Steampunk Era: Mad Abield

With the sound of cannon fire, the resistors in the yard immediately panicked—cannons were not like mages, who had been native to this land for several millennia. Everyone might not have been a mage, but at least they had seen mages flinging basin-sized spells around and could somewhat cope with them.

But cannons, these bringers of death that used various calibers of ammunition, had ranges that now, by several multiples, surpassed those of the mages from Malin’s workshops.

From Malin’s position, he could see these people running out of options—some tried to scale the walls, only to be turned into targets and blown away by soldiers hidden in the shadows; some tried to hide inside the walls, but then the second cannonball, guided by druid scouts, passed through the wall, and the high-explosive shell turned the wall and the twenty-some unfortunate souls behind it into spirits of misfortune.

More people took shelter between the small building and the walls, hoping to use the building to block the cannons’ line of fire.

Then, the soldiers’ wooden-handle grenades were thrown over. They hit the walls then fell inside, blowing up those stubborn resistors in swathes.

Malin watched until the fight was over, feeling that his political officers had fully understood how to fight era-disparate battles, so he descended to the ground and entered the yard with the soldiers.

By this time, none of this merchant convoy could stand.

That’s wrong, there were a few still breathing.

The leader was lucky; the collapsed wall had shielded him, blocking all the grenade shrapnel. Malin ordered him to be bound, then began inspecting the few survivors and the bodies.

To Malin, these people were either Chaos Cult members or some other shady characters, and if they were the former, there would certainly be some mutations on them.

If they were the latter, though mutations might not be present, there would likely be certain marks on their bodies.