Decisive battle.

Everyone from professional soldiers to ordinary people loves the term. Ordinary people have no resistance to the grandiose, ornate, bloody, and terrifying picture of war, and the soldiers are tired of the stupid war of attrition, and if they can put an end to all their troubles in a decisive battle, they are naturally willing to bet all their bets on the table called "Decisive Battle".

In fact, in the long history of warfare, there are very few examples of a single battle determining the fate of an army and a country, and it is basically a pre-industrial war example. The wars after the industrial revolution were not so much the grand wars that determined the trend of the world, but rather the performance of the warring parties in terms of the country's industrial capacity, the grasp of strategic issues at the decision-making level, the use of troops, the completeness of the logistics system, the personnel arrangements of military generals, the efficiency of the intelligence system, the guarantee of geographical advantages, the choice of the timing of the war, and so on. Those magnificent chapters of the war are just a slight reflection of the grand strategic layout, and it is no exaggeration to say that the victory or defeat is decided before the first shell is blown off.

Even so, people can't help but crave to witness the so-called "decisive battle", which for the non-existent onlookers is the belligerent element of their human genetic sequence, and is also to satisfy curiosity and vanity. For the people who are on the scene, they are simply seeking relief.

Even if the enemy did not attack, life in the trenches had no meaning of "comfort", hunger, dampness, stench, vermin, wounds, boredom - all the time tormented Charlemagne's officers and soldiers. A few days ago, snipers, shelling, and air strikes were added to the list of torture methods, and now the days of building a field toilet would be bombed in turn, a wisp of smoke would invite a saturated shelling, and a single cigarette would cause multiple holes in the brain. Charlemagne's GIs, who had been squatting underground for a long time and were so lacking in nutrition that their feet and crotch began to erode, could finally run to the ground to dry their crotch with peace of mind (during the rotation stage of the self-defense counterattack against Vietnam, our army and the Vietnamese army also had an unwritten rule, everyone stopped fire and dried their crotch at a certain point every day, otherwise everyone would squat in cat ear holes and tunnels every day, and people would squat), but other than that, their situation did not improve, but worsened.

The defenders who maintained the encirclement did stop the offensive and stopped firing cold guns, but that was all. Charlemagne's army of 700,000 was oppressed in a narrow encirclement, with no supplies, no medical care, and no hope of reinforcements – in such an environment, mental stress alone could kill people, let alone harsh conditions.

In order to survive, Charlemagne's officers and soldiers in the encirclement can almost be said to have carried forward the survival wisdom of human beings to the extreme, not to mention the crunchy chicken-smelling caterpillars, maggots, mice, voles, snakes, lizards, cats, dogs, and horses - as long as they can move, as soon as they are caught by Charlemagne's soldiers, they will all be cut off and gnawed raw. The bark, grass roots, and mushrooms did not fall, and they all went to the soup pot. Eventually, poisonous mushrooms and mud got into the GIs' stomachs, and the result was a non-combat attrition of thousands due to food poisoning, malnutrition, and inability to digest and excrete, resulting in thousands of non-combat casualties, until the Defence opened an air passage to allow floating ships to enter and exit.

With food, the already tense interpersonal relationships eased, the officers did not have to worry about being stewed by hungry subordinates one day, and the GIs did not have to hold knives every night and be suspicious, fearing that they would become a meal for their colleagues or superiors. After everyone had a hearty meal of turnips and oats, the church staff who delivered the food brought a few pieces of news to the caged beasts.

First of all, the sharp-eared ghost beasts on the opposite side will not launch any offensive in the next few days, nor will they attack any floating fleets transporting food and medicine, and secondly, the imperial army will ...... Well, the pointy-eared ghost beasts asked the church to send a message to the Charlemagnes in the encirclement - are you going to be trampled to death like vermin, or are you going to be given a fair duel and be defeated in a duel? Finally, if you want to duel, the king of the ghost beasts will come here and take on the army of 700,000 on his own.

The first message is rejoicing, the second is inexplicable, and the last one is enough to make people angry.

What is this? Bad jokes, mad maniacs?

Just by saying something reckless, what does that dictator think of the battlefield and these Charlemagne soldiers? An ant who can be trampled to death anytime and anywhere?!

No kidding - the officers in attendance shouted and slammed the case, and the anger of being flattened by their opponents injected a shot of chicken blood into these originally discouraged soldiers, and the plague chickens, whose heads were drooping a few minutes ago, were immediately resurrected on the spot with full blood. The rhetoric and impassionedness that had been lost for a long time filled the conference room again.

For fanatics who are full of **** thoughts, death is not terrible, and it is the fate of soldiers to die on the battlefield. At the moment, they can't get rid of the fate of defeat no matter what, but at least they have to peel off the skin of the ghost animals on the other side before they die, and it would be better if they could kill the arrogant dictator with a hole in his brain.

However, before these hot-blooded and bewildered fellows could translate words into action, the last and most unbelievable news pressed the officers back into their seats.

The Dictator of Alfheim is a Divine Will Agent, or the strongest and fiercest of the Divine Will Agents of all generations—a transcendent species above all races.

There is only one person, and only one person, one is all, all is one, and the "first person at the apex" who transcends all races and can extinguish all life in the world with his own strength.

Not to mention the 700,000 army, even if it is the enemy of mankind all over the world, there is an absolute certainty of victory.

This kind of guy who can bring endless disasters to the world with a single gesture to give Charlemagne's army in the encirclement a chance to fight to the death is not arrogant, but rather to give Charlemagne's soldiers death so that they can be freed.

In the face of completely desperate intelligence, even the most die-hard **** elements have also died down, and there may be some problems with their spirits, but none of them are fools who lack basic judgment and thinking functions. In front of the large pile of evidence presented by the emissaries of the church, the guys who had previously shouted "Seven Lives to Serve the Country", "Destroy the Ghost Animals", and "The Jade Shatters of the Whole Army" were silent, some of them did not say a word, staring directly at the marching folding table; some walked out of the conference room in silence, stuffed the pistol they carried with them into their mouths or temples, and pulled the trigger with force; some tore off their uniform full of medals, picked up the wine jug they carried with them, poured it into their mouths, and mixed it with "energy medicine" The alcoholic drink gulped into his mouth, spilling from the corners of his mouth and drenching his ornate uniform down his neck, and nervous self-talk and suppressed cries came from the corners......

Even the emissaries of the Church, who were accustomed to seeing the various situations of life, could not continue to watch the sorrow and despair of the defeated generals in front of them, and the thought that their fate would be tied to such a group of people, their feelings were also mixed, and this situation was also deliberately sought by the Church, so the priests silently left the tent, letting the frustrated men vent their emotions to their heart's content.

Frustration, despair, and the effects of alcohol caused some officers to lose their ability to manage their mouths, and the message quickly spread. Originally, at this time, the gendarmerie would immediately take measures to arrest those long-tongued men who liked to chew the root of their tongues on the charge of "spreading rumors and shaking the morale of the army", and then they would be punished and then publicly executed to set an example. However, at this time, the gendarmes were also caught in the dilemma of not knowing why they were fighting and how to fight, and they didn't have the heart to arrest and kill people. What's more, now that the morale of the army is fluctuating, any little stimulation may cause turmoil or even mutiny, and the gendarmes, who are usually hated by others, are doing something at this time, and believe it or not the Qiu Ba can tear them apart.

The gendarmes didn't care about anything, the officers didn't care about their mouths, and the above were even more patronizing and worrying, so in just two days, the army's discipline, ranks, rules and regulations, and command system all fell into a state of ruin. I'm about to die, who cares how high your rank is, whether your behavior is in line with military discipline? With this in mind, the soldiers wantonly abused alcohol, drugs, and violence, and anesthetized themselves by all means they knew, even for a moment, as long as they could forget the anxiety and fear.

After all, the effect of anesthesia is only temporary, and no matter how powerful drugs and alcohol are, the effect will eventually come to an end, and when people wake up from extreme euphoria and sweet dreams, they will be greeted with even more emptiness and decadence than before. So they chased the stimuli again, numbing themselves again and again...... Until even they are tired of their decadent appearance, and their bodies have become resistant to stimuli.

In just two days, 700,000 soldiers became a lifeless wreck.

They are indeed alive physiologically.

But they were physically and mentally exhausted, and the whole enclosure was eerily quiet—apart from the occasional sane laughter from nowhere, only the dull breath filled the gloomy air.

As long as you are sane, you will definitely be eager to escape from this kind of ghost place.

If you stay in this kind of hell on earth all the time, no matter how strong your mind is, you will definitely go crazy. In fact, there were people who tried to break through the encirclement with the mentality of not wanting to die, and as they wished, all those involved in such operations were reduced to cold corpses in front of the machine-gun position.

Even if the rest of the people knew that they would go crazy if they continued to stay, they could only continue to stay in the encirclement.

In order to endure that extreme environment, in order not to be driven to death by despair, people have to rely on something.

That must anesthetize people's minds and fill their minds full of emptiness and restlessness more than alcohol and drugs, and it must have a lasting effect......

It was against this background that the Lady of Gyel and her party arrived at the Rhine front.