Chapter 309: The Forest of the Cave Forest

When the assembly horn sounded, everyone had to put down their wooden bowls even if they were halfway through their meal.

At the captain's shout, the spear division that Laurent belonged to quickly dropped the bowl, stood up, and picked up their own spears from the ground beside them.

"The Third Spear Division, line up on my left!" The division captain walked quickly to the gentle slope in front of the camp, placed the lance in his hand horizontally, and shouted loudly.

Laurent, the brigade leader, quickly walked to his position.

According to the Holy Scripture, the lance should be pointing in the direction you are facing, and the brigade leader at the front of the line should be parallel to the lance.

At his side, one after another, war monks carrying spears came quickly and stood still relying on muscle memory.

Looking down from the sky, it seemed as if the broken pieces of the black sword were being restored upside down.

Pieces of sword fragments continued to gather together, and the two spearmen finally formed a 10X10 spear formation.

In more than 2 minutes, Laurent's spear division was the first to prepare for the enemy because they were close.

"The Third Spear Division—" the division captain blew the whistle and shouted loudly, "Form up!"

Led by the brigade captain, the war monks followed the example of the previous person and quickly stood in neat formation.

Laurent looked forward and determined that he was an arm's length away from the person in front of him, so the distance between him and his back was correct.

Then he looked to the right, preparing to adjust the distance between the left and right. As soon as he saw this, he knew something bad was going to happen.

Little Mallock on his right stood there with a pale face, looking straight at the cavalrymen holding torches in the distance, his whole body trembling.

Laurent lowered his voice and shouted: "Little Mallock, don't move in front of the battle."

It would have been fine if he hadn't said anything. But when he heard this, little Malok couldn't stand it. His face turned pale. "I, I, I... I don't want to fight anymore. I want to go home."

As he shouted, he subconsciously turned his body backwards. Laurent was angry and anxious, so he reached out to grab his collar.

But before Laurent could move, the veteran standing behind little Mallock attacked with lightning speed.

"Snapped!"

The big palm swung in a circle and hit little Malock's left cheek like a meteor. The bright red palm mark swelled up at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Laurent could even see the ripples in the muscles of his cheeks.

The force of this blow was so great that it not only knocked little Mallock out of his trepidation, but also knocked him back in his original direction with his face.

Little Malok opened his mouth blankly, saliva and nosebleed flowing from the red and swollen slap mark.

That was not all. The old soldier grinned and shouted to the first row, "Mallock, your brother wants to escape."

The veteran in the row in front of Little Malok suddenly turned around and slapped Little Malok on the right cheek with his backhand.

"Do you want to kill me? Stand still!" Turning his head, Malok growled ferociously.

"What are you guys doing? Don't move, don't talk!"

Holding a lance, the division captain came over following the scent. After successfully stopping the rioting war monks, he returned to his original position.

With tears in his eyes and a face as red as a monkey's butt, little Mallock stood there in a daze.

Laurent glanced at him with disdain and was grateful for the arrangement of the training for the new recruits.

The Black Hat Army consists of veterans in odd-numbered rows and recruits in even-numbered rows, with three rows of veterans and two rows of recruits.

The elite veterans attacked from both sides and kept a close watch on the new recruits. If they wanted to escape, all the veterans would have to be dead.

After all, these recruits had never been on the battlefield and had not received any training in horse charging.

When Malok and his friends were fighting the giant spider in Daze Township, their performance was not much better than that of his younger brother.

"Third Spear Division, prepare to attack! Position your spears at an angle!"

"Holy Father!"

The war monks of the Third Spear Division roared in unison. They clenched their spears tightly and pointed the tips of their spears diagonally forward.

Bend your left leg in front, step your right leg firmly behind you, lower your head and look at the ground, with your helmet facing diagonally upwards.

Sure enough, a wave of crude arrows fell from the sky, hitting the war monks' helmets and shoulder armor, and landed at their feet with a clang.

"Fifty steps!"

There were a few sporadic gunshots in the night sky. Laurent looked at the ground, but he knew that the Holy Gunners did not have time to assemble.

Since the horse bandits attacked the middle section of the rear, where the spearmen were stationed, the spearmen were at the front.

As for the Holy Gunners, they were far away, the incident happened suddenly and it was dark, so they didn't have time to form a formation yet.

To put it simply, because we were not in a camping site, the terrain was narrow and we could only camp in a straight line like a long snake, which made it impossible to take care of the front and rear.

Laurent looked down at the shaking stones on the ground, which was the embodiment of the horse's hooves hitting the ground.

But he estimated that these horse bandits did not have the courage to directly charge into the gun formation, as that was something only the strongest knights dared to do.

Sure enough, when they were ten steps away, the horse bandits who were coming like a tide roared loudly and circled to the right.

These black-clad soldiers were like stone sculptures on the seashore, standing still without any movement despite the coming and going of the waves.

Grush frowned, while Defort beside him barked with his eyes red, "Come again!"

The sound of horse hooves was like thunder, and the two hundred cavalrymen turned around again, still passing in front of the infantry formation dangerously, but the black-clad soldiers remained unmoved.

The rain of arrows only knocked down a few people, but many of them had their necks pierced by spears because their horses lost control.

Grush frowned. He saw a long line of blazing torches coming from both sides of the road. "What should we do? Should we retreat?"

"Why retreat? We have such a good opportunity." DeFord gritted his teeth, "I will lead the sword and armor soldiers, and you go to contain their reinforcements."

"Okay." Grush agreed and led dozens of horse bandits to rush towards the other troops that were rushing over.

This time, the more than one hundred bandits did not turn around again, but dismounted.

More than thirty horse bandits in the front row, wearing breastplates, carrying battle axes and broadswords, rushed towards the gun formation with a grim smile.

"The Third Spear Division..."

"The Fourth Spear Division..."

"Running Charge!"

The two division captains roared at the same time.

"Holy Father!" One hundred spearmen roared in unison, took a step forward, and rushed in the opposite direction towards the horse bandits.

Now we can’t deal with those grinning bandits. What’s the style of yours?
Before the bandits could figure it out, the middle twenty steps were quickly used up in the two-way rush.

The sounds of weapons and armor colliding rang out one after another, and a huge sound wave spread out from the point of impact.

The long spear, with strong wind, pierced into the bodies one by one, and slid along the edge of the armor into the throat and armpit.

Limbs and broken blades flew everywhere, blood and fire were the same color, and blood mist spurted out from the throat, chest, abdomen, and limbs from time to time.

Bloody streams flowed under the soles of the cowhide boots, with blood clots and viscera floating on them.

The bandits watched in horror as their companions fell one by one in front of them. The two rows of spears stabbed back and forth like machines, accurately killing an enemy each time.

"Something's wrong. There are so many armored soldiers!" DeFord's confidant squeezed through the surging crowd, holding his helmet, "We have suffered heavy casualties. How about running away?"

DeFord's face turned pale, he never thought that these spearmen would dare to counterattack and instantly destroy the bandits' momentum.

The horse bandits have always paid attention to the military situation when fighting, which is mainly reflected in the fact that they fight when the momentum is good and retreat when the momentum is bad.

This long rifle charge directly broke the momentum of DeFord and his men.

After entering the stage of collapse, withdrawal and selling, Deford, as a veteran player, immediately realized that the most important thing was not to let himself be the one being sold.

"Why are you running? If we run, they'll charge us. There's no way we can escape." DeFord gritted his teeth, "Send a flare to get Grush to come and rescue us."

"Bang bang bang!"

Amid the sound of gunshots that sounded like popping beans, the large-scale flow of air caused a gust of wind to blow over the formation of hundreds of people.

The torches were shaken by the strong wind, and dozens of lead bullets larger than fingernails hit the flanks of the horse bandits led by Grush.

Unlike iron sand and stone bullets, the softer and tougher lead bullets moved and deformed in their flesh like worms, cutting bloody holes.

The severe pain made the bandits cry out in shame, and some even had streams of urine on their saddles.

After the storm, all the holy musketeers had to face were the backs of the horse bandits.

The horse bandits who came with the wind were swept back by the gale made of lead bullets and happened to come to Deford.

"My brother Grush is really reliable." Deford slapped his thigh in surprise, "He came as soon as the arrow was fired."

"Boss, I haven't fired the flare yet..."

As soon as he arrived at Defort and saw the bandits retreating on the gentle slope, Grush, who was still frightened, immediately understood what was going on.

He gritted his teeth, took out his saber, and led his team directly towards the gun formation.

At this time, the gun formation had already become somewhat chaotic due to the hand-to-hand combat, which really gave Grush an opportunity to seize.

He raised his horse's hoof suddenly, kicked away two black-clad soldiers and bandits who were blocking his way, and rushed into the melee.

"Stand at attention, line up!"

There was no sign of the divisional captain in sight, so Laurent, the brigade commander, had no choice but to yell loudly.

The war monks, who were afraid of being attacked from the flank by the horse bandits, immediately formed a formation again under the scolding and kicking of the old soldiers.

"Long spear stabs left!"

Grush was not confused by the retreat of the black-clad soldiers. He did not want to fight and directly found Defort in the crowd.

He forcibly seized DeFord's arm and pulled him onto the horse.

The rest of the bandits also pulled one person onto their horses, turned their horses around, and galloped towards where the horses were tied.

The Holy Gunner and the other spearmen finally arrived, on the side of the gentle slope.

"Fire!" Jourdan roared.

In the sweeping gale and lead bullets, another twenty or thirty bandits fell off their horses, curled up and howled in pain.

Grush immediately turned his horse around again, leaving behind his remaining companions and horses, and quickly rushed into the woods with only a few dozen people and dozens of horses.

"Chase!"

Murat, who came riding on a donkey or mule, looked at the horses left behind by the bandits with envy and chased after Grush.

In the battle just now, they didn't put in any effort, so these horses were not qualified to share any points.

But if we chase them now, even if we fail to catch them, at least we can feel rewarded for our hard work when we divide the spoils later.

(End of this chapter)