More than one armed soldier had charged into the cellar, so there was no question of who to rescue first.
But sometimes, putting on the “proper” attitude was extremely important.
Before Mo Lin had even finished speaking, a sharp dagger sliced through the ropes binding his hands.
A “tin can” soldier wasted no words and directly hauled him up from the ground.
On the other side, Lieutenant General Mackensen, who had been beaten badly because of his foul mouth, was even more simply slung over another tin can’s shoulder.
Judging from his limp appearance, he was clearly badly injured. At this point, he probably could not even walk.
Supported by someone, Mo Lin staggered two steps, enduring the pain that felt as if his whole body were falling apart, and managed to stand firm.
He looked around, his gaze sweeping over the four Britannian officers’ corpses on the ground, when a thought suddenly flashed through his mind.
“Please wait for me a moment.”
He broke free from the soldier’s support and, while enduring the pain coming from every part of his body and sucking in cold breaths, crouched down.
First, he searched the major who had been making threats, and soon found the man’s officer identification.
Then he searched out the identification documents of the other three one by one.
Finally, he also slung the document bag the young officer had dropped on the ground over his shoulder.
Since obtaining key information could increase that so-called “information collection progress” of his, perhaps the documents or maps in this bag would also come in handy.
Only after doing all this did he return to the tin can soldier’s side and signal that he was done.
The soldier did not ask any questions. He merely used an arm covered in iron armor to support him again. Only now did Mo Lin notice that on this soldier’s armor and round shield, there seemed to be an almost imperceptible blue light flowing.
Before Mo Lin could ask anything, this soldier, whose strength was clearly far beyond that of an ordinary person, directly brought him out of the cellar.
And the scene here was even more tragic than inside the cellar.
This seemed to be the first-floor hall of some residence, but the violent explosion from earlier had already reduced everything here to dust.
The remains of furniture and fragments of the building were mixed together, and the air was filled with the smell of gunpowder smoke and dirt.
More than a dozen corpses, severed limbs, and broken arms of Brita—Holy Britannian soldiers lay scattered all over the ground. The thick stench of blood almost clogged one’s mouth and nose.
Mo Lin forcibly suppressed the nausea surging up his throat and followed closely behind the rescue troops as they stepped out of the building.
It was night outside, yet the streetlamps on the road had not been lit. Only the cold moonlight and the distant glow of fires provided a little illumination.
By this dim light, Mo Lin could make out the situation outside.
Aside from the few tin cans who had stormed into the cellar, in the shadows of the street outside, there was another half squad of the same model of heavily armored soldiers standing guard with guns.
The strength and stamina of these tin-can soldiers were clearly different from ordinary soldiers.
While wearing a full suit of heavy armor, they were actually carrying swords and shields on their backs, as well as holding some kind of larger-caliber rifle.
One of them was even directly carrying a machine gun that looked very much like an MG08/15.
As for the Sachsen soldiers around them who were standing guard, dressed in the same field-gray uniforms as the one on his own body, their style was much more normal.
There were around thirty of them. Their weapons were basically all bolt-action rifles, and at this moment, they were relying on the buildings on both sides of the street to construct a temporary defensive line.
Besides them, there was another group of people.
Their clothing was all kinds of mismatched: old military uniforms, workers’ clothes, and even some people wearing shirts and waistcoats. The weapons in their hands were also of every variety.
Mo Lin immediately thought of the report from that young officer earlier—the “other group of armed personnel of unknown identity.”
It seemed that this was them.
And just then, a Sachsen soldier, bent low, ran over quickly from the end of the street.
He rushed straight up to an officer who looked like the commander and reported in a lowered voice:
“Captain, the Britannians have reacted! They’re ignoring the feint attacks on the flanks and are shifting their main force toward us! The allied blocking troops are about to be caught!”
As soon as he finished speaking, dense gunfire rang out from the distant street. The “whoosh, whoosh” of stray bullets cutting through the night sky could be heard clearly.
The nearby Sachsen soldiers immediately pointed their muzzles in the direction the gunfire came from, and the atmosphere instantly grew tense to the extreme.
“Understood.”
The commander addressed as captain appeared very calm.
“Have the blocking troops hold on a little longer. Once we withdraw from here, they are to disengage along the original route at once! If the Britannians are dead set on coming over to reinforce this side, they won’t bother with them!”
Very soon, Mo Lin was being supported just like that, following the main force as they rapidly threaded through alleys and retreated toward the direction outside the city.
Along the way, he also saw several officers likewise wearing field-gray uniforms being carried on stretchers, following in the middle of the column.
It seemed they should also be survivors from the military observer group; he simply did not know where they had been imprisoned earlier.
Everyone sprinted all the way for roughly two blocks, when suddenly, Mo Lin heard a heart-stopping shriek overhead.
“Whoosh—”
“Boom!”
Before he could react, from the town behind them that they had just escaped, there came the roar of a shell striking the ground.
After the group had run some more distance, a second roar sounded behind them.
Mo Lin found a gap to glance back. This time, the firelight from the explosion was clearly closer to the block he had just been in.
“Registration fire? Looks like there’s an observer guiding it... But where are they observing from?”
“Boom!”
When the third roar came, Mo Lin had already turned his head in advance to stare in the direction he had just left. This time, the impact point looked extremely close to the location of that residence.
“Will they keep adjusting fire? Or...”
This question flashed through Mo Lin’s mind, but he did not have to wait long before he got his answer.
“Whoosh—whoosh whoosh whoosh—”
A series of ear-piercing shrieks swept overhead. A moment later, thunderous explosions rang out one after another. This kind of full artillery battery salvo went on for five whole rounds.
Even though they had already run quite far away, Mo Lin could still feel the ground beneath his feet trembling slightly.
He subconsciously turned back to look, only to see firelight shooting into the sky, and a wave of lingering fear surged through his heart.
The captain raised his hand, glanced at his pocket watch by the light of the flames, then said in a calm voice:
“Those cannon-hauling fellows are actually quite punctual this time.”
That one sentence made all the hairs on Mo Lin’s body stand on end.
He immediately understood these Sachsen soldiers’ plan.
If the rescue operation just now had failed, or if they had been even one or two minutes later, he and Lieutenant General Mackensen, as well as those captured colleagues...
Perhaps even including these rescue troops, would probably have been wiped from this world together with the enemy by that “punctual” artillery fire.
“This is way too ruthless. An army lieutenant general, and they can just throw him away like that...” Mo Lin sighed silently in his heart.
The column did not stop because of the artillery barrage. It continued marching quickly in single file, withdrawing toward the safe zone.
At this moment, the captain quickly walked up to the group of armed personnel dressed in all kinds of mismatched clothing and found a middle-aged man with a great beard who looked like their leader.
“Thank you very much for your support, friend.”
There was sincere gratitude in the captain’s voice.
“But we still need some time. I hope you can help cover us a while longer. We must ensure General Mackensen reaches the rear safely.”
Mo Lin pricked up his ears to listen, his curiosity about this mysterious armed force reaching its peak.
He heard the commander continue, “After this, please convey to your command that the Sachsen military will remember the valuable assistance the ‘International Brigade’ provided tonight.”
Wait, what brigade did you just say?
When the four words “International Brigade” drilled into Mo Lin’s ears, he felt as if a 150 mm heavy gun had been pressed against his forehead and fired.
With a buzz, his mind instantly went blank.
If his pitiful bit of historical knowledge was not wrong, then this Sachsen Empire he was in, no matter how one looked at it, resembled a copy of the German Second Empire—a dualist, monarchical, federal state.
Then...
How could it be fighting shoulder to shoulder in the same trench with an obviously left-leaning force like the “International Brigade”?!
Was this World War I or World War II?
What kind of absurd direction had this world taken?!
Both Austria-Hungary and the German Second Empire used the concept of “Dualism,” but their meanings were fundamentally different.
The “dualism” of the German Second Empire referred to the duality of the state’s power structure, namely the confrontation and checks and balances between monarchical executive power and parliamentary legislative power.
The “dualism” of Austria-Hungary referred to the duality of the state’s composition, namely that the empire was jointly composed of two independent and equal monarchies.
Don’t just think of Austria-Hungary the moment someone mentions “dualism,” hey!