A mage? A spell engineer!

Chapter 535 Winter Sprout

The fire tried to devour everything: the buildings, the intruders, and the defenders.

"Turtle" Hench witnessed everything from the North Shore Tower. He threw his binoculars aside and angrily grabbed the collar of the person next to him.

No one but Hench could have predicted that he would punch Iltsov, the supreme commander of the garrison. The punch was solid; Iltsov's cheek, which had become slack due to age, was now fully deformed and, along with the blood, showed the force of Hench's punch.

All of this happened in an instant. No one saw General Iltsov's expression when he was hit. By the time the guards and other commanders pulled the berserk Hench away, the old general's expression had returned to calm. He simply took out the silk handkerchief he used to wipe his sword and used it to wipe away the blood.

"Major General Hench, I must state that you agreed when I conceived the Scorched Earth plan. In fact, we both agreed that even in retreat, we must not leave anything for the Valois."

"You knew it was supposed to be executed during the retreat!" Hench kicked again, but unfortunately, the target was outside his attack range. He asked angrily, "Then why is the NA area already on fire? Huh?"

"Retreat? What retreat? All I can see is that we have the capability to set the entire city ablaze, a large number of Valois have already infiltrated the south bank, and our responsibility is to stop the rampaging National Guard Eastern Front. At this point, anyone who is still considering retreat is committing a serious dereliction of duty. We should consider the current situation and use all available resources and opportunities to annihilate the enemy."

"Then you should also consider the people there! Yesterday's orders to evacuate the front lines, to block the docks and bridges, and to restrict the departure of residents on the south bank were also yours! Do you want His Majesty's people to be buried with the Valois? Reinforcements from the western front are on their way, why can't they wait a little longer?"

"Wait? You trust reinforcements that much? My decades of military experience tell me that a good commander always assumes reinforcements won't arrive! As for the idea of ​​being buried alive with them, that's laughable. Hench, where has your sense of honor and awareness gone? Those people were clearly sacrificing themselves for the entire empire."

"You're talking nonsense! You bastard! You old codger!" Hengqi cursed, "Is this what you call a sacrifice? I need to explain the situation to His Majesty the Emperor!"

"The Emperor? Very well, we can report to the Emperor."

As the two commanders argued, the fire intensified. Fire itself was not inextinguishable, but eerie and dangerous ash drifted along the entire south bank of the city. Anything that touched the ash would release immense heat and ruthlessly ignite everything in its path.

On the streets, many people were wailing and rolling around in agony. Enveloped in the raging flames, it was impossible to tell who was a Valuer and who was an Imperial. Their features were melting and carbonizing.

"This is large-scale magic or divine spell! Damn it, is the Empire using such methods to try and take the people of the South Bank down with us?" As a large number of vanguard units and all the mechs were engulfed in flames, the front-line command post was in complete chaos.

Paul shouted to Pascal, "Gather all the spellcasters and divide them into two teams. You lead one team to organize a collective spell; let the wind or the rain do its thing, find a way to put out the fire!"

"What about the other team?"

"I'll lead the way. We'll find the Empire's anti-magic devices and reactivate them! What kind of nonsense involves ashes rising before a fire breaks out? Tell these charlatans to stop right now."

"You're confused. We destroyed almost all the exposed devices."

"What else can we do? This battle should never have happened in the first place!" Paul slammed his fist on the table, then forced himself to calmly consider other countermeasures.

The abnormal fire burned for a day and a night. During this time, the National Guard advanced to the southern bank of the city, and then, heavily damaged, they fought a battle with the Imperial Army garrison along the riverbank.

The vanguard of the National Guard was trapped in the fire and there was no way they could return. Fortunately, the Imperial Army crossed the river, giving the remaining troops outside the city time to react. Otherwise, Paul would not have had the chance to lead his elite troops to save the remaining main force.

"Strange, it's said that Major General Turtle is a stubborn guy, why would he take the initiative to attack? Could the intelligence be wrong?" Pascal, who was trying to approach the city to put out the fire and was almost captured, was sweating profusely.

"That's why I said don't rely too much on the commander's assumptions about the troops' movements and then neglect other preparations." Paul gathered the troops and turned his attention back to the south bank of Overwood: "The fire is almost out."

The city was reduced to scorched earth and ruins, with the remnants and intact buildings on the north bank standing silently across the river. The Valois were now forced to accept that if they continued their attack on the north bank, the fanatical defenders would repeat their tactics, ensuring they gained no victories and, consequently, no supplies.

"Let's retreat quickly. The defenders here are no threat, otherwise they wouldn't have resorted to such terrible tactics." Paul Lema exhaled a puff of white breath. "But the elite Imperial troops on the Western Front should be arriving soon."

"Is anyone still alive?"

"There's no time to treat the wounded; they'll only slow us down, huh?"

Soon, the troops surrounding the fire-ravaged ruins discovered that many survivors were struggling to crawl out of the rubble. As they moved, their charred shells began to break apart, revealing tender, pink flesh that intertwined and molten.

More and more things crawled out. They were called that because these "living things" were indistinguishable as soldiers or residents, Valuans or imperials, men or women, young or old, and their facial features were no longer discernible. Occasionally, a few blurry holes could be seen.

And they were indeed active, even faster than before; some charged toward the National Guard, while others plunged headlong into the icy river, washed away the dust, and climbed onto the north bank of the city.

"The bullets are not working!" The soldiers discovered that the bullets could penetrate the chunks of flesh, but the flesh would quickly fill the holes, and there were even more disgusting results—the chunks of flesh with too many bullet holes or that were blown apart by artillery shells would disintegrate on their own, and the protruding flesh would climb onto other monsters or even living people.

"Fireball won't work either." The mages discovered that these things had abnormal vitality. When they came out of the burning field and were hit by fireball, a charred shell would continue to form on their surface, but as long as they were "not fully cooked", fleshy buds would sprout out and the monster would continue to move forward.

Have about half the city’s inhabitants, and our vanguard, all turned into this kind of thing? Paul shuddered.

"The Iltsov brothers are really something, sacrificing half a city to Mother. What a pity, what a pity that I'm here, I would have to sacrifice the whole country for Mother!" Grigory, hiccuping from his drink, rushed to the scene from the capital in the northeast and saw the "spectacle" on the south bank.

He disliked that his horse was moving too slowly, so he dismounted and went to the front. First, he smeared some herbs on the horse's nose, and then he picked up his wine bottle and put it in the horse's mouth.

Having done all that, the man and his horse, drunk and carefree, galloped across the land under the winter sun.

(End of this chapter)