Published at 10th of August 2023 11:24 am

Chapter 122: Warmachines

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Masir grunted as he blocked a bayonet strike from a Yual knight, the two of them brawling in the mud as the rain began to pick up, turning into a light drizzle.

Pools mixed with blood and grime began to form on the floor, the contents splashing while the soldiers fought back hard, their morale buoyed by the bravery of Masir to attack the knights.

We need to hold them here – if they take down the point defence system and machine gun emplacement, they can breach the trenches! Masir delivered a kick to the Yual Knight, sending him stumbling back before following up with a body flip, sweeping the knight’s legs right under him.

The Yual Knight gagged as he fell onto the ground, with Masir immediately pinning him down. Each of his soldiers was engaged in their own brawl along the length of the trenches.

For a brief moment in time, there was nothing else in the world for Masir, only the sole intention of killing the person right in front of him. Even the sounds of rain splattering and battle cries could not distract him from the knight. He grabbed a knife from his belt and stabbed towards the knight’s neck through the seams of the armour.

The knight immediately grabbed the wrist of Makoa, crushing it under the tight grip of the metal gauntlets. Makoa winced, but did not flinch nor let go of the pin. Instead, he forced his wounded wrist even further down, leveraging his body weight to drive the knight towards the neck.

The knife pierced the tip of the knight’s skin, causing him to fight even harder and throw punches at Masir’s waist. However, Masir had his knee on the knight’s other free arm, rendering the knight incapable of stopping it. His eyes flickered with fear as Masir roared, pressing the knife down with all his might.

With a sound barely audible over the dins of fighting and cannon fire, the knight choked on blood, the windpipes gurgling as he punched Masir repeatedly, each punch getting weaker as his brain began to lose focus and strength.

Masir could barely stand up, the arcia exhaustion and the injuries suffered from the knight burdening his body. Every fibre of his being felt sluggish, his bones weak as he struggled to help his other soldiers. I must fight!

He pushed through the pain, joining the fight again through the trenches. The brave soldiers of his squad were taking on casualties, not all of them as apt at fighting like Masir was. Five knights left.

Masir glanced at his remaining squad, noticing an entire squad had already been killed. The knights were now pushing towards the machine gun emplacement, trying to take it down.

They are the strike force – meant to take down the defence to allow the main force to proceed uninterrupted. Masir was extremely clear on their objectives.

As he stepped towards the fight, he walked past Squad 3’s dead communications radio handler, his arctech radio blurting away.

[Section 4A suffering heavy damage! We can’t stop the ploughs!]

[513 First Platoon taking on casualties, we need reinforcements!]

[Roger that, new soldiers being sent from secondary defence trench.]

Just hold on – just hold on. Masir repeated to himself as he limped towards the knights, who were unaware of him behind him, assuming their allies had already killed him.

Gripping the bloodied knife in his left arm, Masir sneaked close enough before lifting the knife as high as he could, jabbing it down towards the neck of the knight from behind.

The knight moved at the last second, the knife instead piercing through a gap in the shoulder pauldron and causing the knight to shout in pain. With a retaliation swing, Masir was knocked right back onto the ground, his vision only seeing the dark clouds as rain dripped onto his face.

I have no strength left. Is this the end for me? Masir did not want to give up, but his exhausted body was hardly responding anymore, arcia exhaustion ravaging his internals.

The knight raised a repeater, aimed right at Masir’s head when suddenly the point defence system in the trenches fired a large green bolt in the sky.

However, there was no sound of interception, instead a projectile shooting straight down from above and shredding through the knight from head to toe like a corkscrew, his organs and flesh twisted into a mangled form before crumpling to the ground in an explosion of dirt.

The other knights were distracted, buying time for the Versian soldiers under Masir to regroup for a brief moment. Most of all, the Yual knights were completely confused as to why there was an artillery strike.

Before they could get their bearings, yet another green bolt was fired up, prompting them to instinctively duck. Sure enough, yet another projectile was pinpointed aimed right at them, kicking up a fountain of dirt and nearly missing another knight.

“The artillery is helping us! Fight back!” With a morale-induced counterattack, the Versians began to push back hard, capitalizing on the shaken senses of the knights. With five knights fighting against two nine-men squads, they were easily overwhelmed, the knights being killed in a brutal battle.

Masir was lifted up, dragged into a small alcove in the trench walls where a medic from another squad was already treating the wounds. “Grab the damn potions from the other squad!” The medic ordered, directing them to the fallen Squad 3. He stuffed a health potion down Masir’s mouth, the minor healing effect restoring his body slightly, though Masir still suffered from arcia exhaustion.

“You need to recover. If we lose you, the whole platoon falls apart. You hear me?” The medic lightly slapped Masir’s cheeks, checking for signs of sentience. “I only got a few health potions, don’t make it a waste.”

“Sca-scavenge the knights…” Masir weakly mumbled.

“We’re already on it.”

The same event was happening all over the first trench, with every platoon experiencing some sort of pinpoint artillery strike that saved them at the right moment.

[Good job artillery crew!]

The artillery crew were completely confused, as was the general in charge of the entire division. “Who the hell fired at the trenches? I already ordered all of you not to fire on our own allies!”

“Sir, no one did! And even if we did, we would blow up the soldiers as well, yet all of them are reporting the artillery strikes were precisely on the knights and the ploughs.”

“The gods are watching over us.” A more religious Versian remarked. “An angel! Someone who defends Versia!”

With this, the reinforcing soldiers managed to bolster the first trench, pushing back the strike force. Some machine guns as well as point defence systems suffered damage, weakening the defence slightly.

“Get our engineers out there now! Repair them before the next wave comes!”

However, over the next hour, the ensuring barrage of mortar strikes resumed again, this time easily pounding the exposed areas of the trenches and breaking the defence line open. With the gap opened, another wave of ploughs and even more Yual knights charged forward, easily entering the trenches and fighting through.

The general’s face blanched as the reports streamed in through the radio, with his clerks moving the markers on a wide table in front of him, laid out in the same format as the defence lines around Ocra.

“We can’t lose the first trench! We need to reinforce it immediately! If Yual gets a foothold, they can use that trench position against us!”

The Versian garrison pushed forward in strength, sorting out to fight for control of the first trench. The area was filled with the whizzing sounds of pellets from scorching hot machine gun barrels, and the continuous sparkle and stream of point defence arcia bolts launched at the sky, blocking incoming mortar projectiles.

The battle soon entered a stalemate, although the fighting in the first trench was still fierce. The Versian side took far more casualties than the Yual Knights did, their recruits and soldiers far more experienced that those in Ocra.

“Section 4A request more ammo and arcite fuel for the point defence system! Needs health potions as well!”

“Give it to them, no rationing of health potions!” The general in charge understood how critical the first day of battle was, preparing to go all out to stave off the enemy’s advances.

However, it could not be held for long, as a new war machine emerged from the Yual Dominion forces, a fully armoured arctech wagon bristling with weaponry, machine guns and a cannon mounted onto it as its wheeled tracks dug through the mud, moving slowly towards the trenches.

“What?”

Two Versian machine guns immediately fired at it, but the armour deflected nearly everything, not being as weak as the first wave of ploughs. The blackened armour glowed brightly with Harden engravings, resisting the torrent of machine gun fire.

As soon as it approached the edge of the trench, three nozzels emerged from the front, suddenly spewing out liquid flames that surged and roared through the trenches, flooding the floor immediately. The soldiers who were nearby could hardly outrun the flood of fire, their uniform catching on fire as they screamed in pain, flesh melting off the bones.

Four more such warmachines rushed the trenches, immediately pushing out all the soldiers of the trenches as they were routed, fleeing back to the second defence line in panic.

“Fallback! Fallback!” They abandoned the machine guns and point defence systems, being far too heavy to carry. Masir’s squad carried him back to the second trench line with haste.

As soon as the point defence systems were taken out, the Versian general ordered a barrage. “Fire!”

The slew of projectiles screehed across the sky as Masir groggily looked up at the sky, their smoke trails arcing through the heavy rain that drenched his men in soakiing wet clothes. They trudged aboveground, cowering from the storm and the gunfire that raged all around them.

The blood-curdling screams of their allies burning into a sludge behind them did not turn their heads, instead helping to focus ahead, where their allies were already firing back at the monsterous warmachines.

Mortar shells slammed against the thick heavy arctech armour of the warmachines, the warmachines not having any point defence systems. Instead, its tracks rolled right above the trenches, ignoring the ditch completely, unfettered as it continued its murderous advance.

The cannon of the warmachine locked onto an artillery emplacement far behind in the third trench line, firing a straight shot screaming right above the second trench before exploding forward in a shower of smaller fragments.

The point defence systems were turned into a frenzy, streams of green arcia bolts rapidly firing to cancel the fragments incoming. The shot was ineffective, leading to many of the soldiers cheering as their own cannons fired back at the warmachines, enveloping it in residual smoke.

Eyes widening, the general realized what the warmachines were trying to do. "They are trying to overwhelm the point defence systems! Stop them!" The sheer amount of fragments would drain and overheat the point defence systems, increasing arcia fuel consumption and damaging the engravings. There was a limit to the temperature rating, after all.

The cheers of the soldiers soon died as it became more and more apparent that the point defence systems were responding slower and slower, some of the fragments eventually making it through and piercing fortifications as well as soldiers, earning cries of pain all over the trenches. Each of the four warmachines advanced at a different approach path, forcing the Versian artillery and cannon crews to divert their attentions.

But weirdly enough, the artillery fire had stopped from the Yual Dominion, allowing the point defence systems enough time to recuperate and withold the firepower of the warmachines.

The general remained wary, continously resupplying the cannons and artillery. The warmachines came to a halt, before suddenly retreating.

"Sir, they are fleeing! We should give chase!" An ambitious officer remarked, pumping his fist in the air.

However, the experienced general did not agree, his instincts telling him otherwise. "It is a trap. Wait for reports from the observers. Ensure it is encoded correctly with the right encryption!"

However, a large boom resounded through the sparse forest, followed by a rapidly expanding ball of flame that spiralled up to the sky in a dazzling display, nearly overwhelming the gloomy sky like a spark of light.

Soon, the reports from observers came in. "Sir, the Yual dominion forces are being attacked by an unknown force, by what seems to be long-range artillery!"

Confusion struck the general and officers, as they quickly radioed in all nearby military units. "Did our artillery reinforcements from Tenar arrive that fast?!"

"No sir, there’s no reported artillery crews anywhere other than here and in Ocra."

However, they were not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, a wave of relief and smiles spreading through the camp. "Quickly, reclaim the first trench and set up defences again! Hold out as long as it takes for our reinforcements to arrive!"

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