The angle of the 20 cannons were lying flat, their front spit out flames and thick smoke. Roland had roughly estimated, that the most skilled artillery group would be able to release one shrapnel shot every twenty seconds, while the slowest would needed around 30 seconds. At first glance, it seemed that they came close to the rate of fire of the best artillery groups during the American Civil War, but the latter’s three shots per minute were performed with solid shells, for which they had to clean the cannon repeatedly and aim it at the target once more. However, canister shells could be fired without aiming, and the cannon also didn’t need to be wiped, so it was only natural that the rate of fire would be fast.
For the enemy, such a rate of fire was terrible news. Furthermore, the canister shells’ kill and injure-rate without even aiming was especially astonishing, almost every iron bullet would penetrate two to three people. Although after taking the pill they could withstand a great deal of pain, the pills couldn’t also suppress fear.
When seeing how the people around them were slaughtered one after another, even if they were totally excited and thirsted after massacre, they were unable to suppress their body’s instinctual fear of death. Even more, they originally hadn’t been a iron-willed force, without their pills, these people were just a group of untrained, civilians lacking in true practical combat experience. When half of their force laid out on the road, the enemy began to flee.
Like a plague the fear quickly spread, what began with one person was soon followed by a second then a third, until the forefront eventually completely stopped with its assault, and instead wholly started to turn around and flee. Once again the artillery regiment changed their ammunition to solid bullets, aiming at the center of the road, while the whole time the bunkers had never ceased in their shooting.
Creating a pile of corpses laid on top of the road.
…
As Levin’s raging heart gradually cooled down, a feeling of fear began to grow within him.
In the beginning, more than 20 people had set out and discovered the witch wearing strange clothes, who created the chaos, hiding within the forest, almost perfectly integrating with the surrounding scenery. If she hadn’t moved forward along with the main force, always guiding the people to cram themselves together at the middle of the road, it would have been almost impossible for them to detect her.
Even after they had discovered her, she still caused considerable trouble to Levin. He found out that she didn’t need her mouth to imitate the voices and even more the sound drifted around without an anchored source. Sometimes, it was coming from the left, other times it would come from the right, and at times even came from behind him. The content was also varied, such as imitating his accent and giving orders or sending out a distressed call for help from a fellow militiamen.
But when they wanted to close in and seize her, the woman dressed in white appeared again.
Seeing her, Levin recalled the shocking scene of her killing Lehman Hawes.
In her hand she was grasping a silver-white “light crossbow”, and the moment she sent out a spark, with a loud bang, another person would fall.
The surrounding encirclement was instantaneously torn into shreds, all of them suddenly turning into frightened birds.
With her hiding ability and her unrivaled weapon, Levin realized that they stood no chance of winning. The moment he became aware of this it felt as if he had met with a cold wind, his burning rage was quickly extinguished.
“Take the pills and kill her the moment she appears!”
Even though his mouth called to attack, Levin himself retreated, planning on running into the woods the moment she put her focus on the militia.
