My wife is an immortal black snake.

Page 221

Considering the Colombians' superior equipment, this urban warfare will be relatively simple. However, given the Sarkaz's generally stronger physique and the fact that urban combat is almost always close-quarters hand-to-hand combat, it should be a close contest.

The only problem is...

"Those capitalist traitors and the traitors of the conquering knights..."

Traitor—traitor.

Capitalists might take this opportunity to open their secret passages to the Colombians—especially given that the vast majority of capitalists own underground warehouses. The commander on site must be prepared for the enemy to infiltrate our rear through underground networks and launch a pincer attack.

But the traitors among the conquering knights are... much worse.

No one knows exactly how much that traitorous knight sent to the Colombians. No one knows whether his men are also planning to betray them.

In the midst of gunfire on the battlefield, nothing is more devastating than being stabbed in the back by one's own comrade—it is an extremely devastating blow to the morale of the troops.

So, can the knights on the scene withstand this attack? Yang Hao shook his head, and just as he shook his head, several more explosions rang out in the distance.

—The explosion had a strange tone mixed in. Margarita, who was standing nearby, looked curiously in the direction from which the explosion came, then said with a strange expression: It seems that Sanae caused this trouble.

"...what?"

After refocusing his attention on his map, Yang Hao realized that a "moving mountain range" had indeed inexplicably appeared on it...

That mountain range appeared behind the Colombian camp and seemed to be moving towards the Colombian supply lines further back... What on earth is going on?

"It seems the Colombian reinforcements have arrived, but Sanae is blocking their path—so they've decided to use explosives to clear a way for themselves..." Ms. Northon, smoking a cigar on the other side, muttered with a strange expression. "Although Sanae is a rock crab... if suddenly injured, she'll be controlled by her instinct for survival... and if I'm not mistaken... she's currently, probably, slaughtering the Colombians..."

"...An unexpected delight."

"But don't be too careless—even Margarita and I can't control Sanae when she goes crazy... Never mind, I'll go over there, at least let her vent her anger somewhere that won't affect you."

Ms. Norsen left. She was worried about Sanae's condition and planned to get involved—and perhaps also deal with her own increasingly uncontrollable urge to drink blood.

For Ms. Norsen, the blood she had previously drawn from Yang Hao was like opening Pandora's box... that delicious blood had rekindled a blood demon's interest in hunting. She wasn't sure what bad consequences would result from constantly suppressing her blood-drinking urges, but at least for now—she had to find a way to resolve it.

Chapter 120

—The war as a whole is developing in the direction Yang Hao hoped for, but there are also many unexpected events that he did not expect, and even Margarita did not predict.

Firstly, there were the Colombian reinforcements—though they were wounded soldiers just returning from the rear, they were indeed reinforcements. This group of reinforcements numbered about 3 and was on its way to the front lines with the latest supplies.

However, on the way, they were blocked by a mountain that shouldn't have existed in the first place—they were dumbfounded, and in the end, they had no choice but to join the supply team in trying to blow up a corner of the mountain to open up a passage.

However, their feat undoubtedly brought trouble upon themselves. Although Sanae is an obedient rock crab under normal circumstances, if someone were to plant a bomb under its feet and detonate it in front of it, no matter how terrified the rock crab is, it would eventually be driven to despair by anger, right?

Even a clay figure has a bit of temper, let alone an outrageously large rock crab!

So when Ms. Northumbers hurriedly crossed the Columbian camp's defenses even faster than the Ursus army and arrived at Sanae's location... she saw a scene of carnage, the ground covered with indescribable "living corpses," and those corpses were even chasing after the living.

"--hiss."

One look at Ms. Norsen was enough to tell that she couldn't suck a drop of those guys' blood. She sighed heavily. Although her main purpose for coming here had been completely ruined, she should at least deal with Sanae's condition first, right?

Thinking of this, she walked over to Sanae, who was still angrily poking at a lump of meat paste with her claws, and then reached out and tapped the carapace on Sanae's leg, where the downy hair on her legs was longer than one of Ms. Northum's hands.

Then, Sanae stopped. The enormous creature turned around under Ms. Northumber's deadpan gaze, staring at her with its scarlet eyes for a long while.

It lay down on the ground, emitting a strange, mournful cry, and several drops of liquid, larger than a human head, dripped from its eyes. It seemed to be explaining its grievances to Ms. Northumbers—the grievance that someone had come to harm it while it was staying perfectly still.

"...Alright, alright, I know you're upset, so be good, Sanae—ah, while you're at it, clear out the Colombian reinforcements behind them too, and scare them a little if you can—yes, that's it. I'll bring you something delicious later, hurry up."

What could Ms. Norsen do? She could only sigh helplessly, let Sanae continue helping, and then stood there watching her pitiful little rock crab flutter its wings and fly away in the direction the Colombian reinforcements had come from...

...

This is one of the better surprises.

Another unfortunate surprise was that the Colombians' new weapons were far more effective than Yang Hao had imagined.

He had previously thought that those new weapons, at best, were just "weapons that were 40 years more advanced than those of the cold weapon era"... but that was not actually the case. The equipment used by the main Colombian army, especially the crossbows, was far more advanced than that used by the Ursus army.

"—This thing...is a semi-automatic crossbow!"

Hiding behind cover, not daring to peek out to observe the movements of the Colombian coalition forces that had already stormed into the city, a Sarkaz mercenary wielding a heavy crossbow muttered something to his companion, his words filled with envy for the Colombians' equipment.

Semi-automatic crossbows, yes, semi-automatic crossbows. Although these advanced semi-automatic crossbows can only hold five bolts, although they require a long reload time after each volley, and although they look rather heavy—but they're still semi-automatic crossbows, for crying out loud!

While the knights and Sarkaz crossbowmen could only fire five or six bolts per minute, the Colombians could fire five bolts at them in five seconds!

This disparity in firepower meant the soldiers simply couldn't raise their heads to face the Colombian barrage! And what was worse, the Colombians were clearly prepared...

Each time their crossbowmen unleashed a barrage, they would send their shieldbearers forward to push up the fighting knights' positions, providing cover for the vulnerable sorcerers who were at close range. Furthermore, they carried a large quantity of explosives and drones. For a time, the fighting knights and their remaining troops were unable to stop their boarding, and could only watch helplessly or offer token resistance as the Colombians stormed into the city...

However, after storming into the city, the unacceptable technological gap between the crossbowmen disappeared due to the almost point-blank combat. But the technological gap in equipment still caused the Sarkaz mercenaries, who were good at melee combat, to suffer greatly: after all, not everyone is willing to accept the fact that they can only watch helplessly as they slash the opponent and heal his wounds with several healing drones flying over his head.

Fortunately, the Sarkaz mercenaries were not fighting alone. Although the Knights of Conquest had outdated and rigid tactics, they at least had good individual combat skills. More importantly, the remnants of the army, aided by Ursus, had weapons to fight those drones—namely, heavy crossbows produced in Ursus.

Although Ursus's heavy crossbows are still decades old, it must be admitted that even the strong and robust Sarkaz, who need to use their feet to press a pedal to cock them, can easily pierce the heavy shields held by shield bearers. Naturally, they also possess the ability to shoot down drones from the sky with a single shot.

It is more efficient than the light crossbows that the conquering knights are used to, at least more efficient than the ones that take several rounds of scraping before they can shoot down the drone.

The reload time was still too long. Therefore, even though the remaining troops could handle the drones accompanying the Colombians, the Colombians steadily infiltrated the northern part of the Grand Knight Territory...

Fortunately, the Colombian land-based ships did not continue to provide fire support due to concerns about friendly forces, so at least now the soldiers on the Casimir side can safely engage the Colombians in close-quarters combat.

...

"...The casualties are just too great."

Yang Hao frowned, looking at the casualties in the street fighting displayed on the [Puppet Stage] map, and felt a bit overwhelmed.

Based on the current charts, the casualty ratio between the mixed forces of the Conqueror Knights, remnants, and Sarkaz mercenaries and the Colombian army is approximately 2:1. Although the vast majority of casualties came from the Conqueror Knights, the losses are still too great.

After the Colombians entered the city, they inflicted nearly 800 casualties on the mixed forces in just 10 minutes of street fighting. If they are allowed to continue their steady advance, it's likely that when Theresa May takes office, her first priority won't be governing, but rather figuring out how to **restore the military**...

But doing so would inevitably have an indelible impact on the young and middle-aged workforce of Kazimir. Therefore, Yang Hao determined that he needed to end this battle as soon as possible.

So, after spending a little political points to get the people of the Great Knight's territory, where fierce fighting was taking place, to spontaneously fight against the invaders, he refocused his attention on the main battlefield.

Mr. Bozocasti has achieved excellent results on the main battlefield. He has successfully led his men to break through the Colombian camp's defenses and is now advancing towards the location of the Colombian commander who is shifting positions. Moreover, during the advance, Bozocasti's main force has successfully boarded Colombia's third landship by ramming it with the landships, and ultimately achieved good results.

He really needed to race against time: if Columbia's two land-based ships on the main battlefield turned their guns on him, even Ursus's formidable infantry wouldn't be able to fight the steel monsters with their own flesh and blood...

"Besides that, more importantly... have we also suppressed those engineers who used dirty bombs and poison gas weapons?"

Yang Hao lay back in his chair, lost in thought, muttering to himself as he stared at the two Colombian icons on the map that had turned gray, representing [poison gas equipment] and [dirty bomb].

The raid was led by an officer named Herag. Under the cover of Sarkaz mercenaries, he successfully stormed the gas weapons position, intercepting a Colombian engineering squad en route as they prepared to detonate a dirty bomb. Now, instead of supporting other units, he was personally escorting the crucial dirty bomb back—a wise decision.

(After all, it would be too late to loot after the war... Sigh, Mr. Hrag, don't worry, I'll promote you because you're so pragmatic.)

Yang Hao was muttering something to himself... Just then, Margarita, who had been waiting by his side, watched them work for a while. Not wanting to be idle, the little bat quietly walked behind Yang Hao and whispered in his ear:

"Then, um... Yang Hao? I... I don't need to do anything?"

"Hmm? Margarita, just stay with me, and you can use your [prophecy] ability whenever you want, okay? That way you can be of help."

"Huh? Hmm... but it seems like everyone has something to do..."

"In that case, Margarita, you can consider yourself my bodyguard for now, okay? And be good, or Ms. Northum will scold you when she gets back."

"Well..."

Uneasy about having nothing to do, Margarita obediently quieted down. Although he felt bad for Margarita, Yang Hao really couldn't assign her any work right now—after all, he genuinely didn't have any suitable places to assign her...

Therefore, all the people staying here can do is wait for the situation on the front lines to develop further.

And so they stayed there for more than two hours.

More than two hours later, Yang Hao received news from Karina, who had been in contact with the battlefield observers, and from his own [Puppet Stage]: Mr. Bozocasti had successfully defeated the camp where the Columbia commander was located. They had completed the encirclement of the Columbia enemies who had entered the Great Knight Territory. Now, all that was left was to wipe out all the remaining enemies inside.

......

13:40pm.

After completing the encirclement, Bozocasti had been leading his shield guards in the city to besiege the Colombians for quite some time.

Now, Colombian soldiers are nowhere to be seen on the main streets of the attacked city; the roads are littered with corpses, and if they are lucky, they can occasionally find prisoners who are hiding and unable to move.

Through the interrogation of the prisoners, the accounts of the surviving residents in the surrounding area, and the guidance of the troops left behind in the city, Mr. Bozocasti realized that a large number of Colombians had hidden in the underground area of ​​the Grand Knights Territory—it was unknown whether some capitalist or some traitor had given them the key to the underground space of the Grand Knights Territory.

Now the remnants of the Colombian army can go almost anywhere underground. Even the battle-hardened Wendigo finds these "rats" who are thriving in the underground army troublesome: after all, underground warfare is a more brutal battlefield than street fighting in the city.

"We need to have the Grand Knights control all the districts that might have been infiltrated by the Colombians," he said to the Shield Guard adjutant beside him. "Otherwise, if the Colombians are allowed to roam around like rats in a sewer, we will never be able to eliminate those remnants. In fact, after a decade or so of cleanup, those remnants might simply become the [Kasimir] people."

This is a rather common predicament on some complex battlefields, especially in those mobile cities—for example, soldiers who infiltrated a city and were abandoned by the authorities for more than ten years simply obtained "legal status" in the target city and eventually became residents of that city... Although Mr. Bozokasti had no intention of cleaning up the mess for the Kazimierz people, it was still a war achievement after all.

If I could achieve more military exploits and gain more honors, I suppose my foolish son, who is so stubborn that no amount of discipline can distract him from those blasphemous books about centaurs... would be stimulated and change his ways.

Mr. Bozokastie had never been so eager for war merits... but just as he was about to use his communicator to contact the commander of the conquering knights, a short, blond Kuranta man suddenly appeared in front of him.

"—You must be General Bozokastie, right? Ah, I'm Lily from [Tenet]. My boss asked me to show you the way."

"lead the way?"

Mr. Bozokastie frowned, scrutinizing the Kuranta woman who called herself "Lily"—if he remembered correctly, the picture book in his foolish son's hand seemed to be...

"It's the route those Colombians take to run around in the underground tunnels—my sisters and Serpent Scales have already sealed off the underground spaces in the nearby areas that haven't been infiltrated yet. Now come with me, and we'll just clean them up underground."

"...OK."

Now is not the time to talk about important family matters.

Bozokastie understood the importance of serious matters.

Chapter 121

......

It was in the afternoon of August 21st.

Finally—the battle is over.

Led by Lily, the little colt of the Creed, who is shorter than the average Kuranta, Mr. Bozocasti's army successfully caught the Colombians by the tail and, after a fierce battle, completely defeated the remaining Colombians at a relatively small cost, and successfully captured some of them.

It's worth mentioning that the traitorous commander of the Kazimierz knights and his entourage were also found here—though Mr. Bozokasti didn't notice why someone was blocking his way with a knight's sword. Only after casually striking him with his shield and then delivering a horizontal slash with his halberd did he realize: the man was dead.

It was a pity that the traitor had met such a peaceful end, but they still carefully collected his severed head and shattered body, and tied them up with rope. Mr. Bozocasti thanked Lily and said that he would continue to lead the soldiers to patrol the surrounding area, just in case.

"Ah, alright—but please keep the soldiers in check during patrols, there are a lot of infected people around here... Or could you ask our boss if he'd be willing to take in those refugees?"

"Infected refugees? I can't decide that, but I can ask Lord Yang Hao for his opinion... Besides, your name is Lily?"

"Yep."

"I've remembered your name. You are indeed someone who takes your work very seriously."

Unlike my son, who slacks off all day long! He's gotten so fat! He doesn't have the posture of a scholar at all.

Mr. Bozokastie muttered something sorrowfully to himself. Then he sighed, carried the body of the traitor from Kazimierz on his back, and left under Lily's watchful gaze.

...... ......

At the same time, news of the victory was indeed received in the camp. However, Yang Hao had no intention of celebrating. He simply asked Margarita to predict that during the upcoming victory parade, those brainless commanders and sensible capitalists from Kazimierz might stand in that spot to inspect the parade.

"Hmm? Hmm—it seems to be the largest arena in the Great Knight Territory, the one used for the grandest competitions... They're scattered, aren't they? One's here... another's here... Um, Yang Hao?"

"It's alright. Although Mr. Hrag brought back only one 'good thing,' its blast radius is quite large, so it should be able to take care of both sides at once—but, with such a large blast radius, it's easy to accidentally injure too many civilians and the troops that might need it later... ouch..."

"Uh-huh..."

Ms. Northumbern hadn't returned yet, so Yang Hao was happy to spend some time with Margarita. However, after gently pinching Margarita's earlobe as a reward, he turned back seriously to his most loyal subordinates and announced that their plan was about to begin.

"Luckily, I had prepared lead containers to hold these dangerous things when I came... and Mr. Herag did a good job too. Although he destroyed the gas equipment, he didn't forget to preserve the most important canisters filled with the [new type of gas]... Now, Theresa, it's your turn to show your face."

"I understand~ I've been prepared for this for a while. But as you said, boss, the blast radius of that dirty bomb is still too big, huh?" Theresa nodded, then shrugged at Yang Hao with a hint of helplessness: if he really wanted to use that dirty bomb to help him eliminate his political enemies, then it would inevitably hurt too many civilians and soldiers.

So, boss, what are you planning to do... no, can I think of any solutions? She frowned, deep in thought. After a moment, she heard her boss say:

“We can try to get them to appear in situations where they have to be there, and in places as far away from civilians as possible. Theresa, if you openly declare your intention to intervene in Kazimierz's political activities and invite them to a secret meeting place, do you think they will come?”

"Ok?"

"Well—" Theresa pondered for a moment, then shook her head: "I guess only a few small fry will come."

"What if you spread the word that some of the capitalists have defected and now someone needs to deal with their remaining assets?"

"...I reckon most of the capitalists' bosses will come. After all, that's a lot of money." Without even thinking, Theresa gave this answer: After all, capital loves money. As long as you give them more than 300% profit, they'd be willing to lick the dog poop off your shoes.

“Let’s go a step further—didn’t some people surrender to us before, and then some surrender to the Knights of Conquest? Let’s leak the news to both sides. Do you think all the capitalists would take the risk to come over then?”

"This could be an opportunity for me to become a completely monopolistic dictatorship in Kazimir, and they'd flock out—no… so even if I told them to hold a meeting in the nearby mines, they'd come in person, right? In that case…"