Trenches, Guns, and Magic

The situation of Blood Thralls being continuously downed within the trench was immediately made known to other Blood Thralls charging into the trench nearby through a special connection network among vampire creatures.

Although Blood Thralls of the same tier couldn't perceive the overall situation like their superior, Ferdinand I, they could indeed sense the deaths of their kind nearby... This served as a sort of early warning mechanism for vampire creatures.

A Blood Thrall chasing Saxon soldiers along the trench suddenly braked. Its scarlet pupils contracted violently as it turned its head toward the direction where its comrades fell.

Four... Four died in one breath.

This Blood Thrall instinctively chose to bypass that section of the trench, moving elsewhere along another communication trench. Other Blood Thralls sensing danger made similar judgments, turning their directions one after another.

However, Ferdinand I would not allow this to happen, because tonight's night raid was never about conquering the Saxons' position from the start.

Those Blood Servants and Blood Thralls were essentially consumables... used to probe the opponent's defense system, used to figure out exactly what tricks the Saxons had hidden in their positions.

Ever since forcibly converting senior military figures like Major General Van into Blood Thralls, Ferdinand I's mindset had undergone a subtle shift.

With over two hundred thousand defenders and civilians in Bucharest, he could convert new Blood Thralls from among them at any time to replenish losses. What were forty Blood Thralls... even four hundred he could replenish.

In Ferdinand I's view, allowing these Blood Thralls, who shouldn't exist in this world, to drink deeply of the enemy's fresh blood before serving their country was a blessing in itself.

So when those Blood Thralls attempted to dodge the danger zone, an undeniable will poured directly into their minds, forcefully controlling them to charge toward the section of trench where the Blood Thralls had died consecutively.

The bodies of the Blood Thralls stiffened simultaneously.

For a fraction of a second, the residual human instinct from before their conversion desperately resisted this command.

But the authority of a vampire superior crushed all hesitation.

They ultimately had no choice but to turn around and close in on that section of the trench from different positions.

The closest Blood Thrall let go of the corpse of a Saxon soldier that had been completely drained of blood.

The shriveled corpse hit the muddy bottom of the trench with a dull thud.

The Blood Thrall licked the residual blood from its lips, drew the two Steyr M1912 semi-automatic pistols from its waist again, pulled back the slides, pressed a button on the side of the receivers, and ejected the remaining two or three rounds in the chambers all at once.

Immediately following, it pulled two stripper clips from its ammo pouch and began reloading the pistols.

The Steyr M1912 was reloaded by pressing bullets from a stripper clip into the internal magazine from above the ejection port. The entire process was significantly slower than inserting a detachable magazine.

Even a Blood Thrall, with finger dexterity far exceeding a normal human's, couldn't help but curse the Austrians in its heart while operating this reloading mechanism: This garbage gun is designed too anti-human.

After reloading both pistols, the Blood Thrall moved rapidly along the trench.

Tonight's moonlight was gradually obscured by thick clouds. Since most of the oil lamps in the trench had been smashed and extinguished, visibility was not great right now. But this had no effect on a Blood Thrall with extraordinary perception.

The smells in the air, faint sounds and echoes, even changes in temperature, outlined the surrounding environment for it.

Soon, it arrived at the section of trench where its comrades had died.

Its feet stepped on something whose texture was different from dirt or wooden planks. The Blood Thrall looked down and saw several clusters of rapidly carbonizing remains scattered at the bottom of the trench.

What was once the tissue of another Blood Thrall's body was blackening, cracking, and crumbling from the inside out in a bizarre manner, as if being burned from the marrow by some invisible fire.

Carbonization—this was the final state of a Blood Thrall after complete death.

"Looks like an ambush..."

This thought flashed through the Blood Thrall's mind. It amplified its senses, its ears twitching slightly, and quickly noticed sounds of personnel movement in the communication trench around the corner ahead.

Without the slightest hesitation, it pushed off the ground, shooting forward like an arrow from a bow.

The instant it reached the opening of the communication trench, it executed a sudden "wide swing." While its body slid laterally, the dual pistols in its hands were already raised, ready to headshot the enemies who wouldn't have time to react.

However, the gunfire it anticipated didn't ring out; instead, two violent explosions took its place.

"Boom! Boom!"

The explosions detonated almost right against its feet. Fire and blast waves erupted simultaneously from the trench walls on both sides of the communication trench opening. A massive force from below flipped it over.

Intense agony shot up from its legs instantly. It could even feel the sound of its own bones snapping in the blast.

The Blood Thrall, blasted onto its back, looked down in terror. Its legs were a mangled mess of blood and flesh. The parts below the knees were almost completely blown off, with only some skin and muscle still attaching them.

Even worse, irregular silver fragments were deeply embedded near the stumps of its thighs. Along with the intense pain, a burning sensation emanated from the wounds, firmly suppressing its body's regenerative abilities.

"It's a trap..."

It finally understood. These Saxons were much more cunning than it had imagined... They deliberately made noise in the communication trench to lure it over, then planted these silver-laced explosives at the entrance.

Just as it struggled to prop itself up with its hands, two flaming targets flew out from deep within the communication trench.

Lying on the ground in agony, the Blood Thrall still instinctively raised its guns and fired.

"Bang! Bang!"

The bullets accurately hit the two incoming ignited objects... which were two glass bottles.

But after the bottles shattered in mid-air, the liquid inside was completely ignited by the flaming cloth wicks, immediately showering down like a rain of fire.

Damn Molotov cocktails!

The Blood Thrall desperately used the hands holding the pistols to prop against the ground, wriggling like a worm in an attempt to get away from the flames spreading on the ground.

But immediately following, several more grenades flew out from deep within the communication trench, accompanied by more Molotov cocktails.

Exhausted from coping, it could only watch helplessly as a Molotov cocktail shattered not far away, splashing viscous incendiary agent onto its body.

"Ah—!"

Flames instantly engulfed its entire upper body. The Blood Thrall rolled and struggled in the roaring fire, emitting shrieks belonging to no known creature. The regenerative abilities on its body were suppressed to the limit by the silver fragments; newly grown tissue was burned to a crisp by the flames before it could even form.

Just then, footsteps came from deep within the communication trench.

Several Saxon soldiers rushed out with their weapons raised. Without any hesitation, they emptied their magazines directly into the burning man on the ground.

"Da-da-da-da—!"

Bullets from submachine guns and semi-automatic rifles poured out, striking the burning man and kicking up showers of sparks.

"Give him a few more!"

An NCO shouted. Several soldiers pulled the pins on grenades and threw them at the burning man.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

Continuous explosions blew the ball of flames to pieces, completely ending the Blood Thrall's life.

And similar situations occurred almost simultaneously at several other communication trenches or trench corners in this section.

These Romanian soldiers, who had remained on the Balkan Peninsula before being converted into Blood Thralls and had never experienced trench warfare, clearly didn't know the treachery of trench warfare and the various "lifehacks" of the Saxons.

The Saxon Army, honed on the Western Front, understood every detail of trench warfare inside and out.

A trench wasn't flat ground. Every corner, every section of communication trench, every firing step within it could become a deadly trap.

No matter how fast you run or how strong you are, in this man-made maze, you have to play by the rules of the trench...

And the Saxon Army was the one making the rules.

From a certain perspective, wasn't this a type of "Field Magic"?

Most of the rash Blood Thralls were blown down by silver-laced explosives placed in concealed locations.

To effectively ambush the agile Blood Thralls, these temporarily placed explosives didn't even necessarily use tripwires. Instead, they employed hastily rigged pull-cord mechanisms, manually detonated by soldiers hiding in the shadows.

The information that vampire creatures were weak to silver was transmitted from the Kampfgruppe command post to all grassroots units the very night Morin completed his combat reconnaissance.

So, while turning in their silver Marks, the Saxon soldiers also kept a portion within their squads to make some improvised explosives.

The simplest method was using tools to chop the silver coins into piles of small, irregular fragments, then finding a way to stick a ring of them around the warhead of the M1915 stick grenade.

Although very crude, for temporary use, the effect was quite good.

And once they were incapacitated by the silver-laced booby traps, these downed Blood Thralls would be inundated by swarms of Molotov cocktails and grenades.

However, although quite a few Blood Thralls were ambushed this way, the remaining Blood Thralls surrounding the area quickly learned their lesson.

They no longer easily entered the narrow communication trenches. Instead, relying on their speed, they bypassed the trenches entirely from outside, sweeping past the blind spots of the firing positions. The instruction unit soldiers defending this section of the trench still had to begin falling back.

"Fall back! Fall back to the second defense line!"

"Alternating cover! Keep formation!"

Under the command of officers and NCOs, the Saxon soldiers began relocating to the rear along pre-planned routes.

And five Blood Thralls followed the Saxon soldiers' retreat route. Making a wide arc from the outside, they lunged directly to the edge of the second trench line.

The fastest Blood Thrall was the first to jump into the second trench.

The moment its feet touched the wooden planks at the bottom of the trench, the Steyr M1912 in its hand was already raised, aiming at the head of the nearest Saxon soldier.

But before its finger could pull the trigger, a sharp whistling sound pierced the air from the side.

"Swish—!"

"Boom——!"

It didn't even see clearly what it was... It only felt something heavy violently pierce its right chest. The massive force carried its entire body, smashing it against the trench wall behind it, its back slamming into the packed earth.

Looking down, a bayonet had pierced through the front of its right shoulder, the tip protruding from its back, pinning its entire body to the trench wall.

And the material of the bayonet caused this Blood Thrall to panic instantly.

It was silver...

The moment the bayonet touched its internal tissues, a burning sensation exploded from the wound, as if someone had poured a pot of boiling water into its veins.

The wound cut by the silver blade curled and blackened; the tissue necrosed at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The Blood Thrall opened its mouth to let out a heart-rending scream, but the scream lasted less than half a second before a dark silhouette suddenly flashed before it.

So fast it couldn't even see the person's face clearly.

The next moment, another bayonet, similarly gleaming with silver light, plunged straight into the location of its heart.

The moment the blade sank into its chest cavity, the Blood Thrall felt its heart being crushed directly by some force.

The silver edge released a frenzied burning reaction within its body, spreading from the heart to the limbs. Blood vessels blackened, shriveled, and carbonized one after another.

Its vitality dissipated completely within two seconds.

By the time Morin pulled out the two silver-plated bayonets, the Blood Thrall's body had already begun carbonizing outward from the wounds.

He glanced down at the bayonets in his hands. On the originally bright steel blades of the M1898/05 bayonets, the layer of silver flakes attached by the Ploiești blacksmiths using "gold welding" was already showing some wear.

Morin didn't linger. After instructing nearby NCOs to rally the troops, under the fanatical gazes of the surrounding Saxon soldiers, he charged straight toward another Blood Thrall that had just rushed in not far away, wielding the two bayonets...

Before the Blood Thralls and Blood Servants launched their attack, Morin had actually entered a state of "sleep learning" in the frontline command post behind the third trench line.

He intended to push the learning progress of the 5th-circle [Steel Wind Strike] through its final 20%.

However, when the position spotted the approaching Blood Servants and began exchanging fire, he was awakened by the alarms from the system map and notifications from Kleist and the others, waking up from the "Room You Can't Leave Without Studying."

"They really came for a night raid?!"

Awake, Morin glanced at the map. The special unit cards representing the Blood Thralls showed they had already broken through the first defense line and were exchanging fire with his soldiers in the trenches. A surge of "morning crankiness" instantly welled up.

His "super intelligence" told him it was time to use "super strength" and "super speed" to deal with these enemies.

Morin informed the others, then, under the "Again?" gazes of Manstein and company, grabbed several silver-plated bayonets from a batch just delivered from Ploiești on a nearby table, securing them to his combat webbing.

He then followed the annotations on the system map, consecutively crossing three trench lines in one breath to reach the very front.

Seeing Morin appear like a divine soldier descending from the heavens and cleanly dispatching a Blood Thrall, the morale of the initially retreating Saxon soldiers surged.

"It's the Colonel!"

"The Colonel is here!"

With Morin's addition, the tide of battle reversed instantly.

Upon seeing Morin, the remaining four Blood Thralls also felt an unprecedented threat, because this human was emitting a terrifyingly murderous aura and magical fluctuations.

This made them momentarily confused as to who the real monster was.

They attempted to focus their attacks on Morin, but their speed was clearly insufficient in front of him.

Morin's figure flashed and dodged in the narrow trench, the twin blades in his hands tracing arcs of silver light.

For Morin, knowing the weaknesses of vampire creatures, these enemies—who were inferior to him in speed, strength, and combat experience—were practically no different from target dummies used to test DPS in a game.

With every pass, a Blood Thrall's heart was pierced by a silver blade.

In just a few short minutes, the last four Blood Thralls remaining in the trench were all dispatched by Morin, and the battle concluded without suspense.

Looking at the rapidly carbonizing corpses on the ground, Morin couldn't help but once again acknowledge the R&D capabilities of the Gauls... or rather, that "Saxon rogue ninja."

This "Second-Generation Sentinel Modification Potion" they cooked up was indeed too strong. This could only be described as a certain kind of "foundation" unique to established major powers.

Both were among their nations' trump cards, but compared to these trump cards on the Balkan Peninsula, which could only be considered "chicken feed" in a total war, it was vastly superior.

Morin shook the black ash off the bayonets and turned to look at the soldiers watching him with a mix of awe and adoration.

"What are you standing around for?" Morin's voice broke the silence in the trench. "Tally casualties, treat the wounded, clear the battlefield!"

"Yes! Colonel!"

The soldiers woke as if from a dream and immediately began to move.

Morin watched their busy figures, then glanced in the direction of Bucharest, feeling that he probably wouldn't get a good night's sleep these next few days.

Bucharest, City Defense Command Operations Room.

Ferdinand I snapped his eyes open, his expression fluctuating rapidly.

Just now, his mental connection with the last batch of Blood Thralls and Blood Servants he sent out on the night raid mission was completely severed.

Every single one of them was wiped out.

"Your Majesty..."

Major General Van, standing by the sandbox, also noticed the change in Ferdinand I's expression and spoke hesitantly.

Ferdinand I didn't speak, merely raising his hand to signal him to be quiet.

He closed his eyes, carefully replaying the final images perceived through the vampire connection in his mind.

Rather than images, it was more like information perceived by the senses of those vampire creatures. This complex information, processed by Ferdinand I's enhanced brain, formed something resembling images...

The Saxons' positions... those tremendously powerful explosives... and fire...

Finally, a highly combat-capable individual soldier moving through the trenches, reaping those Blood Thralls—whose combat power Ferdinand I deemed exceptional—like chopping melons and slicing vegetables.

"It's that Saxon again..."

Ferdinand I ground his teeth audibly.

Although there was no other evidence, he was certain that this Saxon slaughtering Blood Thralls in the trenches was the same guy who infiltrated Bucharest that night and slipped through the city-wide manhunt.

He hadn't expected the other party's strength to be this formidable.

Clearly, the Britannians had not provided advance notice to these "allies" on the Balkan Peninsula.

So the Romanians, among others, only knew that the Saxon Empire seemed to have produced a Mage Killer, but were completely unaware of any other information...

However, Ferdinand I didn't feel much heartache over the loss of the Blood Thralls and Blood Servants right now.

Once he decided to completely tear off his disguise and stop hiding, converting a new batch of Blood Thralls and Blood Servants wasn't too difficult a problem for him.

As long as there was enough "raw material."

He looked again at Major General Van and the other officers who had also been converted, then relayed some of the information he had obtained.

"The Saxons have deployed some highly powerful weapons in front of their positions, which should be the explosions we just heard."

Ferdinand I's voice was calm, betraying no emotional fluctuation.

"These weapons can inflict lethal damage on Blood Thralls and Blood Servants... Based on my perception, those explosives likely contain a large amount of silver."

Hearing the word "silver," a trace of unnaturalness appeared on the faces of Major General Van and the others.

It was their instinctual aversion as Blood Thralls to the metal that countered them.

"Furthermore, the Saxons are also highly vigilant at night, and their internal defenses are very tight... Small-scale attacks will struggle to achieve results."

Ferdinand I paused, shifting his tone.

"However, this was merely our first night raid; we lacked experience!"

"Judging from the actual combat power of the Blood Thralls and Blood Servants, mortal soldiers will struggle to pose a real threat to us, even with firepower superiority."

"Tonight's losses were primarily due to their special weapons, and... a certain somewhat special individual Saxon soldier."

He didn't describe Morin's existence in detail, because he didn't want to instill too much fear of the enemy in these newly converted officers.

Major General Van digested the information Ferdinand I provided, then walked to the sandbox.

As an experienced officer, even though he had been converted into a Blood Thrall, his military literacy remained intact.

"Your Majesty, I have a proposal." Major General Van pointed at the long red line on the sandbox representing the Saxons' defense line.

"The Saxons' defense line is very long. According to our previous observations, they dug nearly 8 kilometers of trenches... Under these circumstances, the quantity of silver-laced explosives they used tonight is definitely limited; it's impossible for them to be deployed across the entire line!"

"Therefore, I suggest we can continue attempting to launch night raids from other directions against their positions."

"First, by making multiple attempts, we will eventually find weak points in their defense line! With just one successful breakthrough, we can cause massive chaos and casualties!"

"Second..."

A glint of excitement and cruelty flashed in Major General Van's eyes.

"Continuous night raids can vastly consume their energy and ammunition... We vampires can go without sleep for long periods, but those mortal soldiers need it."

"As long as we persist, harassing them every night and denying them adequate rest, it won't be long before they start jumping at shadows and suffer mental breakdowns."

"In fact, I had previously considered conducting night raids, but the quality of the city defenders could not support such operations. However, the situation is different now..."

Hearing this, Ceaușescu snorted disdainfully nearby.

"Why go to so much trouble? Your Majesty only needs to activate the 'Blood River,' and all of Bucharest will—"

"I have already said, I am still considering the 'Blood River'," Ferdinand I interrupted him.

Ceaușescu opened his mouth, but ultimately swallowed the rest of his words.

Ferdinand I turned his attention back to Major General Van, a look of approval appearing on his face.

This was indeed a good idea.

For vampires, the time they needed to sleep each day was greatly reduced; they could even remain awake for extended periods without sleep.

And this was something those frail humans could not do.

Using their own near-infinite "stamina" to exhaust the opponent's limited stamina was a very clever tactic.

"Excellent." Ferdinand I nodded. "We will proceed as you suggest."

He thought for a moment and added:

"Starting tomorrow, we no longer need to send out Blood Thralls during night raids... Sending only Blood Servants will suffice, and their numbers can be increased further."

In Ferdinand I's view, Blood Thralls were relatively precious combat assets after all. Using them for this kind of attritional harassment attack was somewhat wasteful.

But Blood Servants... it didn't matter.

As for the source of Blood Servants...

Ferdinand I's gaze seemed to pierce the walls of the City Defense Command, looking toward that chaotic and filthy gathering area in the east of Bucharest.

Due to the curfew, refugees fleeing from outside the city, along with Bucharest's original beggars and vagrants, were all concentrated there at night.

There were plenty of fresh "raw materials" there.