Chapter 192 – 78 Escape_3
When he saw two enemies carrying ranged weapons approaching, Andre realized he couldn’t delay any longer, he should have acted the moment the Tanilians appeared. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ noᴠelfire.net
“Follow me! Kill!” Warrant Officer Andrea Cherini bellowed, swinging a stick as he charged at the tallest of the Tanilians.
The Tanilians surrounding them hadn’t expected these cornered beasts to fight back. Confronted by an officer wielding a club, the muscular Tanilian in front of them froze in place, instinctively raising his saber to block the attack.
Years of swordsmanship training enabled Andre to intuitively use the stick in his hands as if it were a longsword. He knocked the enemy’s weapon away with one swing and swung back hard, striking the other’s right ear. Blood instantly poured from the man’s nostrils, mouth, and eyes, and his body collapsed limply to the ground.
In the blink of an eye, Andre had floored the Tanilian strongman.
The sight of this officer’s fierce courage shocked the Tanilians, while it inspired the Venetians, who brandishing stones, charged at the enemy with cries.
However, the dire situation only deepened Andre’s despair as seven or eight more Tanilians were drawn by the noise, and he saw the number of Tanilians in the clearing steadily increase.
“Come on! Come and kill me!” the young warrant officer roared in desperation, searching for another opponent. Yet the Tanilians avoided him, and a small vacuum unexpectedly appeared in the chaotic battlefield.
“Thud,” a dull gunshot rang out.
Andre closed his eyes, but realized there was no particular pain in his body, and immediately opened his eyes again.
At the base of the short cliff, Colonel Kongtai’er clutched his abdomen and collapsed to the ground.
A Tanilian chieftain reached the edge of the clearing and immediately noticed the conspicuous officer in the midst of battle. Under his continuous commands, several spear-wielding Tanilians surrounded Andre.
If stones were effective, humans wouldn’t have resorted to iron weapons to slaughter each other.
One after another, the unarmed Venetian soldiers, armed only with stones, were struck down. Seeing this, Andre let out a roar of despair. He grabbed the longspear aimed at him and smashed the stick in his hand together with the spearman’s head.
The other spearmen, out of fear, didn’t dare approach him, but two arquebusiers on the edge of the clearing had him in their sights.
“This Venetian doesn’t look much older than twenty, does he?” the Tanilian chieftain leading the men thought as he watched the young officer in the battlefield, “He is indeed a brave warrior, shame he’s a Venetian.”
The next moment, he felt a hot surge at the back of his head, and his consciousness extinguished.
The captain beside him collapsed to the ground with a thump, and the arquebusier nearby, completely bewildered, hurriedly crouched down trying to wake the captain, but the captain had already breathed his last.
More sounds came from the dense forest. The arquebusier looked in the direction of the noise, his legs weakened instantly, nearly unable to maintain his crouched position.
From the forest emerged a person dressed in Venetian military uniform, which looked as if it had been washed in mud and sludge, the mud encrusted with bloodstains, and the traces of some white fluid that had congealed were even more conspicuous.
Before the arquebusier could cry out for help, the person raised his hand and the powder flask at the arquebusier’s waist exploded instantly, the force blowing him in two.
The other arquebusier yet to grasp what was happening had his powder flask explode as well, leaving a huge gap in his abdomen, as if half his stomach had been bitten off by a giant beast.
The slaughter in the battlefield was interrupted by these two loud blasts. Both the Tanilians and the Venetians stood bewildered, looking towards the edge of the woods.
A blood-covered Venetian officer charged into the battlefield, slashing at the Tanilians like a violent storm. Every time he lifted his left hand, a Tanilian spasmed and fell.
Six or seven men wielding sabers followed him into the fray, and another Venetian officer armed with a bow stood at the edge of the forest, supporting the attack.
“The Centurion is here! The reinforcements have arrived!” Andre cried out in manic laughter, “Kill them all! Don’t let a single one escape!”