Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

The cannons atop both semi-moon bastions adjusted their firing angles and began shooting at the Venetians below the walls of the triangular fortress.

The design of the new-era fortress finally bared its fangs, as the shape of the triangular bastion meant that projectiles fired from the rear two sides of the walls were unobstructed, without any blind spots—each cannonball was a terrifying side-shot firepower.
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A cannonball fired from the east semi-moon bastion killed all the Venetian soldiers in a straight line, and finally, bouncing off the hard volcanic rock, it smashed two ladders and lodged into the wall of the triangular fortress.

Upon seeing this, Colonel Field reassigned two squads of musketeers to suppress the enemy marksmen on the rear walls of the triangular bastion. However, he knew that suppressing the enemy musketeers was of little use; the real killers were the side-firing cannons placed on the semi-moon bastions.

Field roared in his heart, "Fire the cannons! Fire the cannons!"

The god of artillery heard his call. "Boom," "boom," "boom," "boom," the dull roar of the cannons resounded across the entire battlefield.

But this time, it wasn't the big guns on the walls that were roaring—the Venetians' cannons finally showed their might.

Several stone shots flew out from behind the newly built defensive walls of the Venetians; most of the projectiles were misdirected, only one cannonball hit its target, crashing heavily onto the east semi-moon bastion.

Rock and wall collided, debris flew, dust rose everywhere. All the Tanilian gunners on the semi-moon bastion were killed or injured by the flying debris, and the main gunner's chest was so concavely smashed by the stones that he died on the spot.

The cannons on the east semi-moon bastion fell silent at once.

"Cannons? Where did the cannons come from?" Atop the walls, William Kidd, with a fierce expression, gripped an officer beside him and roared, "When did the Venetians bring up the cannons? Why didn't you tell me when you saw the Venetians setting up cannons? [Pirate swear] I'll kill you!"

With that, he reached for his sword.

"Sir... no... we didn't see...," the officer grabbed by William Kidd was so scared that he was nearly crying, trembling as he replied, "We didn't see anything... Nobody saw the Venetians transporting the cannons."

"Argh!!!" Enraged, William Kidd fiercely struck his sword on the parapet, sending sparks flying.

About two hundred meters away from the city wall, parallel to the wall and behind the Venetian defensive wall—these defensive walls were extensions built horizontally after the tunnels reached two hundred meters from the city wall—Major, now Colonel Volbon of the Engineers, while observing where the cannonballs fell, commanded, "First battery, second battery, adjust one quarter right. Third battery, fourth battery, reset."

By his side, the gunners were bustling around four squat and stubby cannons, loading them.

The cannons were behind a defensive wall, hidden from the sight of the Tachi garrison on the city wall, who could not see the actions of the Venetian gunners.

These four cannons were Volbon's secret weapons, secret weapons that could be deployed right under the noses of the garrison without being detected. They were not ordinary barrel cannons, but—mortars, dismantled from warships.

Ordinary cannons needed a battery, a firing embrasure.

High above on the city wall, the cannons would be a target as soon as the garrison found out the Venetians were deploying their own cannons, and the Venetian positions would be bombarded immediately.

But mortars have a high-arcing trajectory; they provide indirect fire rather than direct fire, so they can be positioned behind the defensive wall to inflict casualties on the enemy atop the wall.

Although their accuracy was somewhat lower, it was the only way to achieve an element of surprise. Moreover, the Guzhi Road connecting Tachi and Red Sulfur Harbor was not yet fully repaired, heavy artillery could not be brought up, so the Venetians had to temporarily move a few light mortars for emergency use.

When Colonel Volbon's four mortars suppressed the cannons of the east semi-moon bastion, at another tunnel exit, Winters, who had been waiting with horses, finally got the signal to attack.

There were few people around Winters, including him, the small team of riders totaled only sixteen.

And leading this small group of cavalry was none other than Winters' old acquaintance, Major Moritz.

That's right, all sixteen riders were spellcaster officers. And except for Major Moritz, they were all junior officers.

Major Moritz, discarding his usual languid demeanor, watched the group of junior officer spellcasters and commanded sternly, "Do not linger, do not dawdle, move fast, get in and out, and retreat immediately after completing the task!"

"Yes!" the fifteen spellcaster junior officers responded in unison.

Moritz glanced at Winters, nodded, and shouted, "Mount up!"

The sixteen riders dashed out from the eastern side of the battlefield, with Winters not sparing his warhorse and driving it at full speed towards the direction of the triangular fortress.

As they reached the side of the triangular bastion, Moritz bellowed, "Throw!"

Fifteen junior officer spellcasters removed the smoke grenades hanging in front of their chests, activated them with a fire spell, and hurled them with all their might toward the space between the bastion and the city wall.

A few particularly skilled spellcasters also used the Arrow Flying Spell to throw the smoke grenades even further.

Upon detonating in midair, the "Activated Portable Alchemic Material Smoke Generators" blanketed the east side of the city wall with thick smoke, obscuring the defending Tanilian troops' view and preventing them from seeing the Venetian soldiers climbing up the bastion behind it.

Once they completed the task on the east side, the spellcasters then moved to the west side and threw out all the remaining smoke grenades.

Winters had never used casting materials as lavishly in his life, as both legions had handed over half the armory's smoke grenades to them. Antonio and Layton were determined to take this small bastion no matter what.

The smoke wall tightly covered the field of vision of the Tanilians on the city wall, and with no wind tonight, the smoke wall lingered for a long time.

William Kidd yelled furiously, yet he was out of options.

Although the angles of the cannons on the bastion had been set, the accuracy of these artillery pieces was greatly reduced without direct visual aiming and correction; the gunners didn't know if they were hitting or missing, let alone how to correct their aim.

Not to mention the musketeers on the walls, who could now only blindly shoot into the smoke.

After completing their mission, the spellcaster riders quickly retreated back to their strike position.

Lieutenant Colonel Field, commanding the musketeer squad in front of the bastion, saw what he had been praying for—a Venetian battle flag had been planted on top of the bastion.

"Urrahhhh!!!!!" Field roared with fervor.

Realizing what had happened, the musketeers also shouted excitedly, "Urrahhhh!!!!!"

"Hahaha! We broke through!" Layton, watching from the rear, laughed wildly and punched the breastwall, "Well done!"

"As planned, the engineer company and the reserve troops will now move out," Antonio commanded the other officers with calm.

More and more Venetian soldiers were crowding atop the bastion while the Tanilian defenders kept being forced into a retreat by the climbing enemies—two climbed up for every one that the defenders managed to kill. Regardless of Sanogaila's attempts to stop them, the defense couldn't hold back anymore and they began retreating into the city.

When the earth-shaking battle cries filled the bastion, the Tanilians' morale completely collapsed, and they began to flee into the city along the drawbridges between the bastion and the city walls.

The joint Confederation elites sent to support the bastion were blocked by the fleeing soldiers at the end of the bridge and couldn't move forward.

During the pre-battle briefing, Layton and some senior officers believed that if the enemy didn't cut down the drawbridges, they would charge across them directly onto the city walls and breach the city at once.

However, Lieutenant Juan, who had climbed up the bastion, suddenly realized that because the Venetians could never deploy troops as quickly as the Tanilians, not only was the drawbridge of no use to them, but it became an uninterrupted way for the enemy to send reinforcements to push the Venetians off the bastion.

Realizing this, Lieutenant Juan shouted to his hundred-man team, "The drawbridge! The drawbridge! Cut the drawbridge!"

Hearing the order, Juan's hundred-man team, who were chasing and slashing the routed soldiers, began to attack the drawbridge.

William Kidd, who had rushed to the battlements, saw the escaping soldiers running into the city, the reinforcements going toward the bastion, and both groups stuck, unable to move, and flew into a furious rage. He cursed, "Waste! Push the fleeing soldiers down! Hurry to the bastion!"

Upon receiving the order, the armored Confederation soldiers began to push the retreating bastion troops off the bridge.

On the bridge, caught in the crowd, the commander of the bastion, Sanogaila, shouted in anger and despair, "Why? Why?!"

No one paid attention to him, and one by one, the bastion's defenders were pushed from the bridge, screaming as they fell to the ground. Some who did not die on impact continued to emit terrifying wails of agony.

Lieutenant Juan had already charged to the edge of the drawbridge and began to hack at the bridge's cables with his raised saber.

A few soldiers rushed over to help as well.

Finally, the drawbridge was severed.

With one end of it detached, the fleeing troops, reinforcements, and Sanogaila all tumbled down from the bridge.

After suffering heavy casualties, the bastion now belonged to the Venetians... for the moment.