On the ground, Morin retracted his gaze.
He had witnessed the brief aerial encounter just now.
While he found the use of pistols and rifles for aerial combat to be overly primitive, a question was forming in his mind.
What if the aviation industry in this world were to develop, and aircraft performance were to continuously improve, quickly reaching the level of the ‘Doomsday Pistons’ of the other world?
Would those faster, more flexible fighter aircraft then be able to wrest a degree of control over the skies from the Armored Airships and Mages?
This thought flashed through Morin’s mind, but he quickly suppressed it.
At the moment, the most important thing was the decisive offensive that was about to begin.
Gallic Sixth Army Group Headquarters.
The newly appointed commander and commandant of Paris City Defense, General Joseph Simon Gallieni, was grimly examining the aerial reconnaissance photos that had just been delivered from the front line.
The photos were not highly clear, but they were sufficient for him to see the abnormal movements on the Saxon positions.
A large number of artillery pieces were being concentrated on a narrow front, and countless soldiers were surging in the communication trenches like ants.
All signs pointed to one conclusion: the Saxons were preparing to launch an unprecedented general offensive.
“They are going all-in,” Gallieni said, his voice hoarse, as he threw the photos onto the table.
Continuous days of fierce fighting had exhausted the gray-haired old general.
The bravery of the Gaulish soldiers was beyond doubt, but the Saxon offensive was simply too fierce, like a relentless tide, wave after wave.
The Creil defense line was being held barely intact, relying on the sheer flesh and blood of the soldiers.
“General, can we still dispatch more reinforcements to the Creil area?! If the Saxons breach this point, the consequences will be unimaginable!” a staff officer said anxiously.
“Reinforcements? Where do we have any reinforcements left?”
Gallieni shook his head, letting out a long sigh.
“The Sixth Army Group has already committed every mobile unit we have. Should we send up those citizens temporarily conscripted from Paris and the surrounding areas—men who haven’t even mastered their rifles—to fight the Saxon veterans with bayonets?”
The headquarters fell into a dead silence.
Everyone knew the General was speaking the truth.
To hold Paris, the old General had used every available method.
“We must use the last of the strength we hold,” Gallieni finally decided after a long silence.
“General, are you referring to the ‘Sentinel’ unit?” A look of surprise appeared on the Chief of Staff’s face.
Just like the Britannians, the Gauls also had their own Mage Units.
However, unlike the Highland Mages who typically stayed in their Mage Towers, the Gauls’ ‘Sentinel’ unit was a Battlemage corps that regularly participated in tactical training.
These Battlemages might not possess very high Ring Levels, but in terms of tactical literacy, they far surpassed the ‘Academic faction’ from the Mage Towers.
The main body of the ‘Sentinel’ unit was mostly on the Southern Front, and the remaining portion had been held in reserve as the final defense force for Paris.
Gallieni did not want to use them lightly, saving them for the moment of last resort, but now…
“The Saxons have put a knife to our throats. This is the moment of last resort.”
Gallieni’s eyes became resolute.
“Order the ‘Sentinel’ unit in the Paris area to move out immediately and take up positions on the Creil front line in the shortest possible time.”
“Yes, General!”
“Additionally, send an urgent telegram to Commander-in-Chief Joffre, informing him of the situation here and requesting him to communicate with the Britannians to launch an attack on the Saxon flank immediately! We are about to break!”
Holy Britannia Empire Expeditionary Force Headquarters.
Sir John French, the Commander-in-Chief, put down the telegram, picked up the cup of Black Tea on his desk, and slowly took a sip.
“The Gauls are about to break, gentlemen.”
He put down his teacup and addressed the staff officers in the tent, his voice completely calm.
“Should we then follow the agreement and launch an attack on the flank of the Saxon First Army Group?” a young officer asked.
“Attack? Of course we’ll attack,” John French smiled. “But not now.”
He stood up, walked to the map, and pointed a baton toward Creil:
“Let the Gauls shed a little more blood. The best time for the warriors of the Holy Britannia Empire to step out and save the situation is when they and the Saxons have fought each other to exhaustion.”
“But Commander, if we fail to help them now, after the war…”
“After the war?” French interrupted him. “As long as we win, history will be written by us. As for the Gauls… they should be grateful to us. We saved them, didn’t we?”
The Britannian officers in the tent looked at each other and shared knowing smiles.
Meanwhile, the atmosphere in the Saxon First Army Group Headquarters was utterly different.
Mackensen and Seeckt, the Army Group’s two supreme commanders, had been awake almost the entire night.
They were unaware of the Britannians’ plan to ‘watch the tigers fight from the mountaintop.’ They could only contemplate the worst-case scenarios.
Both men knew clearly that the upcoming battle had reached the level of a decisive showdown.
Success meant historical renown and winning the war in a single stroke.
Failure meant total annihilation and becoming criminals of the Empire.
“General, all artillery commanders involved in the barrage have arrived,” a staff officer reported.
“Let them in,” Mackensen said in a low voice.
Soon, dozens of artillery officers entered the command tent.
As the staff officers of the Army Group Headquarters introduced the plan, they looked at the densely marked bombardment plan on the map, and every one of them drew a sharp breath.
“My God… this is sheer madness!”
An artillery colonel couldn’t help but whisper:
“To conduct such a high-density barrage on a single point in such a short time, and still achieve precise fire extension—how is this possible?”
“Who came up with this crazy operational plan?”
“I heard it was an infantry officer who will be participating in the frontal attack?”
“Then he must have lost his mind…”
A staff officer from the Army Group heard their discussion and said coldly:
“The infantry officer who proposed this plan is Captain Friedrich Morin, the Battalion Commander of the Imperial Guards First Instruction Assault Battalion. Furthermore, he will personally lead his soldiers in the first wave of the charge when the artillery fire extends.”
The artillery officers’ complaints instantly ceased.
“It… it’s Captain Morin?”
“Oh, it’s him… then it’s not surprising.”
“Enough with the chatter! Check your watches!”
The Army Group staff officer who spoke interrupted them, pulling out his pocket watch. The other artillery officers also took out their wristwatches and pocket watches.
Everyone knew this would be a dangerous fire support mission. No one dared to be complacent, aiming to avoid any significant time discrepancy.
Morin, on the other side, was unaware of these episodes happening at the headquarters.
The 48 hours of temporary training quickly concluded. He looked at the Assault Troops before him—still clumsy in their movements, but with a new sense of confidence in their eyes—and his heart was filled with complex emotions.
He had done everything he could.
The rest was left to fate, and the accuracy of the Saxon artillery.
The First Army Group would not get a second chance.
If this offensive failed, or if they couldn’t achieve the strategic goal of a decisive breakthrough, the stalled Saxon forces would face an endless counterattack from the Gauls without sufficient artillery support.
The mere thought of that scenario sent shivers down his spine.
But they had no other choice.
The conventional approach was like boiling a frog slowly, resulting in them being slowly consumed and destroyed in front of the Creil defense line.
The ‘Assault Group Tactics’, though carrying immense risk, was the only key that could unlock the door to victory in the shortest possible time.
In this moment, Morin felt the pressure on his shoulders was so heavy it almost suffocated him.
This was no longer just about the success or failure of a single campaign… it concerned the life and death of hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the First Army Group, and even the entire trajectory of the war.
The tactics he proposed had been pushed, almost invisibly, to the forefront of history-defining moments.
During dinner on the eve of the attack, Morin, having little appetite, sat on an ammunition crate, watching the surrounding soldiers slowly eat their rare, hearty meal. His mind was rapidly re-examining every detail of the entire operational plan.
The selection of the breakthrough point, the timing of the artillery preparation, the synchronization of infantry and artillery, the formation of the Assault Troops, the follow-up of subsequent forces, the support of the Armored Knights, the suppression by the Armored Airships—
Every single part of the First Army Group’s plan could not afford a major mistake.
He looked up at the sky. Dark clouds obscured the moon, with only a few stars stubbornly twinkling through.
Tomorrow, the ground here would run with blood.
Morin didn’t know if he would survive, nor how many of his young men would live to see the sun rise over Paris.
But he knew they had no way back.
This battle must be won.
September 6th, early morning.
Just as a sliver of dawn appeared on the horizon, the Saxon positions on the Creil front were fully awake.
The air lacked the usual deathly silence and despair, replaced instead by an extremely repressed commotion, like the restlessness before a volcanic eruption.
All combat units of the Assault Group, code-named ‘Blade’, quietly moved into the predetermined assault initiation trenches, urged on by the low voices of their officers and NCOs.
Erik tightened his grip on his Gew.98 rifle. The cold steel slightly steadied his trembling hands caused by nervousness.
His assault unit was placed in the center of the first attack sequence.
He only needed to look forward to see the backs of the soldiers from the Instruction Assault Battalion, wearing their capless helmets and covered in all sorts of strange equipment.
This gave him a sense of security.
But when he saw other figures, his heart rate couldn’t help but accelerate again.
They were a group of exceptionally tall soldiers, wearing heavy, full-body metal plate armor, and wielding weapons larger than the MG14 light machine gun.
Their helmets completely concealed their faces, leaving only a narrow slit through which cold eyes peered.
“It’s the General’s Guard…” Erik heard a veteran beside him gasp quietly.
The General’s Guard, a small, heavily armored unit within the Saxon Army.
It was rumored that every one of them was an elite selected from the entire army, the generals’ most loyal protectors.
Their plate armor could withstand most rifle fire, and the weapons in their hands could easily tear apart any enemy that dared to oppose them.
Erik had only seen them in propaganda posters when he enlisted, and he never expected to be fighting alongside these elite units today.
And what shocked him even more was what came next.
Standing behind the General’s Guard was another group of people.
They wore armor with a greater degree of coverage. At the armor’s joints, one could see complex mechanical structures and faintly shimmering Magic Circuits.
They carried no firearms, instead silently propping huge knight swords or War Hammers on the ground.
“My goodness… those are Teutonic Knights’ Knight Squire!”
“They’re here too! They didn’t mobilize with the Armored Knights, but are attacking with us?!”
A wave of suppressed commotion erupted among the crowd.
If the General’s Guard were the elite among mortals, these Knight Squire wearing Magic-powered Armor were a higher order of existence.
They were the future true Teutonic Knights, each possessing strength and speed far exceeding that of ordinary people.
Erik felt his breathing quicken.
The General’s Guard, Knight Squire, Instruction Assault Battalion…
The headquarters had concentrated so many ace units on this small breakthrough point!
He finally understood. This was not an ordinary offensive.
This was a decisive battle.
Morin, shrinking down with the soldiers of the 1st Platoon of the 1st Company of the Instruction Assault Battalion, in the foremost assault initiation trench, naturally saw these units as well.
He knew clearly that General Mackensen was going ‘All in’. He and Seeckt had pushed all the chips they had onto this single betting table.
Morin glanced at the wristwatch he was wearing reversed on his wrist. There were two minutes left until the scheduled start of the artillery barrage.
He could feel the tension in the surrounding air, so thick it could be cut with a knife.
Even the battle-hardened soldiers of the Instruction Assault Battalion were mostly silent, quietly checking their weapons and ammunition.
As for the Assault Troops drawn from other units, many were pale with tension, with a number muttering prayers.
Time, in this suffocating silence, reached 6:00 AM sharp.
“Boom—!!!”
From the rear, the Saxon artillery positions roared as hundreds of artillery pieces fired simultaneously!
The earth began to tremble violently. Countless shells, screaming as they tore through the air, sliced through the morning mist and rained down on the Gauls’ positions like a meteor shower!
The large-scale artillery barrage had begun!
This made everyone even more tense, as it meant the attack would not be canceled. They only waited for the countdown to end before launching their assault on the enemy positions.
“Battalion Commander, should you say something?”
Manstein, also fully armed, leaned closer to Morin and asked quietly:
“Everyone seems a bit too tense.”
“Forget it. Though the shells are landing far away, the noise is still significant; no one will hear me anyway,” Morin shook his head.
However, no sooner had he finished speaking than a Captain from the 42nd Infantry Regiment nearby, who seemed to have overheard their conversation, suddenly brightened, turned, and ran off.
A moment later, the Captain came running back, breathing heavily and carrying a strange object. It resembled a microphone connected to long wires.
“Captain Morin! Please use this!”
The Captain handed the large loudspeaker to Morin, exclaiming excitedly:
“This is the broadcast system we used before to shout at the Gauls. We stopped using it because the noise was so loud it kept drawing their artillery fire. The wires are still laid out. The entire assault position can hear it!”
Morin looked at the megaphone in his hand, feeling both baffled and amused, and much of his nervousness was dispelled.
He never thought these guys would hide such a device in the trenches.
Now, he had no choice but to speak.
Morin could feel the gaze of everyone around him focused on him.
The soldiers of the Instruction Assault Battalion, the temporary Assault Troops, even the arrogant General’s Guard and Knight Squire.
Their eyes held a complex mixture of anticipation, curiosity, and trust.
These soldiers, about to launch the attack, were waiting for him—the commander of the Instruction Assault Battalion who had created countless legends—to say something in this final moment before the decisive battle.
Morin sighed, forced himself to step forward, and raised the megaphone.
What should he say?
Heart-stirring grand rhetoric? Promises of wealth and glory after victory?
His mind was blank.
As a military academy student from a time of peace, he was truly not good at this kind of pre-battle motivation.
Just as he was about to say a few casual words, a passage from another world, deeply engraved in his soul, suddenly sprang uncontrollably into his mind.
He cleared his throat and pressed the switch.
“Sizzzz—”
After a moment of static, his clear and forceful voice echoed through every loudspeaker distributed throughout the two-kilometer-long assault initiation trench, reaching the ears of every soldier about to depart.
The distant rumble of explosions from the Gauls’ positions served as the background to his speech.
“Gentlemen, I am Friedrich Morin, Battalion Commander of the Imperial Guards First Instruction Assault Battalion, and the man who will lead you in this offensive.”
Silence instantly fell over the trench. Everyone strained their ears.
“I know that our previous attacks have failed. We have suffered heavy casualties, we are exhausted, and we have only been able to rest and pray next to our fallen comrades.”
His voice was calm, utterly without incitement, merely stating a fact that everyone had experienced.
But it was this calmness that resonated with every soldier, stirring a pang of grief in their hearts.
“But I also know that as long as a Saxon soldier still has breath, he will not give up!”
Morin’s voice suddenly rose!
“Though we have lost many comrades, the iron-blooded spirit that gives us strength still flows in our veins! That spirit was forged at Sedan, at Sadowa, by your ancestors with victory and glory!”
“Today, we will prove that once again!”
“The Instruction Assault Battalion will serve as your spearhead in this Final Offensive! I will be the first to leap out of the trench, paving the way to victory for you!”
“Gentlemen! Look around you! The Gauls have no troops left! They are reduced to filling their trenches with colonial soldiers and temporarily conscripted civilians! Their resistance is at its breaking point!”
“For the Empire!”
A shout erupted from one part of the trench.
Immediately, a mountain-shaking roar burst from every corner of the trench!
“For the Empire!!”
“For the Emperor!!”
“For the land under the sun!!”
The faces of all the soldiers flushed with excitement. They raised their weapons high, roaring with all their might.
The sense of grievance, anger, and longing for victory that had been suppressed for too long was completely ignited at this moment!
In that instant, their voices seemed to drown out the sound of the explosions in the distance.
Simultaneously, Morin’s nearly fanatical voice once again spread across the entire position through the broadcast!
“Warriors of Saxony! Do not fear death! Failure is far more terrifying than death!”
“Victory is within sight! The Black Eagle banner of the Empire is destined to fly over Paris!”
“Charge!!!”
“Beep—!!!”
The sharp charge whistles sounded simultaneously across the trenches!
Accompanied by the whistles and the soldiers’ roars, Morin was the first to vault out of the trench!
Immediately following him, countless Field Gray figures surged out of the trenches like a broken dam, launching a desperate charge toward the fire-covered hell before them, heedless of the danger!
A war correspondent, hiding behind a fortification in the trench, trembled as he captured this historic scene with his camera.
Meanwhile, in a concealed spot dug into the second trench line in the rear.
Grand Master Leonia von Fortis personally led thirty ‘Siegfried Type 1’ Armored Knights to start their hybrid engines. The giant steel bodies began to move forward.
Their goal was to eliminate any Gaulish Armored Knights that might appear, clearing the final obstacles for the infantry’s breakthrough.
This was the first time Morin had truly charged alongside his own artillery barrage.
Deafening explosions went off just ahead, and each detonation caused the earth to shake violently.
Splattering dirt rained down around them like hail, making a ‘pitter-patter’ sound.
He could feel his heart hammering in his chest, his adrenaline soaring to its peak.
Morin prayed incessantly in his mind.
He prayed that the artillery officers in the rear would not make a mistake at this critical juncture.
He prayed that they would strictly follow the plan and extend their fire into the depth precisely when they reached the Gauls’ positions.
One second late, and those charging at the very front would be one second closer to being blown up by their own shells.
One second early, and the Gauls would have an extra second to recover from the shell shock, climb onto the parapet, and set up their machine guns.
Morin did not look back, but he could hear the thunderous footsteps and earth-shattering shouts behind him.
He knew that thousands of Saxony’s most elite soldiers were following him, entrusting their lives to him and this mad plan.
He could not fail.
The First Army Group could not fail.
“Maintain speed! Don’t stop! Follow me!”
Morin shouted at the surrounding soldiers while running.
This was standard procedure for all charging officers on the line; they had to let their soldiers know their position to ensure no one lost direction during the assault.
The distance was rapidly shrinking.
Two hundred meters!
One hundred meters!
Fifty meters!
Morin could already clearly see the fragmented Barbed Wire in front of the Gauls’ position, and the first trench line further out, which had been repeatedly churned by artillery fire and was practically leveled.
Meanwhile, Erik felt like his lungs were about to burst.
He had never run so fast. He could only mechanically pump his legs, his mind blank.
He heard no external sounds, only his own heavy, bellows-like panting and the frantic ‘thump-thump-thump’ of his heart.
Erik saw the figure ahead from beneath his helmet rim—the figure of Captain Morin, the first to leap out of the trench, leading their charge.
That figure was like a lighthouse in the darkness, guiding them toward the sea of fire where the shelling had yet to cease.
But just as they were only about twenty meters from the Gauls’ first trench, a miracle occurred.
The dense rain of artillery fire smashing down on the Gauls’ first trench was suddenly, as if controlled by an invisible hand, simultaneously extended backward!
“Rumble—!”
Even fiercer explosions erupted in the depths of the Gauls’ positions.
The Saxon artillerists had begun to shift their fire to cover the Gauls’ second and third trenches, as well as their reserve assembly areas.
“It worked!”
Morin felt a rush of ecstasy and relief.
The artillery officers had finally come through at the crucial moment.
“Charge in!”
He roared, the first to rush through the gap in the shattered Barbed Wire. He sprinted a few more steps and then leaped into the Gauls’ first trench.
A strong stench of burning flesh and blood instantly assailed his nostrils.
This could no longer be called a trench.
The once deep ditch had been utterly disfigured by countless 105mm howitzer shells.
The walls of the trench had long since collapsed. The ground was covered everywhere with churned, scorched earth and blackened fragments of corpses.
There was not a single living person.
Under twenty minutes of high-density artillery coverage, the Gaulish soldiers who had been garrisoning this trench, along with their fortifications and weapons, had been completely wiped off the face of the earth.
Morin did not pause for a second.
“Leave some men to hold this position! Clear the communication trenches on both sides! Stop the enemy from reinforcing the flanks!”
“Everyone else! Follow me! Continue the attack on the second line of defense!”
After issuing his commands, he continued rushing deeper into the trench, treading on the soft, unidentifiable mixture of mud and fragments of flesh beneath his feet.
Following him, Erik and countless Saxon soldiers poured into the death-shrouded trench like a tide.
Many of them were seeing such a horrifying sight for the first time.
But they had no time for fear, nor time to vomit.
Under the harsh commands of their officers and the leadership of the Instruction Assault Battalion soldiers, some immediately stayed behind to establish defenses according to the plan.
The rest followed closely behind Morin, charging through the battered communication trenches toward the Gauls’ second line of defense.
The breakthrough proceeded more smoothly than anyone could have imagined.
When they reached the second trench, they found the situation nearly identical to the first.
Although the resistance was slightly more tenacious than the first trench, it consisted only of a few dazed stragglers who had survived the shelling.
They couldn’t even organize an effective resistance before being overwhelmed by the incoming Saxon soldiers’ bullets.
The same held true for the third trench.
The hundreds of artillery pieces, concentrated from the entire Army Group and even parts of the Second Army Group’s strength, had poured an exaggerated number of shells into this narrow breakthrough point in just twenty minutes.
The destructive power demonstrated by this unprecedented fire density was overwhelming.
It had virtually destroyed all exposed defensive positions and personnel on this two-kilometer-long breach.
In less than half an hour, the ‘Blade’ Assault Group had successfully broken through the Gauls’ Creil defense line, composed of three trenches!
This achievement already far surpassed all the progress the First Army Group had made over the previous several days at the cost of tens of thousands of casualties!
The joy of victory began to spread among the soldiers of the Assault Group.
They continued to push forward, extending their formation to consolidate the captured positions, while speculating that the Gauls might have been entirely eliminated by the artillery in the rear.
Perhaps they really could carry on and win the battle just like this!
However, just as everyone was immersed in this sudden victory, Morin, charging at the very front, suddenly had a grave look on his face.
Because on his system map, in the vast area representing the ground behind the Gauls’ position, countless red unit tokens labeled ‘severely damaged’ were surging frantically toward their direction!
Simultaneously, a series of urgent and mournful bell tolls rang out from the deepest part of the Gauls’ positions.
That was the signal for the Gauls to launch a desperate countercharge!
The real battle was only just beginning!
The novel has already been fully translated up to the last updated chapter. You can access it on my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/caleredhair