After eliminating one target, the Teutonic Order’s offensive grew even fiercer.
After that, at the cost of a full four armored knights brought down and nearly half their knight squires killed, they finally destroyed all the knight squires and toppled another Garde Knight.
Through Molin’s binoculars, the fallen armored knight was quickly surrounded by three Teutonic Knights, who smashed its limbs and front armor again and again with maces and battle-axes glowing with some kind of magical light.
This was combat between armored knights—a deathmatch with no quarter given.
At present, only two armored knights of the Garde Knight Order were still struggling to hold on.
They fought as they retreated, clearly already intent on withdrawal, and began breaking toward the weakest point of the encirclement.
But Ludwig, who had already seized the upper hand, would never easily give up the chance to annihilate them all. He charged forward, weapon in hand.
When the other armored knights saw his move, they also pressed the advantage and gave chase, determined to keep these last two prey here as well.
Yet just as the Teutonic Order was about to win a sweeping victory in this “hunt,” a figure in a mage’s robe came flying rapidly through the air from afar.
In the end, that figure came to an abrupt stop above the battlefield in a manner that defied the laws of physics, looking down upon everything below from on high.
Seeing this, a powerful sense of foreboding surged up in Molin’s heart.
Immediately after, the system notification sounded as well—this time, a somewhat piercing alarm.
【Sacred Britannia Empire Highland Mage Corps: High-Ranking Mentor—Eldridge】
This was the Highland mage who had nearly met Molin’s eyes when he was conducting forward reconnaissance!
Molin knew very well that for this man to appear here at this moment, there was only one possibility: he had come to support the armored knights of the Garde Knight Order.
And just as he was wondering what this mysterious Highland mage intended to do, he saw Eldridge in the air slowly raise both hands, making a downward pressing motion while chanting an obscure incantation.
Then he pointed from afar at the ground beneath the pursuing Teutonic Knights.
【Fifth-Circle Spell—Transmute Rock】
In an instant, a sudden change occurred!
The solid scorched earth beneath the Teutonic Knights’ feet seemed to turn into a flowing swamp.
Large stretches of ground rapidly softened and liquefied, turning into a mire that should not have appeared there.
Those armored knights, weighing more than ten tons at full combat load, and the knight squires in powered armor instantly lost their balance, their heavy bodies sinking uncontrollably into the mud.
“Damn it!”
Ludwig’s furious roar rang out in the cockpit. He desperately manipulated his mount, trying to break free from the mire, but the frantic roar of the internal combustion engine only brought a faster rate of sinking.
The situation on the field had been completely reversed in just a few short seconds.
The two surviving armored knights of the Garde Knight Order were still somewhat hesitant at first, but after Eldridge pointed toward Seville, they turned without the slightest hesitation and quickly withdrew from the area.
Molin looked at the godlike figure in the sky, and a sense of powerlessness rose within him, as though he had been beaten black and blue by “idealism.”
So this was what high-level spellcasters in this world were like?
With a casual gesture, they could alter the terrain and overturn the outcome of a local engagement.
And with the existence of these armored knights too, how the hell were miserable infantry supposed to fight? Were they really only fit to be line-filling cannon fodder?
Molin’s mind raced, and a thought flashed through it.
No! He couldn’t let him keep casting!
He knew very well how important these armored knights of the Teutonic Order were to Saxon infantry like them. If all these armored knights were buried here, the infantry would have no good days ahead.
Molin glanced at the markers on the system map and saw that beside this mage’s special unit card, there was another line of information and a shield icon.
【Status: Continuous Casting, Interruptible】
【Mage Armor—Current Durability: 100%】
“That’s more like it. How could there be no weaknesses at all? How would anyone even play that?”
“Mages have had it easy for too long. Running so openly above a battlefield to cast spells—just how terrified of mage units were infantry in the past?”
Seeing this information, Molin immediately felt reassured. After all, if a mage’s spellcasting couldn’t be interrupted, that would be far too imba.
“Third Platoon! All of you! Target that mage in the sky! Fire! Fire at will!!”
Molin shouted the order to the soldiers under his command.
The soldiers of Third Platoon lying prone on the high ground were stunned at first, but they quickly reacted, aiming at the figure more than three hundred meters up in the sky from their prone firing positions.
“Bang!”
As Molin fired first, dozens of Gew.98 rifles spat tongues of flame at the same time.
The dense gunfire shattered the brief silence on the high ground.
Molin’s action was like lighting a fuse.
The soldiers of the International Brigade beside him quickly came to their senses as well.
Everyone understood that they could not let this mage wipe out their armored knights just like that, so under the order of the bearded commander, they all raised their rifles and opened fire.
Immediately afterward, Major Thomas, commander of the 1st Battalion, and the other officers, including Captain Hauser, also reacted. The more than three hundred surviving combat troops of the entire 1st Battalion all aimed their muzzles at the sky.
A fire net woven from hundreds of rifles poured toward Eldridge.
Although hitting a human-sized target at a distance of more than three hundred meters posed a certain challenge for rifles with iron sights, and the hit rate would therefore be affected to some extent,
a quantitative change could still produce a qualitative one. Under such a dense barrage, a considerable number of bullets struck the target with precision.
Around Eldridge, a transparent shield continuously rippled. That was the effect of 【Mage Armor】.
He had intended to maintain the spell and completely bury those damned Teutonic Knights, achieving a tactical victory and then turning that victory into momentum.
But under the continuous attack of 7.92 full-power rounds, more and more cracks still appeared on the shield.
Eldridge’s expression turned ugly. 【Mage Armor】 was not invincible. In essence, it was only a first-circle spell.
Although the 【Mage Armor】 cast by someone of his level had a defensive threshold far higher than that of other low-ranking mages, it still had an upper limit.
Back when he had still been an apprentice studying at the Scottish Mage Tower, he had heard the old mages’ warning in class:
“Though we can handle mortal soldiers with ease, we must never attempt to use our flesh to resist firearms, nor should we believe that casting protective spells means we can completely ignore firearm attacks.”
The most famous example of this was the tragedy from more than twenty years ago, when a Highland archmage used 【Mage Armor】 to face an enemy artillery attack head-on, only to be blasted into minced meat together with his shield.
However, in Eldridge’s previous battles supporting the colonies, whenever he appeared on the battlefield, mortal soldiers would often lose their will to fight from fear and turn tail, let alone attack him.
But today, that understanding had been shattered by the attacks of the Saxon soldiers.
He had never imagined that these mortal infantrymen, who were like ants in his eyes, could actually threaten him in this way.
In the end, at the very moment before the shield was about to collapse, he had no choice but to give up maintaining the spell and begin evading in the air.
The mud on the ground rapidly solidified once more, but the Teutonic Knights already had half their bodies sunk inside it, unable to move.
Eldridge glared viciously at the infantry below, who were still firing without pause. He was just about to use the other spells prepared in his spell slots to make these ants regret shooting at him,
when a white signal flare rising from the city of Seville behind him forcibly interrupted his movement.
That was the coalition’s signal to retreat.
“These useless things!”
Eldridge cursed angrily. In the end, he cast another 【Shield】 in front of himself, then flew toward Seville without looking back.