Bear School Astartes

In everyone’s perception, war is driving human minds toward increasingly brutal territories.

The Niflgaard unit in front of us is destined to be abandoned.

Their superiors have abandoned them, sending them out boldly to serve as bait to lure action.

The mission they were given was to die by our hands and then to do their utmost to leave traces, showcasing our methods and strength.

Lann saw this very clearly.

Intelligence is an extremely important resource; a murky enemy is often more unsettling and anxiety-inducing than a powerful one.

The vast system of the Niflgaard Empire began to operate, using vassal armies and slave legions from their subordinate countries to boost numbers, ready at any time for a high-casualty battle.

Among them are not only the low-value vassal armies and slaves but also Niflgaardian soldiers and officers forming the backbone of the command system.

In the council, the deeper discussion on the issue of magic and warfare involvement also began to be put into practice in this operation.

A significant number of Mages were dispatched from the Golden Pagoda City.

The level of these Mages was not particularly high; they basically were not up to the standard of opening portals by themselves.

They managed to arrive in Sintra in a very short time thanks to a few Niflgaardian Great Mages preparing for a large-scale battle who opened a portal in the military camp.

But there are many of them, enough to allocate one by each senior officer’s side.

The Empire has never made such extensive use of these ’trick-playing’ individuals.

Marshal Meno Kuhorn and his advisory team integrated all these forces into their command system, their task being to decide how many people would die in a certain battle, thereby exchanging for intelligence, positions, or other valuable things for the overall situation.

Many experts in the field of magic provided guidance to the army, offering many enchantment items with peculiar effects as supplements.

Preventing psychic detection, weakening presence... all to give the command layer of the military a safe environment, thus ensuring the organizational integrity of the army is not disrupted.

In simple terms, all this was to prevent ’one person’.

A target, identified by all Niflgaard commanders, as ’if he finds your position, it’s virtually impossible to stop him from coming to kill’.

”This is an experimental battle.”

Lincoln stood under the tree, earnestly outlining his thoughts.

”The life and death of these people, or even the supplies they protect, are not the most important. The most important thing is the traces on the battlefield after the battle.”

Lincoln did not know how many Mages were in this unit; Lann informed him after observing it using [Spirit Sight].

Although he did not understand how Lann knew, inexplicably he did not doubt it, using it as the basis for his inference.

”It seems they have been forced to acknowledge your existence.”

”It should indeed be so.”

Lann looked at the convoy advancing slowly in the distance, speaking calmly.

His massive body leaped down from the branch, yet there was hardly any sound when he landed.

”We can’t wipe them out entirely in this terrain; among them, some must have received ’observation tasks’. Such individuals will undoubtedly do everything to escape in the end, making it impossible to catch them. In the end, we’re just a guerrilla force without time to clear the battlefield...”

Lincoln spoke methodically, taking out a notebook from his pocket to jot down notes, a habit seemingly developed when serving as a clerk.

In the end, the half-grown boy looked up at the Demon Hunter, ”Although everything is as you predicted, there is still the risk of intelligence leakage... should we attack?”

Beside him, the Demon Hunter already slowly drew a massive sword from the Alchemy Pouch on his back waist.

Lann’s eyes never strayed from the Niflgaard convoy; despite the forest obstruction, the response of Chaos Magic Power in [Spirit Sight] did not lie.

The Demon Hunter said no more, an implicit confirmation of his stance.

Lincoln nodded, ”Understood, I’ll go make the arrangements, following our previous tactics.”

On the highway beside the forest, Niflgaard’s logistic unit managed to cobble together this specially equipped unit, which was advancing with the supply convoy.

With defense specialization, everyone was equipped with iron-banded hardwood shields, and even the sides of the transport vehicles were equipped with heavy tower shields that could be easily removed.

Their mission was to hold out longer in front of that hypothetical enemy.

Warlocks had been briefed in advance, each receiving assignments for spell casts like on an assembly line.

Marshland spells, diffusing electric fields, freezing blasts... all spells intended to slow down the hypothetical enemy’s superhuman agility and protect the commanders.

Heavily armored cavalry in full horse and Knight armor remained in perfect formation throughout.

The Heavy-Armored Giant Shield Infantry array was well-organized, Mages readying their magic, and the heavy cavalry poised to charge, all waiting for that hypothetical enemy to appear.

Then they could test the feasibility of those meticulously crafted strategies by the command department’s elites.

Overall... it could be regarded as effective.

The supply convoy, armed with a total of seven hundred people, under the arrangement of Niflgaard’s command, succeeded in compressing the time of collapse to less than ten minutes.

The first to burst out from the forest was a ferocious whistle.

As if several ballistae, which should be used in a siege, had been installed in the forest. Enormous arrows, like spears, ripped through the air and plunged into the crowd.

The sound of ”crack crack” echoed in unison.

Just like a plow running over the sand, gouging several blood-red troughs in the crowd.

The ordinary soldiers did not even have the chance to react.

The ballista arrows, seized before, were propelled by [Alder’s Rune], using biological intelligence’s extreme control to focus the force of Chaos Magic Power into a small area.

The resulting push, while still not matching the thousands of pounds of force of a proper ballista, made little practical difference in short-range lethality against human bodies.

The Heavy-Armored Giant Shield Infantry, initially meant to be in the front line to stop the assault, didn’t have the time to react, even though they realized the attack had already arrived.

The orderly convoy in an instant was split into segments by the massive crossbow arrows!

It’s difficult for any army to maintain its courage in the face of sudden massive casualties. Especially when those massive arrows, like spears, continue to shoot forth!

The structured ranks plunged into chaos in an instant.