Chapter 194 : The Rise of the Demon
Chapter 194: The Rise of the Demon
The main weapon was a 75mm field gun mounted at the very front, while the secondary armament consisted of one Maxim heavy machine gun positioned at the front, rear, left, right, and top.
The frontal armor was 28.5mm thick, while the sides measured 22mm. Its maximum speed was 12 kilometers per hour, and it carried a combat crew of ten—five machine gunners, two gunners, one commander, one mechanic, and one driver.
The Tsarist Nation redesigned the hull and outer shell, installing new weapons.
The original track-bearing length was insufficient, so they creatively devised a set of small road wheel assemblies. By inserting a group of four small road wheels between the original large ones, they extended the tracks to the required length.
The newly modified tank met the Tsar’s needs. Aside from its speed being drastically reduced from the original 40 km/h, both its firepower and protection had reached an entirely new level.
An inline eight-cylinder radial engine was placed in the center of the hull, and at the rear, a magitech package was installed to generate a protective shield.
The final complete form was this steel monster—9 meters long, 3 meters wide, 4 meters high, and weighing approximately 30 tons in combat.
As the first row of Saint Tsar Tanks crossed the trenches and crushed all obstacles, it caused a large-scale collapse of morale among the Church soldiers near the trenches, who began fleeing in panic. It wasn’t that they feared death—but such a brutal way of dying was something no one could accept.
The tanks pursued the fleeing soldiers, sweeping them down with machine-gun fire while charging toward the second main defensive line of the Church. During this time, many severely wounded soldiers, left to die, desperately hurled wooden-handled grenades and other explosives at the tanks.
One tank had its track blown apart on the spot. Unfortunately, due to the fog, very few surviving soldiers witnessed this.
The Church’s Mechanical Soldiers positioned in the rear quickly assembled, preparing to rush out and deal with these machines.
“Get up! Anyone who isn’t dead, get up now! The enemy is about to launch another attack! If you don’t want to die, get back to your positions, damn it!”
“Grenades! Explosive packs! Get everything ready!”
The surviving soldiers in the trenches, including Petersen, searched through the ruined trenches for any usable weapons under the furious shouts of the remaining officers.
This defensive line was almost certainly doomed. The second wave of tanks had already emerged from the fog, surrounded by large numbers of fully prepared Tsarist soldiers.
“Move! Move! Everyone in position! Prepare to charge! Whistle—Attack!”
‘Ura!!’
‘Ura!!’
“Fire! Where are the magic cannons? Shoot now!!!”
The commander at the rear defensive line continuously urged the artillery units to aim and fire at the second wave of tanks in the distance.
Trenches worked both ways. Without suppressive fire to disrupt the enemy’s offensive rhythm, once the first defensive line was completely lost, it would instead become a bridgehead that trapped the Church forces inside.
Under the cover of the tanks, countless Tsarist soldiers charged toward the trenches, roaring as shells intermittently rained down.
Machine guns inside the still-intact bunkers began to unleash their power, sweeping the Tsarist soldiers emerging from the fog with bursts of gunfire.
But the bunker’s dominance didn’t last long. With the impact of a single armor-piercing shell, only half of the bunker remained.
Petersen and the remaining soldiers threw grenades and explosive packs out of the trench, attempting to halt the Tsarist advance.
As Petersen exposed himself once more to throw a wooden-handled grenade, he suddenly felt a chill above his head. The next moment, he lost consciousness and fell backward. The grenade still in his hand exploded with a “bang,” burying his body within the trench.
Seeing that he had blown off the opponent’s head, Yadov pulled the bolt, ejecting the spent casing, and continued sprinting forward.
As he passed a fallen comrade, he bent down and grabbed a magazine from the man’s pocket. That very motion saved his life—a bullet grazed over his head, blowing off his hat.
The scene frightened Yadov so much that his legs gave way, and he dropped to his knees. After a moment, he stood back up. Thinking for a moment, he bent forward and ran in a hunched posture, no longer charging upright like before.
Taking cover behind a tank, Yadov followed as it crossed the trench, then jumped down into it. Raising his rifle, he shot and killed a still-moving enemy lying on the ground.
While reloading, someone suddenly crawled out of a nearby hole. Trembling, the man raised his gun to fire. Yadov stared at the dark muzzle, and everything around him seemed to slow down.
‘Click…’
The expected muzzle flash did not appear—the sound meant the magazine was empty. Yadov snapped back to reality. With no time to reload, he roared and thrust forward with his rifle.
With a “thud,” the bayonet pierced upward through the man’s jaw, penetrating clean through.
‘Huff…’
Pulling back his rifle, Yadov let out a breath. He pulled a grenade from his waist and tossed it into the hole. After a burst of incomprehensible shouting, an explosion sounded, and everything fell silent again.
He raised his rifle, cycled the bolt, chambered a round, and continued running deeper into the unknown trenches.
The Alliance being called the “Rise of the Demon” on the Main Continent was not without reason.
They had dragged the concept of war down to the level of being equivalent to everything within a nation, rather than something exclusive to nobles and mages as before.
An illiterate serf, without even a complete set of clothing, only needed about a week of training to pick up a rifle and charge into battle recklessly.
Mechanical Bodies were not cheap. Even a kingdom that exhausted its resources could at most equip only 10–20% of its forces with such soldiers—and that was already the combined total of all noble forces.
But in situations where Mechanical Soldiers were absent, a serf holding a rifle could stand on equal footing with a noble mage, leaving their fate to chance.
Family honor? Noble bloodline? Under 7.92 full-power rifle rounds, all were equal.
On battlefields like the Chernit Defensive Line, both sides now primarily relied on ordinary humans. Mechanical Soldiers rarely appeared, and heavy alchemical magic weapons were seen perhaps once every ten days or half a month.
In the end, after a month of chaotic warfare, both sides realized that the mode of war had fundamentally changed.
Weapons and soldiers trained under the traditional magic system were simply too costly to lose like this. In contrast, the cost of a believer or a serf soldier was negligible—and their training time was overwhelmingly shorter.
Even if they occasionally suffered a large-scale magic attack that killed hundreds, it was still not a critical loss. After all, Mechanical Soldiers would likely suffer similar casualties under such circumstances.
What truly mattered now was each nation’s propaganda and mobilization capability, as well as the industrial supply capacity behind their weapons and logistics.
There was also another issue no one openly discussed—maintaining stability.
After steam engines entered large-scale application, in order to sustain the massive labor demands of industrial production—while also preserving the interests of noble estate owners—both sides jointly enacted laws and used force to enclose land on a massive scale.
Land originally owned by commoners was seized and transferred to estate owners.
The displaced commoners had no choice but to enter factories as laborers, providing industrialists with the workforce they needed.
As for slaves, it went without saying—whoever bought them owned them as sacred private property. Meanwhile, the Mechanical Soldiers and high-end magic weapons controlled by nobles ensured overwhelming suppression against scattered resistance.
Even if one became a citizen, they would eventually be structurally exploited and fall into becoming workers or industrial slaves. Even if they managed to rise again, they would be pushed back down.
The only path of advancement was to enlist in the military and become a noble.
And the frontlines just happened to require a massive number of soldiers.
It was a perfect closed loop.