Warhammer: Hail to the Void Lords!.

Chapter 916, 08.915: 'Warhorse Girl Knight'

Thousands of meters in the air, inside the cabin of the Valkyrie assault transport aircraft, Horatio magnified the image in his tactical eyepiece—a strange scene on the ground battlefield.

Behind the female officer was a group of soldiers wearing similar uniforms.

However, these people were generally worse equipped, their uniforms did not fit well, and they were travel-worn and unkempt, clearly not as respectable as the Sintira soldiers who each had at least one servant. But each of them rode a well-trained warhorse, and it was obvious that the warhorses were probably better fed than they were.

Many of them, like this female colonel, had long 'horse ears' that were barely covered by Napoleonic-era tall military caps.

Faced with the rout of Sintira soldiers, these cavalrymen also seemed hesitant.

They nervously surveyed their surroundings, but no one dared to point their laser guns at these veteran soldiers from the core world of Sintira.

"Second Lieutenant Citizen! As an officer elected by vote, you not only failed to fulfill your duties, but also led the desertion, you..."

The female officer, panting heavily after the long march, finally pointed her unsure how to aim her gun at the leader of the fleeing soldiers, a company commander of the 17th Sintira Flintlock Regiment. "You have failed the Emperor, and you have failed the trust of the citizens of Sintira. Now, make your choice!"

"Either die a glorious death in battle, or be executed as a coward."

It's clear that this female cavalry officer is very young and inexperienced.

Faced with this unexpected and unprecedented defeat, she has not yet developed a mature emergency response plan of her own.

The eagle-gold neck guard that shimmered around her neck clearly bore the insignia of her military rank—a colonel and regimental commander.

She is too young, too young to be in such an important position.

But she was very brave.

At this moment, amidst a hail of bullets and with the entire front line on the verge of collapse, he still dared to stand alone, holding high the military flag, and attempting to bring these demoralized and defeated soldiers back to the front lines.

"You damned second-class citizen! Do you even know which family I belong to?! Go ask around about the de Orleans-Colin family of Tarsus's hive!" The disheveled lieutenant was furious. He pointed at the colonel, who was several ranks higher than him, and cursed, "Get out of my way!"

“I’ll only say this once, Lieutenant Citizen.” She released the safety from the laser gun with her thumb: “Fulfill your duty, or be executed by me.”

"Watch out! Green-skinned!"

Suddenly, one of the cavalrymen behind the colonel shouted. He had just pulled the trigger when he was struck hard by an automatic gun bullet that came from the side, and he fell from his horse with a scream.

The remaining cavalrymen immediately and skillfully dismounted, their horses neighing and lying down as if on cue, forming a makeshift shelter with their flesh and blood.

A defensive line of lasers and flesh quickly formed, firing fiercely at the green-skinned "assault boys" who crawled out from the collapsed ruins on the side and leaped down from the heights.

The female colonel didn't care about the routed troops. She pointed her gun at the green-skinned soldiers who had launched the surprise attack and pulled the trigger, hitting one of the green-skinned soldiers who was climbing the wall and poking its head out, shooting it down.

Boom!
Suddenly, a violent earthquake shook her so badly that she almost lost her balance and nearly fell off her horse.

After she managed to regain her balance with the reins in her hand, she saw a huge, black mountain of flesh in front of her.

A beastman, clad in heavy, rough black armor and with dark green skin, leaped from a great height, wielding a massive spiked club capable of crushing a tank, causing the earth to tremble.

It was taller, more robust, and more brutal than its other orc companions.

It roared and threw out its huge cleaver. The giant cleaver spun and cut the cowardly lieutenant and several fleeing soldiers in half at the waist, leaving them scattered on the ground.

The female colonel fired her laser pistol, but the weak laser beam only produced a few feeble sparks when it hit the black-armored orc's thick armor.

The dark green orc spewed scalding hot, foul air from its large, greasy nostrils. It let out a deafening roar, spitting saliva everywhere, creating a shockwave that could shatter one's liver and gallbladder.

After roaring, it picked up the massive spiked club weighing a thousand pounds, took heavy steps, and charged towards the female colonel.

Although her warhorse was blindfolded and could not see the terrifying scene before it, this intelligent creature still sensed the terrible threat that threatened to crush it, and its hooves began to paw and retreat uncontrollably.

The female colonel threw away the now-useless laser pistol.

She gripped the reins tightly, and with her other hand she grabbed the flagpole of the military flag, wielding it with astonishing skill, tightly wrapping the flag embroidered with a double-headed eagle around the pole, and pointing the gleaming spearhead at the charging black orc.

Her throat tightened, and then her armored hands gripped the gold-forged flagpole even tighter. "Charge!" She swallowed the command she was about to shout, launching the attack with only a high-pitched battle cry.

With a battle cry, the little female knight actually turned her horse around and launched a desperate charge towards the four-meter-tall black orc leader.
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The young female knight charged forward on horseback.

She wasn't piloting a twelve-meter-tall Imperial Knight mech; she relied solely on her flesh and blood and a spirited white warhorse.

White steam billowed from the warhorses' nostrils, and their horseshoes pounded heavily on the cratered stone bricks as they launched a resolute charge.

The leaf-shaped monomolecular spearhead at the tip of the flagpole gleamed with a cold, icy light under the starlight.

This audacious, almost insane act is reminiscent of Don Quixote, the knight in ancient Terra legend who charged at windmills.

But at this moment, no one can judge whether this is foolish or reckless.

With iron hooves galloping, the distance was rapidly closed.

The female knight's spear, like a silver lightning bolt, pierced straight into the slit in the dark green orc's face, which was covered by a rough barrel helmet.

The orc swung his massive spiked club in a rage, creating a gust of wind powerful enough to tear steel apart.

The female knight deftly flicked the flagpole in her hand like a snake, dodging the overwhelmingly superior parry at an incredible angle.

As the warhorse charged past the orc, the spear tip grazed its heavy black iron armor, leaving a blinding spark.

The spearhead slid down the curve of the armor, leaving a deep, bone-revealing bloodstain on the orc's exposed, bulging muscles.

But before she could launch a second attack, the green-skinned behemoth, enraged by the blood and pain, roared and pounced on her.

She dodged on horseback, while using the length advantage of her weapon to launch continuous harassing attacks.

She was like a dancer on a tightrope, each step teetering on the edge of certain death, yet displaying a deadly and elegant beauty.

The flagpole danced nimbly in her hands; there was no doubt that this young female knight had received extremely sophisticated classical lance training.

Horatio couldn't understand why anyone would study such outdated weapons in this era of ubiquitous firearms.

Aside from ancient traditions requiring her to do so, only knightly families in the feudal world would do this.

[She also appears to be from the same clan as Baron Bayar and the Baroness. Could she be the High Princess that Baron Bayar mentioned? But... why would the High Princess serve in the Astral Legion, a place filled with spoiled brats, like Sintira?] Horatio struggled to determine her identity.

The life-or-death battle between steel and metal is becoming increasingly fierce.

The damage that a single-molecule spearhead can inflict on such a massive green-skinned beast is ultimately limited.

The battle devolved into a pointless stalemate and protracted conflict.

The female knight successfully restrained the giant beast, but was unable to kill it.

More and more orcs, stepping over the corpses of their companions, jumped down through the gap in the courtyard wall.

The cavalrymen behind the female knight also drew their gleaming monomolecular sabers from their waists and engaged in desperate close combat with the surging green-skinned men, using pistols and melee weapons.

"The church gates have fallen!" A blood-soaked Cintira officer ran through the dusty hedge beside the church and shouted desperately to the colonel who was locked in combat.

This sudden news slightly distracted her.

In that fatal moment, the barbed mace whistled from the black orc's hand and swung down on her and her warhorse.

Just then, streaks of steel black eagles swept across the sky, and dozens of human figures descended from the heavens.

One of the figures had wings on its back that looked like they were formed from condensed, dark blue frost.

The winged pilot, propelling the armored warrior, nimbly adjusted his direction in the sky, like a frost meteor, crashing down with the force of thunder onto the dark green orc on the ground.

(End of this chapter)