The truck bumped over the cobblestone streets, speeding toward the 1st Company’s defense sector.
When Morin arrived at the 1st Company’s temporary company headquarters, only a few signals men and clerks were busy working nervously. A clerk saw Morin and quickly came forward.
“Battalion Commander! Why have you come yourself? Sergeant Major Klaus is at the front line!”
Morin nodded, not stopping, and walked straight through the building serving as the company headquarters, toward the direction where the gunfire was densest.
He quickly found Klaus commanding the battle behind a sandbag barricade. Klaus saw Morin, his face immediately showing a look of grief, and he let out a long sigh.
“Battalion Commander… Sergeant Bowman was killed in action…” Klaus’s voice was choked. “He and a Heavy Machine Gun squad didn’t manage to pull out of the building in time.”
Morin’s heart trembled. He knew Klaus was referring to the unit token that had just disappeared on the system map, but he never expected Sergeant Bowman was among them. Bowman was one of his oldest soldiers, having been with him through all the fiercest battles, yet he was gone… He opened his mouth but found himself unable to say anything, accepting the reality in that instant.
Ultimately, Morin only nodded expressionlessly and said: “I know.”
He suppressed the swirling emotions, refocusing his attention on the immediate battle situation. He cautiously peered out, quickly scanning the battlefield.
The situation was worse than he had imagined. Lacking fire suppression from the high ground, the Gallic soldiers had successfully pushed into the middle ground of the Barbed Wire defense. Relying on their numerical advantage, they engaged the Instruction Assault Battalion soldiers in fierce fire exchanges from the buildings on both sides, constantly attempting to penetrate the building interiors. In the nearby street, Gallic engineers were desperately cutting the Barbed Wire, clearly on the verge of clearing a complete passage.
And behind them, the two 75mm Magic Guided Cannons were the Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of all the defending soldiers.
Morin quickly glanced at the system map, realizing he had to find a way to eliminate those two Magic Guided Cannons. These 75mm cannons, augmented by Magic Guided Technology, were clearly far more powerful than the ‘Mademoiselle 75’ he knew. In Street Fighting, this direct-fire artillery was practically a dimensional reduction strike against the brick-and-stone houses. The weapon felt like the B-4 howitzer from the other world driven into Berlin; there was no logic to its power.
A daring plan quickly formed in his mind.
“You maintain the defense line here. I’m going over to take out those two cannons.” Morin’s voice was low, as if he were discussing a trivial matter.
Klaus, who was observing the progress of the enemy engineers through his binoculars and focusing efforts on these units destroying the Barbed Wire, snapped his head around upon hearing Morin’s words, his eyes wide.
“Battalion Commander! What did you say? You’re going alone?”
“No! That’s too dangerous!” Klaus immediately refused without thinking. “If anyone goes, it should be us! I’ll take an Assault Squad over!”
Several soldiers nearby who were reloading their magazines also spoke up. “Yes, Battalion Commander, you can’t go!” “Let us go! We guarantee mission success!”
Morin shook his head, his gaze still fixed on the two faintly visible Magic Guided Cannons in the distance. “The 1st Company needs you here; you need to command the overall situation.” He turned to Klaus, his expression serious. “Besides, you don’t have a Magic Shield. Moving on the street makes you too large a target, and casualties will be heavy.” “I will be moving alone, a smaller target, which is easier for flanking maneuvers.”
With that, Morin did not wait for Klaus and the surrounding soldiers to react further. He crouched down, slipped out of the barricade, and dove into the nearby street.
“Battalion Commander!” Klaus shouted anxiously, attempting to follow, but in that instant, Morin had vanished from sight. It was already too late to pursue him. He fiercely slammed his fist into the sandbags, sending sand flying. He then raised his binoculars, turning his overwhelming anger and worry toward the enemy in the distance. “Riflemen, listen up! Focus fire on those engineers! Do not let them breach the Barbed Wire!”
On the other side, Morin, having slipped away from the 1st Company’s defense line, was now moving quickly through the ruins and shadows like a cat.
He had led his officers to survey the 1st Company’s defense sector countless times in the two days leading up to the battle. He knew every shortcut, every broken wall that could be scaled, and every building whose internal structure could be used for flanking—he knew the area intimately.
Now, guided by the system map, which functioned like a ‘GPS Navigator,’ he easily avoided the patrol range of all the Gallic soldiers, rapidly maneuvering toward his target location via a series of hidden routes they had not discovered.
Soon, he arrived at an alleyway that was completely blocked by a large amount of Barbed Wire and barricades, an alley about seven or eight meters wide.
In the eyes of the Gallic soldiers, this was an absolutely impassable dead end, so they were not attacking this direction. Morin did not hesitate, immediately slipping into a building on the side of the street.
He quickly climbed to the third floor and went to a window of one of the rooms. Outside the window, a makeshift ‘air bridge,’ pieced together from two wooden ladders, teetered across the alleyway, connecting to the window of the building opposite. Morin took a deep breath. Without hesitation, he climbed onto the ladder.
With arms outstretched, like a tightrope walker, he carefully maintained his balance, his feet moving quickly on the swaying ladder. Below him were the spike-covered Barbed Wire and obstacles. One wrong step and he would fall… But the expression on Morin’s face did not change. In just a few seconds, he successfully reached the other side of the street and nimbly climbed into the window.
In this manner, using several similar hidden passages, Morin stealthily maneuvered into a building on the flank/rear of the Gallic attacking column.
He crouched behind a broken window on the ground floor, carefully poking out half his head to observe the bustling street outside.
There were still many Gallic soldiers in red and blue uniforms on the street, advancing toward the front. All their attention was focused on the Instruction Assault Battalion’s defense line at the other end of the street; none would imagine an enemy appearing behind them.
A little further ahead were the two 75mm Magic Guided Cannons slowly advancing. Under normal circumstances, these weapons required four to six mules to pull, but in the intense and narrow Street Fighting, it was obviously impossible to bring the animals in. The gun crews were currently shouting commands, laboriously using human strength to stack sandbags behind the cannons.
They were trying to raise the rear of the gun carriages to achieve the necessary angle of depression for direct fire to clear the sandbag barricades that were causing their infantry so much trouble.
Morin calmly observed all of this, firmly registering the enemy’s positions, numbers, and weaponry.
He checked the magazine of his MP14 Submachine Gun, confirming it was full. Then, he reached down to unclip the buckle of his chest magazine pouch, ensuring he could reload in the shortest possible time.
All preparations were complete.
Morin took another deep breath and activated the spell he had prepared last night.
A translucent blue shield instantly enveloped his entire body, flashed, and then gradually disappeared. This was [Mage Armor] amplified by the [Spell Empowerment] feat.
Confirming that the icons for [Mage Armor] and [Arcane Protection] at the bottom of his vision were both at full value, and seeing no other Gallic soldiers behind the street, Morin crouched low and slipped out through a blast hole in the building.
Using the cover of the piles of corpses and debris on the street, he kept his body low and crept, inch by inch, toward the unsuspecting Gallic soldiers and artillery crews ahead.
His movements were extremely light, making almost no sound. In the chaotic background noise of the battlefield, his presence was minimized.
Soon, he reached the safety of a pile of corpses, less than thirty meters from the last Gallic soldier, and silently crouched down.
This distance was already within the optimal killing range for a submachine gun and hand grenades.
Morin did not rush to open fire. He gently removed the backpack from his back, revealing over a dozen neatly arranged oval-shaped hand grenades inside.
He took the lethal ‘iron eggs’ out one by one, carefully placing them on the ground in front of him, and then looked at the constantly assaulting Gallic soldiers ahead, his expression blank, and picked up a grenade.
Now was the time to give them a huge ‘surprise.’
Morin rose from the ground to a kneeling position behind the pile of corpses, his right index finger skillfully hooking the pull ring, carefully calculating the grenade’s fuse delay and trajectory.
His first target was the two 75mm Magic Guided Cannons that were being maneuvered for a lower angle of fire. If he could first incapacitate these two cannons—the greatest threat to the defense line—everything else would be much simpler.
He timed it perfectly, forcefully pulling the pin, swinging his arm back, waiting for one second, and then throwing the grenade with a practiced motion. The grenade arced perfectly through the air, sailing over the heads of the oblivious Gallic infantry ahead and landing precisely among the two gun crews who were laboriously pushing the cannons.
“Boom!”
The 3-second delay grenade exploded in mid-air. The searing shrapnel and shockwave instantly ravaged the area. The gunners who were pushing the cannons were blown backward by the sudden blast.
Screams and wails immediately erupted. A large number of men instantly fell around the two Magic Guided Cannons.
The explosion was like thunder out of a clear sky, completely stunning the Gallic soldiers on the entire street.
The crowd fell into chaos, soldiers frantically looking around, trying to determine where the attack had come from.
However, Morin gave them no time to react. The moment he threw the first grenade, his left hand had already snatched up the second.
Pin pull, throw!
The action was seamless. The second grenade accurately landed among the group of dazed artillerists.
“Rumble!”
Another loud explosion, and fire and smoke erupted again, with flesh and blood flying.
Morin, having transformed into the ‘Jade-Faced Grenade King,’ mechanically tossed the grenades one after another.
The dense crowd became the best target for the hand grenades; every explosion claimed several lives.
Just as the Gallic soldiers were stunned by the two grenades, Morin suddenly rose from behind the pile of corpses. The MP14 Submachine Gun in his hands roared like the grim reaper.
“Da-da-da-da-da-da!”
He did not fire long bursts but used precise three-round bursts, methodically shooting the lethal 9mm rounds one by one at the still-dazed Gallic officers and soldiers.
A Gallic Captain attempting to rally his formation was instantly hit by three rounds that exploded in a blood mist on his chest. His expression froze in that moment as he fell backward. Another soldier who had spotted Morin and raised his rifle had his head instantly shattered by a bullet, splattering red and white matter across his rifle.
Morin’s appearance completely shattered the psychological defense of these Gallic soldiers. They couldn’t understand why the enemy commander had appeared so suddenly behind them.
“The enemy is behind us! The enemy is behind us!”
A young soldier watched Morin cutting down his comrades like grass. He yelled as he raised his rifle and aimed at Morin. His action triggered a chain reaction. Many surrounding soldiers also aimed at the figure at the rear of their column and opened fire.
At a distance of a few dozen meters, it was difficult for these soldiers and their rifles not to hit the target.
But the next moment, they discovered in horror that a continuous stream of blue sparks erupted in front of the Saxon figure, deflecting all the incoming bullets.
“A Spellcaster… he looks like a Spellcaster!”
“How could a Saxon Spellcaster appear here?”
The desperately firing Gallic soldiers found their shots were being completely neutralized. The target even calmly reloaded a new magazine and began to fire at them again.
Morin wasted no bullets. Every short burst was certain to bring down one or more Gallic soldiers. He was like an efficient, cold-blooded butcher harvesting the panic-stricken lives.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the street, at the 1st Company’s position, Klaus and his soldiers were utterly stunned.
They watched the sudden explosion of fire behind the enemy, saw the attacking Gallic soldiers fall into chaos, and then saw them being cut down one by one.
“That’s… that’s the Battalion Commander…” a soldier murmured.
Klaus raised his binoculars, his hands trembling slightly.
He saw clearly that Morin, alone with a submachine gun, was completely throwing the Gallic assault into turmoil on the chaotic street.
A surge of emotion, a mix of awe and fanaticism, coursed through his chest.
“What are you standing around for!” Klaus roared, recovering his wits. “Open fire! Hit them hard! Don’t let those Gauls escape!”
The order was issued, and the 1st Company’s defense line, which had fallen silent for a moment, erupted with a thunderous roar of gunfire again.
And on the other side, Morin also avoided the Gallic soldiers’ attack, ducked into a small alley blocked by Barbed Wire and obstacles, and found a building with a specific, inconspicuous mark.
Then, using the first-floor window sill and bricks he had previously pried loose, he quickly climbed to the second floor and slipped inside.
By the time the Gallic soldiers chased to the alley entrance, they were confused by the empty alleyway. Just as they wondered if the Saxon Spellcaster could fly, the sound of a Light Machine Gun suddenly roared from the building’s window.
(End of this Chapter)