Chapter 57: Exchange of Fire
As the Azure Longsword mercenary group entered the battlefield, Crusader scouts also spotted them.
“Located them?” In the command center, Alfred slammed his fist on the table. “Found that red-haired mage assassin and those two female knights?”
“This time, I will have my revenge!” Alfred recalled the compensation he had paid and the assets he was forced to sell at a low price. His heart ached with regret. “Connect me to the front line command system! I will command personally!”
“But…” The adjutant hesitated. This commander clearly wanted to settle a personal grudge.
“But what? Am I not one of the front line commanders personally appointed by His Majesty?” Alfred said with displeasure.
The adjutant was speechless. Although his motives were clearly questionable, as the Northern Front commander, Alfred’s request to take over command within his authority wasn’t procedurally wrong.
If he refused and disobeyed orders, it would mean he didn’t want to work anymore.
“Yes! Commander Alfred!” The adjutant hurriedly replied.
At the electronic sand table, the distribution of all Crusader squads on the front line was displayed. This was the latest technology provided by the Church: a digital command system that allowed the commander to easily deploy troops and grasp the overall battlefield situation.
According to the last report from the Crusader scouts, the small red dots representing Azure Longsword were located not far north of the Olympia ruins.
However, the scout’s signal had gone silent after the report, obviously having met with misfortune. The Crusaders needed to quickly reconfirm their location.
“Like this! Like this!” Alfred quickly drew routes on the sand table. “And then like this! The twenty front line squads I designated will all advance according to the routes I’ve drawn!”
“Yes!” The adjutant immediately issued the order.
In the distance, Azure Longsword, fighting on the battlefield, quickly sensed something was wrong.
“The enemy encounter rate is rapidly increasing, Captain!” Eleanor pulled her spear from the body of a knight squire and turned around. “We’ve definitely been spotted by scouts!”
“The spirits around me tell me there’s no one watching us nearby.” Nuo beckoned, and transparent spirits floated towards her. “But there are several enemy squads approaching us from afar.”
“My mental vision hasn’t detected any mental bodies nearby either.” Medea said, folding her arms. “But I think I know what’s going on.”
She explained the spiderweb command system she encountered last time, and the girls were shocked.
“What! You’re saying they are mobilizing a large number of enemies to encircle and annihilate us?!” Sidlipha said excitedly. “Are the Crusaders so afraid of our Azure Longsword’s strength?”
This girl’s way of thinking was always so unique… Everyone tacitly ignored her words. Eleanor said worriedly:
“If what Medea said is true, then every time we encounter an enemy, regardless of whether we eliminate them or not, we are actually exposing our location.”
“Hiding nearby won’t work either.” Mia added. “Since they can determine our approximate location, they will definitely search the area. Do we have to split up?”
Splitting up meant dividing the team into multiple smaller groups, hoping to infiltrate the enemy’s encirclement.
“Will splitting up really work?” Eleanor questioned. “You know, the enemy far outnumbers us. Even if we split up as much as possible, for the enemy commander, it’s just changing from one location to confirm to nine.”
“Moreover, a single person’s combat strength is far weaker than a team’s. Unless you avoid all contact with the enemy, the risk of death in battle will greatly increase once you encounter them.”
“Perhaps we can use Furnace Island.” Thira said thoughtfully. “Everyone hides in Furnace Island, leaving only the person with the strongest stealth ability outside, carrying the book and sneaking away.”
“I should have the strongest stealth ability among us.” Mia said, objecting. “However, it’s daytime now, and my Shadow ability can’t be fully utilized. Even I have the risk of being discovered.”
“Then we’re back to the original problem.” Thira sighed. “Fighting alone, once exposed on this kind of battlefield, the risk will greatly increase. It’s better to act as a group, at least we can cover each other.”
“That’s right, if stealth doesn’t work, we’ll just charge through head-on.” Asker said. “There’s no need to worry about being discovered or anything, we just need to maintain a guerrilla state and keep eliminating the small enemy squads we encounter.”
“What if the commander mobilizes a large force…”
“Then he won’t be able to maintain such a dispersed and wide-ranging search net.” Asker said calmly. “Wouldn’t that be the perfect opportunity for us to break out of the encirclement?”
Eleanor paused and pondered.
In other words, fight if they can win, run if they can’t? This tactic seemed fine, but why did it feel so cowardly?
Seeing that she didn’t speak, Asker made the final decision: “Then let’s do that!”
…
A knight squad was approaching the designated location.
Four knights with spears and shields and eight knight squires with rifles cautiously moved through the nearby collapsed ruins, arriving at the coordinates given by their superiors.
“No enemies found.” The knight said into the communicator.
“Search the vicinity.” Another knight gave the order, and the knight squires began to spread out and search.
Suddenly, a gunshot rang out, and a knight squire fell to the ground.
“Sniper!” The knights shouted. All the squires hurriedly hid behind the powered armor knights, and two more squires fell during this process.
Then they saw a knight with a spear and shield slowly walking out from the road ahead, followed by a warrior wielding two battle axes.
“Prepare to charge, I’ll cover you.” Eleanor said to Sidlipha.
“Okay.” Sidlipha nodded.
The knights raised their large shields and defended in place, trying to intercept bullets that might come from any direction. The squires carefully leaned out from behind the large shields and fired frantically at Eleanor.
Bullets clattered against the shield. Eleanor, who was already level 3, could barely hold the shield, blocking the bullets for Sidlipha behind her.
Another long, low whistling sound was particularly distinct amidst the rat-a-tat-tat of the assault rifles. A sniper rifle bullet passed through the gap between two large shields and pierced a knight squire’s neck.
“Hide better!” A knight, splashed with blood, shouted.
Although they were using explosion-proof and bulletproof shields provided by the Church, at least when they fired, they should hide properly behind the shields, right? What’s the point of exposing themselves to the enemy sniper?!
The knight squires were also speechless. They were all hiding properly, it was clearly the enemy sniper’s marksmanship that was too accurate, okay?
But arguing was useless now. The squires could only risk leaning out and firing again, trying to stop Eleanor’s charge. Another sniper bullet hit, exploding the head of a knight squire who had just poked his head out.
Eleanor had already charged to the front. A Crusader knight thrust his spear, which she deflected with her shield.
Sidlipha behind her took the opportunity to jump. The other three Crusader knights thrust their spears upwards, trying to kill the female warrior in mid-air.
Sidlipha swung her axes in mid-air, using Asker’s Shadow Hawk’s Prey, deflecting all the incoming spear points, and then landed among the three knight squires.
The squires had already raised their guns, about to shoot the female warrior at point-blank range, when suddenly a figure rushed out from her shadow.
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