The warm sun shone on the German countryside, and the breeze swept through the trees, blowing down the yellow leaves.

It was a pleasant climate that was relaxing, but Erhard, who was standing in the trenches, felt the heat unbearable.

The breeze blew away the smoke that filled the front of the battlefield, but the pungent smell mixed with the heavy blood could not be dissipated at the tip of the nose for a long time.

As far as the eye could see, there were corpses everywhere. A whole layer in front of the position was covered with earth, which was Russian; In the trenches, there are entanglements, comrades-in-arms, and Russians.

He took the kettle and held it to his mouth and shook it for a long time, and not a drop of water flowed into his thirsty throat, and then Erhard remembered that he had already drunk the water in the kettle. Angrily throwing away the kettle, Erhard walked down the trench to the body of a comrade.

The German defenders were not short of water, but Erhard didn't want to waste any energy on the way to the train station to fetch water.

Unhooked his comrade's kettle, unscrewed the lid and began to pour it violently, pouring half a pot of water into his throat, and Erhard felt more comfortable in his throat, which was about to burst into flames. The water relieved the thirst of the body and dispelled the uncomfortable heat, hung the kettle to his waist, and Erhard, who felt the chaos of his head sober, lit a cigarette and put it in his mouth, letting the smoke cover his complicated eyes.

The last attack of the Russians cost their side the heaviest price so far, with 86 killed and 49 seriously wounded, counting the casualties of the previous battle, the more than 500 defenders of Soldao were left with less than 300 at this time, nearly half of the casualties! The Maxim machine gun, which was considered the backbone of the defensive line, had four less, and there was little ammunition left for the barreled artillery and mortars.

Manpower is scarce, firepower is insufficient, and the entire defense line is full of holes in Erhard's eyes. But as the commander of the defenders of Soldao, Erhard was left to find a way to maintain the mess on his own.

The 2 squads that entered the city of Soldau to search came back and reported that some seriously wounded Russian soldiers had been found in the ruins of the church that were still intact, and the Germans did not go in to search carefully, but threw a few grenades into it and it was over.

Erhard had nothing to sympathize with for the wounded of the Russians, and if Soldao had been lost, then the German wounded who were now lying in the hall of the railway station would have ended the same, and perhaps worse. Because the Russians should clean up the railway station hall and continue to use it, then they will not just throw a few grenades into it hastily.

However, in this way, there is no need to keep people in the direction of the city of Soldao, 2 Maxim machine guns, 3 MG4 light machine guns and 2 squads of troops can more or less plug a few holes in this porous defense line.

Although the artillery positions of the Russians were pulled out by air support, the situation on their own side did not get better. Even without the shelling, if the Russians attack again, it will be a repeat of the previous one. No one knows whether the positions will be completely submerged in the next charge of the Russians! And this time, there will be no more angels from the sky to save themselves.

So Erhard left a squad at the train station, and if the Russians broke through the line, then their task was to blow up the railroad tracks and turnouts in the station, as well as the thousands of tons of supplies in the freight station. Anyway, the Russians themselves piled up a lot of ammunition there, enough for the Germans to set off a brilliant firework.

Erhard, choking on a cigarette, coughed, and suddenly lost the mood to continue smoking.

He threw the half-smoked high-end cigarette given by Lieutenant Colonel Orzewski on the ground and extinguished it with his foot. Then he straightened up and began to patrol the trenches, which was the job of an officer.

Although it was a patrol, the German soldiers on the battlefield did not need any orders from Erhard, and Erhard could not give any better orders than these veterans.

dredging trenches that had been filled in due to explosions; collect weapons and ammunition from dead comrades; Remove the corpses of Russians from the trenches and pile them in front of the trenches to fill the collapsed breastwork; Sitting around the machine-gun firing point, he manually inserted the Russians' bullets into the empty canvas cartridge belt.

Although there was almost no expression on everyone's face, the movements of the hands were mechanical, but they were still skillfully completed.

"Captain, the next attack of the Russians will have a result, right?" Thomas, with his arms hanging, asked as he followed him.

"Well, the next attack will be the last one." Erhard nodded.

"Oh," Thomas replied calmly, as if he had just asked, "Isn't it nice today?"

Erhard paused and looked at his makeshift herald.

Thomas's eyes were calm.

Yes, every good veteran knows that the next battle will be the last.

The Russians lost their artillery, and they had no way to retreat even the slightest. Even if there is a grinding disc of flesh and blood in front of them, they can only move forward.

The Germans had no way to retreat, so even if they wanted to retreat at this time, where could they go?

The soldiers of the two countries who have no way out are like two trapped beasts, and this battlefield is a cage for the trapped beasts.

The trapped beast is still fighting, and only when one side falls can it escape.

Heh, "Dead Guard".

Thinking of the order he received before leaving, Erhard laughed a little self-deprecatingly.

"Hold on".

Dead is dead, but not kept. Will we be considered heroes or sinners?

In the distance, the Russians' slogans sounded again, that is, they were gathering in a group.

The Germans were much more silent in their positions, and everyone immediately fell behind the breastwork, ready to attack.

This time there will be no shelling, the Russians will rush straight up, and they will not rest without killing themselves!

Either you die or I die!

The German soldiers, who had already come to their senses, silently drew their bayonets, stuck them into the bayonet base, and then raised their guns and aimed in the direction of the Russians in the distance, and on the chest wall in front of them were neatly placed wooden grenades with their safety caps unscrewed. The sapper shovel is also within his reach.

There was no superfluous sound on the position, only the sound of pulling the bolt in bits and pieces.

There was some commotion on the side of the Russians, and the Russians also knew that the Germans on the opposite side were on the front foot, and that there was no artillery fire on their side. Obviously, even the gray cattle are not willing to be the first batch of cannon fodder to rush forward with the highest mortality rate.

But even then, the commotion and chaos lasted short, and the Russians soon fell silent. The Germans had to admit that the grey cattle who waited quietly to launch a charge did have some deserving of the title of European road roller.

The poignant whistle once again tore through the silence over the battlefield. The Russians, chanting "Ula", rushed out with overwhelming momentum. Russians everywhere you look!

Assault guns, which were parked on positions and acted as stationary batteries, were the first to fire. Immediately afterwards, the artillery position, which had already been dragged to the rear of the trench to serve as direct fire, had to destroy 2 guns by itself in order to concentrate ammunition due to insufficient ammunition, also roared.

The shells fired from the close-range direct fire smashed into the crowd almost at the same time as the cannon sounded.

The explosion sent up a blast of dirt and scattered limbs, but in the face of the endless wave, it was only five small splashes of water that were thrown into the water.

Then the machine guns in the firing points erupted tongues of fire, semi-automatic rifles in the trenches rang out, and mortar shells made the same small splashes in the waves.

Rows of fallen Russians lay on the battlefield ground like the trail left on the beach by the receding tide.

The tide turned into scattered droplets like crashing on a reef, but the tide was still coming.

The Russians had gone mad, and in a short time every German soldier was covered with hot bullet casings under his feet, and an enemy several times his own had fallen under the guns of the Germans. The German position in front of them was like a giant mouth of an abyss that was constantly devouring flesh and blood, but the Russians rushed to fill it one after another.

The Germans have also gone mad, and people are constantly falling because of stray bullets flying around, but no one has time to care about the fallen comrades, so they can only let them struggle, writhe, wail, and resign themselves to their fate.

Everyone was firing wildly, but they couldn't stop the surging tide.

The mortars fell silent first, moved their positions to the point of machine-gun fire, and the mortar crews behind the shells jumped into the trenches with rifles in their hands and continued the battle.

Then there were the artillery positions, and the artillerymen, who had finished their last ammunition, crouched in the trenches with the shovels they used to build their positions, waiting for the final hand-to-hand combat.

The machine gun next to Erhard stopped firing, and before he could rush into the firing point and curse the machine gunner for stopping, two figures stood up from the firing point and began firing from the semi-automatic bunker in front of the firing point.

They ran out of bullets.

The semi-automatic rifles in the hands of the main shooters were still collected from the corpses of their comrades, who had long been ready to continue the fight after the machine guns ran out of ammunition.

Then, in front of Erhard's eyes, a stray bullet concentrated on the head of the main shooter, and the crisp sound of the bullet piercing the steel helmet reached his ears, and the main shooter's body fell straight down.

Erhard remembered his name, his name was Ludwick, and he was originally the secondary shooter in the company's squad.

The secondary shooter at the firing point pounced on Ludvik, but instead of wasting a moment mourning the death of his comrade, he pulled out the magazines from his comrades and continued to shoot at the Russians.

However, no matter how hard they tried, the German line eventually collapsed as the machine-gun fire points fell silent.

The frantic Russians finally rushed to the edge of the trenches, and those Germans were right in front of them! As long as you kill them all, you can live!

Looking at the Russians who pounced like wild beasts, the Germans went just as crazy! If you can't kill them all, you can only die!

Hope, despair, excitement, fear, fanaticism, coldness, a complex of emotions intertwined, making the Germans and Russians want to tear apart their opponents like beasts.

The two trapped beasts frantically bit together.

Pushing the semi-automatic rifle in his hand upwards, the three-edged bayonet easily stabbed a Russian soldier in the abdomen who wanted to jump into the trench.

The pierced Russian looked at the enemy in front of him with wide eyes, with unwilling and pleading eyes, and his trembling body weakly threw away the weapon in his hand, as if trying to find something to rely on, he struggled with his arms to wrap his arms around the body in front of him, but his strength was lost from his body like a leaky balloon.

Erhard pushed aside the Russian, who was weakly falling towards him, but before he could pull out the bayonet, a four-edged bayonet stabbed him.

Erhard could only let go of the rifle in his hand, and reached out to grab the muzzle of Mosin Nagant and pulled it to his side, and the Russian soldier, who had lost his balance, fell from the edge of the trench and slammed into Erhard. Erhard, who could only fall backwards, grabbed the sapper shovel placed in front of him before he fell, and slashed the Russian neck with all his strength.

Erhard, who had fallen into the trench, desperately pulled out the sapper shovel, and hot blood gushed out and splashed on his face

Erhard, who had already killed the red-eyed, frantically brandished his sapper shovel and slashed at the motionless body that was pressing on him like chopping meat. It wasn't until he cut the Russian's back to a blur of flesh that he realized that the Russian was dead.

Erhard struggled to his feet, but the body was too heavy to be pushed away by one hand. Erhard could only throw aside the sapper shovel in his hand, trying to get out of his current situation as soon as possible.

However, the Russians, who had already jumped into the trench, noticed him, raised two Mosin Nagant, and the four-edged bayonet at the muzzle of the gun immediately plunged down into his body.

For a moment, Erhard himself didn't know, and his eyes also revealed the look of every Russian soldier who had died at his hands before, despair, sadness, and remembrance.

Two gunshots followed, and before Mosin Nagant could stab him, he fell weakly from the air.

Thomas rushed over with a pistol and shot the fallen Russian twice, before looking over to Erhard to make sure he was okay.

He then stood in front of Erhard and opened fire outside the trench, and 4 Russian soldiers who wanted to storm the trench fell in front of the trench.

Skillfully unloading the empty magazine, before he could clip the pistol into his armpit, a four-edged bayonet stabbed Thomas in the chest.

The red-eyed Russian pulled the bayonet out of Thomas's body without emotion, and his body, which had lost its strength and support point, fell into the cold trench.

The Russian, with a bayonet still dripping with blood, jumped into the trench, and his big foot in leather boots stomped on the pistol that fell to the ground, as if he had stepped into the dirt at the bottom of the trench along with Thomas's life.

Erhard, who pushed away the corpse that was crushed on his body, trampled wildly in the trench, but Erhard, who was resting his back against the wall of the trench, could not move away from the enemy with his bayonet.

Driven by the desire to survive and the instinct of continuous training, Erhard pulled out the pistol hanging from his waist, pulled the trigger as if venting, and sent the bullet into the body of the enemy in front of him.

It wasn't until the enemy fell that Erhard stopped, and then crawled to the corpse of the Russian with his semi-automatic rifle in his hand, holding his rifle and supporting his body to his feet.

He pulled out his rifle by stepping on the corpse of the Russian, and then pointed the bayonet, still dripping with blood, at the waves of people who were still rushing in.

Erhard, who was aiming with a rifle, seemed to have lost all his emotional calmness at this moment, and the world outside the cross-eyes disappeared at this moment, leaving only a small circle of heaven and earth in the cross-hair.

"Smack"

The body in the quasi-heart fell.

Turn your body slightly, put the other body into the crosshair, and pull the trigger.

"Smack"

"Smack"

"Smack"

"Smack"

"Smack"

"Smack"

"Click"

The remaining 7 rounds in the magazine were empty, and Erhard threw the rifle out of his hand without any distress, then picked up the Mosin Nagant who had fallen beside him, and continued to pull the trigger.

Mosin Nagant's awkward bolt was uncomfortable for Erhard, and the shaking of the bolt caused by the loading made it take him longer to aim.

This gave the Russians more time to rush in front of him, but Erhard didn't care, he only cared if the figure he could see in his mind would fall.

Moxing Nagant, who had emptied the magazine, was also thrown out by Erhard, and there were no other weapons left where he could reach as soon as he stretched out his hand. He didn't want to look for it anymore, so he just stood there and drew his pistol again.

With each shot, a body collapses until the last bullet is fired.

The Russian, who had already rushed in front of him, fell, but his unabated body fell hard, and the four-edged bayonet slashed Erhard's neck and slashed his shoulders and plunged into the trench wall behind him.

Erhard, who had fallen into the trench again, looked at the pistol that had no ammunition in his hand, and finally returned to normal.

Erhard, who felt weak and collapsed at the bottom of the trench, did not want to move, and accepted such an outcome, maybe the next moment a Russian would jump into the trench and stab himself.

Then he felt the ground under his ass vibrate, and the tremors grew louder and louder, and the vibrations coming from the back of the trench wall made him feel a little sick, and he had to get up and get away from the shaking that was so uncomfortable for him.

Only then did Erhard, who felt the sharp pain from the wound on his shoulder, struggled to get up, and then he saw countless war horses galloping not far from the battlefield! The stilted blade shines in the sun!

War horses are like clouds, and war knives are like forests!

That's the German cavalry!

They're accelerating!

They're sprinting!

The galloping of thousands of war horses and the shouts of thousands of cavalry suppressed all the sounds on the battlefield!

Instead of launching a wall charge in the dense formation of the cavalry, the hussars scattered and rammed into the flanks of the Russians.

The sturdy body of the war horse knocked the Russians into the air, and the sharp blades of the war knives easily cut the Russians down.

The torrent of cavalry swept the entire battlefield unstoppably.

The Russians collapsed, and they began to flee in panic.

But no matter how they were, they could not escape the pursuit of the cavalry, and the battlefield turned into a one-sided slaughter.

Watching this scene, Erhard was not excited by the arrival of the cavalry, nor did he have the ease and fear of the rest of his life, only an indescribable sense of loss.

Mu Ran walked to Thomas's side and looked at his body lying in the cold trench, this guy with a wounded arm on his chest, and could confidently say "I am an accurate shooter" in front of him, had left his life on this battlefield forever.

Erhard slumped into the trench weakly, looking at the beautiful blue sky above him, slowly emptying his head.

You don't have to think about anything anymore.

Soldao held on.