Otherworld Advance Team
Chapter 1383 - 1376: Superior Firepower

Chapter 1383: Chapter 1376: Superior Firepower

The Demon Clan’s army was able to reach today’s state not only due to luck but also because of their tradition of embracing new ideas.

Over a hundred years ago, a Transcender told the Demon Clan to be adept at embracing outsiders and seeking their power. Following this tradition, the Demon Clan awaited the powerful air fleet from the Western Continent more than a hundred years later. Although the air fleet ultimately perished with the Dongsheng fleet, the scales of the war tipped at that moment, fundamentally reversing the situation.

The surviving people from the Western Continent began helping the Demon Clan to establish a near-modern combat system and improve their weapons and equipment. Consequently, the Demon Clan’s army assumed a strategic offensive posture and began to reclaim the cities and land that had been taken away.

Admittedly, as said before, the success of the Demon Clan’s army was mainly due to the strategic contraction of the Dongsheng army. However, it is also important to recognize the Demon Clan’s tenacious counterattacks and not mistake the Demon Clan’s consecutive victories as completely reliant on the charity of the Dongsheng Empire.

The Dongsheng Empire has never been a friend to the Demon Clan. When they needed something, they would invade West Outer Heaven by force; when they had no need, they would spit out cities and lands as if they were bestowing charity. Such a disguise is utterly ugly and rude; no member of the Demon Clan would be grateful for it.

On the twenty-fifth day of the standoff, the Demon Clan’s army commander, Yunji, received an exhilarating piece of news: a squad of Demon Clan light cavalry successfully attacked the Dongsheng army’s granary, burning most of their food supply. Now the Dongsheng army was thrown into disarray, and their commander was actively preparing provisions to stabilize the current situation.

Yunji knew that the opportunity for a total assault had come, and so with a single command, on the twenty-fifth day of the standoff, the Demon Clan’s army launched a full-scale attack against the Dongsheng forces.

It was a massive offensive. The Demon Clan’s army left behind only a small number of troops to guard the camp, with the rest participating in the attack.

Due to the loss suffered from the Demon Clan army’s distant firepower, the Dongsheng army’s camp was set up very far from the Demon Clan, beyond two kilometers. Now, what the Demon Clan needed to do was to steadily close this gap.

Faced with the Demon Clan’s initiative, the Dongsheng army’s nerves were stretched to the limit as they began to form up and prepare for the engagement. The Demon Clan army came prepared, which caused some panic in the Dongsheng commander.

The Demon Clan’s army formed a tight formation, advancing step by step. The Dongsheng army also moved out from their camp to intercept, and when they were a hundred meters away from the Dongsheng army’s formation, and three hundred meters from their camp, the Demon Clan stopped and began forming a protective formation.

Initially, the Dongsheng army did not understand their intent, but when they saw the cannons being rolled out, their commander immediately realized what was happening.

But by then it was too late, and the Demon Clan began a fierce artillery bombardment on the Dongsheng army. In addition to direct-fire infantry cannons, the Demon Clan had added a large number of mortars, bombarding the area behind the Dongsheng army’s formation and their camp with reckless abandon.

Yunji had been biding her time for more than twenty days, waiting for the arrival of this artillery, a large amount of shells and gunpowder. She planned to emulate the firepower superiority doctrine proposed by the people of the Western Continent, relying on the crushing force of artillery to completely destroy the enemy’s will to fight.

For this purpose, Yunji held her ground, waiting a full twenty-five days to accumulate enough ammunition for carefree bombardment.

The moment the Demon Clan’s artillery started firing, it did not stop. Solid shot after solid shot streaked across the sky, falling into the Dongsheng army’s formation and camp. Fragmentation grenades were tossed high and then hit the ground with violent explosions that tore everything apart.

The Demon Clan’s artillerymen had undergone lengthy training for this day, and by now, they had formed muscle memory. Amidst the ceaseless roar of cannons and thick gun smoke, they numbly cooled the gun barrels, loaded, and fired.

Occasionally, a cannon would misfire, which paradoxically excited them, and they would swarm over the gun to check for faults. Once it resumed firing, they would once again fall into a mechanical numbness.

The Dongsheng military sergeants had experienced the relentless artillery strikes of the Demon Clan’s army, but they had never endured such furious bombardments, with such high frequency. From the moment the shelling began, all the Dongsheng sergeants had been praying for the artillery fire to end soon, so they might die in some other way.

However, much to their disappointment, the Demon Clan’s artillery showed no signs of ceasing. Instead, it became increasingly fierce. There was no longer a notion of front and rear; they missed the opportunity to take the initiative to intercept the Demon Clan’s army, and as a result, found themselves within the range of their relentless shelling.

At that time, the Dongsheng military camp was ablaze, with a large number of wooden structures and tents catching fire. The flames grew more intense, spreading like a plague. The screams of agony could be heard everywhere within the camp.

Facing the saturation of artillery fire, the commander of the Dongsheng army realized they needed to launch a counterattack, not to defeat the Demon Clan’s army, but just to disrupt the continuous artillery barrage to stabilize their position or the Dongsheng army would truly descend into chaos.

This commander was no longer the same one who had led the army to crush the Demon Clan’s forces years before—Xuan. His engagements with the Demon Clan’s army mostly ended in failure, and he had even lost the once-defended Big South East Peace City.

In his urgency, he panicked and issued an order that sounded incredibly foolish, commanding all the cavalry to assemble and charge head-on towards the Demon Clan’s lines, followed by ten thousand infantrymen to strike the formations of the Demon Clan’s army. The goal wasn’t necessarily to break through their lines, but to stop them from being able to shell for a while.

This was a very foolish decision because cavalry were never meant for head-on charges, but as a mobile force to flank the enemy or even attack from the rear, unsettling their formation.

Even in the age of cold weapons, a direct cavalry charge against an enemy line was never a good idea, let alone against a Demon Clan army equipped with sophisticated firearms.

Over a year earlier, Xuan’s successful cavalry charge was primarily due to the Dongsheng heavy cavalry striking from the Demon Clan’s flanks. Anyone who had participated in that war knew that even heavy cavalry would suffer heavy casualties when striking head-on at the Demon Clan’s front line.

But the Dongsheng commander at this point could not care about that anymore; all he could think about was to silence those damned cannons immediately. He did not wish to be blown to pieces by a cannonball from the heavens while he was contemplating tactics.

With his command, the Dongsheng army’s infantry formation, which had been bombarded into disarray, began to clear a path. Following that, the Demon Clan’s clustered cavalry launched a desperate charge at the Demon Clan’s army.

The Dongsheng cavalry, with the heavy cavalry in the lead and the light cavalry in a triangle formation to the rear, went first. All the horses were blindfolded to prevent them from being frightened and refusing to charge. It was evident from this that the Dongsheng cavalry were resolved to fight to the bitter end.

Following closely behind were the Dongsheng army’s infantry lines, marching in neat steps and quickly advancing behind the cavalry.

Over the distance of three hundred meters, the speed of the cavalry was very fast; one could say they would reach the Demon Clan’s formation in the blink of an eye. However, the Demon Clan’s army had already made their preparations to retaliate against the oncoming Dongsheng forces.

The Demon Clan’s shield and swordsmen were deployed at the very front, in two rows. They squatted on the ground, laying their tall shields flat.

Behind them, arranged in three rows, were the Demon Clan’s line infantry. Facing the fierce charge of the Dongsheng cavalry, they had just finished deploying when the first row of the musketeers received the order to shoot.

First the first row, then the second, followed by the third—the continuous, deafening sounds of gunfire caused the already dense mist to thicken even further.

"Shield bearers, raise your shields! Musketeers, affix bayonets!" After three rounds of firing, the Demon Clan commander issued new orders, ready to confront the Dongsheng cavalry head-on.

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