Hearing that support troops had come from the western defensive line, Rhodes and his companions were assigned to the second line of defense, an area with high ground that was not in the most difficult position of the defensive line. Lord Link was not pleased; he led his team forward towards the frontlines and left Rhodes with his cousin behind.
"You guys stay here and pick off high-value targets," he said before leading his team down from the high ground.
Rhodes and his cousin then prepared their guns with long-range scopes. On their first shot after zeroing, Rhodes and Sudel picked a Chaos Sorcerer about four hundred yards away, who was not very tall and hid behind the defensive lines.
Rhodes took the first shot, the bullet was a bit high, clipping the horn on the sorcerer’s helmet. While the Chaos Sorcerer was still dazed, Rhodes saw the bullet pierce through his helmet.
"Your muzzle was lifted too high. We’re on high ground; there’s no need to aim that high," Sudel, his cousin, pointed out. Rhodes instantly realized his mistake. For their second target, he chose a gnome who was carrying a jar towards a catapult, located in a carefully selected dip in the terrain, quite distant at about six hundred yards. Rhodes informed his cousin and they both shot together.
With a three-second countdown, Rhodes saw through the scope that one bullet struck the gnome’s neck while another hit the jar in his hands.
Then, a green fog burst out directly from the jar.
"They plan to use catapults to hurl plague jars? Genius idea, should we call for artillery support?" Rhodes was about to look for an observer when he heard the boom of a cannon, and then saw an explosion on the left side of the dip.
"They are adjusting fire," Sudel had just finished saying when Rhodes saw the second shell land in the center of the dip. After a few seconds, a series of artillery strikes reduced the catapults in the dip to pieces, and the personnel suffered heavy casualties. The jars, too, shattered all over the place.
"Observers in the sky."
With Sudel’s reminder, Rhodes saw gryphons in the sky: "Where did these gryphons come from? Aren’t the gryphons from the south afraid of the cold?"
"They can be protected with spell formations. Gryphons can hover in midair, which is very advantageous for observing the enemy. They fly quite high to avoid injury. Illusion techniques can deceive them, but they must have noticed something was wrong after we shattered the jars," Sudel said, and then selected a brand-new target for the two brothers: "About five hundred fifty yards away, at five o’clock, the Chaos standard-bearer, do you see?"
"I see them, a standard Chaos Standard Bearer. Switch to quicksilver bullets?"
"You switch, I’ll switch to armor-piercing bullets to break the flagpole."
Rhodes turned to look at his cousin—Cousin, you’ve got a problem. In the mirror, that thing is finer than a strand of hair!
"Prepare to shoot." Sudel’s command as the spotter allowed Rhodes to quickly finish aiming, and then they both fired together.
Rhodes’s bullet entered from the right side of the standard bearer, piercing his arm without armor, and then burrowed into his chest. The Chaos being began to self-ignite while collapsing.
And before that, Rhodes saw the scene where the hand of the Chaos standard bearer, along with the flagpole, was shattered by the bullet.
"...Cousin, you really have a problem; there isn’t a single guy in the team who can match your marksmanship," Rhodes sighed.
"If you have the mood to say such depressing things, why not try to put some effort into rigorous training? I believe you’d become stronger than me," Sudel replied.
Cousin’s words made Rhodes roll his eyes. You’ve got to be kidding me, cousin.
With the giant corpses taken care of, Malin knew that Chaos’s current offensive would once again prove fruitless—despite their seeming numerical advantage, the exchange ratio between them and Chaos had reached 1 to 210.
The overwhelming number of rifles, machine guns, and the addition of a massive amount of Blooming Bullet cannons turned the dense assault of the Nagoth Chaos into a target shooting performance.
Malin felt that the Mecha and heavy flamethrowers had not even been involved yet, let alone the large fish-blasting tools descending from the sky by the Mages—The first batch of 500-pound and 1000-pound big fellas that Malin had ordered earlier had already been made and were just waiting to be shipped. There was a certain risk associated with using the teleportation channels since interference could potentially lead to the bombs spontaneously detonating, so for safety reasons, it was better to have them brought over by the fleet.
On the other hand, wheat flour was a different story. Malin planned to release another batch of wheat flour from the Semi-Plane, striving hard to give those speculating merchants, hoarding flour, a grand opportunity to hang their entire families from the beams.
After all, it was all part of a free market economy; in a trade, there’s winning and losing. You stockpile, I crash. Malin was eager to see how long the wheat flour priced two hundred times higher than the market rate could hold up—if next time they can still afford to buy up the portion that Malin releases to the market (at least 70% of his stockpile was to be handed over to the military), then Malin was prepared to pull the wheat flour from Mark City—pulling wheat flour from all worlds in one go, then having the Semi-Plane elves and Druids work hard, he could gather two thousand tons by next month. Malin was confident that he could crash the entire wheat flour market of Copenhagen back to the Stone Age.
Whoever dares to block Malin’s move, he would scatter their entire families—since you want to be friends with the corrupt merchants, you have to learn to face the focused care of the most violent aesthetic of the Goddess of Harvest Church’s High Priest, whose love for the world knows no bounds.
Of course, Malin thought that this batch of wheat flour speculators should not be able to withstand the pressure; they ought to lower their prices by roughly forty percent. But in Malin’s view, the only path left for these greedy individuals was complete ruin.
"Lord Malin, just now Colonel Link Svenson led a troop into the battle, and our observers have located a trebuchet position in a low area. A Sharpshooter removed its Illusion concealment, but there’s no related shooting record from the Sharpshooter group," the battlefield messenger came forward with new information, causing Malin to raise an eyebrow. "No worries, tell them to continue seeking high-value targets, and also, tell them to prioritize dealing with Casters and prevent them from entering range."
After sending away the messenger, Malin glanced at the map in front of him and finally directed his attention to a highland on the Western side of the defense line.
Hmm, it should be Sudel and Rhodes, these two young men are Malin’s greatest discovery on this northern journey.
Thinking of this, Malin turned his head and gave Fio a look. This slim twig immediately, along with his companion Lorrin, lifted a box of ammunition and advanced toward the direction of the highland.
Malin hoped the two young men would appreciate the ’gifts’ he had selected for them.