Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 75: River Valley Tug of War

"Wayne, watch out for the enemy on the left!"

Vaughn removed the empty magazine, took out a new magic bullet from his waist and loaded it into the gun chamber. He poked his head out of the trench, aimed at an evil orc who was sprinting within a hundred meters of the position, and decisively pulled the trigger.

The evil orc's body shook, and a huge tearing wound appeared on his abdomen. The gushing blood and broken internal organs fell to the ground, and his body fell heavily to the ground.

"One hundred and thirty-eight!" Vaughn turned his head slightly and shouted loudly to the other soldiers crawling on both sides of him.

A few days ago, Pierce led fifty members of the Sharpshooter Team and secretly crossed the river in the thick fog in the early morning. They sneaked to a camp of evil orcs on the river bank, sent wolf spiders to lure the evil orcs out of the camp in a disorderly manner, and then lined up to shoot at least two hundred evil orcs.

The dozens of evil orc tribal camps distributed across the river bank seemed to be enraged in an instant and began to cross the river and kill them aggressively.

This is exactly the effect Pierce wants.

According to the tactical manual given to him by Lord Harvey, he set up two lines of defense on the river beach and dug several deep trenches, two horizontal and four vertical.

Thirty veterans of the Sharpshooter Corps with excellent combat records were placed in the first line of defense. While the evil orcs were still struggling in the river, they began to call the roll with the magic guns.

The river, which was less than a hundred meters wide, was dyed red by the blood of the evil beastmen. A large number of corpses were quickly washed downstream in the turbulent river. The surviving evil beastmen desperately dived under the water to avoid being shot.

When the evil orcs finally landed safely on the river bank, Pierce quickly commanded the soldiers to evacuate the first line of defense and retreat along the longitudinal trench to the second line of defense on the high slope.

While the soaking wet evil orcs were still struggling with the mud on the riverbank, the soldiers on the hillside had already started accurate free shooting.

Dave raised his gun and fired a single shot, hitting an evil orc in the chest. When he was about to turn the gun around and fire continuously, the light of the inscription on the gun had gone out, which meant that there were no magic bullets left in the magazine.

He lowered his gun in dismay, pulled out a spare magazine from his waist and began to reload, while chatting with his comrade Tommy beside him. "I say, when Commander Pierce raided the evil orc camp that morning, the evil orc wearing a silver crown that he killed must have been someone very important..."

Tommy also emptied his magazine and replied to Duff while reloading, "I think so too. Otherwise, why are they so crazy today? Did you notice that guy too? That silver crown of his would definitely be worth a lot of money if we found it..."

Vaughn was running back and forth in the trenches with his gun in hand, hunched over, directing the sharpshooters to meet the enemy. He happened to pass by Duff and Tommy who were chatting, and kicked them both in the buttocks.

……

Pierce stood on the watchtower of the outpost fort, squinting his eyes and looking across the river.

The super vision range provided by the vampire talent allowed him to clearly see the dirty and damaged crimson flag erected on the opposite bank.

That should be the emblem of a large evil orc tribe. It looks like a pair of sharp interlaced fangs. Unfortunately, Pierce doesn't know the history of these alien races at all.

He turned around and ordered the messenger, "Soldiers, go and raise our flag!" "Yes, sir," the messenger replied, then turned around, climbed the wooden ladder and slid down the watchtower.

After a while, a black flag was unfurled in the wind on the towering flagpole of the outpost fortress. In the middle was depicted a golden fortress, with crossed magic guns on both sides. This was the emblem of Lord Harvey's territory, which was recently made and brought by Asdalen.

Along with it came a battle plan written by Lord Harvey himself—attempting to cross the river and launch a surprise attack, luring the fel orcs to counterattack, creating a proactive stalemate, and thus depleting their manpower, as well as our own training plan...

Pierce roughly understood Harvey's tactical thinking and strictly implemented it according to the plan. Now it seems that the results are indeed good.

Including the new batch of reinforcements brought by Asdalen returning to the outpost, the Valley Outpost already has nearly 350 soldiers ready to be deployed for combat, and the territory has begun a new round of conscription and recruitment, and the number of soldiers participating in subsequent rotation operations will only increase.

In a positional battle with rivers and fortresses as a defense system, Pierce believed that these evil orc soldiers in front of him could never be a match for his soldiers.

The only thing that needs to be taken into consideration is when the possible spellcasters in the evil orc tribe will join in this tug-of-war.

No matter what, both sides are fighting in different places. The evil orcs do not know how to farm and rely entirely on plundering to maintain their supplies. The livestock herds on which they depend for survival are stranded on the ice field and cannot migrate with them. Now their logistics are obviously tighter than their own.

What's more, we have war beasts and alchemical camel beasts that can walk on the mountains as if it were flat ground as transportation vehicles.

The tug-of-war on the riverbank lasted for about a whole morning. The evil orcs barely advanced to the second line of defense. After leaving behind more than a hundred corpses, they retreated to the other side of the river in a panic and set up camp on the spot. It seemed that they were still unwilling to give up for the time being.

Pierce was overjoyed, fearing that they would never come back, so he quickly arranged for several soldiers who could swim to go around upstream, build a raft and wait for orders. At night, he would continue to provoke these guys who had gotten carried away, and would never let their blood pressure drop. He would not let them calm down before withdrawing.

Lord Harvey had listed seven or eight tactics for luring the enemy. Pierce thought with some pride that after he had used them all, he wondered what kind of expression would appear on the face of the tribal leader of the migrating evil orcs on the other side.

I can't win the fight, and I have nowhere to run. If I go forward, I'll be hit by the magic bullets of humans, and behind me, there are demons wreaking havoc in my hometown base...

Asdalen climbed up the watchtower and stood behind Pierce, watching the soldiers cleaning up the mess and seizing the spoils on the riverbank. He couldn't help but sigh, "I never thought that in just three or four months, Lord Harvey and you could turn a group of refugees into well-trained soldiers."

He winked at Pierce and teased, "Especially you. Half a year ago, you were a hunter making a living in the mountains, but now you are able to command 500 soldiers who obey your orders..."

Pierce blushed slightly, and replied a little embarrassedly, "That's because Master Harvey and you, the mentor, are willing to trust and teach me without reservation."

Asdalen laughed heartily, stretched out his metal hand and patted Pierce on the shoulder, his tone quite relieved: "Before I came, Lord Harvey half-jokingly told me that he wanted to see if you could bring him surprises if you were to command an army ten times the size of the current one..."

"Five...five thousand soldiers?" Pierce opened his mouth in shock, his eyes almost popping out of his head with fear.

Lord Harvey is really bold...

(End of this chapter)