Chapter 417 Progress in Practice

The artillery battalion where Paul and Pascal were located temporarily ceased fire and gave up the ineffective attempt to break through the enemy's defense line.

At the same time, other mages hidden in the National Guard had already thought of a way to break through:

Without any warning, a giant hand of earth and stone broke out of the ground and slammed hard on the barbed wire and the first trench. The soldiers in the trench were knocked unconscious and buried alive before they realized what was rising in front of them.

After the hand collapsed, it successfully constructed a ramp across the barbed wire. The infantry of the National Guard cheered and rushed towards this defense gap.

"Who is the commander below? Why let the soldiers die?" Paul made another unexpected comment, and his words were fulfilled in an instant-the artillery from the rear of the Imperial Army tilted the shells and hit the gap hard, without even considering their own defenders.

The intention of the bombardment was not just to make the enemy retreat, but the existence of the giant hand of earth and stone indicated that there was a Valois mage nearby, at least a mid-level one. A high-value and highly dangerous target was exposed and must be knocked down.

Then, this area that was initially plowed by the shells became the focus of the mages' mutual attack. Perhaps the artillery fire from the Empire's position did not expect to kill the enemy mages at the beginning, but to defend against the shells, they could always consume the opponent's defense.

Rays, missiles, and strange fluctuations, all kinds of supernatural phenomena were entangled together, and ordinary people consciously stepped back to give up this "ring". In the gap of the defense line, the spellcasters who had been low-key for the whole game exposed their positions to each other, turning the confrontation into a contest between the Imperial Magic Academy and the Starry Tower in an instant.

In the battle, the emphasis of the teaching of both sides was naturally reflected:

From the Empire side, low-level evocation magic poured out, direct and violent. The mages of the Starry Tower, like other soldiers of the National Guard, were seriously lacking in military education before the war, but their spell list was more extensive. Although they lacked coordination for a while, they played various unexpected effects.

The empire's accompanying mages found that they could never hit the opponent, as if there was an invisible curtain between them, which deflected their vision. In addition, compared with the straightforward and easy-to-understand fire, electricity, and ice bombs, the Valois mages "sent" incomprehensible silver stars and materialized runes. Its fatal effect will only appear when it hits, which brings a little surprise to the empire's mages.

However, the empire's accompanying mages gradually gained the upper hand. Most of them were graduates of the Royal Academy and were required to abandon chanting from the beginning. Only a few spellcasters in the Valois army could cast spells silently, and many people still had to mutter. Although both sides had to cooperate with gestures and casting materials, it was this tiny gap that accumulated, allowing the empire's firepower to gradually suppress the kingdom's side.

At the same time, chanting also lost its concealment, and the original tradition was magnified into a fatal problem on the battlefield.

In the end, they were all low-level spellcasters. The "cannon fodder" from the Royal Magic Academy had a numerical advantage over the Valois mages and apprentices who originally came from the "research institute".

On the Empire side, a wizard climbed out of the trench. He was Captain Schmidt, who had taken down the Moncado Fortress with Richard. His subordinates who had no spellcasting ability all stayed away from the gap where magic was flying, giving Schmidt and other Empire wizards room to move around.

The low-level wizard wiped off the mud on his face, revealing the scar on his left side again. The scar began to swell with blood, becoming swollen and pink, which also meant that he was preparing magic.

A fireball flew in front of him and Schmidt shot out the [Force Field Wave]. Unexpectedly, the fireball collapsed and reorganized into a human shape after hitting it. A Valois wizard who had lost his hat staggered and fell in front of the trench. The scattered sparks turned into flying light spots, but there was no heat, and there was no steam from raindrops.

Schmidt was shocked at the change, and then guessed that the "fireball" he had seen before was an illusion - for missiles like this, most wizards would choose to dodge, so disguising himself as a fireball and launching himself would instantly cross the defense line.

He had some quick wit, but didn't he consider that the fireball would be intercepted? Schmidt found it difficult to evaluate this reckless spellcaster, and drew out the short gun at his waist to harvest prisoners.

The Valois wizard, who was stunned by the [Force Field Wave], moved again. He was still crawling in the mud, raised his head and looked at Schmidt, biting an enchanted dagger in his mouth. Its blade was not metal, but irregular crystal, a reproduction of stone tools.

Damn, it can't hit at the critical moment! Schmidt tapped the trigger several times, but there was no response. There was a barbed wire fence around him. He didn't need gestures. There was only one spell that could be cast the fastest.

Schmidt no longer hesitated. He didn't want to personally verify what effect the crystal dagger had, so he stepped forward and grabbed the enemy. What a slender arm. As a soldier, he has strong arms, and the other party looks like a student regardless of age and physique.

However, this enemy was looking at him viciously, and the dagger was still shining with a dangerous light, about to be activated.

Schmidt lifted up the enemy mage like a chicken. At that moment, the two of them became ethereal at the same time. After the captain dragged the mage into the wire mesh, the etherealization was lifted. There was another scream on the battlefield, and the dagger lost its luster and fell into the mud.

Schmidt wanted to pick up the dagger, but there was a sudden explosion behind him, and the air wave also hit him on the wire mesh.

Just before the Valois mages were about to collapse, the second round of reloading of the artillery battalion was completed, and the artillery fired decisively.

After the first attempt to calibrate the shooting to bombard the barbed wire defense line, the second round of shells tried to avoid hurting their own people as much as possible, and more shells fell on the enemy. The empire's accompanying wizards suffered a double blow of kinetic energy and thermal energy that was no less powerful than their own magic, and lost the remaining strength to pursue the enemy wizards.

"Well, if we can't reach the cannon on the opposite side, can we still not hit the front line?" After confirming the battle situation, Paul patted the gun barrel that was still warm and cheered.

So far, the wizards on both sides have won and lost. Just like the sound of the gong to retreat, the war drums on both sides sounded, and the spellcasters retreated back to the crowd or trenches, and the artillery fire of both the empire and the kingdom ended.

The war drums were not actually a signal for the spellcasters to retreat, but an instruction for ordinary soldiers to charge. In the gap, the blue, white and red stream of people braved the hail of bullets and moved forward fearlessly again, shouting the slogan of defending Valois and rushing into the first trench.

Drouot and Paul, who were looking from a high point, both found the problem: the battle was too wide!

Even though there were many National Guard soldiers rushing to the first trench, the trench was only so wide, and the structure of the trench was a mesh, so the vertically connected trenches could not be connected all the way to the end, but were staggered.

In other words, if the National Guard wanted to break through the five lines of defense, they had to take down multiple intersections. These key points gave the defenders space to set up their guns, and also limited the number of attackers - the best situation in the trench was two-on-two, unless the Kingdom had some weapons that would give the single soldier an overwhelming advantage in firepower.

The wizard who had re-infiltrated the ordinary people tried to open up the situation again, but just like at the beginning, the spellcasters on both sides were entangled with each other, and whoever cast a spell would be the first to focus on him. Therefore, even if the trench was on fire, billowing poisonous smoke, and there were attempts to destroy the trench structure, it looked lively, but the decision on the battlefield still fell on the ordinary soldiers fighting with guns and knives.

On the one hand, these mages kept probing and hiding among ordinary people, and lacked effective coordination, which made them lose the decisive role. On the other hand, at this time, the spellcasters on the front line were mainly low-level and apprentices, and the high-end combat power was kept by the generals of the two armies to guard against sneak attacks from the high-end combat power of the opposite side.

To put it bluntly, the situation on the front line was a fight between noobs. The magic-banning devices and giant constructs that appeared in the last battle were tacitly not taken out, and they should have been returned to the factory for improvement.

The only most effective thing was that the imperial army mages fired a few [Lightning Beams] at the barbed wire. The current did not need to break through the air, but ran happily along the barbed wire, successfully preventing the National Guard from attacking from the defense line outside the gap.

Paul's eyes were almost glued to the telescope, and he recorded the whole process firmly in his mind.