Amber Sword

What is this? Magic? All frontline commanders of the Northern Alliance stopped everything they were doing in shock, but before anyone, including Viscount von Doggen, could react, successive flashes had already erupted one after another within the Burei Infantry Battalion.

Boom boom boom, a storm-like explosion instantly engulfed the entire frontline. Burei infantrymen fortunately encountered landmines as killing tools on the battlefield of Vaun for the first time. The dissolution crystal shallowly buried under the turf instantly released all its contained energy upon being subjected to pressure. The terrifying impact not only lifted the turf but directly impacted the infantry on top.

The iron boots of the Burei infantry were the first to deform under pressure, then the bones along with them were bent upward by the enormous force, sending their owners skyward; during this process, the chest armor instantly collapsed inward, crushing everything inside into powder—bones and viscera alike.

Five or six infantrymen were impaled up, and upon descent, most of them were left as cold bodies.

In an instant, the Burei Infantry Battalion lost nearly a fifth of its living forces. But the more severe blow was to morale—they hadn’t even engaged the enemy and disaster had already struck—witnessing this scene shut the cheers of the Northern Alliance like a duck having its throat grabbed.

"Is this made from what you dismantled from those Magic Furnaces?" Princess Griffith watched this scene from afar, calculating inwardly: "The core value of the Magic Transmission Device is considerable, but judging from the destructive power, those crystals don’t seem cost-effective. However, investing them without regard to cost on critical battlefields seems to yield remarkable effects."

Brand nodded. To be honest, he and Antitina didn’t sleep for a night figuring out this thing, and eventually, due to the sheer quantity, Antitina alone simply couldn’t complete such a massive workload. He had to employ a large Blood Sacrifice Alchemy Array to assist.

He shed quite a bit of blood for it.

However, he noticed the Half-Elf Princess’s expression and could roughly guess her thoughts. Yet he didn’t mind; this wasn’t the full power of the dissolution crystals yet—the real show was yet to come. He wasn’t making dissolution crystals just to play landmines.

He turned his gaze back to the other side of the battlefield. Explosions continued, and an Earth Dragon Cavalryman also perished in this wave of blasts; the dissolution crystal blew off the Earth Dragon’s right foot, and the enraged mount promptly threw him off its back, breaking his spine in the process, dying instantly.

"Stop! Stop!" Viscount von Doggen was also startled, urgently tightening his reins and shouting, "It’s a trap!"

But this Viscount indeed deserved his famed historical reputation; he immediately found a solution. He ordered the Burei infantry to stop and scatter, then proceed in loose formation—a skirmish formation that had been in use since the Star Gathering Year (1st. 321) when Earl of Atania led the White Lion Infantry Regiment against the dense arrow volleys from the Lion-men, and earlier, the Cruz people had used similar tactics, thus it was not considered a novel invention. Nevertheless, his application of it here was agile and impressed the Northern Alliance commanders.

"He truly is a genius among the Nayue people," Viscount Finn couldn’t help but praise beside Vitokin. The Earl was very satisfied as well; at least his choice was not proven wrong, recognizing people of merit is one of the virtues of the nobles.

But before his words fell, as if expressly rebutting him, the battlefield erupted in another wave of even brighter flashes. The violent explosion almost formed a continuous chain, causing the entire River Valley to tremble.

Viscount von Doggen was dumbfoundedly watching all this unfold before him, the fierce explosion tearing up the turf, causing blood-soaked soil to flutter down around him like a rain of mud. He wiped his face, uncomfortably sticky, realizing that in his plan, the Princess’s side only had half a night, hardly time enough to lay the field and set traps. He was sure the opponent was merely bluffing, trying to delay.

Yet he did miscalculate somewhat, Brand’s "trap" wasn’t as complex as he imagined. In fact, what he and Antitina did was simply use some leftover scraps, hastily crafted them, and threw them into the grass.