Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 288 Lightning-Fast Pursuit

If Durt had not tugged at the lord's sleeve and begged bitterly, he would not have been allowed to come to the battlefield of Jackdaw Town.

At this moment, he couldn't help but be thankful for his shameless actions, which allowed him to witness a battle scene that he had never experienced in his life.

The charging formation composed of hundreds of noble knights did not even touch the sandbag shelters piled up on the defense line of the pioneer army, and they were defeated and fled in all directions like a group of headless flies.

Until the very end, this group of elite knights were unable to enter the defense line of their own soldiers. There was no bloody and brutal hand-to-hand combat, nor was there any one-sided massacre of cavalry against infantry. There was only the trampled and messy mud in front of them, and countless corpses lying on the ground, both human and horse. Most of them were incomplete and bloody, which made the young spellcaster, who had rarely experienced cruel battles, feel a chill.

Six terrifying magic-powered cannons blew the enemy to pieces at a distance of seven or eight hundred meters. Within a charging distance of three hundred meters, these noble knights who had undergone professional training since childhood and had superb skills were pierced and shattered by the magic guns like pieces of thin paper, without any resistance at all.

Durt couldn't help but recall the advice his mentor had given him when he was in academy - low- and mid-level spellcasters without the ability to fly should try their best not to get caught in the siege of mortal knights, because as long-range spell attacks don't work, once they are allowed to charge at close range and the spellcaster has exhausted his magic power, it will be a hopeless situation with almost no chance of survival.

And these soldiers under the lord's command, who were ordinary civilians, easily killed these elite knights with just the magic guns in their hands, as if they were treating some chickens and dogs.

The knights carefully trained by secular nobles are no more than this...

The battle between the Bloodline Warriors and the Church's Inquisition Army was still going on in the mountains and forests behind him. Durt was no longer very worried about the outcome of the battle - he knew very well that almost all of the extraordinary warriors who always followed the lord were equipped with the same magical weapons as these soldiers.

What's more, there are two high-level spellcasters serving the lord participating in the battle. They are real high-level combat mages.

The setting sun gradually disappeared into the towering Jackdaw Ridge. On the front battlefield, except for the part of the Northern Army responsible for pursuing the deserters, the remaining soldiers were assigned to clean up the battlefield. They seemed to be accustomed to seeing broken limbs and corpses, and walked across the battlefield without any fear, chatting while picking up the knights' armor and exquisite weapons scattered on the ground, and collecting the bodies of these poor guys.

Durt saw with his own eyes that when a soldier was stripping the armor off a corpse, he found that the knight had not died immediately. Without hesitation, he used the bayonet equipped on the magic gun to pierce the opponent's neck with one knife.

……

Earl Fagan still hasn't come to his senses and figured out how he was defeated.

The knights' charging phalanx had clearly braved the bombardment of the magic catapults and finally approached the enemy's weak line of defense, but they suddenly fell down in large numbers, and the remaining people fled in panic as if they had seen the devil and the god of death. No matter how he shouted and scolded from behind, he could not save these brave knights who had sworn allegiance to him in the past.

The mercenaries and militiamen who were temporarily recruited were even more vulnerable. They fell into chaos without even understanding the situation. The swords in the hands of the dozen or so guards who served beside the earl were all bent, and they barely managed to protect Earl Fagan from the chaotic battlefield and prevent the earl from being accidentally injured in the chaos.

In the chaos, the guards holding the flag even lost the flag representing the lord's status and family honor. Earl Feigen was too lazy to blame his subordinates, and could only be forced by his guards to quickly retreat towards the defense line of Grizzly Castle.

It wasn't until nightfall that Earl Feigen's troops found a flat area near the lake to set up camp. Many of the family knights who had been separated in the chaos of the battlefield followed the hoofprints of the large group and reunited with their lord. The whereabouts of the recruited mercenaries and forced laborers were naturally unknown. When defeated, they had abandoned the donkey carts carrying supplies and food without hesitation, forcing the Earl's men to slaughter their horses to satisfy their hunger that night.

Baron Ross, the representative of the vassal nobles, had been hanging at the tail end of the charging knights' phalanx from the very beginning, and luckily managed to save his life from the battlefield. Earl Feigen was naturally aware of his cowardly behavior, but he had no intention of holding him accountable at the moment.

There was only one simple tent left in the camp, so it naturally belonged to His Excellency the Earl.

In the tent, the few remaining minor nobles who had fought with the army gathered around Earl Fagan, looking at their lord with pale faces and no words. All of them looked miserable with lingering fear.

Earl Feigen drew his longsword and plunged it into the ground, shouting, "Who knows what kind of magic and weapons they're using to reach farther than a bow and crossbow, yet their attack methods are completely unidentifiable, leading to their inexplicable defeat?"

Baron Ross sat cross-legged on the ground in an awkward position, enduring the damp, cold feeling in his crotch beneath his armor. He replied tremblingly, "Your Excellency, I... I didn't see clearly at all. When the knights were gathering, I only heard the priests of the Church's Inquisition Army shout that the spellcasters were attacking... Then, not far in front of me, a knight was struck by lightning. His body and limbs suddenly ripped apart, and even his horse was reduced to a pile of minced meat... It was... It was a scene like hell."

The leader of the guards muttered quietly, "That's the spellcaster! Only those evil wizards have such terrifying methods. Their strange spells are simply impossible for ordinary people to resist."

"Impossible!" Earl Fagan frowned. "I've seen them cast spells many times in the past. They always require a long time to chant the spell and there are time intervals between them. Besides, there's no way they can hurt us from such a long distance. The maximum range of a magic attack is only two or three hundred meters..."

At this point, Earl Feigen suddenly recalled that he had vaguely seen dozens of balls of blazing white light behind the enemy's defenses on the battlefield. He slapped his thigh and stood up with sudden realization, saying, "I remember now! Those catapult-like things behind their positions, and those strange long sticks without spearheads in the hands of the soldiers... those are their secret weapons!"

Baron Ross said cautiously, "Even if we figure out what weapons they're using...we've already been defeated. What should we do next?"

The Earl glared at him with a hint of embarrassment, stiffening his neck and stubbornly defending himself, "We haven't completely failed yet! It's just a loss in a battle, and look at how cowardly you are! As soon as I return to Grizzly Castle, I can raise another army. This time, I won't underestimate the enemy. His Majesty the Grand Duke has joined forces with the Church to formally declare war on the Spellcaster Union. We just need to wait for His Majesty to send more reinforcements skilled in dealing with spellcasters. There will always be a chance to make a comeback."

He paced back and forth in the tent, muttering to himself fiercely, "That guy's wasteland territory relies entirely on the Southern Border's Chamber of Commerce for food and daily necessities. I just need to hold on to Grizzly Fort and send people to cut off all trade routes leading to Jackdaw Town. Without food and supplies, they definitely won't be able to hold out for long..."

But before the Earl could finish his words, a violent uproar erupted outside the tent. When he rushed out with his guards, he found everyone in the camp, discarding their armor and weapons and fleeing in panic. A nearby bonfire was suddenly extinguished by a shower of flying dirt. He also heard the piercing tearing sound of a knight's armor being pierced by a magical weapon...

Before the Earl could react, the guards grabbed a warhorse and pushed him onto it, "Hurry up, Your Excellency! They are coming!"

Earl Feigen, who was lying on his horse with a panicked look on his face, looked around and found that in the deep woods outside the camp by the lake, countless bright torches had been lit up at some point, mixed with a lot of white light from the magic stones.

How did they catch up with me so quickly?
(End of this chapter)