Chapter 280 We won!

With Armand's help, Horn stood on the hillside of Pavia.

He took off his helmet with great effort, a smile on his face and a dry laugh coming out of his throat.

At the bottom of the hill, the knights of the imperial decree, whose hands and big toes had been chopped off and who had heavy iron slave collars around their necks, lined up and marched forward in fear.

Further out in the fields, groups of Holy Gun Cavalry and War Monks were chasing the fleeing Night Guards and Extraordinary Knights.

Before the battle, Horn had more or less anticipated that Boaluo would plan to defend the castle after his defeat.

The Salvation Army is pretty good at defensive and field battles, but its only weakness is siege warfare.

They had no explosives or siege artillery, so they could only rely on siege methods such as digging and climbing walls to deal with Joan of Arc Castle.

If we really use this siege method, it will take at least a year or two to take it down.

By that time, many nobles on the Ibe Plain would have reacted and would have sent out the Extraordinary Knights and the Imperial Order Company to attack from both inside and outside.

So there are two key points in this battle:

First, annihilate the command company or destroy their organization;

Second, capture Fort Joan of Arc and the castle.

The tactics Horn designed for this purpose were simple.

Launch a surprise attack on Fort Joan of Arc and order Lien Chan to attack from the front.

The entire Salvation Army marched to the vicinity of Fort Joan of Arc first, and after being deliberately discovered, Horn led his troops to lure the enemy, while Jeanne took two legions and cavalry to hide in a nearby village.

The reason for going to such great lengths is that if the attack is launched directly from Gray Furnace Town, it will be easy for the sentries and rangers to discover their tracks.

So they must have hidden their tracks and diverted the main forces from Fort Joan of Arc.

Horn did the opposite, taking advantage of the exposed tracks of six legions to hide the march of Jeanne's two legions.

If the Saviors are discovered in an area and expelled, people will subconsciously think that the area is safe.

In this way, Jeanne could launch a surprise attack from a position very close to Chateau Joan of Arc, otherwise she would be discovered by patrolling knights halfway.

In the front, Horn led 6 legions to entangle Beaulieu, while behind him, Jeanne led 2 legions to attack Fort Joan of Arc. After the attack was completed, they launched a surprise attack from the rear to annihilate the entire city.

During this period, Horn led six legions to lure the enemy, disguised as an encounter, and lured the Command Company into the position that had been preset a few days ago.

There was a stream slope here, and Horn had set up a spider silk net. It was drizzling, and it was perfect terrain and weather.

The only things he miscalculated were the physical strength and combat effectiveness of the Knights of the Imperial Order, as well as the time it would take for Jeanne to return after capturing Chateau Jeanne d'Arc.

But it didn't matter, they finally achieved their strategic goals.

"Brother!" Jeanna jumped off the horse and ran towards Horn, swinging her braids.

However, her originally cheerful and coquettish tone turned into tears the moment she saw Horn, "You...you..."

"What happened to me? I told you, I killed a Knight of the Order with my own hands."

The raindrops hit Horn's body, washing the blood on his body into small streaks.

A piece of iron pierced the center of his left eyebrow, and blood soaked the left half of his face.

He couldn't open his left eye and didn't know if this was temporary or permanent.

His right hand hung limply with his thumb broken in the middle, a short axe was stuck in his shoulder armor, and his breastplate was covered with marks from swords and bayonets.

Blood bubbles blew out from the gaps in his leg armor from time to time. Horn could only stand with his left shoulder leaning on Armand.

"Brother, why are you..."

"What did you say?" Horn waved at her. "Go to the right and talk. I can't hear you on the left... The knight's secondary weapon was a mace. He hit me on the left side of my face. It was unethical. Fortunately, I was wearing a helmet."

"Brother, I'm sorry... I'm late..."

"You've done the best you can." Horn coughed, "Don't worry, this is probably a perforated eardrum. I have breathing techniques and a witch's physique, so the chances of recovery are very high."

Jeanne didn't respond to Horn's words. With tears in her eyes, she reached out and touched Horn's bloody face.

She almost didn't recognize this face. Once it was a farmer's face, then it was a scholar's face, and now it looked like a warrior's face.

With both hands on Horn's face, Jeanna's head suddenly moved closer, and her chest naturally pressed against his breastplate. A warm breath came over them, and their foreheads touched each other. When their eyes met, their lips seemed to bump into each other accidentally.

There was a faint scent of chamomile at the tip of his nose, and the soft thing that Horn's lips touched had the sweet smell of blood.

The blood of the enemy is the best lipstick for the Valkyrie.

"Yo!"

"Hey!"

Countless voices of booing immediately rang out around him, with some even whistling. Even the wounded man lying on a stretcher sitting up straight.

"Boom——"

He let go of Horn's neck, but before he could say anything, Jeanne was already in a state of extreme fever.

“One more!” Victor, who was lying on the ground unable to move, shouted with his eyes sideways.

Spinning his cane like a flying bird, Coleman landed on one foot and rushed over quickly: "Ah? Did you kiss? Ouch, I didn't see it."

"Kiss me! Kiss me!"

"Alas!"

Listening to the commotion around her, the Valkyrie who had just been killing everyone on the battlefield seemed to have turned into a little girl. She glared at them angrily, covered her face, and quickly fled the scene.

"Okay, stop making trouble, stop making trouble!"

Standing on the hillside, Horn shouted and laughed, and finally he suppressed this group of war monks who still had the energy to make trouble after the battle.

With Armand's support, he limped to the hillside, holding the gear-shaped sun flag.

From the flat ground to the hillside, nearly a thousand war monks were lying there, with a loss of nearly a quarter of their numbers.

Likewise, there were more than 60 imperial knights, dozens of square-flag knights and hundreds of squire knights lying here.

Including the more than 20 captured Knights of the Order, the number of Knights of the Order who successfully escaped is estimated to be only in the single digits.

One of Prince Kongdai’s nine imperial orders was basically dealt with here.

Of the 550 extraordinary knights who went on the expedition, less than 150 escaped. All the extraordinary knights and nobles in the entire Kush Territory were wiped out by Horn twice.

The total number of captured night guards and armored soldiers exceeded 1200.

As for those Franco-Knights, they probably knew that Chateau Joan of Arc had changed hands, so they didn't even bother to seek revenge for the 100 Knights who stayed behind, and quickly fled.

In other words, nearly 8000 square kilometers of land in Kush Territory has fallen into the hands of the Salvation Army.

"what?"

Horn looked up at the sky.

The rain that had been falling for half a day finally stopped, the dark clouds dispersed, and a half-corner of the setting sun appeared between the clouds and the mountains.

The mottled sunset glow adorns the stream in the green grass with colorful scales.

The scales shimmered like rippling waves in a lake.

The azure blue hills stretched the sunlight, drawing clear and distinct light-dark dividing lines between the sky and the earth like an oil painting.

Horn was standing at the intersection of the light and dark dividing lines.

The air became quiet, and the eyes of everyone present, the war monks, the crusaders, the chaplains and even the captives were all focused on Horn.

Everyone's eyes were on Horn, the Pope who had not personally led a charge in thousands of years, and the young man who would lead them to victory.

They were all waiting for him to say the last words, the words that everyone had been waiting for for a long time, and they wanted Horn to say it himself.

"Brothers! Monks! Believers!" Holding the sun gear flag high in his left hand, Horn announced to everyone with a tearful smile, "We have won!"

"Victory!"

"We won!"

The cheers spread like an explosion.

(End of this chapter)