Chương 128: Count Fischer Is Shot

The sudden, violent intervention of Dang-Dang delivered an immense, joyful surprise to Li Qinwu. Towering continuously over the battlefield and fully encased in thick layers of heavy armor, Dang-Dang was an asset the human infantry fundamentally possessed zero capacity to destabilize. Furthermore, his raw psychological deterrence was absolutely staggering; frozen in primal terror, the human regulars jammed into the mouth of the breach in a suffocating knot, desperately trying to scramble back outward.

Seizing this critical operational window, Li Qinwu hurled three successive demolition tubes, shattering the dense concentration of human forces. He then led his core cadres to form a tight defensive plug directly across the opening. Operating in tandem with the titanic Ogre, they successfully sealed the entry point, rendering it impossible for the enemy to push inward. With the structural crisis temporarily stabilized, the human forces began pulling back to aggregate their numbers for a subsequent assault echelon.

Li Qinwu's respiratory system was working at hyper-velocity as he panted heavily. Locking his gaze onto the personnel of the Civil Security Army who had plugged the gap shoulder-to-shoulder with his goblins, he bellowed across the din: "Who carries operational authority here?! Step forward!" Two human company commanders immediately decoupled from the security forces' formation.

"Your Majesty!" The duo dropped cleanly to their knees. Li Qinwu projected his voice with maximum resonance: "The two of you have executed immense merit by leading your units to salvage this municipality. You shall be granted imperial bounties. Speak—what is it you desire?" A wave of ecstatic joy washed over the faces of the two commanders as they shouted with intense excitement: "Your Majesty! We desire to be formally addressed by the title of 'My Lord'!" Li Qinwu let out a flat nod.

So they wish to enter the ranks of the aristocracy; a perfectly straightforward request to satisfy.

"Are you genuinely willing to follow my banner back into the sovereign territories of the Alliance?"

"We are absolutely willing! Your Majesty, both ourselves and every single one of our brothers are entirely willing!"

"Very well. Effective immediately, the two of you are formally promoted to the rank of Battalion Commanders within the Civil Security Army. Following this engagement, you possess the autonomy to expand your forces by an additional ten companies of security troops. Furthermore, every single officer serving directly beneath your command is hereby elevated to the rank of Company Commander! Speak—what are your names?" The duo trembled with sheer ecstasy. We absolute gambled correctly!

Previously, the two of them had been overseeing a routine patrol routine in the immediate sectors with their two companies when the detonation shook the city. Recognizing that the wall had been shattered, they hesitated for a mere handful of seconds before resolutely deciding to commit their assets to support the defense, choosing to gamble everything on the long-term survival package Li Qinwu had promised. And their gamble had paid off flawlessly!

From this day forward, they would be formally invested with the prestigious honorific of "My Lord"!

"Your Majesty!" The two executed a series of firm kowtows against the earth.

"My name is Kexi!"

"My name is Keqi!" Li Qinwu inquired: "Are the two of you biological brothers?" The pair nodded in unison.

"Indeed, Your Majesty. I, Kexi, am the elder brother, and Keqi is my younger sibling." Li Qinwu instantly accessed his Mount & Blade spatial warehouse, directly withdrawing seven or eight complete suits of solid steel plate armor and thudding them onto the ground.

"Locate a suit that aligns with your physical frames and don it immediately. I have firmly recorded your names into my memory; the exact moment we return to the Alliance territories, both you and your subordinate personnel shall receive additional, formal investitures." Turning back toward the goblin cohorts, Li Qinwu roared at the top of his lungs: "Company Commanders! Step forward!" Ten goblin officers immediately marched out of the ranks.

"The ten of you have executed flawless duty. You are all hereby elevated to the rank of Battalion Commanders! Focus entirely on commanding your current personnel for now; the moment we return to our home territories, I shall fully replenish your units to maximum operational strength!" The assembled goblins erupted into an identical wave of ecstatic joy, vociferously chanting that the Boss was infinitely wise.

Given that a massive expansion of the military apparatus was an absolute certainty once they returned to the Alliance, there was zero shortage of available officer commissions. Rather than letting those slots sit vacant, it was vastly superior to deploy them immediately as battlefield promotions to reward meritorious service and hyper-charge organizational morale. This operational maneuver successfully drove the morale of the defenders to an absolute crescendo.

The goblins grew intensely restive, their eyes locking onto the human forces across the gap with zero residual fear—viewing every single human regular merely as a walking pile of military merit waiting to be harvested. A short distance outside the shattered masonry, the retreating human echelons rapidly aggregated their numbers and organized another dense defensive formation.

Count Fischer personally marched to the absolute vanguard of the frontline, his furious roars resonating clearly across the ears of every single soldier:"Charge inward! Charge inward! You must resolutely force your way through that breach! This is our absolute, final operational window! All personnel! The exact second you successfully cross that line, every single man shall be personally awarded precisely fifty silver coins!!"

Fifty silver coins—this was an immense sum capable of completely altering the life trajectory of a common individual. The human regulars aggregated their lines once more, unleashing a collective roar as they threw their weight back toward the open breach. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. Count Fischer was genuinely out of viable alternatives. Damn it all to hell!

A mere moment ago, my vanguard had already successfully established a secure lodgement within the perimeter, only to be forcefully spat back out! Accursed magical beasts... these goddamned goblins! How in the name of the gods can these low-tier monsters be so preposterously difficult to liquidate!! At this current crossroad, he had truly gambled the entirety of his strategic capital on this single push.

If his forces failed to punch through the line during this specific assault wave, he would completely lose the structural capacity to maintain a siege campaign. The primary issue lay in the fact that the baseline morale of his soldiers was on the absolute verge of total dissolution. The successive, unceasing wave of operational frustrations had effectively conditioned his soldiers to accept failure as a baseline reality.

If this wave culminated in yet another defeat, that psychological reality would be permanently locked into stone. I cannot lose! I absolutely cannot afford to lose here!! Count Fischer dragged every single one of his vassal lords and aristocrats directly onto the active frontline, commanding them to vociferously guarantee all manner of financial boons to the rank-and-file.

Motivated by these grand aristocratic proclamations, the soldiers began to throw their lives into the press, forcing their way inward with absolute desperation. By this time, however, Li Qinwu had already secured absolute tactical control over the interior side of the breach. This was especially true for the Ogre, Dang-Dang, who stood with absolute, casual defiance right in the center of the opening.

The adjacent sectors were tightly packed with heavy-armor goblins, while the goblin greenhorns stood in dense support blocks behind them, their long spears leveled forward. The human infantry unleashed a collective battle cry as they smashed into the defensive line, the two opposing army formations colliding in a violent crescendo as they began to furiously jostle and shove against one another.

The human regulars were fully conscious of the reality that this was their absolute last chance to survive; one by one, they began to disregard their personal safety entirely, leaning the full weight of their bodies forward to force the line. Possessing a vastly inferior volume of personnel after all, the goblin line was gradually, methodically forced to concede ground under the sheer mass of the human push.

Even Dang-Dang found himself being steadily driven backward as dozens of long steel spears pinned themselves against his heavy armor plating! Li Qinwu continuously seeded the human columns with demolition tubes. With every cataclysmic blast that detonated, the human advance would stall for a handful of seconds, yet the surviving infantry would instantly trample over the mangled corpses of their kinsmen to continue their forward press, refusing to concede a single breath of operational tempo.

Li Qinwu hurled three additional demolition tubes in rapid succession, causing the stored reserves within his spatial vault to deplete at an alarming velocity. Ultimately, a solitary demolition tube remained lying completely isolated within his warehouse. Li Qinwu hesitated. This is the absolute last one remaining. Yet, the human forces were still advancing with frantic, unyielding momentum; that raw display of suicidal fanatical drive was truly terrifying to behold!

He withdrew the final tube and prepared to strike the flint, when suddenly—a violent, synchronized crescendo of musket fire roared across the theater! A massive swathe of the human formation was instantly vaporized into a fine mist of blood as the front ranks collapsed down into the dirt like harvested wheat. Li Qinwu whipped his gaze toward the upper battlements, spotting two full companies of the Punishment Army's musket corps who had materialized along the high walls at some unknown juncture.

They were currently cycling their weapons with maximum operational velocity, pouring an uninterrupted stream of lead down into the dense mass of the human infantry below! Standing amidst the smoke on the high walls was Gobu-Gong; it was he who had successfully escorted the reinforcing echelons from the South Gate to the sector! Catching sight of Li Qinwu looking up at him from beneath the battlements, Gobu-Gong executed a firm, crisp strike of his fist against his chest armor.

An intense wave of emotional excitement surged through Li Qinwu's chest as he duplicated the salute, striking his own fist against his breastplate before unleashing a roar that completely dominated the entire theater:"Warriors!! Our reinforcements have arrived!! Push these bastards back out of our city, aaah!!!" Far more than merely delivering two hundred musket-armed assets, Gobu-Gong had successfully escorted five hundred heavy-armor goblins and five hundred goblin recruits to the perimeter.

With the immediate integration of these fresh, unspent operational assets, the defensive front firmly stabilized its footing. Immediately following, the primary garrisons safeguarding the West Wall also arrived at ground zero. Four massive Mount Spiders came sprinting along the upper battlements, dragging a specialized unit of ten Incinerator Goblins straight toward the apex of the breach.

The Incinerator Goblins leaped down from their mounts, advancing directly toward the lip of the shattered masonry before furiously hurling a continuous volley of highly volatile fireballs down into the human columns waiting below. The ten Incinerator Goblins unleashed their payloads with maximum projectile velocity. The viscous, sticky fireballs detonated directly amidst the human ranks, splattering liquid fire across every available surface.

Within a matter of breaths, the entire human vanguard was completely enveloped within a bounding sea of flame, their agonizing, horrific shrieks echoing across the valley as the fire consumed them alive! The wall of fire effectively formed an absolute physical barrier, completely decoupling the human vanguard from their secondary support echelons.

The human regulars trapped on the interior side of the flame boundary were instantly stripped of all logistical continuity, and the defenders moved rapidly to systematically liquidate them. Within this localized meat grinder, the Ogre Dang-Dang exerted a terrifying level of utility—every single strike of his massive pickaxe instantly compressed an armored human regular into a flattened iron disk.

Witnessing his grand offensive momentum collapse into ruin yet again, Count Fischer's eyes turned blood-red with pure madness. At this current crossroad, he was fundamentally indistinguishable from a compulsive gambler who had lost his sanity; he simply could not afford to accept a loss.

"Charge through it! Force your way through the flames, aaaah! Do not halt your advance! Every single man, push forward, aaaah!! One hundred! I shall personally award precisely one hundred silver coins, aaaah!!!" He pushed and shoved franticly against the shoulders of his subordinate soldiers, desperately attempting to force them to continue the charge.

Yet, given the terrifying magnitude of the conflagration blazing before them and the horrific spectacles of their kinsmen being roasted alive, not a single soul possessed the courage to take a step forward. Having completely lost his psychological anchor to the sting of defeat, the Count unsheathed the longsword strapped to his waist and began hacking wildly at the surrounding soldiers in an absolute frenzy.

However, because the rank-and-file were fully outfitted in steel armor plating, his frantic slashes failed to claim any lives. The chaotic, screaming spectacle unfolding around Count Fischer's command position instantly arrested the attention of Gobu-Gong, who was actively directing the musket volleys from the high battlements. Gobu-Gong cast his gaze downward and let out a sharp whistle. Ho—look at that magnificent, overly ostentatious suit of armor plating, coupled with that vibrant, pale-green cloak.

What an incredibly flamboyant bastard; that has to be the supreme human chieftain! Gobu-Gong immediately stabilized his massive long-musket against the masonry, locking his sights squarely onto the target. Hmm... five hundred meters. The physical distance is a bit extreme, leaving him without absolute absolute certainty in his accuracy. But to hell with it; let's squeeze off a round and see what happens. BANG—! A deafening report echoed from the battlements.

Count Fischer, who was actively tasting the bitter dregs of total despair, suddenly experienced the absolute vaporization of his left thigh. The bone structures and organic tissue composing his upper leg were instantly exploded into a horrific spray; had it not been for the external structural support provided by his steel greaves and thigh guards, all manner of bodily fluids would have been splattered across several meters. The newly shot Count Fischer was plunged into a state of total, paralyzed bewilderment.

He cast his eyes downward to survey his left leg; a preposterously massive, yawning crater had been punched directly through the steel armor plating, thick crimson blood streaming out of the cavity. He could no longer register a single shred of neurological sensation from his lower limb!

"AAAAAHHH—!" Only at that precise crossroad did the delayed crescendo of absolute neurological agony violently assault Count Fischer's nervous system, causing him to collapse heavily into the dirt as he unleashed a series of shrill, agonizing shrieks. Only then did his surrounding vassal lords and retainers snap out of their paralysis, frantically crowding around his fallen form as they dragged Count Fischer toward the deep rear of the formation in a state of absolute panic.