What does it feel like to stab soone to death?
When the tip of the spear pierces through the gap in the armor, the first sensation in the hand is a soft yet firm resistance.
As the short spear continues to push in, the resistance grows greater and greater, until at one mont, the force on the shaft of the spear suddenly diminishes.
A warm feeling inexplicably spreads across the face and body, while the scent of rust and grease wafts to the nose.
It's a sensation that's hard to experience when stabbing wooden dummies on the training field.
If soone is an experienced soldier, they should swiftly retract the spear at this mont to prevent it from being inserted too deeply and becoming stuck.
Just like Kaler right now.
Unlike the newly recruited militia, who frantically pull back with great force,
he simply holds the end of the short spear, giving it a gentle shake. Without needing to draw back the shaft with a wide motion, the Leia soldier in front of him falls back.
The soldier's mouth opens and closes like a goldfish, seemingly cursing sothing, but he cannot hear it.
During this ti, he had lost count of how many people he had stabbed to death or wounded, until his clumsy stabbing beca as smooth as flowing water.
The heavy body raised a splash of snow and water, and the bright red blood was strikingly dazzling against the snow piles with darkened edges.
Beneath the eight-faced peaked helt, a face of despair and ferocity seed to be weeping.
Before his tears could fall, a crossbow arrow as long as a forearm descended from the sky, pinning his head heavily to the ground.
At that mont, all the chaotic sounds returned to Kaler's world.
Screams, footsteps, cannon fire, gasps, the collision of chainmail, making a clattering crisp sound.
"They're coming from the east again, fill the gap!"
"Save , soone save !"
"Kaler, there's a breach over there, the militia has been slaughtered and routed."
After assisting with a kill, Kaler didn't even have ti to rest before striding toward the other side.
Three or four soldiers from his team followed him as Kaler passed through the battling crowds.
Nearly a hundred soldiers stood on either side of the barricade, clashing military sabers and shortswords, dozens of long spears stabbing through the grated fences.
Every ti he looked up, he could see a soldier falling, then being dragged away by comrades.
Above and ahead ca the twanging of bowstrings, feathered arrows tearing through the air, and there was always soone clutching their wound, wailing in agony.
The fireball crossbows, deed obsolete by Horn, appeared on the outer walls of Xia Lvcheng, occasionally dropping a dozen or so toxic smoke bombs into the trenches.
In less than half a minute, pale-faced Leia soldiers could be seen climbing out of the trenches, exposing themselves to arrows and lead bullets.
"The militia is routed! The Leia people have climbed over! Kaler!" Grabbing a Leia soldier's spear shaft with one hand and thrusting his short spear with the other, Old Laver still needed to loudly remind Kaler.
Old Laver's roar seed to ring in Kaler's ear.
"I'm hurrying, I'm coming! I... damn it!" Throwing away the cumberso short spear, Kaler, who was usually soft-spoken, now beca as rough as Old Laver.
By the ti he rushed to the breach, three to five Leia soldiers were climbing over the wall and jumping down.
Kaler kicked the unsteady Leia soldier in the back so that the soldier fell forward as Kaler ramd his military saber into the back of the Leia soldier's neck.
A gust of wind blew from behind, and Kaler quickly turned his head to dodge, a page hamr scraping past his sallet helt.
Turning around, Kaler, trained by his father from a young age, directly lunged into the arms of that Leia soldier.
The iron helt butted against the Leia soldier's chest, and the two tangled and rolled to the ground.
"Die, die!"
The soldier with the page hamr roared and bit Kaler's arm.
Kaler endured the pain, drew a dagger from his waist, and stabbed it into the Leia soldier's neck.
Within two seconds, he felt the teeth biting his arm release.
A subordinate grabbed his hand, pulling him up.
Kaler then noticed that the other two Leia soldiers, not wielding long weapons, were quickly slain by the Thousand River Valley soldiers holding long spears.
To think they wanted to break through spears with just two against four, it's almost comical.
The other Leia soldiers heading over, seeing this scene, had no choice but to retreat to their positions.
With hands on his knees, Kaler felt like his lungs were burning like a furnace.
Every breath of cold air into his throat felt like swallowing a cold dagger, stoking the dying embers of that furnace.
While breathing to regain his strength, Kaler lifted his head to gaze across the entire battle line.
Through the barricades and spiked stakes in front of him, about twenty to thirty ters away, earthen walls erected by wicker baskets stood like dams blocking his view.
Behind the earthen walls lay trenches winding like serpents and spreading like a spider's web.
In the twenty to thirty ters of flat ground between the trenches and barricades, it was the bloodiest killing field.
Groups of Leia soldiers, clad in variously colored robes, climbed over the trenches in droves.
With eight-sided helts or disc helts on their heads, they wielded short spears and longswords, charging at Kaler and the others at the barricades and breastworks.
They instinctively learned to divide into small teams, spreading out their charge to avoid the rows of flying lead and crossbow arrows from the walls.
But in the face of the rain-like arrows and a line of rotating gunners, they still constantly fell with wails.
Only small groups of soldiers could reach the barricades or breastworks edge, attempting to stab inward with short spears or shortswords.
This assault had lasted ten days, from January 5th to now.
Earlier, they did indeed suffer attacks from Leia Soldiers, but mostly only small groups of Knights could maintain morale under bombardnt, Holy Wind, and arrows.
The soldiers wanted to survive, while the Master Knight charged; this naturally wasn't feasible, so the Knights would go on strike.
Then there would be at least a three to five-day truce, and then the process would repeat.
Attack one day, rest for three to five days.
Currently, what was coming through the trenches were large numbers of ordinary Leia Soldiers, and they ca every day.
Through the trenches, they could maintain morale under bombardnt, at least advancing to within thirty to fifty ters of the city walls.
This led to the Leia people's most familiar, most traditional, localized single combat.
The advantage of the Leia people's manpower gradually beca apparent, and if it weren't for the lead and Spring Cannon, the breastworks and barricades would likely have changed hands long ago.
"Kaler!" Captain Bai shouted his na, "Get to the breastwork, a few Holy Gunn have fainted from exhaustion of Holy Power, you take a bow and hold for a few minutes!"
"Yes!"
......
The golden-red sun shone on the dazzling snow, blood and sweat had turned the original snow into black slush.
On both sides, the soldiers tacitly gathered the bodies of comrades within ten ters of the barricades/trenches, maintaining a ten-ter buffer zone.
As for the wounded in the middle, they either struggled to crawl back on their own, or waited to be incinerated every few days.
The wooden spikes of the iron fence line glowed dark red in the sunset, seventeen bodies hung like ragdolls on the barbs.
Sitting by the five-ter wide moat, Kaler washed the dried blood from his face and hands.
A strong sll of herbs and garlic emanated from the field hospital on the other side of the wooden bridge.
Feeling soone kick him, Kaler looked up to see it was Old Laver.
Old Laver handed a wine flask to Kaler, "Want a sip?"
Kaler picked up the wine flask, and took a big gulp calmly.
He was used to the feeling of alcohol.
Sitting next to Kaler, Old Laver also washed his face and hands with the icy river water until they were red.
Wiping his face with a handkerchief, Old Laver said to the water, "Do you feel it's getting harder to deal with the enemy?"
Kaler did not speak.
"What? Hosick?"
"A little."
"Isn't Hotam County your hotown?"
Kaler shook his head, looking around, feeling this was a strange place.
The houses were flattened, the fields set ablaze, crows pecked at rotting corpses on the ground.
"I miss ho too." Old Laver raised his head, looking at the half-lit starry sky, "I miss my son, Little Laver, who is three or four years younger than you, but he should call you uncle.
I also miss my wife, my cows, my shabby house, my old brothers...
But that's war, it never ends.
The Masters tell us to kill, and we just kill, what's the point of thinking so much?"
"Are we fighting this war for the Masters?" Kaler looked at the blood under his nails that wouldn't wash away.
"What else?" Old Laver patted Kaler's shoulder, "It's you educated folks who have such struggles, I don't know a word, so I think less."
"You really should learn to read."
"Learn to read? , a boar wearing glasses, pretending to be a scholar? No thanks." Old Laver touched his belly ruefully, only occasionally brushing the ring hanging on his neck, showing a trace of tenderness in his otherwise rough eyes.
Kaler wanted to say more, but overheard a group of soldiers talking nearby.
"Have you noticed? It's getting harder for us to defend."
"The inner city hasn't sent any reinforcents since the New Year, they say hundreds of Mountain Knights caught the plague."
"Those damned Leia people, why don't they just attack head-on?"
"When will the Saint's Grandson's reinforcents arrive?"
Old Laver and Kaler's brief mont of relief vanished.
Indeed, there was plague in the city, and apart from tily food and weapon supplies, soldiers were no longer allowed in or out.
Until now, they still didn't know the situation inside the city.
If the plague truly spread, not only Xia Lvcheng, but even within twenty miles around it would be unsafe.
Normally, a Monk of blessing level should be able to conduct large-scale blessings to dispel the plague.
But the problem was, up until now on the land of the Thousand River Valley, there was no Monk of that level.
"Kaler? Kaler?! Where the heck have you gone?" Captain Bai spun around to face Kaler, "Are you a native of Hotam County?"
"Yes."
"Can you ride?"
Kaler imdiately stood up, "Yes."
"Co, I have a task for you."
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