Chapter 1264 - 1187: Main Roads and Paths
Pokkins wanted to set out tomorrow morning for a very simple reason: the vampires needed a feast of flesh and blood.
In the past, even if a blood-feast was carried out on imperial soil, it was merely a terror tactic for amusement’s sake, with no real benefit.
But once High Priest Serafe repaired the Holy Grail with the Triple Crown and the blood of the Seven Princes, things changed.
Through slaughter and feasting, by following the prescribed ritual and partaking in the feast, the low-born vampires could at last refine their bloodlines and ascend into higher vampires.
This vampire society was even more hopeless and suffocating than human society.
Humans, at least, could practice breathing techniques and take up the path of knightly combat, all the way up to the rank of Imperial Knight.
Vampires were different; their abilities were shackled by their bloodlines, and no amount of effort could break those constraints.
If you were born unable to use undead Magic, then for this entire lifetime you would never be able to use undead Magic.
Even Serafe himself had once been unable to breach this limit; now it could be broken, but it was already too late for him.
Yet the blood-feast, a blood-feast whose order of precedence was determined by military merit, became the path of promotion for vampires.
Go to war—earn military merit—advance via the blood-feast—go back to war—earn more merit...
Even if nothing could be passed on to their children and their younger kin, a single lifetime of such advancement was already enough.
That alone was sufficient to drive every vampire mad.
Under such a system, the drive and initiative of the vampires were unleashed as never before; this was also why Serafe had been able to swiftly unify the Royal Court.
In earlier times, they would never have had the motivation to pursue Alexei and his men across a thousand miles.
Wind swept broken blades of dead grass over the earthen mounds; under the starlight the cold wind knocked the fur hat off a cavalryman’s head.
This was not the fur hat’s fault; the bald scalp beneath it was simply too smooth.
As for this cavalryman, with eyeliner painted around his eyes and his beard fixed in place with splintered sheep bone, he was too focused on the fight below the mound and had forgotten the hat on his head.
His brows were tightly furrowed, as though he were trying to make sense of some Witchcraft he had never seen before.
The sky was black-iron, and night frost still clung to the dead grass, yet horse hooves pounded it aside to reveal dark soil beneath.
Over a hundred gray-clad cavalrymen were scattered down the gentle slope; their drab coarse cloaks blended with the steppe’s colors, like ghosts.
They were split into two groups of about fifty or sixty each, forming left and right wings, like two thick, crude lines.
Opposite those lines, however, was a swath of glaring crimson and bright violet.
Five or six hundred red cavalry were galloping over the grassland, livid with rage, hurling every sort of curse in the Baroque tongue.
A closer look would show that among those five or six hundred red cavalry, at least four hundred were headless riders.
They clung tight behind their masters, charging toward the thin line ahead of them—so close at hand, and yet as distant as the horizon.
And yet, the gray-clad cavalry showed no sign of panic.
The left wing swung up into their saddles in unison, reins shaking; fifty sorry nags bore their riders, pounding along the riverbed toward the northwest, gray dust trailing like a tail behind them.
A hoarse roar burst from the ranks of the red cavalry, and the riders in the front line drew their sabers one after another.
But just as the red cavalry’s formation began to waver, the gray-clad cavalry on the right wing moved.
They did not mount; instead they dismounted in a rush, their movements so uniform they looked like puppets jerked by the same string.
First they dropped to one knee, left hands bracing their guns, right hands swiftly unscrewing the breech; the brass spring-machines on the locks glinted faintly in the dusk.
Then came a collective creak, all at once—that was the sound of their springs being wound tight.
No one barked an order, yet fifty muzzles rose in perfect unison, aiming at the red cavalry who had come closest.
"Bang!" It wasn’t the whisper of arrows in flight, but a heavier, shorter crack.
Among the foremost red cavalry, seven or eight men abruptly toppled from their saddles.
Some were pierced clean through their armor by bullets, blood seeping down through the seams; others had their mounts shot out from under them, the horses’ forelegs buckling as they flung their riders to the ground.
The red cavalry behind them hurriedly hauled on their reins, but momentum crushed their ranks together, warhorses trampling fallen comrades and shrilling in panic.
At that moment, the red cavalry’s arrows finally flew; a dense rain of shafts swept across the sky, but most of them fell into the empty ground before the gray-clad soldiers, quivering in the soil.
A few vampires stretched out their right hands, frost condensing as seven or eight ice lances formed from nothing in the night.
But the lances flew only a few dozen paces before the eternal gales of the Roaring Corridor shoved them sideways.
The distance was too great; only now and then did an ice lance strike a man, and at most it made him stagger.
Most of these gray-clad cavalry wore light steel armor from the Holy Alliance beneath their cloaks; against ice-lance Spells it wasn’t exactly invulnerability, but it did a fine job of preventing instant death.
If it had been an undead Spell like a death ray, however, that steel armor would have been of little use.
Death ray was a Vampire Duke–level Spell; firing three or four times in a day was already impressive, hardly something to be thrown around lightly.
The bald cavalryman was genuinely perplexed; he had seen far too many cavalry charges.
Imperial heavy horse or steppe light riders, saber against saber, bow against bow, lance against saber, lance against bow... he was used to all of it.
But he’d never seen anyone fight like this—running while firing from long range, yet somehow leaving an enemy six times their number completely stuck, neither able to advance nor retreat.
This little Alexei’s tactics are...kind of interesting.
He whistled—"Whew!"—and a young boy popped out from behind the bushes.
He murmured, "Tell Lord Kutuyov that His Highness little Alexei has things under control here. He should just focus on his own side."
"Got it." The boy immediately led out a horse and vanished into the night.
Watching the frantic Vampire cavalry in the distance, Alexei let a faint smile slip.
The Royal Court may be strong, but they’re still behind the Holy Alliance’s latest way of war.
Plenty in the Shooting Army can ride and can shoot; they just don’t know how to fight on horseback. Riding and mounted combat are two different concepts.
Even if you can ride, it still takes two or three years to learn cavalry tactics; the complexity’s on par with Holy Alliance infantry doctrine.
So Alexei simply had them ride to move fast, then dismount to shoot once they reached a position.
When they saw the enemy coming, they’d mount up and run again. They weren’t wearing heavy armor or all that messy cavalry gear, so they could sprint like hell.
This kind of tactic would have been absolutely impossible in the old days.
Take the earliest Kanni Di models, for example—you couldn’t even reload them properly on horseback.
And with the range of the old spring guns, if you got too close you’d be spotted immediately.
Counting in firing and wind‑up time, there was no way you could do this "shoot once then run, run far, then shoot again" routine.
But now, the hundred‑plus riders under his command were using the latest rear‑loading spring guns.
Once the Holy Mechanism Court got their spring lathes, they could mass‑produce spiral firing rods; the Exorcism Court’s ordnance office even developed pointed spiral steel rounds, specialized for punching through White Crystal Steel armor and Great Knights.
Have Raffel try a charge now—one rear‑loading rifled spring sniper gun shot, one pointed spiral armor‑piercing steel bullet, and he’d be sent straight down to Fire Prison.
Still layering armor? The era has changed!
So far these weapons are only in prototype stage; the ordnance office mainly wants a field test.
Otherwise, even if they build them, the battle groups probably won’t dare use them.
These things decide whether you live or die. The old models are battle‑tested—if they work, don’t touch them.
If the new guns glitch on the battlefield, then what?
Seven‑day no‑reason returns? This is war!
So in the gear the ordnance office dumped on Alexei, there were also a hundred and fifty mid‑advanced rear‑loading spring guns.
Of course, this has absolutely nothing to do with Gloev being Hakuto’s drinking buddy and the army’s biggest beef supplier.
The attacks on Cardinal Hakuto in the Cold Spring Castle Gazette are pure fabrication; the official statement has already debunked them.
Either way, Alexei is still very grateful to Gloev, who drank himself half to death to get this done.
After several rounds of back‑and‑forth, these six hundred cavalry hadn’t suffered any truly serious losses, but they’d been disgusted out of their minds.
Weren’t they the ones supposed to be harassing the enemy? How did it turn into them getting harassed instead?
In any case, the Vampire commanders made their decision: a temporary retreat.
Watching the retreating Vampires, Alexei actually felt a little dazed. He’d just led a hundred‑plus completely untrained mounted infantry and beaten six times their number of Vampire cavalry!
Under normal circumstances, you’d need an equal number of Extraordinary Knights to stand toe‑to‑toe with Vampire cavalry.
He lowered his head, looking at the rear‑loading spring gun in his hands.
This thing is way more practical than Magic!
He’d have to bring in more later, along with Holy Favor Seeds. Anyway, Falan’s currently lowered tariffs on the Holy Alliance, relaxed a lot of restrictions, and is importing tons of monster flesh and blood.
Holy Favor Seed prices are bound to drop. Once they do, Bear Castle will be fighting Vampires—instant demand, right?
Later, once he’s trained up a reliable corps of Cuirassiers and equips them with rear‑loading spring guns...
Forget those stubborn old fossils in Fat Cow Castle—even the Vampires themselves probably won’t be a match for guns and cannons.
Of course, all of this presupposes they survive the present moment.
Thinking of that, Alexei seemed to realize something. He snapped his head around to Gloev at his side. "What time is it?"
Gloev, puzzled: "Half past nine. Why?"
"That’s wrong. Sweep the main road, check it...forget it, I’ll do it myself."
In no time, Alexei was off, kicking up clouds of dust.
About half an hour later, with only a handful of cavalry in tow, he came back.
"Everyone mount up, everyone mount up," he shouted. "The Vampires didn’t take the main road. Damn it, they went straight for the Gale Side Path!"