Trenches, Guns, and Magic

The first volley fired by light mortars under such dim skies naturally lacked any precision.

As long as the shells landed within the perimeter of the Greek position rather than hitting the empty ground outside, it was considered a pass.

The mortar crews were quite calm about this... After using them for so long, they realized these small-caliber weapons were just what they were: great for pinpoint elimination of machine gun nests, but rather mediocre when it came to lethal efficiency against infantry in trenches.

Besides, this bombardment was never meant to maximize casualties.

In a surprise attack launched while the enemy was fast asleep, the panic induced by the first exploding shell was always far more lethal than the shrapnel itself.

The explosions of the mortar shells still echoed through the valley. In the shallow trench guarding the right flank, the instruction unit soldiers had already dispatched the sentries and vaulted inside with practiced agility.

The entire process was as quick and natural as returning home.

Several Greek soldiers, just jolted awake by the gunfire and still trying to process the situation, were nailed to the trench walls by submachine gun bursts before they could even finish reaching for their weapons.

"Clear!"

The point platoon of the 1st Company, the first to vault into the trench, rapidly fanned out toward both flanks.

Submachine guns and shotguns established dominant close-range firepower within the narrow confines of the trench. Every burst was immediately followed by a crisp advance, turning the corner, and firing again.

No hesitation, no wasted movements.

They had repeated this routine hundreds of times on the training grounds and polished it round after round in actual combat across various fronts.

And what about the Greeks on the receiving end?

They were literally being yanked out of bed and beaten.

Most soldiers were resting in the trenches and bomb shelters as usual. Many hadn't even put on their boots, as that would affect their sleep quality at night.

Even if a few quick-reacting soldiers attempted to organize a defense, facing the automatic firepower of the instruction unit at point-blank range yielded an obvious result.

Fwooosh—!

A gout of flame from a flamethrower lashed out from the corner of a communication trench, directly washing over the Greek soldiers trying to use the narrow passage to mount a defense.

Amidst the ensuing agonizing screams, the instruction unit bypassed this communication trench, opting to flank from other directions.

They had no intention of wasting too much time here. The instruction unit's goal was never to annihilate everyone in the position, but to achieve a breakthrough and tear open the enemy's defensive line as thoroughly as possible.

Faced with the assault firepower of submachine guns, shotguns, and flamethrowers, even the Britannian regular army might not have been able to hold the line.

Let alone these Greeks. They shattered upon contact, entirely incapable of organizing an effective defense.

Amidst the roar of gunfire, the instruction unit soldiers seeped into the Greek position like spilled mercury, flowing along the parallel and communication trenches.

Roughly two kilometers from this position, at the Greek Kingdom Expeditionary Force's forward command post.

General Philip, commander of the Greek Expeditionary Force, was jolted awake by the artillery fire. The moment he opened his eyes, he saw a guard bursting into his tent.

"General! General! The forward position is under attack!"

When the Greek commander sat up from his camp bed, his first thought was: Have the Bulgarians gone mad?

For the past dozen nights, both sides had maintained a tacit agreement to "sleep in their own beds" after dark.

General Philip had even capitalized on this pattern. After the final wave of attacks concluded yesterday afternoon, he made a bold decision: to spend the night at the forward command post, ready to personally direct this morning's general offensive.

Because he judged the Bulgarians were at their absolute limit. They had to throw in all their reserves just to barely hold off yesterday's final assault.

If he pressed the entire line forward this morning, the enemy would definitively collapse.

Who could have expected that on the very night he stayed at the front, the Bulgarians would launch a surprise attack?

The Greek commander even briefly suspected there was a mole in his inner circle...

"What exactly is happening? How many men? From which direction?" General Philip asked as he pulled on his boots.

"I... I don't know, General! The forward position only transmitted one sentence before the line went dead!"

"The line went dead?"

"Right, the attacked sector should be the 12th Regiment of the 4th Brigade. They just reported their flank was under heavy assault before the telephone line was seemingly cut!"

General Philip's hands paused.

A heavy assault on the flank?

The Bulgarians could barely hold their own positions now. How could they have the spare capacity to strike from the flank?

"Damn it... Could those Saxon military advisors have cooked up some crazy scheme?"

Finally getting his boots on, General Philip marched out of the tent.

The sky outside was a dull, hazy gray. A thin layer of morning glow pressed against the eastern horizon. Flustered soldiers could be seen running everywhere behind the positions.

The Greek commander took a deep breath, forcing himself to stay calm.

Regardless of who was attacking, the most important thing now was to control the situation. He absolutely could not let this night raid escalate into a full-scale camp panic.

"Relay my orders!"

General Philip roared at the staff officer beside him: "All reserve companies are to enter the trenches immediately! The right flank is to contract its defense! At the same time, contact the 3rd Brigade at once and tell them to detach troops to reinforce the perimeter of the command post!"

"Also... wake up those Britannians! Tell them I need them NOW!"

Receiving their orders, the messengers sprinted off.

General Philip stood outside his command tent, his expression a mix of grimness and self-deprecation.

He truly never thought the enemy could sneak up this close in a night raid before being discovered.

Fortunately, he didn't plan on running either...

As the commander of the Greek Kingdom Expeditionary Force, if he fled in terror from a night raid, abandoning an army of tens of thousands, he would never be able to show his face in Athens again.

"Pull the entire guard battalion to the perimeter! Everyone who can hold a rifle gets in the trenches!"

However, General Philip still underestimated one thing.

It wasn't his lack of resolve, nor was his response too slow.

It was that the enemy unit's breakthrough speed vastly exceeded the empirical judgment he made based on the "level of the Bulgarian army."

Less than five minutes after the 1st Company tore open the breach, the 2nd Company, led by Company Commander Barak, surged through the shattered position and plunged straight into the enemy's depth.

As the three "old classmates" assigned to Morin back in the Kingdom of Aragon, they had survived numerous brutal battles and earned the respect of the frontline troops. They now served as the company commanders for the three companies of the 1st Battalion.

Kane had managed the toughest of them all, taking over as the commander of the 1st Company after Klaus fully transitioned into a "Thunder Warrior."

As for 2nd Company Commander Barak, Morin actually rated him quite highly; he had a "special knack" for organizing frontline offensive assaults.

And right now, from the moment they entered the rear of the Greek position through the breach opened by the 1st Company, the 2nd Company under Barak's command never stopped moving.

They didn't linger to fight, mop up remnant enemies, or take prisoners. They didn't even care about the scattered fire from their flanks.

The entire company maintained a rapid assault column, crushing sporadic resistance with firepower and bypassing large enemy groups.

Viewed from the L15 armored airship high above, the entire combat scenario looked like multiple surgical instruments working in perfect coordination. The 1st Company cut open the skin, the 2nd Company plunged in to find the artery, and the 3rd Company held the wound open to prevent it from closing...

After tearing open the breach in the position, the soldiers of the other two companies in the 1st Battalion of the instruction unit fought more conservatively.

Besides the 2nd Company pushing deep, the soldiers of the other two companies relied heavily on their own air support to gradually nibble away at the Greek positions.

Neither Wolf nor his three company commanders wanted their troops to suffer heavy casualties in a fight against the Greeks.

That would just be too humiliating...

Below the armored airships, the Bulgarian soldiers, who had been completely bewildered in their defensive trenches, finally received clear orders—

Their Saxon allies had already launched an attack! The forward troops in the sector were to charge across the entire line immediately! The time for a counterattack had come!

The suffocated and frustrated Bulgarian soldiers had retreated step by step in the previous battles until they were pushed back to this line, a mere 20 kilometers from their capital...

But now, amidst earth-shattering war cries, they finally surged out of their trenches, charging wave after wave toward the brightly lit Greek positions ahead.

Soon, the Bulgarian army, composed of soldiers of widely varying ages, poured into the breach opened by the instruction unit, utterly crushing any attempts by several surrounding Greek companies to recapture the position.

As the Greeks' first line of defense was completely overrun and the surviving soldiers began to rout, the 2nd Company of the instruction unit's 1st Battalion, led by Commander Barak, completed their rapid breakthrough. After figuring out the general layout of the Greek position, it wasn't difficult for Barak to deduce the approximate direction of the enemy's forward command post.

Especially after they found the field telephone lines...

While the Greeks had concealed the telephone lines they used for eavesdropping, the lines connecting their various positions to the rear were absurdly exposed, covered only hastily with some grass and brush.

These telephone lines now became the perfect guide.

Just as the instruction unit marched step by step toward the Greeks' heart, a few hundred meters from the Greek Expeditionary Force's forward command post, the Britannian Spell Jägers resting in a concealed camp were also jolted awake by the gunfire.

The two heavy armor warriors responsible for the final watch of the night rushed into the tent. To ensure they recovered their stamina overnight, they weren't wearing their heavy armor, carrying only rifles.

"Wake up! The forward position seems to be under attack, but the details are unclear. It's too dark to see!"

Inside the tent, over a dozen men groggily climbed out of their camp beds.

The "Baron", sitting at the far end, clearly had a headache from having his long rest abruptly interrupted. He rubbed his temples and spoke after a few seconds.

"The Bulgarians shouldn't have the capability to launch a night raid... Didn't the Greeks say they threw in their last reserves yesterday?"

"Maybe it's a desperate last stand?" a Spell Jäger nearby guessed.

"No..." The "Baron" shook his head, stood up, walked to the tent entrance, and lifted the flap.

The intensity of the gunfire in the distance was increasing. The high frequency of automatic weapon fire clearly wasn't firepower the Bulgarian soldiers should possess.

He turned around. The Spell Jägers and heavy armor warriors who had woken up in the other tents also gathered around.

After a moment of thought, the "Baron" looked at his second-in-command.

"Old Man, take four Jägers and four Ironmen to check out the situation, but try not to get bogged down by the enemy!"

"Understood."

Old Man nodded without wasting words. He quickly packed his gear and swiftly left the camp with the eight men.

Watching the direction they disappeared, the "Baron" paced back and forth for a few steps before stopping.

"The rest of you... pack your gear. Only take essential equipment. Abandon any heavy supplies!"

"Sir?"

"We're preparing to relocate to the designated spot to set up the 【Teleportation Circle】."

"Now? But our collection of spell components hasn't met the safety redundancy standards in the manual..."

"There's no time to be picky about spellcasting safety issues."

After expending a lot of effort, the "Baron" and his men had indeed managed to collect the spell components for the 【Teleportation Circle】.

However, to play it safe, the "Baron" had originally wanted to collect more redundant spell consumables to prevent any accidents during the casting process.

But looking at it now, there was no time left for him to prepare safety redundancies. They had to evacuate immediately.

The commander of the Spell Jägers looked again at the increasingly bright fires in the distance, his eyes flickering with uncertainty.

"I've got a bad feeling about this. If we don't pick up the pace, we might not be able to get away..."

When Old Man and his men hurried near the forward command post, it was already a chaotic mess.

Just as he was about to lead his men into the command post to assess the situation, a burst of intense gunfire erupted in the distance. Listening closely, one could distinguish the heavy chatter of automatic weapons.

This instantly triggered an unpleasant memory in his mind...

He immediately led the others slightly away from the command post. Finding a concealed spot with a good view of the command post and its surroundings, he crouched down and raised his binoculars.

The sky was a bit brighter now, and the eastern horizon was beginning to take on a tangerine hue.

Using this faint light, Old Man finally saw something.

Silhouettes were moving rapidly at the edge of the distant woods.

These men were clearly not routed Greek soldiers. Their movement formation was far too orderly. They weren't fleeing blindly toward the rear; rather, they were cutting across the edge of the woods, obviously seeking a line of attack.

As the unit drew closer, Old Man adjusted the focus on his binoculars. He could faintly make out that the headgear they wore was not the peaked caps of the Bulgarians...

Instead, they looked like Saxon combat helmets.

The hand Old Man used to lower his binoculars went stiff for a moment. He swallowed hard unconsciously.

Seeing this gear and such a well-trained army again in the mountains of the Balkan Peninsula caused his body to react faster than his brain, sending a cold chill down his spine.

The last time he saw a unit with this style was on the battlefield of the Gallic Republic... That experience was the battle where the Spell Jägers suffered their heaviest losses since their inception.

"Old Man?" A young Spell Jäger beside him noticed his strange behavior.

"I think they might be Saxons. No... it's definitely them!"

Old Man said, handing the binoculars to the younger man.

"Look at their uniforms and helmets!"

The young man took the binoculars, took a look, and also froze.

"How is that possible... Where did the Saxons pop out from?"

"How the hell should I know..."

Old Man shook his head, then pulled out his communication stone. After it flickered a few times, he contacted the "Baron".

"Sir, the attackers might be a Saxon army... I can't determine their exact numbers, but they're equipped with a large number of automatic weapons and are advancing toward the Greek forward command post!"