"Coordinate correction! Don't get it wrong!" Beside the C64 cannon, an officer looked at his artillerymen, nervously reminding them.
"This is our only chance, we can't miss it! Check the parameters again! Hurry!" Nearby, the child soldiers, gathered in small groups, were verifying the slip of paper that had just been sent back from the front line.
"If the measurements are correct, then the data is right," a child said after verifying repeatedly, tucking a pencil behind his ear.
He too was clad in a coat, but unlike others, these coats were very expensive woolen coats. The fabric of these coats was costly, but they seemed exceptionally soft and warm.
Only the most outstanding child soldiers from the schools were issued such coats as their uniform. Like the officers, they had to wear webbing belts, carry short swords engraved with the words "Loyalty" and "Bravery", and even their footwear were tall leather boots.
Such gear made these children look striking and dashing—the once playful and unkempt youth started paying attention to personal hygiene as soon as they donned these outfits.
"The two measurements are approximate, so they should be objective." Another child closed his notebook and nodded in agreement, "I think we can refer to both sets of parameters for a salvo."
"I second that!" Another child lifted his head, rubbed his nose, and said.
On the other side, an artilleryman, hunched over the cannon's calibration table, carefully checked the angle he had adjusted, then straightened up and confidently confirmed to his superior, "Sir! Data verification complete! The numbers are correct!"
"Fire!" Three artillery officers, three more battery commanders, and seven or eight verifying child soldiers nodded together, finally completing the meticulous verification work.
"Fire the three cannons first! Adjust the impact points before proceeding with the salvo!" Ultimately, Redman decided to keep a safety margin just in case.
He swung his arm forward, and with a fierce chop, the three C64 cannons roared mightily. A blaze emerged from the barrel, and the shells flew unstoppable towards the distance.
The shrapnel shells fitted with impact fuses were already very similar in design to modern artillery shells. They tore through the air with a high-pitched screech, passing over the highway, flying over the heads of the retreating Suthers soldiers.
For a moment, the battlefield seemed to quiet down. Tucci, observing the situation from the slope, faintly sensed a sound coming towards him.
Yes, it seemed like a poorly formed sentence, but that was how he felt: a piercing sound growing nearer and nearer.
Instinctively, he looked up at the sky, as his horse beneath him grew restless and paced around uncontrollably.
Suddenly, a shell landed beside him, striking the ground. The fuse at the front of the shell ignited the simple detonator, which in turn set off the explosives inside the shell.
The shell expanded rapidly beside the horse, its hard shell blown apart by the raging flames within, tearing apart and turning into lethal shrapnel.
The dense shrapnel, accompanied by a shockwave as sharp as knives, swept up from below Tucci, swallowing him and his horse in an instant.
Tucci felt his body uncontrollably tilt to one side, and all he could hear was the ringing of the explosion.
He felt something cut through his right hand and was even more aware that his right foot, still in the stirrup, seemed to be broken by a powerful force.
It felt as if centuries had passed, yet it seemed to happen in the blink of an eye. His shoulder finally hit the ground, and his face passionately kissed the hard, cold earth.
He even found it strange that he didn't feel the bone-chilling pain; it was as if the sensation had been drawn out of his body.
So he tried to get up from the ground, only to find that neither of his arms seemed to respond to his brain anymore.
Amidst the smoke-filled sky, he saw pebbles falling, landing on the ground right in front of his nose, pulsating with life.
He struggled to pull his left arm out from underneath him, but found the effort futile. He could no longer feel his right hand or his legs.
His brain, blurry and only now regaining some function, was gradually coming back. He saw a pair of boots emerge from the thick smoke, and a knee drop right in front of him.
Someone seemed to want to help him up, pulling on his shoulder vigorously for a long time without success.
By now, the slope was already in utter chaos. Tucci's horse lay upon his left leg, while his right leg and stirrup had flown off to who knows where.
Blood gushed from the wound in his right leg, and his right hand had been pierced by shrapnel, with only a third still attached to his body.
This legendary general of Suthers now couldn't even sit up to utter a word.
And by this time, his aide had already lain on the ground, breathing his last. A shrapnel piece had pierced right through his chest, and his horse, in pain from its wounds, had thrown him off its back. The unfortunate casualty had fallen, landing headfirst.
"Someone come! The General is injured!" The soldier who had picked up Tucci cried out loudly with tears in his voice, hoping that someone would come to their aid.
Regrettably, the chaos had already spread over the hill, and no one was in the mood to attend to an injured general. Everyone was running for their lives; no one cared about the damned Tucci anymore.
With a leg trapped under the horse's corpse, the soldier was gripping Tucci's shoulder, trying to pull him out—but his efforts quickly failed.
So, all he could do was hold Tucci, shouting to the soldiers passing by, but sadly no one paid him any heed—not even one willing to slow their pace.
Finally, an officer hurried back to the hill. His face was covered in dirt, his military cap nowhere to be found, scrabbling up the hillside. Once he saw General Tucci on the ground, he knelt by his side.
He immediately leaned forward to lift Tucci's upper body and started shouting at the top of his lungs, "General! General! Where's the doctor? Doctor!"
At last, Tucci seemed to come fully back to his senses. He felt the pain in his legs and sensed his soul swiftly slipping away from his body.
And it was at this moment that his thoughts became crystal clear. In an instant, he seemed to understand many things.
The ones obstructing him were not the damned main force of Northern Ridge, not even that damned Count Fisheo! They might not even be the regular army of Northern Ridge!
Those standing in his way had more advanced weapons, which indicated that this whole incident was a conspiracy—a complete, total conspiracy!
No wonder the Leite Kingdom had been defeated so cleanly, no wonder Shireck had been so eager to press him southward into battle.
This affair was likely a conspiracy against Suthers Kingdom! It was those old bastards of the Shireck Consortium, along with the treacherous King of Leite Kingdom, who were scheming against Suthers Kingdom!
Shireck was preparing to use a war of epic scale to sell their new weapons, and the Leite Kingdom would seize vast territories of Suthers Kingdom! Only Suthers, only the Suthers Kingdom that thought it was the hunter when it was actually the prey, was the victim!
So, Tucci, having just regained a trace of strength, and not knowing where this energy came from, extended his left hand, enduring the heart-wrenching pain, and grabbed the arm of the officer holding him.
His breath was as thin as a thread, and as he opened his mouth, it was filled with teeth broken from the fall and warm blood.
"Puh!" He spat out the blood and broken teeth, desperately holding onto the officer's arm, using his last moments of clarity to ponder the way forward for Suthers.
"Go... hurry... go! We've been... tricked... by Shireck...
we've been... duped...," he strained to convey some critical words to the officer, hoping the other man could piece together the gist from these fragmented phrases.
"Return... back to... Suthers..." he struggled to voice his innermost thoughts, but the words came out only in intermittent struggles.
The officer holding him was now sobbing uncontrollably, nodding earnestly through hot tears, trying to etch these sentences or words into his memory.
Blood seeped from beneath Tucci's ribs, where the shrapnel had shattered his bones and destroyed his organs, leaving countless holes in his side.
Some of these holes had been pierced by splashing shrapnel, others by flying rocks from the blasts, densely sprinkled over his blue uniform.
"I've got it! General! I will carry your words back! I'll tell His Majesty, I'll tell the King!" The officer wept bitterly, holding Tucci's hand even tighter.
Tucci felt darkness encroaching before his eyes, and he stopped struggling, letting the hand gripping the officer fall powerlessly.
He had toiled for this country his entire life, and now... it seemed he could finally rest.
His eyelids drooped helplessly and finally closed, and his breathing, which had been gradually fading, ceased after its last rise and fall.
"General! General!" The officer holding him shook the breathless Tucci, loudly calling out as if hoping his voice could beckon his commanding officer back.
But such efforts were bound to be in vain.
"Rest assured, General! I will definitely carry your last words back to King City..." The officer released Tucci's body and, with teeth clenched in anger, vowed, "We will avenge this wrong!"
He had just stood up when another shell landed at his feet. Before he could even look down to see what had fallen, the explosion completely engulfed him.