-Aaaagh!!!
Every time an Anti-Air Gun spewed fire, one Wyvern Knight crashed.
The gunners seated on the Anti-Air Gun mounts, the loaders hastily reloading shells, and the fire-control officer pointing at targets with a baton were all working frantically at their tasks.
Amid that, there were people who alone were preparing for combat.
They were the gunners manning the 20mm Autocannons.
The gunners momentarily forgot their duties and stared at the Anti-Air Gun tracers blooming in the sky.
"The Wyverns..."
"What am I looking at right now?"
A thousand years ago, the Empire's Founding Emperor ended the Age of Myth and established a vast nation that unified the continent.
Where five great powers gathered and became one nation, the Founding Emperor declared that the age of humanity had arrived.
However, even afterward, the remnants of the Age of Myth did not easily disappear.
With humanity's poor technology, they could not catch up to the mystery called magic.
Thus, the last remnant of the Age of Myth that remained for over a thousand years was the Wyvern.
The only aerial transport permitted to humanity, which could not fly.
Before the rulers of the sky, human infantry were still powerless.
But now, that was no longer true.
Grand Duke Kyle Leopold. And the weapons created by the advanced technology of the South were literally grinding the Wyverns away.
"Fire!"
Doo-doo-doo-doom-!
The continuous roar of the Anti-Air Guns filled the plain.
The 76mm Shells flying as they clawed through the sky spread into the air, putting a period at the final chapter of the Age of Myth.
From the knights of the Wyverns torn apart and crashing miserably, fear could no longer be felt.
A thousand years since the Founding Emperor established the Empire.
At last, it was the moment humanity overcame its fear of creatures of the sky.
"Enemy fliers distance 1500! What are you doing, you bastards!"
"Ah, I will return fire immediately!"
Raising his gaze, he saw several brilliantly shining knights. They were the ones who had succeeded in forcing their way through the pouring Anti-Air Gun barrage.
The autocannon gunners pulled the trigger toward the foes who had grown close before they knew it.
Tuka-gagagak-!
The autocannons, boasting a rate of fire of hundreds of rounds per minute, began spewing fire all at once.
Before that overwhelming network of fire, even a knight who had pushed Aura to its limit could do nothing.
"Kuaaagh!?"
One unlucky knight was caught in the crossfire from three quadruple autocannons, a total of twelve muzzles.
Humans and Wyverns were shredded in one second. The fallen knight's form was so mangled it was impossible to recognize.
The other knights were no different.
No matter how great Aura was, they could not block hundreds of bullets flying faster than sound with their bare bodies.
Thus, the only one who barely reached 500 meters from the Anti-Air Position was Eisen, commander of the 12th Knight Order.
-Kiiieee!!!
With a mournful scream, the Wyvern that had reached its limit crashed, and the staggering Eisen painfully raised himself.
What entered his sight were dozens of gun muzzles aimed at him.
There was no honorable death to be given to him, who had lived a life unbecoming of a knight.
"Ah..."
The moment he let out his last breath, five Anti-Air Guns erased Eisen's body without a trace.
The time it took for the Western elite Knight Order to be annihilated before the Anti-Air Position was only 2 minutes 35 seconds.
The ones most despairing at that fact were the infantry unit following behind.
The moment the Knight Order drew near, a deafening bombardment poured down, and the sky was covered in unknown beams of light.
Before the beams, even those great knights and those terrifying Wyverns fell without being able to do anything.
Before incomprehensible terror, the only strategy the infantry could take was one.
Retreat.
The panicked soldiers began running back the way they had come.
And there were people who had been waiting most for that moment.
They were the two Anti-Air Artillery Platoons lying in ambush.
"Move quickly, you bastards!"
Rahan, the soldier in command of the two platoons, was urging the soldiers on while moving Anti-Air Guns and small-caliber Anti-Air weapons.
The order he had received from Your Grace was simple.
The moment the enemy infantry unit crossed the canyon leading toward Sarsen Harbor, block the canyon.
For that, they had been lying in ambush for the past two days.
Since their role was to prevent the enemy from escaping, they could not be late even by a moment.
Because the Anti-Air Position had already begun unleashing that immense firepower.
However, there was no time to blankly watch that.
"Wow, the Wyvern Unit is melting away!"
"If you have time to watch that, pile up a barricade or something, you bastard."
Rahan said as if tossing the words out and stepped to the very front. He personally gathered carts, military vehicles, rocks, trees, and so on to build a barricade.
With the commander taking the lead and piling up the barricade, no soldier dared to complain about being hurried.
Thanks to that, they were able to complete the barricade to some extent during the two minutes it took the Wyvern Unit to be annihilated.
"Lower the Anti-Air Gun angle! Fire the normal shells without Proximity Fuses first! Those Proximity Fuses have Magic Stones in them and are fucking expensive, so save them!"
"Mount the autocannons on top of the barricade! About five should be enough!"
"Everyone has enough bullets, right? We have to crush the fleeing infantry, so check your bullets one last time!"
Thanks to those efforts, a 2-meter-high barricade was completed in an instant. Once they mounted the Anti-Air Guns and autocannons on top, it became quite a plausible fortress.
It was around then that the vanguard of the fleeing infantry unit arrived.
"Fire!"
Doo-doo-doo-doom-!
The four Anti-Air Guns spewed fire all at once.
Though they bore the name Anti-Air Gun, their origin was the 76mm naval gun used by the Dreadnought.
It was a seasoned thing at eliminating ground targets.
The infantry who arrived at the canyon first vanished without a trace.
"Sweep them away!"
When the bright red beams spewed by the 20mm Autocannons swept through the infantry formation, soldiers whose shields and armor were riddled with holes fell one after another.
The Gunner of the Anti-Air Position, having finished confirming the kills on the Wyvern Unit, also began advancing with their Anti-Air Guns.
The 230 infantrymen spread out in a line to complete the encirclement. This widened the gaps between them, but the overwhelming range of their firearms rendered those gaps meaningless.
Ahead were barricades and autocannons blocking the narrow passage.
Approaching from behind were the Anti-Air Artillery who had just unilaterally massacred 60 members of the Wyvern Knight Order.
To the left was the deep sea, to the right a sheer cliff.
By the time the 5,000 infantry belatedly came to their senses, they were already perfectly surrounded by 300 Anti-Air Artillery.
***
"Kuaaagh!!!"
"Break through the canyon! Fuck, if you can't, push through with your bodies! We are 5,000 and they are only a few dozen!"
"It's impossible! We can't get close!"
"What kind of bullshit is that! Where did all the shield bearers go-"
Boom-!
The shell covered the officer with an eerie whistle. The ground flipped, and mud and gravel burst out.
In the black dust falling with a patter, something sticky was mixed in.
It did not take long for the soldier who touched his cheek to realize that the 'sticky thing' was blood.
Beeeeep-
Thick tinnitus covered his hearing, making all sounds of the battlefield sound muffled.
Someone's desperate scream. The roar of cannons. The sound of the eerie weapon emitting light.
Everything on the battlefield seemed slow.
The sight of bright red flashes passing by people.
The sight of the people they passed falling one after another like scarecrows.
Kwaang-!
Once again, a massive explosion shook the soldier's vision.
Nevertheless, the soldier did not curl up.
He had long since lost his sense of direction from the shock of the bombardment. In this hell where officers and soldiers alike were equally crushed and ground away, there was no room to feel anything like reality.
He merely walked forward as instinct commanded.
The Elite Soldiers that had been through countless battles in the West over the past ten years melted away.
Even the army that had cruelly massacred and oppressed the natives of the
Western border was nothing before the true evil wrought by human technology.
"Ah..."
A flash of his life passed through the half-deranged soldier's mind.
'I see. This is Heavenly Punishment.'
'I am being repaid for the past ten years of unilaterally violating and plundering the natives.'
The soldier, having lost all sense of reality, stood blankly in place.
And standing still there, he accepted the fate approaching him.
Fortunately, fate was not such a cruel existence.
"Everyone, cease fire!"
Loud voices rang out from both sides, the canyon and the Anti-Air Position.
Then, the wicked weapons that had been grinding and devouring humans until just before fell silent like a miracle.
Then their commander stepped forward and shouted.
"The Western army, which dared to ignore the legitimate agreement between Count Sarsen and the South and tried to seize the port without permission, all deserve to die!"
"However, our merciful Your Grace has decided to give you a second chance!"
"Everyone, throw down your weapons and surrender! If you do so, I guarantee in Your Grace's name that your lives will be spared!"
Anger over losing comrades can only be shown to an opponent of comparable level.
The appearance of the Southern Army, carrying out overwhelming slaughter from hundreds of meters away, was close to an incomprehensible monster from the Western Army's perspective.
Seeing humans being crushed and expecting it would be their turn next, the soldiers threw down their weapons without exception.
It was a good ending for both them and the South.
Because rather than dying, it would be better to become parts of the Southern Factory and be ground up.
Thus ended the first battle fought before Sarsen Harbor.
The battle duration was about 15 minutes.
The Western Army's losses were 60 Wyvern Knights, about 1,500 casualties, and 3,500 prisoners, while the Southern Army suffered not a single casualty.
It was a perfect victory created by the human technology that Kyle Leopold and the South had built up.
Only then did the light of the Crystal Orb showing the battlefield situation go out.
In the conference room where everyone had fallen silent, Kyle Leopold asked.
"So, do you have anything more to say? Charles Raymonds?