Chapter 4: The Fury of Two Lives Merged into One

Officers began to organize the motley crew of men. Those with horses were assigned to the cavalry, while the herdsmen on foot fell in with the garrison regiment.

Yet, no one felt confident.

The key to the entire battle lay in those Steam Knights! If those hulking monstrosities weren't neutralized, were they expected to manicure the steel calves of the enemy with sabers?

Natalie nervously followed Zhang Shan and whispered, "Your Highness, I checked. Of the four artillery batteries, only one consists of veterans; the rest have only just learned how to operate the guns."

"Do they know how to calculate shell impact points using coordinates?"

"They know the basics."

"That will suffice."

In any world, from ancient times to the present, artillery has always been a quintessential technical branch. Whoever calculates the enemy's coordinates faster gains the initiative.

Suddenly, someone shouted, "Your Highness! The enemy has spotted us!"

The train station was still too close to the city of Lanwud. Perhaps the enemy hadn't planned to attack the station, or they lacked sufficient troops, or their military discipline was simply abysmal. It had taken them this long to realize that many Rasian civilians were fleeing toward the station, and only now were they dispatching roughly a battalion of infantry to advance on their position.

Zhang Shan lowered his binoculars and called out the first set of firing coordinates.

The moment he spoke, the artillery non-commissioned officer, a veteran of the previous Great War, was stunned. These coordinates included six decimal places, and even specified a firing angle with a negative three-degree tilt.

"What? Is it not precise enough?" Zhang Shan was somewhat surprised; he was simply parroting the answers he had been given, a task that required nothing more than a mouth.

He didn't realize he had shocked the artillery sergeant.

Artillery in this era was rarely that precise; usually, one had to adjust fire repeatedly to achieve accuracy. Furthermore, most of the artillery in the Far East consisted of second-hand equipment retired from the Imperial Capital; heaven only knew what the actual firing precision was.

Fortunately, for a full gun crew in a defensive position, manning this 45mm anti-tank gun was not particularly strenuous. After some manual cranking of the winches, they loaded the armor-piercing capped shells.

"Your Highness?" the artillery sergeant asked.

Zhang Shan suddenly asked, "How many shells do we have?"

"Half a unit of fire."

Zhang Shan bared his teeth; now he understood what it meant to have a military in total disarray.

"Let’s try a test shot for now."

Before long, the four cannons roared almost in unison.

"Boom—"

Two kilometers away, a Steam Knight pilot was puzzled by the sound.

"Artillery fire?"

Just then, above the cockpit, the gunner positioned on the mech's right shoulder suddenly shouted, "To the north! Artillery muzzle flash!"

Before they could react, a flash of light cut through the sunlight like a comet dragging a long tail of flame—or perhaps like a cruise missile that had no place in this era. It homed in on the Steam Knight’s chest as if it had eyes of its own.

The Steam Knight, standing beside a single-story bungalow, was quite conspicuous.

Under the horrified gaze of countless Yamato soldiers, the chest of the massive figure suddenly disintegrated. Thin metal plating and fragments of the wooden "muscles" within scattered like butterflies in the sky. The next instant, the remaining half of the "bean-can" mech, weighing only a few tons, crashed to the ground, crushing a bungalow on Lanwud Avenue and kicking up a sky-high cloud of dust.

Time seemed to freeze in that moment.

After a brief silence, the Yamato soldiers in the city let out screams of terror, while everyone at the train station with decent eyesight—who had seen the figure, no larger than a matchstick, collapse—immediately erupted into thunderous cheers.

Only the few officers watching the target through binoculars truly saw that the unfortunate Steam Knight had been hit three times out of four. Two shells shattered its breastplate, and one snapped its waist.

Zhang Shan ignored them and coldly called out the next set of coordinates.

Despite their excitement, the lack of training among the four gun crews caused them to fumble, and it took a full minute before all four batteries were reloaded and aimed.

"Fire!"

This time, two out of four shells found their mark.

The collapse of two giant robots sent the Yamato army into a complete panic.

"Oh no! The 'Titan' has fallen!"

"Sub-lieutenant Yamamoto is dead?!"

"Cover! Find cover!"

Cover? It wasn't that simple.

The backwardness of Lanwud, with its lack of sturdy high-rise buildings, meant the three-story-tall Steam Knights had nowhere to hide. It wasn't that they didn't attempt tactical maneuvers or try to conceal themselves; the wretched brick-and-wood low-rise houses simply couldn't hide their massive frames.

The artillery fire from the opposite side grew more accurate and faster with every shot. From the start of the bombardment until all four Steam Knights had fallen, less than ten minutes had passed. The luckiest one had only endured two volleys.

The Yamato forces hadn't failed to attempt a counterattack; a "bean-tank" fired its 37mm cannon at the station's battery, but it merely scratched the paint on the gun's shield before ricocheting away. Before it could fire again, it was obliterated by the Rasian shells that seemed to possess eyes of their own.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

The cannons at the train station fired with a rhythmic cadence. Although the frequency wasn't high, it carried the weight of a funeral knell. Every time the cannons fired in unison, at least one Steam Knight, tank, or armored vehicle was wiped out.

Their massive metal shells became coffins for the invaders.

This asymmetrical, one-sided pummeling shattered the invaders' morale. They wept and screamed, some pulling up their pants, others lugging stolen grain, fleeing in utter disgrace from the homes of the herdsmen.

Just then, earth-shattering war cries erupted from outside the city.

"Ura—"

In truth, even at this moment, the Yamato army still held the advantage in numbers and equipment. Unfortunately, the continuous strikes that had wiped out all their heavy assets had broken their spirits. Moreover, the charge of four-legged horses was always more imposing than men on two legs.

"Cavalry! It's the Rasians' main cavalry division!" Many of the seemingly ferocious "demon soldiers" actually turned and ran. As they fled, their bodies transformed, and within a few breaths, they reverted to the appearance of ordinary humans, even the small horns on their heads vanishing.

How could two legs outrun four?

Had they been able to stay calm and form a pike square, this counter-attack force of barely a thousand men would have suffered heavy casualties. Alas, this was a ridiculous escape game of the pot calling the kettle black.

By the time the counter-attack force breached the city, the survivors in Lanwud even found the courage to grab stools and chairs to charge and fight the invaders.

This was a mortal struggle between conquerors and the oppressed.

Disintegration, collapse, and flames consumed every corner of the city. It should have been a balanced fight, but the fall of each steel giant—aside from leaving massive scars of scorched earth on this suffering city—only accelerated the collapse of their position.

At some point, a light drizzle began to fall from the sky, as if the heavens were washing away the sins of the world.

The remaining men outside the train station gathered behind a knight. He sat atop a magnificent black horse, overlooking the small city he had sworn to protect from the hillside.

"Congratulations, Your Highness," Natalie said.

"There is nothing to celebrate. This is merely the self-redemption of a derelict fool," Zhang Shan remarked with a sigh.

If the previous owner of this body hadn't dug such a deep hole, he could have uttered grand declarations like, "I do not care about the casualty numbers; I only want Lanwud!"

But he couldn't bring himself to be happy now.

"No, Your Highness, you have done very well. History will record your merits."

Zhang Shan smiled sheepishly.

He could certainly imagine how a prince achieving such a feat would be glorified by the state. He didn't care about that; he cared more about his own identity. As a transmigrator, he could not let go of his past self, yet he had to adapt to his new identity.

The system seemed to be goading him, repeatedly playing the brutal acts of the Yamato soldiers in his mind.

A slightly cruel smile curled at the corner of Zhang Shan's mouth.

Transmigration was indeed a raw deal. But as long as I can kill these demons, I can be a man of the Empire!

Zhang Shan turned his head to look at Natalie and the few guards who were so excited they were ready to scream at any moment. He looked past them to the crowd behind, their faces filled with fervor.

He began to embody his new role, waving his right fist with force, the veins on his neck bulging, his eyes fierce and expressive.

His roar carried across the station's loudspeakers:

"I—Andrei Boryasky—hereby swear! I will make the Yamato people pay their blood debt! We will paint the streets and alleys of their Imperial Capital with their blood! We will fill every mine in Borya with their descendants!"

As his words fell, the fanatic crowd responded with deafening volume.

"Ura—"

"Ura—"

"Ura—"

The thunderous sound of the crowd echoed over the vast wilderness. The low tremor of the atmosphere turned into a roaring resonance; it wasn't just the human voices—it seemed as if the grass, the trees, and the rocks themselves emitted a deep, ancient echo.

They resounded again and again, as if responding to the declaration of this noble man.

Responding to the anger of a transmigrator whose two lives had finally become one.