When the Saintess Arrives, No King Exist-Chapter 843 - 794: Trenches and Barriers beneath Xia Lvcheng

What does it feel like to stab someone to death?

When the tip of the spear pierces through the gap in the armor, the first sensation in the hand is a soft yet firm resistance.

As the short spear continues to push in, the resistance grows greater and greater, until at one moment, the force on the shaft of the spear suddenly diminishes.

A warm feeling inexplicably spreads across the face and body, while the scent of rust and grease wafts to the nose.

It's a sensation that's hard to experience when stabbing wooden dummies on the training field.

If someone is an experienced soldier, they should swiftly retract the spear at this moment to prevent it from being inserted too deeply and becoming stuck.

Just like Kaler right now.

Unlike the newly recruited militia, who frantically pull back with great force,

he simply holds the end of the short spear, giving it a gentle shake. Without needing to draw back the shaft with a wide motion, the Leia soldier in front of him falls back.

The soldier's mouth opens and closes like a goldfish, seemingly cursing something, but he cannot hear it.

During this time, he had lost count of how many people he had stabbed to death or wounded, until his clumsy stabbing became as smooth as flowing water.

The heavy body raised a splash of snow and water, and the bright red blood was strikingly dazzling against the snow piles with darkened edges.

Beneath the eight-faced peaked helmet, a face of despair and ferocity seemed to be weeping.

Before his tears could fall, a crossbow arrow as long as a forearm descended from the sky, pinning his head heavily to the ground.

At that moment, all the chaotic sounds returned to Kaler's world.

Screams, footsteps, cannon fire, gasps, the collision of chainmail, making a clattering crisp sound.

"They're coming from the east again, fill the gap!"

"Save me, someone save me!"

"Kaler, there's a breach over there, the militia has been slaughtered and routed."

After assisting with a kill, Kaler didn't even have time to rest before striding toward the other side.

Three or four soldiers from his team followed him as Kaler passed through the battling crowds.

Nearly a hundred soldiers stood on either side of the barricade, clashing military sabers and shortswords, dozens of long spears stabbing through the grated fences.

Every time he looked up, he could see a soldier falling, then being dragged away by comrades.

Above and ahead came the twanging of bowstrings, feathered arrows tearing through the air, and there was always someone clutching their wound, wailing in agony.

The fireball crossbows, deemed obsolete by Horn, appeared on the outer walls of Xia Lvcheng, occasionally dropping a dozen or so toxic smoke bombs into the trenches.

In less than half a minute, pale-faced Leia soldiers could be seen climbing out of the trenches, exposing themselves to arrows and lead bullets.

"The militia is routed! The Leia people have climbed over! Kaler!" Grabbing a Leia soldier's spear shaft with one hand and thrusting his short spear with the other, Old Laver still needed to loudly remind Kaler.

Old Laver's roar seemed to ring in Kaler's ear.

"I'm hurrying, I'm coming! I... damn it!" Throwing away the cumbersome short spear, Kaler, who was usually soft-spoken, now became as rough as Old Laver.

By the time he rushed to the breach, three to five Leia soldiers were climbing over the wall and jumping down.

Kaler kicked the unsteady Leia soldier in the back so that the soldier fell forward as Kaler rammed his military saber into the back of the Leia soldier's neck.

A gust of wind blew from behind, and Kaler quickly turned his head to dodge, a page hammer scraping past his sallet helmet.

Turning around, Kaler, trained by his father from a young age, directly lunged into the arms of that Leia soldier.

The iron helmet butted against the Leia soldier's chest, and the two tangled and rolled to the ground.

"Die, die!"

The soldier with the page hammer roared and bit Kaler's arm.

Kaler endured the pain, drew a dagger from his waist, and stabbed it into the Leia soldier's neck.

Within two seconds, he felt the teeth biting his arm release.

A subordinate grabbed his hand, pulling him up.

Kaler then noticed that the other two Leia soldiers, not wielding long weapons, were quickly slain by the Thousand River Valley soldiers holding long spears.

To think they wanted to break through spears with just two against four, it's almost comical.

The other Leia soldiers heading over, seeing this scene, had no choice but to retreat to their positions.

With hands on his knees, Kaler felt like his lungs were burning like a furnace.

Every breath of cold air into his throat felt like swallowing a cold dagger, stoking the dying embers of that furnace.

While breathing to regain his strength, Kaler lifted his head to gaze across the entire battle line.

Through the barricades and spiked stakes in front of him, about twenty to thirty meters away, earthen walls erected by wicker baskets stood like dams blocking his view.

Behind the earthen walls lay trenches winding like serpents and spreading like a spider's web.

In the twenty to thirty meters of flat ground between the trenches and barricades, it was the bloodiest killing field.

Groups of Leia soldiers, clad in variously colored robes, climbed over the trenches in droves.

With eight-sided helmets or disc helmets on their heads, they wielded short spears and longswords, charging at Kaler and the others at the barricades and breastworks.

They instinctively learned to divide into small teams, spreading out their charge to avoid the rows of flying lead and crossbow arrows from the walls.

But in the face of the rain-like arrows and a line of rotating gunners, they still constantly fell with wails.

Only small groups of soldiers could reach the barricades or breastworks edge, attempting to stab inward with short spears or shortswords.

This assault had lasted ten days, from January 5th to now.

Earlier, they did indeed suffer attacks from Leia Soldiers, but mostly only small groups of Knights could maintain morale under bombardment, Holy Wind, and arrows.

The soldiers wanted to survive, while the Master Knight charged; this naturally wasn't feasible, so the Knights would go on strike. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Then there would be at least a three to five-day truce, and then the process would repeat.

Attack one day, rest for three to five days.

Currently, what was coming through the trenches were large numbers of ordinary Leia Soldiers, and they came every day.

Through the trenches, they could maintain morale under bombardment, at least advancing to within thirty to fifty meters of the city walls.

This led to the Leia people's most familiar, most traditional, localized single combat.

The advantage of the Leia people's manpower gradually became apparent, and if it weren't for the lead and Spring Cannon, the breastworks and barricades would likely have changed hands long ago.

"Kaler!" Captain Bai shouted his name, "Get to the breastwork, a few Holy Gunmen have fainted from exhaustion of Holy Power, you take a bow and hold for a few minutes!"

"Yes!"

......

The golden-red sun shone on the dazzling snow, blood and sweat had turned the original snow into black slush.

On both sides, the soldiers tacitly gathered the bodies of comrades within ten meters of the barricades/trenches, maintaining a ten-meter buffer zone.

As for the wounded in the middle, they either struggled to crawl back on their own, or waited to be incinerated every few days.

The wooden spikes of the iron fence line glowed dark red in the sunset, seventeen bodies hung like ragdolls on the barbs.

Sitting by the five-meter wide moat, Kaler washed the dried blood from his face and hands.

A strong smell of herbs and garlic emanated from the field hospital on the other side of the wooden bridge.

Feeling someone kick him, Kaler looked up to see it was Old Laver.

Old Laver handed a wine flask to Kaler, "Want a sip?"

Kaler picked up the wine flask, and took a big gulp calmly.

He was used to the feeling of alcohol.

Sitting next to Kaler, Old Laver also washed his face and hands with the icy river water until they were red.

Wiping his face with a handkerchief, Old Laver said to the water, "Do you feel it's getting harder to deal with the enemy?"

Kaler did not speak.

"What? Homesick?"

"A little."

"Isn't Hotam County your hometown?"

Kaler shook his head, looking around, feeling this was a strange place.

The houses were flattened, the fields set ablaze, crows pecked at rotting corpses on the ground.

"I miss home too." Old Laver raised his head, looking at the half-lit starry sky, "I miss my son, Little Laver, who is three or four years younger than you, but he should call you uncle.

I also miss my wife, my cows, my shabby house, my old brothers...

But that's war, it never ends.

The Masters tell us to kill, and we just kill, what's the point of thinking so much?"

"Are we fighting this war for the Masters?" Kaler looked at the blood under his nails that wouldn't wash away.

"What else?" Old Laver patted Kaler's shoulder, "It's you educated folks who have such struggles, I don't know a word, so I think less."

"You really should learn to read."

"Learn to read? Me, a boar wearing glasses, pretending to be a scholar? No thanks." Old Laver touched his belly ruefully, only occasionally brushing the ring hanging on his neck, showing a trace of tenderness in his otherwise rough eyes.

Kaler wanted to say more, but overheard a group of soldiers talking nearby.

"Have you noticed? It's getting harder for us to defend."

"The inner city hasn't sent any reinforcements since the New Year, they say hundreds of Mountain Knights caught the plague."

"Those damned Leia people, why don't they just attack head-on?"

"When will the Saint's Grandson's reinforcements arrive?"

Old Laver and Kaler's brief moment of relief vanished.

Indeed, there was plague in the city, and apart from timely food and weapon supplies, soldiers were no longer allowed in or out.

Until now, they still didn't know the situation inside the city.

If the plague truly spread, not only Xia Lvcheng, but even within twenty miles around it would be unsafe.

Normally, a Monk of blessing level should be able to conduct large-scale blessings to dispel the plague.

But the problem was, up until now on the land of the Thousand River Valley, there was no Monk of that level.

"Kaler? Kaler?! Where the heck have you gone?" Captain Bai spun around to face Kaler, "Are you a native of Hotam County?"

"Yes."

"Can you ride?"

Kaler immediately stood up, "Yes."

"Come, I have a task for you."