Read Novel Full Chapter 713 - 400: Lament of the Old Era (Part 2)
Chapter 713: Chapter 400: Lament of the Old Era (Part 2)
They watched through binoculars as Ackman’s three thousand Black Steel Knights were ground into mush by the tanks.
They saw Ackman himself flung aside like a rag doll and finally blasted into half a corpse by three light explosive bullets.
This wasn’t a battle; it was a massacre.
Bartlett’s Adam’s apple moved up and down twice, his face paler than snow: "Something’s wrong, something’s wrong, this is..."
In the next second, the man known as the "Mad Dog" suddenly tightened the reins and spun around like he’d been whipped, desperately fleeing!
He shouted while running, "Retreat! Retreat, retreat, retreat!! I, Bartlett, didn’t see a thing today! Who is Ackman? I don’t know him!! This is a drill!! A drill!! Run—!!"
The Personal Guard of the Seventh Legion barely had time to react, hurriedly following, the scene as chaotic as a panicked herd of wild deer.
Sol stood dumbfounded.
He watched Bartlett flee like a mad dog and was momentarily at a loss.
"That bastard... ran without even taking the flag?!"
Next second—Boom!! Boom!! Boom!!
Another round of tank volleys turned the battlefield into a storm of screams and shattered armor.
The heatwave even caused Sol’s cloak to flap wildly.
Nearly a hundred Black Steel Knights were reduced to iron-red mush, unable to even piece together a complete body.
Sol felt as if he’d been punched in the chest; he finally understood why Bartlett fled.
His throat tightened, his lips trembling, his curses breaking with rage:
"Ackman, that fool... trapped us to death!! This isn’t a battle! It’s suicide!!! Who... who the hell can fight against such monsters?! Damn it—!!"
Finally, he too couldn’t hold back, yanking the reins hard, causing his mount to rear up.
"Fourteenth Legion, retreat! Immediate retreat!! If you run slow, not even bones will be left! Run! Back to Gray Stone Fortress!! If anyone asks what we’re doing today, everyone answer patrol!! Say it’s a patrol!!"
"Run—!!!"
Under his roar, the knights of the Fourteenth Legion were pulled out of a nightmare, retreating frantically, armor clattering, stripped of any imperial heavy cavalry dignity.
Two streams of cavalry, once supposed to be the greatest threat to Frost Halberd City, retreated in despair and fear from both sides of the highland, melting away.
Like a herd scorched by flames, with only one thought remaining: to escape as far as possible.
......
The roar of the battlefield gradually subsided, leaving only the "hissing" sound of steam escaping from the exhaust pipes of the tanks, swirling in the cold wind.
The sound seemed not like machinery but some colossal beast breathing slowly.
On the North City Wall, a deathly silence prevailed, with only snow falling softly in the wind.
Count Albert stood upright, unmoving, like an ancient pine frozen on the cliff.
But the cane in his hand was gripped tightly.
The expensive, sturdy wood made a faint "crack... crack..." sound in his palm, like a dying struggle.
His gaze slowly swept across the scene below the city.
It was a slaughterhouse; the Empire’s proud Seventeenth Legion now displayed like a nightmare on the snow-covered ground.
Black Steel armor smashed beyond recognition by tracks; warhorses with broken spines and twisted limbs.
In the blood-slurry mixed mud and snow, wounded screamed for help.
More knights, who couldn’t even manage a scream, had their bodies flattened into dark red pulp.
Albert recalled when he was young, piercing 800 times in the blizzard before dawn, every day.
Day after day, year after year, for ten years without stopping.
It was the knight’s honor, his understanding of power.
Yet just now, these knights who had trained for decades, mastering Fighting Energy, didn’t even qualify to approach those hundred "iron boxes."
They didn’t lose because of technique, courage, or Fighting Energy.
They lost to an era.
A cold wind blew across the city wall, thrashing his cloak wildly.
Albert’s Adam’s apple moved, finally admitting a truth he never imagined:
"This isn’t a denial of our combat methods, but a burial of our existence’s meaning."
Behind him, a young nobleman’s face paled in terror, his voice trembling beyond coherence: "Count... is this magic? Is it some sort of Forbidden Curse? How... how did they do it?"
Albert slowly turned his head.
His face showed no anger, no emotion, only a deep, irreversible emptiness.
He loosened the cane that had almost cracked in his grip, his voice hoarse yet eerily clear: "It’s not magic."
He pointed to the distant tank array, slowly halting, steam puffing from between the pipes.
"From today, the era of knights... is over."
After saying these words, the elderly man, who had never retreated a step before the enemy, visibly aged ten years.
His back seemed to slightly bend down.
The air felt frozen for a few seconds.
Then all eyes naturally focused on the other side of the city walls—Louis Calvin.
He was sitting on a temporarily set-up wooden chair, cloaked, idly blowing away the foam on his tea.
No excitement, no tension, not a hint of the victor’s ecstatic joy.
As if enjoying the snow, listening to a piece of leisurely courtyard music.
Albert’s pupils gently contracted.
At that moment, in Albert’s eyes, Louis was no longer a young lord, a nouveau riche, or a junior winning through clever tricks.
But like a human from ancient times, lighting a torch for the first time...
Fear, awe, submission, these indescribably complex emotions surged forth, making Albert feel unsteady, yet he dared not close his eyes.