Badge in Azure Chapter 698 - Take no Prisoners (Part 2)

Chapter 698: Take no Prisoners (Part 2)

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The sound of the war drums picked up some urgency as the officers of each regiment nervously gave their orders. The foot soldiers behind the formation of wagons suddenly dispersed outwards while the soldiers on both sides of the shield formation advanced with their huge shields. Behind them were the foot soldiers armed with cross spears. The heavy-armored infantry has already rested enough and their magic armors could be used again.
They were as quick as lightning and could attack at the same speed as knights within a distance of five-hundred yards. Their halberts and short spears could destroy all kinds of heavy armors. These one-thousand heavy-armored foot soldiers were the elites of the sixth battalion.
Saleen has equipped these one-thousand soldiers with magic armors and weapons that could destroy heavy armors. These soldiers did not need to care about logistics. For every five soldiers, one of them would be issued with the skin of a purple-gold sea urchin to contain all their necessities and grain.
Saleen intended to use this one-thousandstrong regiment as a test to see if his plans for his armies were on the right track. Although knights were powerful military units, no army has ever relied on knights to build a country.
Usually the keys to victory lied in a powerful army of foot soldiers and mages. The knights would not be in the same category unless Saleen could successfully manufacture enough flying puppets to contain an individual’s flying equipment.
Only then would one be considered a real knight, a flying knight!
Flying knights were a unit created in the elf dimension. Back then, almost all humans could fly so there was no need to research into any flying equipment or magic beasts that could save humans from walking. Now, humans could create flying equipment but a lot was required and many materials could no longer be found on other dimensions. For example, thundercloud wood grew only on the trees in giant dimension. It was the most suitable material for flying equipment because it would not be affected by lightning even if the flyer flew amongst the clouds.
The ancient humans merely used such wood to make boats.
After retrieving many sunken ships, Saleen had wanted to use the thundercloud wood to create shields but subsequently discovered metallic steel rocks. Although the latter was heavier, it could be refined more easily. As long as there were enough supplies, he would be able to equip his armies on a large scale.
Thereafter, Saleen decided to use thundercloud wood to build combat vessels. After all, he could not possibly depend only on winged skull for his naval forces. However, Eleanor had then passed Saleen a pile of diagrams and one of them mentioned about flying puppets that could carry humans.
Saleen was only left with thundercloud wood to create the body of the flying puppet.
With thundercloud wood, Saleen focused more on the infantry. These magic heavy-armored infantry would be used for experimentation.
The heavy-armored infantry of the sixth battalion had regained their strengths. The shield formation on both sides opened up and knocked back the Phoenix rebel army that had been charging towards them.
The shield formation was meant to defend against the knights’ charging. In all Qin armies, the knights’ warhorses were all clad with armors with a long metal ram on their chest area. When it made contact with foot soldiers, the latter would be crushed.
The giant shields that were two meters tall pushed forward in a line. The Phoenix foot soldiers had nowhere to attack. Both parties were squeezed together. The knights of the sixth battalion and the group of envoys remained still. The best way to utilize knights was to defeat the enemy at one go rather than to be tangled up with thousands of foot soldiers.
The foot soldiers of the sixth battalion that were armed with shields bravely advanced forward while those armed with six yard long spears followed closely behind. Such a long weapon could only be wielded by soldiers with a certain level of proficiency. The Phoenix soldiers were being forced close together and the gaps between each soldier became narrower. This was when the soldiers holding shields dispersed to reveal the long spears behind them.
The Phoenix soldiers that had been wielding war axes and heavy hammers at their opponents were instantly pierced into a stick of bloody calabash.
The Phoenix soldiers had long spears of their own but they were only four meters long. After the spear soldiers had been pushed aside by the shield soldiers, the foot soldiers armed with heavy weapons charged to the front, hoping to smash through the shield formation. Unfortunately, they did not expect the change in the sixth battalion’s formation and suffered heavy losses.
The shield soldiers would not be able to hang on to the giant shield for long if they did not change their formation.
The Phoenicians were also made up of a mixture of military units. When they saw how much damage the long spears inflicted, the foot soldiers armed with heavy swords quickly rushed forward to cut them off. A normal long spear was made of wood and only the tip was made of metal. However, the first two meters of the sixth battalion’s long spears were wrapped with a layer of metal wirings so they could not be chopped off so easily.
Such long spears were dispensable to the sixth battalion since the materials used were not valuable. After killing hundreds of Phoenix soldiers, the enemy began to chop off these long spears, rendering them useless.
At this point, one-thousand archers rushed to the front and shot at the enemy’s formation.
The shield formation did not vanish completely. Instead, every six shields would form a circle and crossbow arrows were shot out from within. The sixth battalion’s handheld crossbows could attack only at a range of two to three meters, which were shorter than bows, but they could shoot consecutively.
These handheld crossbows were unable to inflict a lot of damage but they managed to break down the Phoenicians’ attacks successfully. Both sides were tangled up with each other and not before long, the shield soldiers have broken up the Phoenix foot soldiers into small clusters.
This was when the knights of the sixth battalion finally launched their attack.
These knights have long deserted their lances and were wielding scimitars with reversed blades. If the scimitars were curved even more, they would be sickles. The blades of the scimitars were sharp and had jagged edges on the opposite side.
The knights remained aggressive even without their lances. The warhorses were clad with heavy armors at the last minute and they weighed more than one-thousand pounds in total. The knights did not ride straight into the foot soldiers. That would be suicidal. Without speed, knights would not have any advantages over foot soldiers. The warhorses would become burdens instead.
Heavy galloping sounds sounded around the foot soldiers. The knights of the sixth battalion wielded their scimitars and cut down the outermost layer of Phoenician foot soldiers like they were peeling onions. With the help of the warhorses’ momentum, the reversed blade of their scimitars could cut through the metallic armors.
“They are formidable!” Bard could not help himself but to observe the battle from afar by using alchemy binoculars. The three-thousand knights of the group of envoys remained still and waited patiently. They would act as reinforcements if the enemy had backup.
Bard noticed that the sixth battalion’s formation had completely changed without his knowing. In the centre were a regiment of heavy-armored foot soldiers and regiments that contained battalion generals. These two-thousand men remained where they were while the other six regiments of foot soldiers formed the shape of a gigantic gear with six pointed edges pointing outwards. They advanced towards the Phoenician foot soldiers in a spinning motion, killing many of them.
Without taking into account the knights, the sixth battalion only held a slight advantage in terms of army strength. However, anyone could see that it was a one-sided affair. The knights were cutting down the enemy foot soldiers from the outside. They were able to leverage their speed to chop off the heads of the enemy with their scimitars.
It was extremely difficult for the Phoenician foot soldiers to cut through the knights’ heavy armors with their heavy swords. They could try to pierce through the armors instead, but the foot soldiers would also be repelled back by the impact.
The sixth battalion were having an increasingly easy time. The enemy lost the will to fight very quickly, unlike the Holy See soldiers. The equipment given to them by Saleen was better than the enemy’s by multiple times. Even if both sides hacked at each other without any skills, the soldiers of the sixth battalion still had the upper hand. Besides, the sixth battalion kept itself in a formation of a giant gear. The Phoenicians were being dispersed into small pockets and being attacked from both sides as the knights were also inflicting damage from the outer layers.
Phoenix’s second ten-thousand strong army had yet to arrive at the battlefield but the battle was almost finished.
Due to some unknown trigger, the Phoenicians began to retreat. If there was one fleeing soldier, there would be a second one. The officers tried to stop the soldiers from fleeing by using bodyguards to maintain military order. A regiment of soldiers tried to reorganize the formation, hoping to hang in there until reinforcements arrived.
Originally, the Phoenix rebel armies were all dressed the same way so the sixth battalion had no idea where the central army was located. Now that the Phoenix rebel army battalion commander has been exposed, the sixth battalion commander immediately gave the command.
The gigantic gear formation began to advance towards the south with increasing speed. As the war drums sounded, the regiment of heavy-armored foot soldiers that had yet to participate in the battle began to charge towards the enemy’s central army. When they were two-hundred yards away from the enemy’s central army, there was an explosion of magic light from each soldier’s thigh.
Once the heavy-armored soldiers gained speed, the amount of damage they could inflict was terrifying.
Duke Bard only saw a wave of black armors drown the Phoenicians’ central army.
The Phoenicians completely collapsed under this blow. They still had about five-thousand soldiers remaining but none had the will to retaliate. Most of them fled towards the south while a few escaped towards the east.
The rhythm of the war drums changed once again as the heavy-armored foot soldiers pursued for a mile before returning. Every step they took would use up the magic nuclei on their magic armors.
The knights of the sixth battalion kept their scimitars and took over the bows and arrows from the foot soldiers and gave chase. They never thought of exterminating all their enemies because that might incur unnecessary losses. The soldiers followed the beat of the war drums to determine the mode of their battle. They were already well-trained in this.
The knights approached the fleeing soldiers and shot them down with arrows from behind. They were wearing heavy armors so it was not easy handling the bows. They had no choice but to use the bows because Saleen had yet to distribute to them more suitable equipment.
After everyone has finished shooting twenty-four arrows, the knights returned as well.
Without any instructions, the shield soldiers formed another new formation. The knights dismounted and took off their armors with the help of the foot soldiers. The duration of the battle was short so the warhorses were still very excited. The knights had to remove the horses’ armors in order to calm them down.
The sixth battalion’s main forces returned back to the rear of the wagons. After that, Bard noticed that a regiment of light-armored foot soldiers took out their demilances and began to clean up the battlefield.
Injured soldiers were groaning in pain everywhere. These light-armored soldiers used their demilances to kill all their enemies one by one. Their actions were steady and familiar. When they fought against the Holy See, they did the exact same thing even as the enemy was shooting arrows at them. If they had not done so, the wounded soldiers could be revived by divine spells any time and hurt you instead.
‘Take no prisoners’, this was the lesson that the sixth battalion learned from the battle with the Holy See army.