Kydus empire has a large territory, three times larger than Ethareri, this is because of the three walls that divide it, which also divides the people's living classes; the lower class, the middle class, and the nobles.
The lower classes live within the first wall where there is a large amount of fertile land for them to farm and produce livestock, it is a vast area for Ethareri's forces to risk getting split up, the entry points for this area are the settlements which are heavily guarded by the dead knights, the number of dead knights matched the level of threat it faced, the settlement facing other empires such as Sagrait Empire which boasted of its mercenary guilds had sixty thousand dead knights guarding it, and for the Mizar settlement, at least fifty-thousand dead knights guarded it, numbering more than twice of Ethareri and the Kydus Princess' Temporary Government combined, the large number was due to their suspicion of Muspelheim was also using the humans.
This frightening info was relayed to Ethareri by the spies inside, as such they were able to come up with their own strategy. At first, Ethareri tried to get in contact with neighboring countries and island nations near the continent, but they didn't believe such information, in the end it was Ethareri and the Princess Rara's army alone that faced the giant force that threatened mankind.
They were convinced that the root cause of it was the emperor, or the enemy residing on the emperor's body, as there were eyewitnesses on him presiding over the sickening offering ceremony, their goal was to get to the emperor and end it once and for all, or at least to stop the ceremonies from happening.
Seventeen thousand men from Ethareri marched, putting their full trust on their commanders, and two thousand of them will be the key to winning the battle. The first step for them was to take over Mizar settlement before reinforcement came.
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The deformations of the plain surrounding Mizar was deep enough for Andrei and his platoon to blend in, he divided them into ten companies and companies into squads and scattered them all over the place, the sun has set and they crawled slowly in intervals, avoiding to being seen, being the spearhead of the operation their task was to position themselves and place the enemy at their range which was 100 meters.
With the clothing that they are wearing it was hard to spot them with the human eye.
By retaking Mizar settlement they will have a temporary base to launch an all-out assault toward the empire's capital and have a chance to fend off potential reinforcements, by using the buildings to their advantage, the settlement will also serve as their supply line.
"If only we had radios to contact with each other," Andrei sighed as he lamented on the fact that they can't spread much further than a distance where they could see each other's hand sign which he taught his squad leaders who were now captains of each company that has a hundred of gun carriers each.
Andrei could see the settlement from where they are crawling from, a thousand knights formed a defensive line with at the front, "according to the intel, there should be more, I guess they are inside perhaps, it's time to draw them out."
As they crawled they saw the knights open a cage full of boys and girls, and took out six of them, the boys knelt and made a pleading action after they were taken out, but to their surprise one of them was mercilessly stabbed in the heart. The dead knights then made an action as if they were laughing although there wasn't any sound contrary to the loud pleading of the boys, "Please don't kill us! Please let us go!" after that the knights made a shooing gesture as if telling them to run away.
"These guys⦠" Andrei was about to fly in anger. "If the intel was right, these boys serve as their target practice, and they're having fun doing that, tch" realized that they needed to crawl more in order to place the enemy at their sights, he resolved himself to not do anything yet.
Andrei and his battalion crawled and crawled and crawled, but he knew they can't go faster or else they would be discovered, risking the whole operation. His comrades had the same expression especially Claire on his side.
This time Claire wore a green robe to cover her shiny armor, she looked at them normally, however it was evident that she was angry, Andrei could see her expression turn dark as she bit her lip as if to suppress the emotion, it was the first time for Andrei seeing her in such an expression.
"Claire⦠" Andrei whispered, "keep going," while Claire's eyes were glued to the boys running away while the knights spread their hands in the air and started reciting incantations, in the blink of her eye, one of the boys was cut in half by something, this made Claire tremble in anger, as well as the captains who were crawling first, but they knew well that they couldn't risk getting discovered, Andrei signaled them to go on.
[Forward] [More]
His hand signals may seem simple and the order from him was cold, but everyone swore an oath to follow him, the captains who were now leading a hundred members each, couldn't risk them getting killed, they can only close their eyes while the massacre was happening in front of them, even though how much it hurts their conscience to let the boys die, they continued and passed the message through hand signals.
A few minutes after, another invisible projectile hit another boy, this time he was beheaded, with his body running a few meters before his lifeless body fell, the head of the boy flew a few meters in front of Andrei, with its eyes still open, Andrei felt that it looked at him.
"Sorry, for not being able to save you," Andrei thought as he held his heart, as his blood rush to his veins, "damn, stop it!" he shouted in his mind, "only a few more yards, please let us make it"
When he looked forward, he saw something he didn't expect to see in such a run-or-get-killed situation, one of the boys carried an injured one, on his back, even though he looked beat up and tired, the boy's eyes were still filled with of hope and determination. Even though the others were already dead he didn't lose hope, he didn't stop running, giving everything he can, all the captains and gun carriers who were further on their crawl also have seen the selfless action.
"What should I do? At this range, we would still probably miss," as Andrei questioned himself as he held his chest that he felt was being torn seeing such compassion in the battlefield, while they did nothing, until the one being carried climbed down and spread his arms and told the other boy to run. "Shit! I can't take this anymore," he then made the crawl faster, Claire just stared and didn't stop him. "I'll make sure to down these motherfuckers"
Immersed his thoughts Andrei received a hand signal from the captains, they seemed to crawl at the same pace as him in his rage, miraculously they didn't get discovered.
[I'm in position]
Andrei then saw that they were already indeed a hundred yards, 75 was supposed to be the current range of the guns, but with Rara's material strengthening which improved the quality of the weapons, even at 100 yards, most of them could hit the target already.
[Get into position] [Aim] [Heads][Upper Body][On My Signal], he signaled them, "it's time for retribution, you fuckers!" he thought as he readies his own gun which was thinner compared to the oversized flintlocks his men carried.
[In Prone Position][Load Bullets][Insert Charge][Aim], this message was relayed by the captains to each other, and them to their men. Just as they have been trained, they loaded the muzzle with gunpowder and then the projectile ball, after that, they put some gunpowder in the pan and locked it making a clicking sound, when they were done they aimed for the dead knights on their sights,
When the captains saw that their men were ready they passed on the hand signal [Ready], it took a few minutes to pass the message all along, and the boy was still running with all his might. Andrei looked at him as he waited for the nearest captain to signal to him, which would mean everyone is ready, and when it did, he didn't think twice in giving the order.
"Shoot!" This time Andrei shouted so everyone could hear him and with his order, the gun carriers pulled the trigger, when the flint struck the steel which made sparks that ignited the gunpowder in the pan, this ignited the gunpowder which was loaded into the muzzle and it threw out the projectile at high speed.
[Boom!]
In seconds, hundreds of projectiles came out of the muzzles almost at the same time and it reached the knights who stood in the defensive line. The dead knight who was putting his hand on the air as it spoke incantations wasn't an exception, Andrei made sure to aim at him.
White smoke rose from where they shot, not understanding what happened, hundreds of knights dropped dead from where they were standing, some who weren't hit made an action as if it searched for the enemy, but they couldn't, all they could see was white smoke in line, that rose up from the plains.
As the knights were in a state of panic, [Next Volley] Andrei signaled the captains, and everyone got busy immediately, doing the same process and when a ready sign was related to Andrei, he screamed at a certain level, "Shoot!" and swung his hand forward this time.
The next set of projectiles hit the confused knights and the defensive line broke immediately, with the survivors going inside the settlement.
Knowing that there was no one to hear him Andrei gave a command, "To the next position! Crawl! Crawl! Crawl! Or you'll get stomped by the horses!"
The firing line was cut into half, half of them crawled eastward, while the others westward. As they did this Michaela and the army showed themselves kilometers away from the settlement, the scale of the army was enough for the knights not to ignore it, that the elves within them decided to charge at the formation and defeat it with numbers.