Section 37: Bloody Battle

Torrison intervened before the verbal altercation escalated, calming the longbeard in time.

While the other dwarves were chatting, Torrison remained silent and listened carefully to the rats' cries. As a Ranger Captain, Torrison is actually proficient in several languages at once, such as Nezurana, the Common Language of Humans, and the Greenskins. Since it wasn't really that far away, he could hear the shouts of the rat people (especially the bosses) perfectly.

If he's not mistaken, this isn't an ordinary offense. From the leader of the nezumi who is the lord, down to the ordinary soldiers and even the slaves, there is no room to retreat in this battle. The supreme ruler of the nezumi, all the Abyss Lords personally went to the battlefield to oversee the battle. For the nezumi, those who fail to complete their orders are dead.

These are the same as the threat posed by the Abyssal Lord called Aerufat.

"The prince is over there. Finally letting the long-bearded warrior go, Torrison immediately pointed the way to the herald. "I saw him over there before...... You're coming up from the ground? What's going on up there?"

It should be fine on the ground. Torrison was well aware of the surface fortifications of Karak-Grom. It was more of a death trap than a fortified city. It was a dense network of hundreds of cannons and thousands of muskets, and no matter how many enemies came, they would be turned into a pile of minced meat by the devastating, carpet-like cannon fire.

It can be said that Karak-Grom is one of the highest achievements in the construction of dwarven castles, and it is a strong defense built by the great foundry of the dwarves, who is recognized as a master builder, Nara Grim.

It is precisely because of this that Prince Hoga will leave the ground and go to the underground part of Karak-Grom to direct the battle.

"The enemy's attack was fierce. The herald replied simply. He was in a hurry to leave, so Torrison couldn't find out more. But this simple sentence made him feel even more uneasy.

At this time, thousands of dwarves and nezumi are fighting to the death in this underground area. Everyone knows that fighting in a narrow place, good weapons and armor, strict discipline, strong morale, and other factors are far more important than mere numbers. And in these aspects, the dwarves are not comparable to the dirty and cowardly rat people. Although the rats are desperate to throw troops into the front line, the dwarves will always have the upper hand.

As it should be.

......

"Captain Xia Fei reported that he had led the enemy into a trap according to his plan. Our troops flanked back and forth, annihilating hundreds of nezumi. There were no casualties among our soldiers. ”

"Captain Sakkari reports that he has routed the enemy in front of him and is leading his army to rest. Captain Olick took his place. ”

"The assault team reported that the counteroffensive against Passage 4 had failed. There are too many rats. ”

"Passage 14 is occupied by rats. We had two brigades in a siege, and they demanded a retreat. ”

"According to the latest report, the rats actually found a gap between the seventeen and twenty-four passages, and now they have driven a wedge into our side......"

Prince Hoga listened carefully to each report that was sent. In front of him was an accurate map of the dwarves, each of the tunnels beneath Karak-Grom marked. He held two pens in his hands, one blue and one red. Whenever a tunnel is overrun by a nezumi, he paints that tunnel red, and vice versa.

At a glance from the map, it was clear that the nezumi were gradually pressuring the dwarves to retreat with a steady stream of pressure.

However, Prince Hoga did not show any impatience on his face. In his initial plan, he intended to exhaust the rats' offensive energy through a resilient defensive battle, and then drive the rats out of Karak-Grom with a counterattack. This time we must teach the nezumi a lesson that they will not dare to use their brains against Karak-Grom again for hundreds of years.

And the Grand Forge Naragrim gave him a trick to turn the tide of the battle at a critical moment.

However, it must be admitted that the nezumi attack was far more fierce than he expected. Time is only the next day, and they are like they are dying, and they are infinitely throwing troops into the battlefield. Although compared to the dwarves, these rats are cowardly and weak enemies. In those head-on combat, at least five nezumi were killed every time a dwarf fell. With the aid of well-fortified fortifications, this ratio can often rise to more than one to eight. But it seems that these rats have an infinite amount to consume.

So far, it is not the ferocity of the rats that has caused major losses, but a wrong arrangement. At the suggestion of several of his subordinates, Prince Hoga placed several flaming cannons in the Underground World, hoping to use the power of the cannons to block the main roads and defeat the rats. Unfortunately, however, the narrow passages in the Underworld are too short for the power of the Flame Cannon. The rats, whose bodies burned like torches and let out terrible howls, rushed all the way, and the flames on their bodies were lit with the special hot oil of the flaming cannon...... That scene is enough to imagine it. Prince Hoga lost a cannon, a squadron, and two or three tunnels. After this accident, the prince ordered all the cannons to be pulled to the ground.

"Prince!" the voice made Prince Hoga look up, and he noticed that it was a herald who spoke. And a herald came to him only because of one thing—something went wrong with the defense on the surface.

"What's going on?" asked Prince Hoga alarmedly. "The rats are attacking?"

......

The sun sets in the west, and a ray of clouds at the back of the sky reflects this terrible battlefield.

Prince Hoga stood on the platform, looking at his feet. At this time, the evening breeze was gentle, sending a strong smell of blood into his nostrils. In this situation, even Prince Hoga felt an inexplicable chill.

The rats showed no sign of retreating into the night. This was also a matter of course, as these rats were active in the underground tunnels of the world without any light all year round, and light was not indispensable to them. Of course, this is also true for dwarves. Dwarves also have pretty good dark vision, and at night, their muzzles are never misdirectional, and their bullets are just as accurate and deadly.

The wind was mixed with bursts of shouting and scolding. The dwarves immediately understood that the next wave of attacks was about to begin. The gunners not far from Prince Hoga immediately busied themselves with their cannons, pointing forward with their still hot barrels.

"No! the barrel is too hot!" shouted the gunner, "hurry up, get vinegar to cool down!"

With the light of the last rays of the sunset, the rats attacked again. Thousands of rat people, under the coercion of layers of officers, rushed forward like madness on the bones of their compatriots. Now the fire of the cannon, which has the longest range, has been significantly reduced. Due to the overheating of the barrel, the shells fired appeared scattered and far less impressive than the previous salvo. Then there were the organ cannons, which fired four shells at a time could not dissipate heat compared to the cannons, and less than a quarter of them were able to fire. The flame cannon is not so troublesome, but the loading of this cannon is really a waste of time, and the rats have learned to behave, and the sparse formation makes the flame lethality much less. Soon, the rat people rushed through the halfway. The musketeers fired.

The lethality of bullets is very conspicuous. In the face of the dense rain of bullets, the rat people who rushed over fell one after another. Normally, the rats would have started to turn around and flee, but the slaves had no right to retreat. Every slave knew that once they turned back, the nezumi general would order them to be slaughtered on the spot. Instead, the Abyssal Lord Aerufat had made a promise that if any Nezumi slave could kill an enemy and return, he would be immediately promoted to the rank of Clan Warrior and freed from his miserable and hopeless life as a slave.

So they could only continue to charge, pounce on the dwarven longbearded warriors who were waiting in front of them.

The dwarves' fortifications had now been completely filled. Half of it was dirt and rocks from the nezumi slaves, and half of it was the corpses of the nezumi slaves. The newly rushed rats rushed frantically at the longbearded warriors, and many of the slave rats began to stop and throw a rain of stones with their rudimentary catapults. Unfortunately, the dwarven soldiers are notoriously well-armoured. Even if a lucky stone falls into a position that is not protected by armor, the tough dwarf will not be defeated by this attack.

The musketeers did not stop firing for a second. The nezumi pounced on the positions of the bearded warriors, using their crude shields and spears to meet the dwarves' razor-sharp battle axes and fine armor.

From the point of view of Prince Hoga, he could barely see several long-bearded warriors falling. The dense rain of bullets from the musketeers weakened and wounded the enemy, leaving them with few hand-to-hand combat at the least.

Another shouting and scolding came down the wind, and the next wave of attacks was coming.

Everything was so monotonous and mechanical, yet it sent chills down the hearts of even the most seasoned warriors. Beneath the walls of Karak-Grom, a thick layer of nezumi remains has been covered. And this attack shows no signs of stopping.

"How did these rats come to be like this?" said Prince Hoga, a little puzzled. He remembered that when he first left, it didn't seem like that had happened. A bunch of rat people who are not afraid of death? What a joke, the rat people are a bunch of timid and cowardly waste, and any dwarf can beat ten of them at a time.

"Yesterday it was fine. The subordinate reported. "After the first wave was eliminated by our army's cannon fodder, they hesitated for a long time. Later, only two tentative attacks were launched. Everything is perfectly normal. But at dawn today, these rats suddenly launched waves of non-stop attacks in desperation. It seems that he does not care about casualties at all. ”

"But we can still push them back and destroy them. Prince Hoga said. He glanced at the long-bearded warriors below who were lining up to guard the gates. The previous wave of nezumi had all been killed by the razor-sharp tomahawks of the longbearded warriors, and the lineup of longbearded warriors was barely noticeable. "They will die, and we will fulfill them. I'm going back underground. Notify me of special circumstances. ”

When Prince Hoga left, Ashrufat was standing mercilessly in the night wind watching the battle in the distance.

"If this continues, the slaves will run out before dawn. A general cautiously reminded. Ashrufat forgot the name of the nezuman, but he knew that the nezumi was a clan leader and a warlord among the nezumi. In the concept of the nezumi, few generals would mind the casualties of slaves, but in this situation, in this bloody battlefield ahead, even these ruthless nezumi leaders feel empty.

"If all the slaves are dead, then the clan warriors will be on board!" Ashrufat's voice did not waver. "This battle is related to the rise and fall of our clan, no matter how many sacrifices and casualties are worth it!"

"But...... This situation ...... "The general wanted to stop talking." In fact, what he wanted to say, Ashruphat was very clear. Under such a miserable battlefield scenery, the rat people may not have too high morale.

"Dare to retreat, there is no mercy for killing!" said Ashrufat calmly. "Within ten days, we must take Karak-Grom. ”

In the first stage, exhaust their energy with cannon fodder. Ashrufat told himself in his heart. Only in the second stage can the attack be launched with elite troops.