Chapter 495: He Jumped
In a three-story terraced apartment building in the middle of the urban area, a Saxon infantry platoon from the 48th Corps support troops was clearing it floor by floor.
The soldiers of one squad had cleared their way to the second floor. The lead soldier, holding his rifle with a silver bayonet fixed, pointed it diagonally upward while keeping the body of the gun back as far as possible to prevent the overly long rifle from hindering his movement indoors.
Right behind him was a soldier with a submachine gun, and further back were grenadiers ready to throw explosives at a moment's notice.
Upon receiving a signal, the lead soldier carefully pushed open a door at the end of the second-floor corridor. Everyone immediately aimed their weapons inside, fingers on their triggers, ready to fire.
However, the room was empty, just like the previous few.
The lead soldier swept his gaze across the room. Just as he breathed half a sigh of relief, a figure suddenly dropped from the ceiling, hanging upside down.
It was a Blood Thrall wearing a Romanian military uniform.
The lead soldier fired almost instinctively, then tried to thrust the bayonet forward.
But the Blood Thrall, taking a rifle bullet head-on as if uninjured, swung its saber. In a flash of cold light, it severed the lead soldier's neck directly.
As blood sprayed, the submachine gunner behind him pulled the trigger directly and roared: "Enemy—!"
But before his warning shout could finish, two more Blood Thralls darted out from the other end of the corridor. Holding rifles, they fired with an inhuman speed and accuracy.
The two soldiers following behind were downed on the spot.
The soldiers advancing in a single file down the corridor barely managed to return a few shots before they were all gunned down.
This was the terrifying aspect of these Blood Thralls converted from city defense soldiers in indoor combat. They retained their combat skills and ability to use weapons from when they were alive, while possessing physical attributes far exceeding normal humans.
Inside narrow buildings, this advantage was infinitely magnified.
It was clear that even with superior firearms, Saxon soldiers could not maintain an advantage in close-quarters combat indoors.
In close-range firefights, Blood Thralls could tank the Saxon soldiers' bullets, but apart from the combat engineers equipped with breastplates, ordinary Saxon soldiers obviously didn't have such a high margin for error.
Except for those squads supported by shotgunners...
In another building in the adjacent block, another elite squad equipped with a shotgunner was faring much better in their indoor sweep.
The soldier walking at the very front held a pump-action shotgun, its tubular magazine loaded with the urgently manufactured "anti-vampire silver buckshot."
When a Blood Thrall lunged violently from a corner of the room, this shotgunner likewise pulled the trigger instinctively.
"Bang!"
At extreme close range, the twelve silver pellets didn't even have time to spread before they blasted the Blood Thrall's entire chest cavity to a bloody pulp.
The burning effect of the silver pellets took effect immediately. The Blood Thrall's body began to rapidly carbonize from the pellet holes, collapsing to the floor before it could even struggle.
The shotgunner pumped the fore-end, ejecting the spent shell and chambering a new round. Just as he adjusted his muzzle to aim deeper into the corridor, he saw a Blood Thrall "wide swing" out directly.
Clearly, the Blood Thralls had discovered their advantage in firefights, quickly adopting this "trading injury for a life" tactic in close-quarters combat.
But this tactic was only effective against conventional weapons...
"Bang!"
The shotgunner practically pre-fired. The Blood Thrall had just flashed out when it was hit by a massive wave of silver pellets to the face.
The fully spread pellets turned it into a sieve directly, and two silver pellets that drifted up to its head ended its life instantly.
"Next room, stay alert!"
"Reloading!"
The combination of the pump-action shotgun and silver buckshot was exceptionally effective in killing Blood Thralls in close-quarters indoor combat.
No precise aiming was needed, nor multiple hits. The spread of silver pellets from a single shot was enough to cover the target's entire body.
The Blood Thralls, who used pistols and rifles to engage in close-quarters firefights with Saxon soldiers indoors, would, if they were slightly careless and caught a blast, either be killed and carbonized on the spot if unlucky... or severely wounded if lucky, only to be finished off by the rushing Saxon soldiers.
Just as this squad, relying on the unreasonable advantage of the shotgun at close range, pushed to the third floor, they quickly heard a noise from above, seemingly the sound of something heavy stepping on the roof tiles.
"There might be enemies on the roof!"
"Watch the windows!"
Simultaneously, about 80 meters away from this building, a "heavy weapons" team was providing cover for the clearing troops from within a ruined building.
Behind a broken wall, a burly shooter was resting an M1915 13.2mm large-caliber rifle on some broken bricks.
His partner observed the roof of the building ahead through binoculars—the very building where the shotgunner's squad was located. And the soldiers inside had indeed judged the situation correctly...
"Eleven o'clock, edge of the roof. Two targets moving... looks like they want to flip in through the window."
The shooter adjusted the muzzle, aligning the iron sights with the two figures moving rapidly on the roof.
Just as the two Blood Servants stopped, preparing to hang upside down from the roof edge and flip into the window, the shooter held his breath and pressed the trigger with his index finger.
"BANG——!"
A massive gunshot echoed through the entire street, and the immense recoil of this "big sniper" slammed violently into the shooter's shoulder pocket.
Even though he was half-prone behind cover, if he hadn't braced his foot against a rock behind him beforehand, that kick could have pushed his entire body backward.
But regardless, bigger is better.
The 13.2mm caliber bullet, carrying terrifying kinetic energy, struck the waist of the leading Blood Thrall.
Under the impact of the bullet, the Blood Thrall's body was directly blown in half.
Its upper half was still being held by its comrade hanging off the edge of the building, but the severed lower half crashed solidly to the ground, kicking up a spray of flesh and blood.
The nearby Saxon soldiers immediately noticed the commotion and opened fire on the two still hanging on the roof.
Hearing the noise inside the building, the shotgunner, emboldened after consecutively killing two Blood Thralls, smashed the window glass with his stock. Leaning out, he pumped two shots at the half-vampire hanging in mid-air.
Under these circumstances, the other Blood Thrall had no choice but to let go of its comrade's upper half, letting it fall to the ground. It didn't even attempt to counter-snipe, disappearing to the other side of the roof in a few leaps.
Several soldiers rushed forward, tossing a Molotov cocktail onto the still-writhing upper half on the ground, then followed up with several shots until it completely stopped moving.
"You gotta admit, this large-caliber rifle is really handy..." the spotter lowered his binoculars and sighed sincerely.
The shooter, half-prone on the ground, racked the bolt to chamber a new round, rubbed his numb shoulder, and grinned.
"The power is definitely there, it's just that after one shot, my shoulder hurts like it was kicked by a mule... And this is with Miss Valkyrie's improved stock. I don't even want to imagine what the factory stock feels like..."
"It'd probably break your shoulder blade."
"Hahahaha, then I'd get a Wound Badge straight away!"
On the other hand, in this highly complex combat environment that even the Morin Kampfgruppe soldiers found tricky, the newly reinforcing soldiers of the 48th Corps were even more prone to taking losses.
After entering the urban area, the 48th Corps troops displayed an overly exuberant desire to attack.
These soldiers were highly motivated, and the pre-battle mobilization was thorough, but precisely because of this, some companies were too rash in their advance.
Many units, while pushing forward rapidly, plunged headlong into pocket ambushes meticulously laid by the Blood Thralls.
Over a dozen gun muzzles poked out simultaneously from the windows of buildings on both sides of the street, engulfing the entire company in crossfire.
Simultaneously, quite a few Blood Thralls poured out from both ends of the street, completely sealing off the Saxon soldiers' retreat.
By the time the gunfire ceased, this company no longer existed. Aside from drained corpses, the entire street was filled with newly converted Blood Servants.
Similar situations occurred several times over the next hour.
When nearly two battalions' worth of troops successively lost contact within the city, the commanders at all levels of the 48th Corps finally couldn't sit still.
"Halt all troop advances! Units that have already penetrated deep must immediately fall back to the nearest defense node!"
The order was swiftly relayed via runners and telephone lines laid on the go—during which many runners also became "lost" inside the city, never to return.
Those units that had clearly advanced too deeply were forcefully recalled and ordered to fight steadily like the soldiers of the Morin Kampfgruppe, and not to rashly advance again.
And the sudden slowing of the Saxon siege troops' attack rhythm directly infuriated several groups of ambushing Blood Thralls.
They waited for a long time, only to see the "prey" about to enter the encirclement suddenly stop in their tracks and begin setting up temporary positions, rendering their meticulously planned traps completely useless.
In their anger, these Blood Thralls guided a large number of Blood Servants to their area through a certain connection among vampire creatures.
This was also one of the abilities of Blood Thralls. Although they couldn't command Blood Servants directly like Ferdinand I, they could signal Blood Servants to converge on their location through some vampire communication method.
Then, relying on the Blood Servants' characteristic of automatically "locking onto living humans," they drove them to attack.
An infantry battalion of the 48th Corps, having just fallen back to a defense node, faced a fierce counterattack less than five minutes after setting up their fortifications.
The battalion commander lay prone behind a temporary barricade, watching the dense horde of Blood Servants surging down the street ahead, a chill running down his spine.
"That was close, too close..."
If they hadn't received the order to halt their advance just now, their entire battalion would probably have been surrounded in that street ahead.
With Armored Knights and armored airships unable to arrive in time, the consequences would have been unimaginable.
Inside the cargo bay of the L16 armored airship, Lieutenant Colonel Ludwig was standing by the feet of his "Siegfried Mark I" Armored Knight, watching magitech technicians working around the machine's crotch area.
They were conducting a final check on a cylindrical device about the size of a fist. This was the "Feather Fall Unit" independently developed by the Teutonic Order, specially brought by the Armored Knights supporting the 48th Corps.
This was the very same one Morin mentioned earlier that the Teutonic Order was still testing internally.
Clearly, following the successful implementation of the spell units accompanying the "Thunder Warriors," this device also completed its R&D.
The principle of the "Feather Fall Unit" was similar to the spell units on the "Thunder Warrior" armor, utilizing preset magical circuitry and "artificial spell slots" to cast [Feather Fall].
The only difference was that the "Feather Fall Unit" had a simpler structure and lower cost, as it only needed to cast [Feather Fall].
"Lieutenant Colonel, the Feather Fall Units on the three Armored Knights have been checked. Artificial spell slots and circuitry show no anomalies."
A magitech technician emerged from between the Armored Knight's legs and reported to Ludwig.
Ludwig nodded, but he was still somewhat worried about this thing in his heart.
Although the Order's technical department swore they had conducted multiple experiments and the data was perfectly fine...
Those experiments were drops from fixed altitudes in safe environments; the variables weren't that great.
It wasn't like what he was about to do now: jumping out of a moving armored airship over a combat zone.
In other words, he, Ludwig von Seeckt, was about to become the first person to use this thing in actual combat.
"Wait, the guinea pig... why is it always me?" Ludwig muttered softly.
He found that ever since getting close to Morin, he had been assigned the role of some kind of "lab rat."
It sounded nice—being the first to use the newest technology and weapons—but in reality, it meant acting as a test subject.
And that guy Morin particularly loved testing things in actual combat...
What did I owe this guy in my past life? I wonder if Patricia will be able to keep him in line in the future...
Just as Ludwig was pondering this, another Teutonic Knight nearby walked over. He had just returned from the observation window on the side of the cargo bay, looking somewhat grim.
"Lieutenant Colonel, the fighting below is fierce... I just saw at least three positions firing red signal flares simultaneously. The two armored airships in the air are already overwhelmed."
The Teutonic Knight paused, ultimately asking.
"Should we go down to support early? I'm worried the ordinary troops might not be able to hold out..."
Hearing his words, Ludwig was silent for a while before finally shaking his head.
"We must prioritize the big picture... Our mission is to support Colonel Morin and the Holy See people in breaking into the royal palace; that is the core of this operation."
"There are too many vampire creatures down there. According to the Holy See people, the civilians who didn't escape the city have basically become nourishment or been converted into vampires."
"Think about how many civilians are in this city? Tens of thousands? Over a hundred thousand? Relying on conventional combat plans, even if we fight to exhaustion, we wouldn't even be able to clear out these ordinary vampire creatures... Only by killing the vampire boss can we win this battle!"
The Teutonic Knight, clearly feeling some compassion and unable to bear seeing friendly forces suffer casualties, opened his mouth but ultimately swallowed his words.
He understood this logic, of course; it just felt bad watching their comrades fighting desperately below.
Since being seconded to the instruction unit alongside Ludwig, the mindset of this knight, who once considered himself "superior," had long since changed.
During his day-to-night interactions with the instruction unit, something entirely different had influenced him, making him view those ordinary soldiers he once looked down upon as battle brothers.
The cargo bay was quiet for a while, filled only with the sounds of magitech technicians checking equipment and the continuous low rumble of the airship's engines.
Ludwig walked to the observation window and glanced down.
From this altitude, Bucharest's urban area was a battlefield woven with red and gray.
Muzzle flashes and exploding fireballs were everywhere. Occasionally, golden light could be seen flashing on streets very close to the Old Royal Palace; that was where the Holy See Paladins were fighting.
They had already pushed to a position not far from the gates of the Old Royal Palace.
"Looks like it's almost time..." Ludwig muttered to himself.
Just then, the communication bell in the cargo bay rang abruptly. Ludwig walked over quickly and picked up the receiver. Anyone calling the cargo bay where the Armored Knights were stationed was basically looking for him.
"Lieutenant Colonel Ludwig, this is the bridge."
Sure enough, the voice of the L16 captain came through the earpiece.
"Received light signals from L15: the Holy See assault force has pushed to a position approximately eight hundred meters from the Old Royal Palace. Colonel Morin requests we prepare for airdrop immediately."
"This ship is estimated to enter the drop airspace in five minutes."
Hearing this, Ludwig's back instantly straightened.
"Understood! Prepare for airdrop in five minutes!"
He hung up the receiver, turned around, and waved at the two Teutonic Knights.
"Time to get to work!"
Hearing Ludwig's words, another Teutonic Knight stuffed the remaining half of his white bread into his mouth, chewed it two or three times, swallowed, and then, using the protrusions on the Armored Knight's calf, vaulted up to his cockpit.
The last man also dropped his canteen and jogged to his machine.
Ludwig took one last look at the blood-red city outside the window, then grabbed the handhold on the side of the "Siegfried Mark I" breastplate, climbed up practicedly, and slipped into the cockpit.
The narrow cockpit became even more cramped once he sat down.
As the main cockpit armor slowly lowered and locked, this area, like a small black box, became the entire world for the Armored Knight pilot.
Ludwig immediately began the startup sequence. Since the magitech technicians had already completed the startup during maintenance, he only needed to activate all magitech circuitry and enter the Sympathetic Operation State.
The radiant crystal internal combustion engine let out a muffled roar, followed by the shriek of the auxiliary magitech core, and the entire machine began to vibrate.
The three Armored Knights stood up sequentially in the cargo bay. The nearly six-meter-tall steel giants made the entire cargo bay feel cramped.
The magitech technicians released the securing latches on the machines one by one, then quickly evacuated to a safe area.
At the same time, the deck at the bottom of the cargo bay began to slowly separate, and cold wind carrying a heavy smell of blood poured in through the gap.
Ludwig, having entered the "Sympathetic State," looked down through the opening cargo bay hatch. He could see the Old Royal Palace complex, completely covered in dark red flesh, slowly approaching as the airship moved.
The L16 armored airship also began to tilt slightly at this time, adjusting its course.
Ludwig maneuvered his Armored Knight to the edge of the drop hatch. Just as he was about to observe the ground situation, he saw several magitech technicians secured with safety harnesses rush to the edge of the hatch, looking into the distance.
And amidst the howling wind, a series of explosions could be heard.
Due to the height of the Armored Knight, Ludwig's perspective couldn't see what they were looking at; he could only see the magitech technicians pointing into the distance with looks of surprise.
"What's happening?" Ludwig asked through the loudspeaker.
"My Lord, the L15 armored airship just accelerated to the airspace over the royal palace and started bombing, and then we just saw what looked like someone jumping down!"
Ludwig: "Huh? You can see that from this far away?"
"Because we saw a point of golden light dive straight down!"
"Wait a minute... Friedrich already jumped?!"