Ch. 166 Siege (1)

Their loose formations appeared outside the castle.

The Britons had already climbed onto the ramparts, gripping their weapons and staring intently at those invaders.

A restless emotion was spreading.

It was only because of that black figure located in the center of the Anglo-Saxons’ loose military formation.

Vortigern.

It wasn’t that Vortigern was black, but rather that the armor the man was wearing was black.

Hundreds of meters away, in a position unreachable by arrows, the man sat on a luxurious throne, and the throne was placed on a carriage.

No, that was not a carriage.

The thing pulling that vehicle was not a horse, nor an ox, but a red, giant reptile.

A kind of lizard covered in horned scales, with a body length comparable to a moose; it was undoubtedly a Phantasmal Species.

The Britons’ Soldiers were whispering among themselves.

Merlin’s prophecy told the Britons that the White Dragon would attempt to destroy Britain, while the Red Dragon would stop the White Dragon.

And now, well.

It looked like the ‘Red Dragon’ was pulling a carriage for the ‘White Dragon’?

This perhaps portended the future of the Britons.

“Silence!” Anthony’s expression was very grim.

He shouted, and the sound spread across half the city wall facing the Anglo-Saxons.

Apparently, in a world possessing Phantasmal Species, the warriors were also extraordinary.

“Ballistae!” he shouted.

The Anglo-Saxons were far beyond the maximum range of arrows, and even the ballistae seemed quite weak at such a distance.

But that didn’t mean they couldn’t hit them.

The messenger beside him waved a flag, and the ballistae on the tower decisively emitted a loud, resonant twang of strings.

Mia was right next to the ballistae; when the double-bowed ballistae fired arrows, the vibration produced by the bowstrings was no less than the sound of drums.

The ballista bolts, comparable to spears, flew toward Vortigern.

‘Swish—’

The bolt flew past a position about one meter from Vortigern, whipping up a wind, and struck a cavalryman beside him. The bolt, containing immense kinetic energy, hit the horse’s chest head-on, pierced its internal organs, and in an instant, entered through the chest and exited from the abdomen.

The horse died without a sound, throwing the Anglo-Saxon warrior on its back to the ground.

‘Whoosh,’ the Anglo-Saxon Soldiers, having witnessed the power of the ballistae, scattered to the side, wanting to retreat from this dangerous distance. But Vortigern only raised his fist, and within a single breath, the Anglo-Saxons quieted down and retreated in an orderly fashion.

No one dared to challenge Vortigern’s authority. As a Briton who could become the King of England, Vortigern did not rely solely on betraying his own countrymen.

The large lizard dragging the throne walked toward the castle.

In a moment, it separated from the main body of the Anglo-Saxons.

‘What is he going to do?’

This question appeared in the minds of the people on the castle simultaneously, while they gripped the weapons in their hands tightly.

Anthony did not let the ballistae continue firing.

He wanted to see what Vortigern really wanted to do.

After all, Vortigern walking slowly toward the castle alone could count as an act of chivalry.

A few arrows stuck into the ground at the feet of the red lizard.

“Stop! The Low King, what have you come here for?” Anthony shouted.

From this distance, one could roughly see Vortigern’s appearance.

But…

Well, couldn’t see clearly; he was wearing a helmet.

That armor gave Mia the illusion of the Lich King Arthas.

Vortigern, who was pitch black like this, truly and naturally, just like all the great villains in the universe, radiated a dangerous aura all over his body.

Vortigern, alone and far from the military formation, having arrived under the city wall, spoke.

“If you surrender, I will spare your lives.” It was just that simple; no preamble, no greeting, concisely stating his demands.

Vortigern’s voice was that of an old man, sounding somewhat hoarse and without any unique qualities.

The voice contained a strange magic; his volume did not sound high at all, but it seemed to be able to make everyone in the castle watching him hear it clearly.

“The Red Dragon of Britain has already bowed to me; your resistance has no meaning!”

He said.

Artoria was hidden among the Soldiers, watching Vortigern below from between the battlements.

She gripped the hilt of the sword in her hand tightly.

That Soldier was The Low King, who would be her arch-nemesis, but at the same time, he was also her uncle.

That ferocious black armor,

finally, she knew what kind of existence the other party truly was; this feeling was not good at all.

Imagining a terrible thing is always better than experiencing a terrible thing.

But Artoria would not flee; if he wanted to come, then let him come.

For over a decade,

there was silence behind the city wall for a moment.

Afterward, Anthony brought the consensus of all the British Soldiers.

“F*** you!”

He roared thus.

No one could see the expression under Vortigern’s helmet.

They only saw the carriage pulled by the lizard move back two steps, then the carriage turned in a circle and returned to the Anglo-Saxons’ military formation.

That moment was about to come.

“Ballistae!” Anthony shouted: “Load!”

“Catapults, load!”

On the wall, which was as quiet as stagnant water, there was only the sound of gears turning.

The British Soldiers inserted V-shaped arrow magazines one by one onto their precision weapons. Two loaders used levers to turn the gears on both sides of the ballistae. When the bowstrings reached the final position and the gears encountered resistance, a bolt would fall into the groove of the ballista due to gravity.

The gunner aimed the sight of the ballista at the distant Anglo-Saxons.

The sound of a horn rang out.

The Anglo-Saxons’ formation began to move. A group of heavy-armored Soldiers equipped with scale armor and lamellar armor lined with chainmail carried scaling ladders and iron-clad logs used to smash open the city wall, walking toward the wall.

They were in groups of twelve, carrying the scaling ladders and logs together. It was not entirely without cover; in front of the Soldiers carrying the scaling ladders, there were people pushing tall shield carts.

These shield carts, made by the Anglo-Saxons themselves and nailed together from wooden boards, had some covered with leather on top, and some painted with colorful designs.

Standing on the castle tower, it was like overlooking a group of ants carrying food walking toward oneself.

As a response to the Anglo-Saxons’ advance, the ballistae on the castle fired.

The loaders only needed to withstand the resistance of the bowstring being pulled to the highest point by the mechanism, and then push the lever once more; the mechanism would trigger the firing device of the ballista.

After the long bolts were fired, they continued to turn the levers, the gears rotated, and drove the bowstrings backward.

A bolt would fall from the ‘magazine’ once again.

This greatly increased the firing rate of the ballistae; every minute, they could fire at least five powerful bolts.

And, without losing accuracy.

The Anglo-Saxons’ shield carts could not block the incoming bolts; they were always easily pierced.

Immediately after, the bolts passing through the wooden boards would penetrate the armor of the Soldiers behind, driving the arrowheads fiercely into their bodies.

Heavy armor could not be said to be completely useless.

At least it could prevent the bolts, whose kinetic energy had already been attenuated by the shield carts, from penetrating a second Soldier.

It was undeniable that the shield carts brought visual obstruction to the ballistae archers.

So much so that only about one-third of the bolts could kill the Anglo-Saxons carrying the siege equipment; the rest either stuck into the shield carts at tricky angles or achieved no results after penetrating the shield carts.

Whether it was the Britons or the Anglo-Saxons, they were silent; the war cries had not yet appeared, or rather, had not yet been heard by the Britons.

It was as if by closing one’s eyes, everything in front of them would not exist.

When the Anglo-Saxons walked into the two-hundred-meter range, it was time for the catapults to appear.

The catapults standing on the city walls had a greater range, but they lacked the speed and accuracy of the ballistae.

They only fired twice.

Each time, they threw out sheets of fist-sized rubble.

Unfortunately, apart from making the shield carts make thumping sounds, the catapults did not cause greater casualties to the Anglo-Saxons.

If the enemy had no cover, these fist-sized stones would be thrown high into the air and then fall, potentially smashing anyone’s head flat, but unfortunately, the Anglo-Saxons had long anticipated this.

“Archers!” Adlan shouted.

This would be the third line of long-range power; as the Anglo-Saxons entered the eighty-meter range, the longbowmen began to shoot at the enemy below.

And at the same time, the Anglo-Saxons began their charge.

In the last less than one hundred meters, the Anglo-Saxons actively left the protection of the shield carts, carrying their siege equipment, and charged toward the castle.

Battle cries appeared in an instant, like thunder, piercing through the space.

The young British Soldier gripped the spear in his hand tightly, swallowing his saliva with difficulty.

The arrows of the archers bounced off the heavy-armored Soldiers of the Anglo-Saxons one by one; the enemy wore helmets that only revealed their eyes, keeping their heads down, shouting while sprinting toward the city walls.

This was a true ‘rain of arrows’.

Rain cannot drown people, right?

The armor of those Anglo-Saxons was stubborn to an exaggerated degree, and even compared to the knights of Britain, it was no less inferior.

They wore soft armor, covered with chainmail.

There was also a long scale armor, including tassets and bracers.

The style of everyone’s equipment was somewhat different; some wore short scale armor, and some had helmets decorated with the wings of Valkyries.

The Anglo-Saxons did not carry ballistae, and even if they did, they would not have a longer range than the defensive ballistae on the towers.

Their bows were not as excellent as the longbows of Britain.

If the Anglo-Saxons wanted to attack the city as soon as possible, they could only rely on infantry.