The battle at Silverstone Cliff reached a fever pitch.
The flames of war spread all the way from the cliff passes to the plains outside Londinium; dozens of miles of land had been turned into a meat grinder.
The air was filled with the pungent mix of gunpowder smoke, blood, and ozone. The sky was dyed a grayish-red, as if the entire world were burning.
That lead knight, his armor painted pure white, fought as one with his machine. The chainsword greatsword in his hands had turned red-hot from prolonged high-speed operation, bringing up a cloud of scorched smoke with every swing.
Like a moving volcano, he plowed a bloody path through the Sarkaz military formation.
An exceptionally massive progeny warrior, its body covered in tumor-like flesh and blood tentacles, howled as it pounced toward him.
The Steam Knight responded with a simple, unadorned uppercut.
The massive iron fist smashed solidly into the progeny warrior's jaw. The terrifying force sent its head flying backward, snapping its neck, and its colossal body collapsed to the ground like a pile of sludge.
"Take out that metal can!" a Sarkaz commander shrieked.
Several progeny warriors pounced from the flanks. The flesh and blood tentacles on their bodies tightly wrapped around the Steam Knight's arms and legs, attempting to pin him in place.
The Steam Knight's movements stagnated, and the boiler within his chest cavity let out an overwhelmed roar.
"You think you can trap me with just this brute force?" inside the cockpit, the knight let out a cold laugh.
He violently activated the steam ejection ports covering his entire body.
Hiss—
High-temperature steam, reaching thousands of degrees, instantly surged out from the gaps in the armor. Those flesh and blood tentacles wrapped around him curled and carbonized rapidly under the intense heat, emitting the sizzling sound of roasting meat.
The progeny warriors let out painful hisses, letting go and retreating one after another.
The Steam Knight broke free from his bindings. He backhanded a progeny warrior who hadn't managed to escape in time, hoisted him high, and then, like throwing a hammer, smashed him ruthlessly into another group of enemies in the distance.
On the other side, the Storm Assault Team's line was as steady as Mount Tai.
They engaged the Leithanien army in a textbook example of positional warfare.
Although Leithanien's "Tiger II" tanks were powerful, faced with the endless stream of special ammunition from the Storm Assault Team, they no longer dared to charge recklessly.
A "Tiger II" attempted to suppress a firing point, but what greeted it was a sticky bomb fired from a tricky angle.
The explosive adhered firmly to its main gun barrel and immediately detonated. Although it failed to destroy the tank, it blasted the barrel out of shape, completely stripping it of its long-range strike capability.
"Where did these Victorians pop out from?" a Leithanien tank commander roared over the radio.
"Command! Requesting air support!"
"Repeat, requesting air support! Our ground advance is blocked!"
However, the Stukas in the sky were busy bombing the remaining warships of the ducal coalition and could not pull away for the time being.
For the first time on a frontal battlefield, the Victorians saw the dawn of victory.
The morale of the soldiers reached an unprecedented high. They began to actively coordinate with the Storm Assault Team, attacking the suppressed Leithanien infantry from the flanks.
Even Oliver picked up a long spear, followed a low-ranking officer, and tremblingly stabbed at a Leithanien soldier who had fallen injured on the ground.
Just when all Victorians thought they were about to create a miracle and drive the invaders out of Silverstone Cliff, a strange silence suddenly descended upon the Sarkaz formation on the southern line of the battlefield.
The Royal Court Legions, who had been charging madly, seemed to receive a silent order. They stopped in their tracks in unison, then parted to the sides like a receding tide, opening up a wide path.
At the end of the path, two figures slowly appeared in everyone's line of sight.
One was Sanguinarch Duqare.
He still wore that magnificent noble formal wear, as if he were not on a battlefield but attending a grand banquet.
He walked elegantly. With every step he took, the land beneath his feet turned into a dark red quagmire. Countless streams of fresh blood surged up from underground, gathering into a stream that circled around him.
The other was even more horrifying.
It was an existence that could not be accurately described in words.
A humanoid creature that seemed to be synthesized from countless withered branches, skeletons, and broken flesh and blood floated in mid-air.
He was the Nachzehrer King, Nietzhere.
His very existence spread decay and rot.
Merely looking at him caused waves of chill and nausea to rise from the depths of many Victorian soldiers' souls.
"Truly... disappointing toys." Duqare raised his head, looking at the Steam Knights who were slaughtering all directions, a look of disgust on his face.
They had ruined the atmosphere of the banquet.
"Crush... them..."
Following Nietzhere's will, dozens of tentacles made of bone and rotting flesh extended from beneath him, whistling as they lashed out at the nearest Steam Knight.
That Steam Knight had just flattened a Sarkaz Centurion with his war hammer. Before he could turn around, he was struck by several bone tentacles.
Clang—!!!
An ear-piercing sound of metal impact rang out.
Several deep cracks, visible down to the frame, instantly appeared on the Steam Knight's heavy armor.
His massive body staggered from the immense force, nearly falling over.
"What is that?"
The knight inside the cockpit turned pale with fright. He tried to steady his form, but more tentacles had already wrapped around him.
These tentacles were completely different from the flesh and blood tentacles of the blood-kin progeny; they were as hard as iron and contained a corrosive power capable of eroding everything.
Under the entanglement of the tentacles, the Steam Knight's armor emitted a sizzling sound of corrosion, billowing clouds of black smoke.
"Aaaah!"
The knight let out a scream of agony; his vitality was being rapidly drained.
"Help me!"
He sent a distress signal to his companion not far away.
That white Steam Knight immediately turned around, overloading his engine in an attempt to rush over and support him.
But standing before him was Sanguinarch Duqare.
"Your opponent is me." Duqare smiled and snapped his fingers.
The ground beneath the white knight's feet instantly turned into a blood-colored swamp.
Countless hands made of blood reached out from the swamp, firmly grasping the Steam Knight's legs, making it impossible for him to move an inch.
"Get lost!"
The white knight roared, his chainsword greatsword slashing madly, severing those blood hands one by one.
But the blood hands were endless; cut one, and two more would grow.
"It is useless."
Duqare shook his head, as if looking at a child throwing a tantrum.
"On this land soaked in fresh blood, I am God."
He reached out a hand and made a grasping motion toward the white knight from afar.
"Flesh Stripping."
A bizarre scene unfolded.
The white knight's specially made alloy chest armor, half a meter thick, suddenly began to melt and twist like wax.
Countless red vein-like patterns emerged on the surface of the metal. Then, the entire chest plate, along with the protective layers inside, was forcibly "torn" from the frame by an invisible force, revealing the complex piping and the cockpit within.
The knight inside the cockpit, one of Victoria's top warriors, looked in horror at Duqare, who was close at hand.
He wanted to do something, but his body, along with the battle armor he took such pride in, were all under the other's control.
"Such vibrant vitality."
Duqare licked his lips, greedy light flashing in his eyes: "Truly... a top-tier ingredient."
He clenched his palm again in the empty air.
Splurt—
Under the horrified gazes of countless Victorian soldiers, that knight's body, along with the cockpit he was in, was instantly crushed into a blur of flesh and blood by an invisible force.
Fresh blood exploded like a fountain, only to be bound in mid-air by Duqare's power, gathering into a sphere of blood that slowly flew into his hand.
Duqare held the blood sphere in his palm, as if admiring a work of art, and then swallowed it in one gulp.
"Ah... truly wonderful."
He let out a satisfied sigh.
Victoria's final hero, the pride of the Empire, died just like that—in the most humiliating and terrifying manner, right in front of everyone.
On the other side, the Steam Knight trapped by Nietzhere also met his doom.
The Nachzehrer King seemed to lose patience, and all the bone tentacles tightened violently.
Creak—
Amidst the tooth-aching sound of twisting metal, that Steam Knight, along with the pilot inside, was squeezed alive into an irregular metal puck.
Grayish-green corruptive energy surged in through the cracks, instantly dissolving the flesh and blood inside.
One, two, three...
After the two Lords of the Sarkaz Royal Court personally took the field, the tide of battle reversed instantly.
The dozen or so Steam Knights, who had seemed like gods descending to earth, appeared unbearably fragile before them.
They were torn apart, melted, corroded, devoured...
In less than half an hour, Victoria's final trump card was completely wiped out.
The deafening mechanical roar vanished.
It was replaced by a deathly silence.
All the Victorian soldiers stared blankly at this scene.
The color of hope on their faces faded instantly, replaced by a despair even more bottomless than before.
If the previous failures were due to inferior armaments or inferior tactics...
Then now, they were facing Demon Kings that only appeared in myths and legends.
These were existences that mortals simply could not defeat.
"It's over..."
A soldier of the Storm Assault Team muttered to himself as the heavy firearm in his hands slipped and fell to the ground.
This voice was like a signal.
"Run—!"
It was unknown who shouted first.
Immediately after, the morale that had just been regrouped collapsed instantly like wind passing through a border.
Soldiers threw down their weapons, crying and screaming as they scattered and fled toward the rear, toward the direction of Londinium.
The collapse this time was more thorough and irrevocable than any before.
The Duke of Windermere stood amidst the chaotic army. She witnessed the destruction of the Steam Knights with her own eyes, witnessed that Steam Knight being crushed alive.
She saw Duqare and Nietzhere walking slowly in her direction.
The fire of hope, at this moment, was completely stomped out.
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