soldiers had dug the trenches deep enough for a man to stand in.
So, when they took cover inside the trenches, under the faint light of dawn, they were completely invisible, save for the stacked sandbags.
The town defenders’ futile shooting only served to expose their positions and waste ammunition.
“Damn it!” The Major roared, kicking over an ammunition crate in frustration.
He knew he couldn’t wait any longer.
“Go, fetch Major García of the Magic Crystal Cannon Battalion for ! Quickly!”
A mont later, an officer with the sa rank of Major but wearing a different uniform ran over, panting heavily.
He was Major García, the Commander of the Magic Crystal Cannon Battalion coordinating the defense here.
“Álvaro, what’s going on?” García asked, confused by the tense atmosphere on the position.
Major Álvaro, the Infantry Battalion Commander, didn’t waste words and shoved his binoculars into García’s hands.
“See for yourself!”
García took the binoculars in confusion. When he saw the situation in the distance, the expression on his face instantly froze.
“Th-this… how is this possible?”
“Don’t ask how it’s possible!” Álvaro grabbed his arm anxiously. “Where are your cannons? Can you flatten those damned trenches for ?”
Major García’s face revealed a look of difficulty.
“Álvaro, you know our Magic Crystal Cannons do not have Mage guidance. Accurate firing requires a long ti to calculate coordinates and calibrate the shots.”
“These are not ordinary mortars; we can’t just sprinkle shells out there like salt!”
Hearing García’s words, Álvaro felt a throbbing headache.
Actually, the town had previously been garrisoned by a Magic Apprentice trained by the Kingdom Army specifically for guiding the Magic Crystal Cannons.
But for so reason, the Britannians suddenly pressured the Kingdom Army High Command to withdraw all Mages—both High-Level Mages and Kingdom Army Mages—to Madrid.
Just as the two Majors were arguing, the ti quietly reached exactly 7:00 AM.
After checking the ti, a sense of ominous foreboding simultaneously rose in their hearts.
A sharp, air-slicing shriek suddenly ca from the distant sky.
Everyone instinctively looked up.
“Boom!”
A shell, flying from an unknown location, exploded violently about sixty or seventy ters in front of the outer position of the town, kicking up a plu of mud mixed with black smoke.
The sudden explosion startled all the Kingdom Army soldiers on the position.
Imdiately, a second shriek followed.
“Boom!”
This ti, the shell landed closer, less than thirty ters in front of their position.
Before they could react, a third shell arrived, but this one flew over their heads and crashed behind the position.
Inside the rudintary trenches, the Kingdom Army soldiers stopped worrying about combat readiness. They all huddled down with their hands over their heads, no one daring to peek out.
Major García, the artillery officer, turned instantly pale after hearing the three explosions at different ranges.
He suddenly realized that the enemy’s calibration shots were complete.
“They’ve bracketed us! Take cover! The salvo is coming!”
He let out a desperate roar, grabbing Major Álvaro next to him and trying to drag him toward the nearest cover.
However, before he finished speaking, an incessant roar ca from the distance.
Imdiately after, countless shells, shrieking like the Grim Reaper, rained down from the sky.
The fire from the twelve 77mm field guns poured onto the section of the position southwest of San Lorenzo de la Parrilla like a violent storm.
The sounds of explosions rged into a deafening continuous roar.
The ground shook violently, and black columns of smoke billowed into the sky, casting a pall over the newly brightened morning sky.
The destructive power of the 77mm field gun shells was indeed not comparable to the large-caliber howitzers of later eras, nor was it enough to turn the entire position into a sea of fire.
But for the Kingdom Army’s hastily dug, rudintary trenches, which had almost no anti-artillery defenses, this level of shelling was sufficient to suppress them completely.
Occasionally, a shell would land directly inside a trench. Each explosion sent massive amounts of mud and dismbered human remains flying into the air.
Inside the Assault Initiation Parallel Trench constructed by the 1st Company, Morin looked at the enemy’s position through binoculars resting on the sandbags.
He could faintly make out one Kingdom Army soldier being completely tossed into the air by the blast wave, tracing a parabola before crashing heavily back down onto the ground.
“If only we had 150mm heavy howitzers, these rudintary positions would be completely destroyed before we even got there…”
Morin sighed inwardly, then lowered the periscope.
The artillery preparation ti was only fifteen minutes, and most of it had already passed.
He turned to the nineteen assault team mbers who were already poised for action behind him.
These were the elite soldiers he had handpicked from the entire company during the recent training.
They were the best in the company in terms of shooting, grenade throwing, and tactical movent.
Ten of them, including Morin himself, were ard with the Artillery P08 pistols with 32-round drum magazines procured from the quartermaster.
The other ten still used the Gew.98 rifles.
Every man also had four spherical hand grenade pouches clipped to his waist.
“Assault Team, check gear!” Morin commanded in a low voice.
With soft ‘clink’ and ‘rattle’ sounds, the soldiers perford a final check of their weapons and ammunition.
Once everyone completed their check and looked at him, Morin glanced at his pocket watch. Less than 2 minutes remained until the artillery preparation was scheduled to end—if the Field Artillery Battalion was punctual.
“Assault Team, advance with !”
As Morin issued the command, he was the first to roll sideways out of the trench. Then, like a cheetah, he ran forward, keeping his body low to the ground.
The nineteen assault team mbers followed closely. After leaving the trench, they quickly spread out, using all their strength to dash forward, utilizing the uneven terrain on the ground.
The two MG08 heavy machine guns at both ends of the Assault Initiation Parallel Trench also began firing long bursts toward the defender’s position.
“Da-da-da-da…”
Scorching bullets, like two whips, lashed the Kingdom Army position, firmly suppressing any position that dared to raise its head and fire back.
Especially the two enemy heavy machine gun positions.
The assault distance of one hundred and eighty ters, under the cover of artillery fire and the suppression of heavy machine guns, was not as far as Morin had initially feared.
He led the assault team quickly into a shell crater only about twenty ters from the enemy’s position and rapidly began digging a temporary firing position with his entrenching tool.
Under the threat of death, the assault team mbers dug faster than anyone, needing no urging from others.
Shortly after the firing position was dug, the artillery fire in the distance abruptly ceased.
The final barrage of effective fire was over.
A brief silence fell over the battlefield, with only gunpowder smoke still lingering over the defender’s position.
Morin cautiously poked his head out, concentrating all his attention on the trench line ahead.
Then, he imdiately activated the new spell he had only fully mastered two days prior, from his Spell Slot.
【2nd-Circle Spell – Misty Step】
The next mont, a cloud of dense white mist exploded around him out of thin air, completely engulfing his figure.
The assault team mbers lying prone next to him only saw a flash before their eyes.
The white mist that enveloped their Company Commander, in the space of a single breath, instantly leaped twenty ters, appearing directly inside the distant enemy trench.
A long, wall-like cloud of smoke trailed along his movent path, stretching between the assault team and the enemy trench.
“…”
All the assault team mbers who witnessed this scene were dumbfounded, their minds blank.
Seeing this spell for the first ti, they gaped, almost unable to believe their eyes.
Holy cow?
Did the Company Commander just teleport over?
The brief shock was imdiately followed by the activation of their combat instincts, honed by the tactical training they had received.
Without anyone needing to issue a command, the nearest Corporal snapped back to reality.
“Charge! Follow the smoke wall and charge!”
He roared, being the first to jump out of the firing position. Following the smoke wall that had not yet dissipated, he charged toward the enemy trench.
He simultaneously threw two hand grenades into the trench.
The others also shook off their daze and followed his footsteps, charging toward the defense line that was so close it was practically death.
On the other side, Morin felt a sudden disorientation, and the intense spatial distortion made his stomach churn.
He hadn’t expected the ‘rapid movent of 20 ters’ described in the spell to feel like being violently thrown by an invisible giant hand…
When his feet touched the ground again and he regained control of his body, he found himself standing firmly inside the defenders’ rudintary trench.
The trench was a ss. A few surviving Kingdom Army soldiers were struggling to stand up from the shock of the shelling.
When they saw this uninvited guest, whose body was faintly radiating arcane light, appearing seemingly out of nowhere, they all froze.
After half a second of stunned paralysis, the instinct for survival made them instinctively raise their rifles.
“Bang! Bang! Bang!”
Several gunshots cracked in the narrow trench.
However, the bullets, which should have pierced a human body, exploded into bursts of blue sparks upon hitting Morin’s body, then harmlessly ricocheted away without even tearing his uniform.
【1st-Circle Spell – Mage Armor】
Seeing the horrified expressions on the faces of the Kingdom Army soldiers, Morin gave them no chance to fire a second ti.
He raised the Artillery P08 pistol in his hand and furiously pulled the trigger, aiming at the enemies right in front of him.
(End of this Chapter)
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