Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 451 Gun Matrix
At dawn the next day, the Northern Army's airships slowly rose into the sky facing the rising sun as usual, but today they did not receive the mission to bomb the royal capital.

The order given to them by the city lord Harvey was to monitor the movements of the Church's Inquisition Army from a distance.

Tommy squinted his eyes. He could see the situation of the enemy's garrison two or three miles away without even raising the telescope. The heavily armored knights of the Judgment Army had just assembled and were now forming a cavalry formation and worshiping the sun, as if they were completing some predetermined prayer ceremony.

"Seeing the stupidity of these charlatans, I really want to personally control the magic cannon to fire a few shots at them and blow them to pieces!" The deputy who was also in charge of detection and lookout cursed with gritted teeth.

Tommy laughed loudly. "Let you operate the artillery? I'm afraid you might accidentally bomb our own troops. The guys in the artillery battalion may not be as good as us in terms of shooting, but their artillery is indeed incredibly accurate."

After all, each magic energy shell is expensive to produce and cannot be missed.

Artillery, like infantry, needs to undergo extensive live-fire training and be fed with a constant supply of ammunition. However, compared to the inexpensive and highly produced magic bullets, the cost of filling artillery shells is much higher. It can be said that since its establishment, the artillery battalion has been consuming large amounts of real money and valuable strategic materials every day, making it the most expensive combat unit in the entire army.

"Boss, the city lord and the commander's guess was correct. To defend against artillery fire, they abandoned their cavalry formations and switched to a long, straight line..." The deputy chuckled. "A classic line-up-and-shoot formation."

Tommy rolled his eyes at him and scolded him, "What do you know? This is just the first phase of the starting formation. Once the horses have accelerated, they'll probably change their formation immediately, using a goose formation or a sharp formation to charge directly into our position..."

Wait! What are they doing?
Tommy's eyes widened mid-sentence. "What the hell are they feeding the horses?"

The deputy's awakened bloodline talent was "Eagle Eyes." While it wasn't as effective in combat as Tommy's "Weakness Insight," his vision range was far superior to his superior's. "Some big, red pills... Look at those horses! They've only just taken them, and their eyes have turned bloodshot. They seem a lot more frantic!"

Tommy did not delay at all and immediately passed the observed information to the command center on the ground.

"I've heard a spellcaster from the Federation mention that this is a warhorse frenzy potion specially developed by the Church. It can overdraw the potential of horses in advance, allowing them to burst out with speeds and load-bearing capacity far beyond their usual level in battle, and they are completely unaffected by any fear or shock." Harvey said slowly.

Pierce nodded and said with some regret, "It seems that our tactic of using artillery fire to disturb the horses is useless."

The enemy's current charging formation is obviously intended to avoid the artillery's covering attack. They plan to use a dispersed charge and break through individually, turning into several fast and sharp knives to pierce into the Northern Army's position.

Woo! Woo! Woo!
At this moment, three trumpet sounds that resounded through the sky came from the enemy's position in the distance.

Almost at the same time, an exciting horn sounded in the Northern Army's position, which was a signal that the enemy was about to launch an attack.

"Go." Harvey waved his hand and controlled the soul puppet to sit leisurely on the watchtower of the city wall.

Pierce bowed slightly, clenched his fist on his chest in salute, then turned and hurried away.

……

The rising sun gradually climbed mid-air, and thousands of knights in shining armor, forming long lines, slowly appeared before the Northern Army's sight. The two armies were engaged in a battle in this tiny area just outside the gates of the capital. To the left lay low scrub, impeding cavalry charges and infantry advances; to the right lay the broad, surging Ralph River.

From the moment the enemy formed their battle formation and entered this area, they had actually entered the attack range of the magic naval guns.

The command of the battle had been handed to Pierce, and Harvey knew that he would not pass up the opportunity to launch the first attack.

Sure enough, just half a minute later, a dull roar came from the ironclad ships lined up and anchored on the river bank, like a sudden thunder coming from a distance. Even the soldiers in the positions outside the city could vaguely see several blurry lights and shadows flying from the right and landing directly on the position where the enemy had just set foot.

The battle started without warning!

The soldiers in the trenches had no way of capturing the landing points and casualties of the shells, but the airships hovering in the sky could see it clearly. Huge balls of mud and dust suddenly exploded in the area where the enemy was forming a formation. The knights who were originally slowly moving forward and preparing to launch a charge immediately fell into chaos. Many knights were affected by the impact and mud and gravel caused by the explosion, and either fell off their horses or broke away from the formation.

But it is obvious that except for a few unlucky people who happened to be near the landing point of the shells and were blown to pieces on the spot, the first round of artillery attacks did not effectively kill the enemy on a large scale.

The loose snake formation of the Inquisition worked!
Then they began to speed up. The frenzied war horses under their crotch seemed not afraid of the rumbling artillery fire at all. They spewed out streams of hot breath from their mouths and noses, and entered the sprint state almost within seconds.

By the time the soldiers in the trench position clearly saw the enemy's figure, they had already endured at least three rounds of naval artillery bombardment, but then the sound of artillery was heard again from the rear of the position - this was the magic-powered cannon with a shorter range than the naval gun but a faster firing rate beginning to show its power.

Compared to the ultra-long-range naval guns, the bombardment of the magic-powered cannons became continuous, with almost no intervals - the shrapnel they fired immediately showed its killing power. Once it hit and exploded, the enemies within dozens of meters around were almost cut into pieces of flesh and blood by the shattered shrapnel, and even people and horses were not spared.

Soon, the enemy's long snake formation changed rapidly, and the ranks became looser. Thousands of heavily armored knights formed small charge formations of three to five people each, and began to flexibly alternate and intersperse on the charge route to avoid the fierce artillery fire.

Soon, the fastest cavalry squads approached the Northern Army's first line of battle more than 300 meters away. The dense wooden thorns and caltrops seemed to pose no obstacle to them at all. The war horses with red eyes and bulging muscles, under the control of the Judgment Army with superb riding skills, passed through one barricade after another as light as a swallow, and seemed to be walking on flat ground.

The distance between the two warring parties is rapidly shrinking...

At this moment, the magic machine gun in the bunker suddenly rang out.

In an instant, the soldiers in the trenches only saw a cloud of blood mist bursting out from the enemy not far away, including people and horses. The dust raised from the ground was more boiling than the bombardment of artillery fire. Bullets swept across like water. Anyone who was unfortunately covered by this barrage of bullets would have their limbs shattered and flesh and blood flying in just half a second.

Many of the Knights of the Judgment Army who were at the forefront raised their arms and used the small shields blessed by divine magic to protect their vital parts. However, their horses, whose crotches had been riddled with bullets, howled and fell to the ground, knocking the knights off their horses. They had just rolled on the ground and stood up, but before they could raise their shields, their arms were immediately broken by bullets shot from nowhere.

The distance of just over 300 meters in front of the first line of the Northern Army seemed to have instantly become an insurmountable chasm for the Knights of the Judgment Army, and even a road to hell paved with blood and death.

(End of this chapter)