An eerie silence fell over the battlefield.
Gun smoke still drifted, and the reek of blood was sharp in the air, but the gunfire and battle cries had both died away.
On the high ground, Saxon infantry and the fighters of the International Brigade gripped their weapons tensely, watching the clash of steel that was about to erupt beneath the slope.
On the other side, the routed kingdom troops and Britannian infantry had also stopped in their tracks, turning back to look at their trump card.
This killing field that had belonged to the infantry only moments ago had now become a stage reserved solely for armored knights.
The armored knight leading the Order of the Garter seemed utterly unconcerned by the fact that its side was surrounded. Instead, it took a step forward.
It raised its right hand and, with the ornate armament sword it held, struck heavily against the kite shield on its left arm.
“Clang! Clang! Clang!”
The clear, ringing sound of metal on metal echoed above the battlefield, like a challenge issued before an ancient duel—more like an undisguised provocation.
“They’re making it pretty ceremonial, huh?”
On the high ground, Mo Lin watched this scene through his binoculars and could not help but comment.
Only, in the next moment, what greeted that white armored knight was the Teutonic Knights’ simple and brutal “response.”
“Boom!”
Ludwig was the first to open fire on that flashy Britannian armored knight, without the slightest hesitation.
Aside from him, the eleven assembled armored knights of the Teutonic Order, upon seeing him fire, also aimed the “little steel cannons” in their hands at the enemy in the center.
Boom boom boom boom—!
Eleven direct-fire cannons opened fire almost simultaneously. Shells screamed through the air and instantly blanketed the area occupied by the Order of the Garter.
Violent explosions continued without pause. The earth trembled, and dust and smoke surged skyward, completely swallowing those four white figures.
Yet only a few seconds later, the four white armored knights charged out of the smoke and dust.
They formed a tight diamond formation, ignoring the shells that continued to fire at them, and launched a direct charge toward Ludwig and Wilhelm.
Mo Lin, whose gaze was locked firmly on them, could clearly see that the surface of each white armored knight was shrouded in a shield that constantly rippled.
When the Teutonic Knights’ shells struck those shields, circles of blue ripples would explode outward.
Clearly, some sort of protective spell was at work.
But this protection was not invincible; it had a certain defensive threshold.
Under the continuous bombardment of twelve handheld cannons, the ripples around the Order of the Garter armored knight charging at the very front grew more and more violent, and the color of its shield grew dimmer and dimmer.
At last, after another shell struck, that layer of shield silently collapsed like shattered glass.
The follow-up shells smashed unhindered into its white armor, blasting out one charred pit after another and even causing its charging momentum to falter.
But the damage that long-range firepower could inflict was limited to “breaking the shield.”
When the distance between the two sides closed to a hundred meters, Ludwig was the first to throw down his handheld cannon.
The other eleven armored knights of the Teutonic Order also dropped their heavy ranged weapons in unison, drawing all manner of melee weapons from their backs or waists.
There were traditional greatswords, enormous two-handed battle-axes, and vicious flails.
But most of them were heavy maces specifically designed for armor-breaking.
The armored knights painted with black-and-white crosses let out dull engine roars, brandishing those savage weapons as they charged up to meet the Order of the Garter.
At the same time, the knightly attendants on both sides also flanked in from the wings and slammed fiercely into one another.
Boom—!
The instant steel collided head-on with steel, every spectator nearby felt as if their heart had skipped a beat.
The scene before them was simply too shocking.
Gigantic metal creations forged through magitech and industrial technology were colliding and hacking at one another in the most primitive, most brutal fashion.
Every impact burst with dazzling sparks; every swing carried a howl that tore through the air.
Very soon, Mo Lin could also see the differences between the two sides.
The armored knights of the Order of the Garter had rounded, exquisite external armor, and their movements were elegant and swift.
Nor did any device resembling an exhaust pipe on their backs spew smoke, making it clear they were products of pure magitech.
On the Teutonic Order’s side, however, two exhaust pipes belching black smoke stood behind every armored knight.
At the same time, the way these “tin cans” moved was clearly more mechanical. Their motions were broad and sweeping, filled with the violent aesthetics of heavy industry.
It was like a meticulously crafted custom unit being besieged by a group of rugged, durable mass-produced units. In a sense, it could be considered magitech versus magitech plus internal-combustion hybrid technology.
In the world before Mo Lin’s transmigration, the internal-combustion engine had been the one facing challenges. Yet in this world, it had instead become a kind of “new energy” in a certain sense.
Moreover, perhaps because of the difference in fuel, the internal-combustion engines of this world clearly had far greater power output than the early internal-combustion engines Mo Lin knew of, which was why they could drive these huge “tin cans.”
Watching the fierce battle between the two sides, Mo Lin quickly understood why the Teutonic Order had chosen to fight this battle with a threefold numerical advantage.
There was indeed a difference in performance between the two sides’ armored knights that was visible to the naked eye.
If not for their numbers and their targeted weapons, the situation of this battle probably would not have looked anything like it did now.
From the moment the armored knights of both sides crashed together, the battle entered a white-hot stage.
The Teutonic knights abandoned all superfluous movements and simply smashed their armor-piercing cold weapons madly into their opponents’ armor.
As for the knights of the Order of the Garter, although they relied on more refined equipment and more flexible mobility to knock down two Teutonic knights in the initial clash,
the relatively traditional armament swords in their hands could clearly only be used to attack certain vital points, and seemed more suited to cutting an unmatched path through ranks of infantry.
In an internal battle between armored knights, when facing a weapon like the mace, born purely for armor-breaking, the armament sword was obviously somewhat inadequate.
Often, when the slashing edge of a sword struck the thick armor of an armored knight, it could only leave behind white marks. The enemy’s mace, however, could truly smash through their external armor plates, leaving one terrifying hole after another.
The scales of battle began to tilt slowly amid the brutal attrition.
One armored knight of the Order of the Garter, after blocking several attacks in succession, had the shield on its left arm hacked off directly by a battle-axe.
Immediately afterward, two maces smashed into its breastplate from the left and right at the same time.
Accompanied by a teeth-grating sound of twisting metal, the breastplate engraved with an exquisite crest was forcibly smashed open with two holes.
The white knight staggered back, its movements clearly becoming sluggish.
Ludwig seized this opportunity. Piloting his machine, he abruptly knocked aside the opponent in front of him, raised the mace in his hand high, aimed at the cockpit of the wounded Garter knight, and smashed it down viciously.
With a dull, heavy crash, Ludwig’s mace smashed the cockpit of that Garter knight completely out of shape.
When he pulled the mace back out, pieces of flesh and blood could even be seen clinging to it.
As for the elegant white armored knight before him, it struggled and swayed twice before finally sinking powerlessly to one knee, then falling completely silent.