Lord of the Desert

Chapter 549 Cooling
[With guns and cannons?]

The five men from Fengsui City harbored considerable prejudice, but dared not speak out in front of Chixing.

Hong Fan knew that professional matters should be handled by professionals, so he respected Xu Yuntao's opinions in military matters. He ordered the artillery battalion to advance and Hong Bo to lead his personal guards forward on foot.

As early as when he circled around the hill, Gan Deshou had already scouted the position according to the drill manual's requirements of "open shooting range, slightly higher terrain, and close to friendly forces".

Upon receiving the order, the artillery battalion's sixty pack animals, driven by their drivers, moved at full speed, and the self-propelled corps column slowly transformed into a battle formation.

"The vehicle in front has moved off!"

As soon as the order was given, the six cannon-pulling carriages quickly detached from the cannons and moved to the flanks.

The earth-bound warriors leveled and compacted the position, the burly repositioning team pushed the cannon into place, the three gunners rotated the cannon wheels for pre-aiming, and the transport team transferred the propellant charges and shells...

Nervousness is inevitable in your first real-world experience.

With Hong Beom watching over them, and the enemy appearing pitifully small, the tension didn't escalate into panic.

Excluding the initial maneuver phase, the deployment of the position took only three minutes.

At the same time, the giant was also observing.

Those steel structures are cannons.

I witnessed the creation of the Weaponry Bureau when I was in Qingzhou, and even managed to obtain the blueprints as an offering to the Father God—this device converts chemical energy into the kinetic energy of iron pellets, which is quite innovative and powerful, but its rate of fire is extremely slow and its accuracy is very low.

The leading enlightened being transmitted information through a light screen.

[It crumbles easily with a single charge, posing little threat.]

Thirty-seven Dire Wolf riders lined up in front, five hundred meters from the enemy.

[Combat preparation.]

The nine giant spirits acted simultaneously, stirring up the true essence of each element.

Within a few breaths, the wounds on the dire wolf and the knight scabbed over, their strength returned to its peak, the withered wood of their rattan armor turned green again and the gaps were filled, and their minds were as clear as a mirror, as if a spring breeze had brought sweet rain.

Once distracting thoughts are eliminated, morale can rise from a calm state.

[Attack! Break through the enemy lines!]

A muffled rumble of thunder.

Braving the crosswind, the thirty-seven wolf riders, leading over a hundred gray wolves, slowly accelerated as they advanced in a line. Opposite them were the Red Sand Guards and the Artillery Battalion, totaling eighty men.

Hong Bo stood at the front of the formation, supporting the red-faced lion with one hand and holding the Wavebreaker with the other, meeting the disdainful gazes of the Wolf Spine Warriors with a contemptuous smile.

The enemy and our numbers are roughly equal, but we have an absolute advantage.

Both sides thought so.

At a distance of nearly two hundred meters, the Red Sand Army stood in neat rows with their guns at the ready.

Wolf Spine Warrior revealed a wild and disdainful smile as he faced the black hole gun muzzle, burying his head and face behind the iron half-body shield.

"shoot!"

Hongbo roared angrily.

Gunfire flashed, white smoke billowed up, and then dissipated with the wind.

Eight-tenths of a second later, seventy-seven bullets and gunshots arrived almost simultaneously. Forty of them hit their mark, knocking down seventeen gray wolves, but only two dire wolves were taken down—these beasts had strong muscles and thick fur, and their chests and abdomens were covered with vine armor, so a bullet to them was just a superficial wound.

From a distance of about 100 meters away, Hong Fan could see clearly that, due to the long range, several wolf riders with exceptional swordsmanship even used their blades to deflect the slowed bullets.

On the battlefield, no one had time to tally the spoils of war; they were focused on the smooth reloading of ammunition, a skill honed through countless trials.

Six seconds later, at a distance of 100 meters, the second salvo was fired.

This time, the hit rate reached 90%, taking down six wolf riders and eliminating nearly half of the gray wolves.

[These firearms are incredibly powerful!]

Yang Haorang held his breath, unable to suppress his shock.

The thick smoke dissipated, and there were no more obstacles in front of the battle.

The wolf riders accelerated to their maximum speed, their footsteps shaking the snow, while the Red Sand Army's rifles had no chance to fire a third volley.

"Go on the bayonet!"

Thirty guards from the artillery battalion gritted their teeth as they fitted bayonets; the ranks were somewhat disordered and tense.

"The battle is about to begin..."

The five men at the beacon tower murmured.

"No, it's over."

Hong Lie smiled, resting his hand on his sword.

At that moment, everyone saw the Red Sand Guards remove their rifles, replace them with pre-loaded double-barreled shotguns, and brazenly let the enemy into the three-zhang-wide area.

At a distance of ten meters, the target was a giant dire wolf with a shoulder height of 1.8 meters. The archers were all seasoned piercing warriors.

Missing the shot is a low-probability event.

boom!
One hundred heavy slugs, emerging from the raging flames and thick smoke, swept across the snow like a whirlwind of infernal iron, scraping away any flesh that stood in their way.

Compared to rifles, the power of heavy shotguns within twenty meters is on a completely different level; they can penetrate rattan armor as easily as paper, and crush flesh and bones with ease.

Hot blood poured down the white snow, leaving behind crimson holes.

Yang Haorang was startled on horseback, rubbing his eyes and doubting whether he had seen it wrong—in just half a breath, no, in the blink of an eye, all twenty-nine dire wolves, like a forest of fire, had fallen, and snow moths had been blown up and dragged out a white dragon!

boom!
Hongbo gripped the Wavebreaker with one hand and fired a powerful shot that precisely struck the corner of the Dire Wolf's mouth as it charged.

Wherever the steel struck, flesh and bone were pulverized, and red and white splattered all over the ground. A wolf's eyeball detached from half of its skull and flew several meters away.

"That beast has such a hard head!"

Hong Bo laughed heartily, pulling the red-faced lion back with his left hand, and using a fiery roar to carbonize the three wolf-back warriors within twenty meters in front of him.

The moment the shotgun fired, Giant knew something was wrong.

They are enlightened beings who value reason; they don't need to wait until their faces are covered in blood to realize they've been defeated.

"Let the wolf riders fight to the death to cover our retreat, while we withdraw..." The Great Awakener projected a light screen.

The giant spirit was extremely sensitive to changes in innate spiritual energy. It immediately determined the grade of the Crimson-Faced Suanni through its roar—a warrior wielding an earth-divine weapon was only serving as the vanguard, which meant that there was at least one genuine innate warrior on the other side.

At that very moment, the six 33 cannons fired their first salvo.

Sound, light, smoke...

These numerous features allowed the giant to immediately notice the cannonballs crossing the battlefield and construct a defense within a fraction of a second.

Ice walls condensed from the void, earthen walls rose from the ground, and storms swirled at high speed.

But they are not enough to stop the subsonic speed of steel.

Six shells hit the ground and exploded. Although they did not directly hit the target, the hundreds of fragments they released still contributed to the outcome.

[Great Awakened One, my left arm has suffered mechanical damage and is now functionally impaired.]

[The main circuit in the abdomen was cut off, causing a 40% drop in output power...]

Three hundred meters away, the remaining dozen or so Wolf Ridge Warriors were quickly reduced to fewer numbers as the Red Sand Guards surrounded and attacked them one by one.

"The giant is escaping! Teams one and two, follow me!"

Hongbo was constantly distracted by two things.

"This is the first battle; we must achieve a complete victory!"

The wolf riders couldn't hold them off.

The leading enlightened one made a decision immediately upon seeing Hongbo chasing after him.

[Hoshino, Iwasora, and Koryu, you three are the smallest and fastest. Head north into the mountains; we'll cover your retreat.]

The remaining eight giants were given the order and immediately went to work—including the other five who were asked to cover the rear.

The nine giants varied in size, each weighing at least five tons, and when they fled, they could travel at speeds exceeding forty kilometers per hour, making a tremendous commotion.

However, compared to high-level martial artists, this speed is simply not impressive.

Holding the red-faced lion, Hong Bo's true energy and innate spiritual energy merged and worked together, helping him reach the upper limit of 110 kilometers per hour while running.

Ten seconds later, the distance closed to fifty meters.

Most of the six giants blocking the way had overall combat strength below the Hunran realm, but their will and existence were already reflected in the surrounding innate spiritual energy environment.

As Hongbo sped through the snow, he felt as if he were entering a realm of the Other—every kind of innate spiritual energy here already had a master, and was stubbornly resisting him.

The leading four-legged stone beast is three meters tall, its four limbs standing upright in the snow like stone pillars, and it weighs at least twenty tons.

"It really is a mountain and rock demon, tall and majestic!"

Hongbo's sword flashed with fire, his fighting spirit soaring.

The wind whips up the snow, and the frozen ice shoots out.

The lion-like creature slashed downwards, its fiery blades splitting the air.

As he ran, the snow beneath Hongbo's feet suddenly froze, causing him to lose speed and slip; a hazy, whirlwind of a thousand blades swept in, engulfing him in the white expanse.

In an instant, a roar of fire erupted.

Hongbo soared into the air from the flames, holding the divine weapon upside down with both hands, and brought it down like a fiery meteor.

The blade pierced the chest of a giant, shattering the ice surface several meters in diameter beneath its feet and extending into a crack several meters long.

The fire surged in furiously.

The giant spirit's energy circuits flickered chaotically, and after staggering two steps, it collapsed and died.

"Nothing more than that!"

Hong Bo's armor was tattered, his forehead was cut open, and his hands were sore from the shock.

But his eyes, blurred with blood, were grinning maliciously.

Not only were his twenty subordinates arriving one after another, but Lu Yunshi was also speeding across the battlefield from the side, chasing after the three fleeing giants.

Half an hour later, everything returned to calm.

Amidst the ravaged snow, the Red Sand Army soldiers cut off the distinctive tattooed left ear of the Wolf Spine Warrior, skinned the entire hides of the Dire Wolf and Gray Wolf, and carefully separated the jade core of the Giant Spirit with blunt instruments—these items were valuable in themselves and also proof of their war achievements.

Hong Lie then negotiated with several elders from Heiniu Village, who looked surprised but were smiling obsequiously.

Beside the colossal stone body of the dead giant, Hong Fan and his companions stood on their horses.

"This alien squad is extremely powerful and highly mobile; an ordinary thousand-man squad is no match for them."

Xu Yuntao's expression was stern.

"We actually benefited from their underestimation of us."

"Yes. Black powder has low energy output and a slow detonation velocity, and its overpressure kill range is limited to within two or three meters; unless the shell hits it head-on, the damage is slightly insufficient."

Hong Fan replied, looking at the group from Fengsui City.

"As you say, artillery is not well-suited for use against giants; the number of fragments from high-explosive shells should be increased to kill their minions..."

Upon hearing these words, Yang Haorang and his companions stammered, unable to speak.

In the locals' experience, a combination of an adult dire wolf and a wolf-spine warrior is better than two ordinary piercing warriors, and the rattan armor catalyzed by the giant spirit has both toughness and hardness, making it more practical than ordinary heavy cavalry armor.

Generally speaking, a group of three riders would be a formidable opponent in the Hunran Realm; a formation of thirty riders would be impossible for a thousand-man square formation to withstand.

Even though the fifty members of the Red Sand Guard were all skilled warriors, they should have been at a great disadvantage against thirty-seven riders. Unexpectedly, the result was one-sided – although the battle results have not yet been tallied, there should have been no casualties.

Whether it's military bearing or firearms, the Red Sand Army is ridiculously strong!

Yang Haorang watched as Hong Bo, who had just been wreaking havoc, supported the red-faced Suanni, and curiously played with a fragment of the Giant Spirit's circuit in his hand.

According to the orders of the garrison commander and the Left Guard, we are actually going to confront this guest army on equal footing...

He exchanged glances with those around him, but the initial fervor he had felt upon arriving had already cooled in the icy wind.

(End of this chapter)