Book 4: Chapter 159: The Offensive and Defensive Battle of the Sarnia Duchy’s Capital

The southern region of the human’s Coristel Continent, the Gabriel Empire, also known as the nation of swordsmen, Sarnia Duchy’s “fake capital”—Sarni City.

A thunderous sound of a cannon going off rang throughout the city, breaking the peaceful silence of the night. The cannons on the city walls seemed to have the ability to see and had fired directly into the midst of the oncoming Beastmen troops with laser accuracy. Every time the cannons were fired, there was bloodshed left in their wake.

This attack on Sarni City was led by the oldest son of the head Wolfman, Harrington. With nearly one hundred and thirty thousand wolfmen warriors, they were prepared to infiltrate and attack the Sarnia Duchy late at night. After knowing that the capital of the Sarnia Duchy, Sarni City, was built right at the edge of the border, Harrington was ecstatic. It fully intended to take over the Sarnia Duchy in one fell swoop.

However, in reality, it was not that easy. Before they could establish a stronghold, the Wolfmen had been suppressed by the fire that had been sent their way by the Sarnian guards. They had nowhere to seek cover on the flatlands, and the Wolfmen quickly became live targets. Before they could react, many of the Wolf Knights had been killed by the explosions.

“Where are the catapults? What in the world is the siege equipment team doing? I order you all to destroy the city walls as quickly as possible…”

Harrington turned to look at the catapult team, who was still scrambling to assemble the larger sized equipment. An ear-piercing boom, which came from super large cannons being fired, rang from the artillery buildings along the city walls.

The power and range of the super large cannons far surpassed the regular ones. Following a few sharp booms, shots were fired from the gun turrets and were aimed directly at the Beastmen army’s catapults. The pillar of fire that came out of the super large cannons could be seen even from a distance away.

Before the Wolfmen’s catapult team could initiate their attack, they were buried by the Sarnian guard’s fire. Even though the cannons’ range was not as extensive as the catapults, the limit of these super cannons was only a few meters short. Following the ghosts’ instructions, the super cannons initiated their attack on the catapults, and the catapult camp was razed to the ground.

“Everyone, retreat… We shall wait for the main army to arrive before we make our next move.”

Harrington, the commander in chief of the Wolfmen army, had no choice but to give the retreat order. That night, the Sarnian guards used their artillery advantage to take down the advancing Wolfmen army. More than three thousand troops from the wolfmen strike team were killed. Overnight, the Sarnia Duchy had become the first among the human empires and nations that managed to push back the menacing the Beastmen army. As the sun rose the next day, the perimeter of Sarni City was littered with the dismembered bodies of the Wolfmen army.

Bella, the actual conqueror of the Sarnia Duchy, only emerged from her bed the next morning. Lounging on the bed with her was President Ivy, who had been taken by Bella the night before, as well as President Britney and Swordswoman Elena. Princess Pamela, who had arrived in the middle of the night with crucial military intelligence, was in bed with Bella too.

However, among the throes of ecstasy, Bella did not give a hoot about military intelligence. Instead, she pinned Pamela on the bed, tore her clothes off, and began to shower her with kisses all over her body. Pamela knew that it was useless to resist and welcomed Bella’s advances with open arms. She entirely gave in to Bella’s affections without even realizing that there other companions on the bed.

The next morning, Pamela felt a little embarrassed when she saw who the other girls were. After all, she was the princess of the Manasvir Empire. It would be disastrous if her secret relationship were to be exposed.

“Pamela, relax. You can stay here without worries! Don’t be afraid; you ladies are all my… friends! Also, last night, you were…”

“Bella, what kind of a friend are you? Initially, I really treated you as a friend. However, you…”

Bella held on to Pamela, who was trying to get up, forcing her to continue lying down on the bed. Since Lisha and Kriss had managed to rush over to the city walls to oversee the battle, not long after it began, Bella did not bother to head there as well. Anyway, Noreya, Elaine, and Ariel would be arriving from the Darkness Sacred Region sometime that day.

Bella had no choice but to take a rain check on “making merry” with President Britney and the other girls. She had not had a chance to truly “sleep” with Ariel and the others yet. However, once Bella thoroughly conquered them, it would make things so much easier.

“Pamela, be good and stay here. You will not go anywhere else, do you understand?”

“Yes, I understand, you big bully. You’ve already taken… my clothes and hid them from me. Where else can I go? How annoying.”

In the Lords’ Chamber of Deliberation of the Sarnia Duchy’s “fake capital”, Sarni City, Bella met the Blood Demon King Eleanor who had taken advantage of the chaos the night before and ran away.

Eleanor looked at Bella—wide-eyed and innocent. She refused to bring up the matter of her running away the previous night. The reason why she did not join in the “wild revelry” was not that she did not want to; Rather, since the Lord-in-Command was otherwise engaged, the City Lord should be around during the battle. If not, it would be awful for the troops’ morale.

Noreya, Ariel, and Elaine had already arrived and were waiting for Bella. With the addition of Kriss and Lisha, all of Bella’s dorm mates had finally gathered together.

It was likely that they had spoken with the Blood Demon King Eleanor. When Bella walked into the room, the girls were sitting around her and seemed to be engaging in some intimate girl talk as though they were close friends. Thinking of their current status as Demon Kings and warriors, Bella was rather moved by how the universe worked in the most unexpected ways.

“Bella, I think that we might be in a bit of trouble this time. Other than your Sarnia Duchy, the other Duchies along the border have already been razed to the ground by the Beastmen. Even the Grande Duchy nearby has already fallen.”

“Bella, do you want to activate the army from the Darkness Sacred Region? This time, there are over a million Beastmen troops. It’s only a matter of time before they’ll surround this city.”

According to the information that Ariel and the others had gathered from outside the city, the various duchies along the human borders had been beaten down by the Beastmen army overnight. No one knew where the beastmen had managed to obtain those large-scale siege equipment. The other duchies had no way to defend their territory against those catapults.

The beastmen were caught by surprise when the Sarnia Duchy had unleashed a new type of cannon on them. Those new cannons were different from the magic-guided cannons that the human empires had used before. As it required a demonic being’s demonic core as the activating ingredient for those cannons, it was extremely costly even to fire a single shot. Therefore, human empires would never use this particular trump card unless absolutely necessary.

These cannons, however, did not have this issue at all. Since the human empires in this Other World had not invented cannons yet, the cost to manufacture and purchase cannonballs were peanuts compared to the magic-guided cannons. A single projectile was equivalent to the expense of more than a hundred cannonballs.

The Grande Duchy next to Bella’s Sarnia Duchy had already fallen in battle. Under the cover of his subordinates who protected Duke Brandon with their lives, he managed to escape the carnage successfully and had made his way back to the Gabriel Empire. The Beastmen army was now assembling and making their way towards the Sarnia Duchy, signaling the fact that an impending battle was soon upon them.

“They will never be able to take this place down. I fully intend to bring the entire Beastmen army down right here. Once they tire themselves out, we will retaliate with our army in full force.”

Bella’s final decision was to defend Sarni City to death and wait for their opportunity to fight back against the Beastmen army. Lisha and the others supported her and were all extremely confident in fighting this battle.

At noon, the Sarnian guards initiated another round of attacks using their cannons. Fortunately, the demonic beings in the sky had already gotten their instructions to get into formation in time.

Before the Beastmen army could even approach the vicinity of Sarni Duchy, they were attacked by cannon fire. Many of them died with their bodies contorted in strange positions as they had been blown up right on the path.

Bella was dressed in a suit of silver knights’ armor and had a golden sword attached at her hip, representing her status as a grand duchess. Her arms were crossed in front of her chest, and she took an awe-inspiring stance on top of the outer walls.

Lisha was standing right beside Bella. As a Dragon Knight, her presence would cause her opponents to feel extremely threatened. In a defensive battle to protect their territory, a flying dragon steed would not be able to unleash its full potential, and thus, Bella did not include the Golden Dragon Princess Laceman this time.

The Blood Demon King Eleanor and the assassin Noreya were stationed along the inner walls while Kriss, Ariel, and Elaine stood guard at the intermediary wall.

To maintain secrecy, Noreya, Elaine, and Ariel had put on silver masks to hide their lovely faces, which were beautiful enough to overthrow an empire. They chose to reveal their most genuine faces only to those whom they trusted.

At the sight of the girls standing their ground, the guards on the city walls were filled with awe and respect as they were all incredibly composed, showing no hints of nervousness at all. It did not seem like these girls were newbies on a battlefield.

The Beastmen army that was about to invade the southern region of the Gabriel Empire consisted of more than a million troops, which had been split into four different battalions. The first to advance towards the Sarnia Duchy was the cavalry of about two hundred and fifty thousand that mostly consisted of Wolfmen.

The commander-in-chief of the Beastmen battalion, Harrington, approached the artillery-heavy Sarnia Duchy with trepidation in his heart. He had mistaken the cannons that the Sarnia Duchy was using for fire type magic-guided cannons.

Hundreds of what seemed to be magic guided cannons were regularly being fired at them. This financial capability was far beyond what the Manasvir Empire could ever afford, let alone a small nation like the Sarni Duchy. It must be noted that the Manasvir Empire was the richest of all human empires.

“Men, request for backup. Let’s just hope that the Sarnia Duchy is as rich as what had been reported to us. I heard that this small nation is many times richer than the Grande Duchy.”

Bella, who was on top of the outer walls and overseeing the battle, realized something amiss. She observed that when the cannonballs hit the area above their target, it had all been blocked by a dark black magical barrier. This time, none of the Wolf Riders had been harmed by the attack. Under the protection of this magical defense barrier, more than ten thousand wolf rider troops began their assault on Sarni City’s walls.

There were many black-clad individuals who accompanied the Wolfmen strike team in their attack. They must have been the ones who were behind this hindrance of a dark magical barrier.

“The Beastmen know magic? This situation… I see. I finally understand how did that experienced old fox, Brandon, managed to lose the battle.”

“Older Sister, be careful!”

Taking advantage of Bella’s surprise, a few Lightning Chains—a highly aggressive lightning type tool—shot towards her from within the Beastmen army with astonishing accuracy.

In a flash, Lisha was in front of Bella. She grabbed onto a large chunk of the Lightning Chain with both hands and gave it a sharp tug. Immediately, the mysterious person, on the other end, was pulled right on top of the wall.

Almost like playing shot-put, Lisha swung the mysterious person all the way onto the intermediary wall and began a special “aerial relay” with the Swordswoman Kriss. She wielded her twin swords with ease and slashed them a dozen times in the air. In an instant, that mysterious person was sliced into a dozen pieces and tumbled to the ground.

The entire process barely even took a minute. The level of chemistry between them was absolutely breathtaking. When Bella realized what was going on, she reached out and gently caressed Lisha’s head, expressing her gratitude and affirmation. She turned to look at the pile of body parts on the ground with a solemn expression.

“Men, burn these things… quickly!”

Even though the soldiers had no idea why this beautiful maiden of a grand duchess would suddenly act out of character and lose her composure, they still obeyed her orders and set the bodies on fire. However, upon being set alight, those dismembered body parts seemed to be alive and twitched violently before finally falling still.

After the body parts had been destroyed by the flames, they did not turn into ashes or carbide at all. Instead, they dissolved into a strange black liquid, which gave off an awful smell. Many of the soldiers who had carried out the orders were scared stiff by what they had seen. A few of them were so disgusted at the sight that they threw up on the spot.

As expected, those were Dark Humans. These were the same group of people who had tried to create trouble by abducting Princess Pamela. Fortunately, Bella had managed to stop them in time. She could never understand what went on in the minds of the rich. Why would they even sponsor a magical tool as valuable as the Lightning Chains? A single chain could cost upwards of fifty gold coins.

The situation on the battlefield began to turn against the Sarnian guards. If the opponents had mages on their side, it would spell trouble for the Sarnia Duchy. The power of the cannons would be quickly diminished. The worst thing was that the opponent’s magical barrier had already managed to withstand the shots that were being fired from the super large cannons.

Before long, the beastmen catapult team managed to set up camp and began to hurl large boulders towards the city walls. As the rocks crashed into the walls surrounding Sarni City, it was quickly followed by all sorts of fire, thunder, and wind type magical attacks.

The entire scene quickly descended into chaos. However, in the face of such terrifying attacks, the troops from the Sarnia Duchy remained unfazed. This was the final place that genuinely belonged to them; it was home, and they would protect it no matter what. As they were refugees from other duchies who had been chased out of their homes, they had bet everything on this final place.

None of the troops abandoned their posts as they had every intention of fighting to the death. Ariel’s defensive magic was activated in the nick of time and had shielded the troops from the oncoming onslaught of boulders and magical attacks.

Puppet Master Elaine had also summoned dozens of puppet necromancers to support Ariel in her magical defensive measures and helped to block the first wave of attacks.

Making full use of the window between attacks, more puppet necromancers were summoned to the battle. This batch consisting of high-level puppets were created from corpses. When they were alive, they had been mages. Even though such creatures were incapable of any form of powerful offensive magic, they still remained useful in mid-level magic, such as creating a defensive barrier.

Thousands of magical puppets that were under Elaine’s control had quickly been evenly spread out amongst the three city walls. Working together with Ariel, they launched a five to six layer magical defensive barrier and covered the area above Sarni City. The Beastmen army’s catapult strike team and their magical support attacks were now being blocked by the magical barrier. Since they were unable to kill or harm any of the Sarnian guards, the battle situation quickly evened out.

Many of the Beastmen Wolf Riders began an attempt to cross the two protective moats around Sarni City forcibly. The water within the moats had been frozen by the Dark Mages using their ice-type magic. The Wolfmen archers who were among the Wolf Riders whipped out their strong bows and began to shoot arrows towards the outer city walls.

The current attacks by the Beastmen had defied all expectations and were nothing like the information that Bella had gathered before. The strong bows were much more complicated to manufacture than a regular bow. The range and power of the arrows being shot were definitely sufficient to shoot down any of the guards on the wall. Since the cannons were designed to be in fixed positions, they could not be moved easily. This meant that the cannons were not angled to reach the Beastmen army that was right at the foot of the city walls.

In the blink of an eye, the outer wall’s point of defense that Bella and Lisha were in charge of was suppressed by the sheer number of Beastmen arrows that were raining down on them. Countless Wolfmen were already setting up their cloud ladders in preparation to ascend the wall and begin their attack. Once they made it onto the outer walls, there was no way that the guards on the intermediary and inner walls could be sent as a backup as the allies had to be taken into consideration as well.

“The external support and equipment that these Beastmen have are way too ridiculous. Men, bring up the firearms. I refuse to believe that the Beastmen would be wealthy enough to be able to supply heavy armor to every single soldier. I will admit defeat if I do not manage to pierce their defenses.”

A large group of civilian soldiers quickly appeared on both ends of the city wall, carrying firearms. Bella was inspired by the design of the early guns on Earth and had recreated it over here. There were two types of firearms: the arquebus and the copper muskets. Even though both guns could only fire a single shot at a time, the arquebus was a long-range weapon while the copper musket made up for its shorter range with power. Since the distance was a little short for the arquebus, the difference in power was similar to a rifle and a shotgun.

The soldiers guarding the intermediary wall used the arquebus while the copper muskets were being primarily used by the guards on the outer walls. Although these soldiers were assembled at the last minute and did not have any training, the firearms were much more comfortable to pick up instinctively, compared to a set of bow and arrows. Even a child would be able to get at least one headshot out of more than one hundred thousand troops.

A nearby guard handed Bella an intricately made handheld copper musket, which looked similar to the ones that pirate captains used in old movies. Using the space between the gaps on the city walls as cover, Bella reached out with her firearm and took out a Wolf Rider in the distance with a single shot.

The unfortunate Wolf Rider died immediately from a gunshot wound to the chest. One could say that it had died honorably as the first-ever soldier in this Other World to die at the hands of a new type of firearm. Following Bella’s lead, the other guards on the wall began to fire at their opponents. Staring down the pitch-dark barrels of the Sarnian guards’ guns, the Wolf Riders were at a complete loss.

Bang! Bang! Bang! The sounds of gunfire spread throughout the battlefield, and countless “fire serpents” shot out from both the outer and intermediary walls, forcing the Wolfmen archers to retreat. As the Wolfmen’s protective equipment were all made from animal skins, it was practically useless against the firearm attacks. Within moments, thousands of Wolf Riders were shot to death.

The Dark Mages working together with the Beastmen were engaged with Sarni City’s resident mage, Ariel, in a battle of magic. Since the boundaries of their defensive barrier could only reach the outer moat, there was nothing their comrades could do for those Wolf Knights that were attempting to cross the moats. They could only watch helplessly as the Wolf Knights were reduced to cannon fodder and were destroyed by the firearms.

The Wolf Knights that were crossing the ice-cold moats were killed immediately under gunfire. Countless Wolfmen archers that came along were also shot by the firearms without mercy. Behind each soldier carrying a gun, there were a few ghosts that were replenishing the gunpowder with every shot.

Regardless of which type of firearm that the gunmen were holding, each of them would have three guns, ready to be used. Without skipping a beat, after each shot, the ghosts behind them would immediately hand them a freshly reloaded gun and replenish the gunpowder in the previous one. The entire process moved seamlessly like gears in a machine.

Even though the power of the firearms was not reduced in the Other World, it could only be used to take advantage of those that only made use of animal skins as defense equipment. For instance, the suits of armor that the human knights used, like high-level knights, Holy Knights, and even Dragon Knights, could not be penetrated by the firearms. They were especially useless against Dragon Knights, even super cannons were unable to cause significant damage to their defensive armor.

Despite the fact that the Mechanical Creator Andrea could replicate any modern guns from Earth, for now, Bella did not intend to replicate and manufacture weapons and machinery that were more sophisticated. If those guns were too powerful, the civilian soldiers would not be able to handle it. This would lead to far too many uncertain variables, and Bella was not willing to take the risk.

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