Chapter 36: Civil War of the Armored Knights

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An eerie silence descended upon the battlefield.

The smoke of war still hung in the air, and the stench of blood was sharp in their nostrils, but the gunfire and battle cries had ceased.

On the high ground, the Saxon infantry and the soldiers of the International Brigades gripped their weapons tensely, watching the impending clash of steel about to erupt below the hillside.

On the other side, the retreating Kingdom army and Britannian infantry had also halted, turning back to look at their trump card.

The killing ground that had belonged to the infantry only moments ago had now become the exclusive stage of the Armored Knights.

The Armored Knight leading the Knights of the Garter seemed entirely unconcerned that its side was surrounded. Instead, it took a step forward.

It raised its right hand and used the ornate arming sword in its grasp to strike heavily against the kite shield mounted on its left arm.

“Clang! Clang! Clang!”

The crisp, resonant clash of metal echoed across the battlefield, like a declaration of challenge before some ancient duel—or, more precisely, an undisguised provocation.

“That is a remarkably elaborate ceremony,” Morin muttered as he watched through his binoculars from the high ground.

But in the very next instant, the response awaiting the white Armored Knight came from the Teutonic Order—simple, brutal, and direct.

“Boom!”

Ludwig opened fire first at the flashy Britannian Armored Knight, without the slightest hesitation.

The other eleven Armored Knights of the Teutonic Order had assembled behind him. The moment they saw him fire, they too aimed the “little cannons” in their hands at the enemy in the center.

Boom, boom, boom, boom!

Eleven direct-fire cannons discharged almost simultaneously. Their shells screamed through the air, instantly blanketing the area occupied by the Knights of the Garter.

Explosions thundered one after another. The earth trembled, while dust and smoke surged skyward, swallowing the four white figures completely.

Yet only a few seconds later, the four white Armored Knights burst out of the smoke.

They formed a tight diamond formation, ignoring the shells that continued to rain down upon them, and charged straight toward Ludwig and Wilhelm.

With his gaze locked firmly upon them, Morin could clearly see that every white Armored Knight was enveloped in a shield that rippled incessantly across its surface.

Whenever a shell from the Teutonic Order struck one of those shields, rings of blue ripples burst outward.

Clearly, some form of defensive spell was at work.

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But that protection was not invincible. It possessed a definite defensive threshold.

Under the sustained bombardment of twelve handheld cannons, the shield surrounding the leading Armored Knight of the Knights of the Garter began to ripple more and more violently, while its color grew increasingly dim.

At last, after yet another shell struck home, the shield silently disintegrated like shattering glass.

The shells that followed slammed unhindered into its white armor, blasting blackened craters across its surface and bringing its charge to an abrupt halt.

But the damage that long-range fire could inflict was limited to breaking the shields.

When the distance between the two sides had narrowed to a hundred meters, Ludwig was the first to discard his handheld cannon.

The other eleven Armored Knights of the Teutonic Order followed suit, casting aside their heavy ranged weapons almost in unison and drawing a variety of close-combat weapons from their backs or waists.

There were traditional greatswords, enormous two-handed battle-axes, and vicious flails...

But most of all, there were heavy maces designed specifically for crushing armor.

The black-and-white-crossed Armored Knights emitted deep engine roars as they swung their savage weapons and charged toward the Knights of the Garter.

At the same time, the knights’ squires on both sides swept in from the flanks and crashed into one another.

Boom!

The instant steel collided with steel, everyone watching felt as though their hearts had skipped a beat.

The scene before them was simply too shocking.

Great metal constructs created through a fusion of magical engineering and industrial technology were clashing and hacking at one another in the most primitive and savage manner imaginable.

Every collision sent blinding sparks flying. Every swing came with a howl that seemed to tear the air apart.

Before long, Morin could also discern the differences between the two sides.

The Armored Knights of the Knights of the Garter possessed smooth, exquisitely shaped outer armor, and their movements were elegant and swift.

Nor did they have anything resembling exhaust pipes on their backs belching smoke. They were clearly products of pure magical engineering.

Behind every Armored Knight of the Teutonic Order, by contrast, stood two smoke-belching exhaust pipes.

The movements of these “iron cans” were also distinctly more mechanical. Their motions were broad and forceful, filled with the brutal aesthetic of heavy industry.

It was almost as though a custom-built elite machine had been surrounded and attacked by a swarm of rugged, reliable mass-produced models. In other words, magical engineering versus a hybrid technology combining magical engineering with internal combustion engines.

In the world Morin had known before crossing over, internal combustion engines had been the technology under challenge. In this world, they had instead become a kind of “new energy” in their own right...

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Moreover, perhaps because of the difference in fuel, the internal combustion engines of this world produced vastly more power than the primitive engines Morin knew of, which was how they could drive these enormous “iron cans.”

As he watched the fierce battle unfold, Morin soon understood why the Teutonic Order had chosen to fight with a three-to-one numerical advantage.

There was indeed a visible difference in performance between the Armored Knights on the two sides.

Without their numerical superiority and specialized weapons, the battle would likely have looked nothing like this.

From the moment the Armored Knights collided, the battle entered a fever pitch.

The Teutonic Knights abandoned every unnecessary movement and simply brought their armor-piercing weapons crashing down upon their opponents again and again.

The knights of the Knights of the Garter, relying on superior equipment and greater mobility, managed to bring down two Teutonic Knights during the initial exchange.

But the comparatively traditional arming swords in their hands were clearly suited only for striking vital points. They seemed better designed for cutting a swath through infantry formations.

In a civil war between Armored Knights, however, those swords were plainly inadequate against maces created for the sole purpose of breaking armor.

More often than not, when their blades struck the thick armor of a Teutonic Armored Knight, they left behind nothing more than pale marks. Their opponents’ maces, on the other hand, smashed directly through the outer armor plates, leaving behind one terrifying hole after another.

Amid the brutal attrition, the balance of the battle began to tilt slowly.

After blocking several attacks in succession, one Armored Knight of the Knights of the Garter had its left-arm shield chopped away by a battle-axe.

Immediately afterward, two maces crashed into its breastplate from opposite sides.

With a grating shriek of tortured metal, the finely emblazoned breastplate was smashed inward, two gaping holes punched straight through it.

The white knight staggered backward, its movements visibly slowing.

Ludwig seized the opportunity. Driving his own machine forward, he rammed aside the opponent in front of him, then raised his mace high and brought it down viciously upon the cockpit of the wounded Knight of the Garter.

With a dull, heavy impact, Ludwig’s mace crushed the cockpit into a completely mangled mass.

When he pulled the weapon free, fragments of flesh and blood could still be seen clinging to it.

The elegant white Armored Knight before him struggled and swayed twice before finally dropping helplessly to one knee.

Then it fell utterly silent.

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