The chaos burst forth in an instant.

Someone tore off their helmet, letting out a hoarse scream amidst a brief mental tear.

Someone swung their sword at a giant beast lunging from a hallucination, only to realize the next second they almost hit a comrade.

Someone collapsed onto their saddle, panting hurriedly, their hands shaking as if something cold climbed up their neck to their scalp.

More people stumbled and fell off their war horses, rolling a few times in the mud and snow before forcibly steadying themselves, faces pale, pupils sharply contracting.

As an Extraordinary Knight, Ackman forcibly invoked his Fighting Energy to resist, soon roaring fiercely with reddened eyes to regain composure.

His voice was hoarse like a beast’s roar: "Steady!! Keep the formation steady!! Everyone look at me!! Look at me!!!"

The roar struck the chaotic battle lines like a hammer, but the response was desperate screams tearing from throats from all directions.

"Don’t come near me!! That thing... that thing is behind me!!"

"It’s going to bite off my leg! Get away! Get away!!"

"That’s not human!! Not human!! Stay away from me!!"

"My horse... my horse is dead! I can’t move! Help... help..."

A few knights collided with each other, their armor clanging and sparking, frantically swinging swords at the air, with someone directly falling off the saddle, clawing at the mud and snow as if haunted by an invisible demon.

Of course, this chaos did not last long. It only persisted for a few seconds.

Yet even though the Fighting Energy rekindled within them, and their will began to stabilize, those few moments of chaos had already left an irreparable crack.

Ackman was well aware of this, but he was powerless...

Even with just several seconds of disruption, it was enough to prevent his battle line from restoring its original entirety.

Before these knights could fully recover, a hundred steam tanks had already engaged first gear.

The iron tracks bit deep into the permafrost, emitting a piercing screech as if to shred nerves.

The entire tank formation slowly advanced, that heavy force impacting rapidly with the crushing weight itself, like a mountain sliding forward.

The knights forced to the ground in the front row hadn’t even had time to raise their shields when the V-shaped ram mercilessly crashed into them!

"Crack—slash!!"

That sound was like snapping thick wood, accompanied by the muffled clatter of collapsing metal.

The full-cover plate armor under the ramming point was pressed into a distorted curve, the knight’s chest cavity forced to concave inward, bones and helmets shattering together, blood spraying from the cracks like a burst wineskin.

The tracks then rolled over them.

"Creak—crash—pop!"

Metal fractured, bones shattered, and the warhorse’s legs snapped one by one like wet branches.

Knights and warhorses tangled together, ground into pieces by the tracks, their flesh crushed into a viscous red mud, mixed with fragmented hooves, broken lances, still twitching severed arms.

"Ah—my leg!! My leg is gone!!"

"Help me... help me!! Don’t leave me!!"

"Mother... mother..."

These voices stretched on and were torn apart repeatedly amidst the roar of iron and fire, like wet cloth strips endlessly ground in the iron gears.

Someone tried to rise, dragging blood marks with their fingertips in the mud and snow, but just as they lifted their head, the next second their entire face was crushed into a shapeless pulp beneath the tracks.

The helmet sank into the broken snow like a flattened tin can, the facial bones and steel collapsing together, emitting a bizarre "sqeak" sound.

More screams were suddenly cut off, turning into a desperate sob caught in the throat before being choked by blood.

"Ugh! Cough... cough... no... I don’t want to die..."

The sound abruptly snapped, like a string forcibly twisted off a violin.

The front line had already turned into a mound nearly as high as a horse’s belly, a hill of flesh and shattered armor, yet the tank formation did not pause, continuing to advance.

As the tracks rolled over, it pressed the gruesome pile deeper, emitting a wet and ghastly "splat—smash—squeak" sound.

No matter how mountainous the piles ahead were, they still relentlessly advanced like judges summoned by the night, mechanically and coldly, without a hint of emotion or mercy.

A heavily armored magical beast warhorse struggled to stand from the mud and snow, letting out a soul-splitting screech barely escaping its mouth before the tracks crushed over its spine.

"Boom," its massive body collapsed as if hollowed out, the crisp sound of the spine breaking turning the nearby soldiers pale.

Blood sprayed from the armor creases as a scalding dark red mist, splashing the knights several meters away with warmth and a nauseating sweetness.

"No! Don’t push me! I beg you—I don’t want to die!"

A Black Steel Knight shoved in front of the tracks roared, but his voice was completely swallowed by the next second’s metal shattering sound.

Ackman’s Black Steel Knights were sliced, flattened, shredded, buried under the advancement of the steam tanks...

Flesh and steel were kneaded into iron-red mud beneath the tracks.

Right at the center of this purgatory, Ackman roared, activating his Fighting Energy, becoming a black lightning bolt bursting out from the chaotic remnants.

Just as his warhorse charged to the tank’s flank, it was jolted to its knees, but he leapt up with brute force, raising his sword surged with Fighting Energy, and slashed fiercely at the head of one steam tank.

"Stop for me—!!!"

With a thunderous sound!

The sword blade struck the cold iron shell, sparks exploding like scattered white flame rain.

That blow was powerful enough to hammer a large dent into the tank’s shell, banging the metal plate into a curve, producing a steel groan of agony.

But the tank did not stop.

It only slightly shivered, like a giant beast lightly nudged on the shoulder.

The next moment, the tracks accelerated suddenly, responding to the provocation by crushing forward hard.

Ackman’s face changed drastically, unable to evade.

The tank’s heavy ram slammed into his chest, threw him entirely flying.

"Boom—!!"

He tumbled tens of meters in the air like a disconnected puppet, crashing through the diaphanous armor and corpses within two layers of knight lines, finally smashing a half-human-deep pit in the snow, blood spraying from armor gaps, staining the surrounding snow red.

But the tank did not glance at him, not stopping, nor slowing. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Like complete indifference to this Extraordinary-level legion leader.

Ackman lay in the snow, gasping violently, the sound of his fractured ribs clearly audible. He raised his head, watching the steel death flood pressing closer, and for the first time his pupils registered genuine fear.

And his Black Steel Knights... had already been ground into unrecognizable blood mud and fragmented metal pieces under the tracks, utterly vanished in the industrial age’s ruthless fury.

When the Seventeenth Legion was shattered to pieces by the tank impact, formation completely collapsed.

The Red Tide’s harvesting force burst from the gaps between the tanks!

Lambert personally led the Red Tide Guard Knight Order, their red cloaks flipping in the wind and snow, creating a dazzling blood-colored tide.

All members of this unit were above Elite Knights, swift as a fierce wind in action, coordinated to an eerie level.

They moved like high-mobility predators, deftly weaving through the steam tanks’ cover.

Any enemy attempting to regroup, once targeted by them, faced only one outcome...

"Burst open."

Magic Explosion Bullets fell like ignited sparks onto dry hay, first blasting the dense enemy lines to pieces.

The Red Tide Knights swiftly followed, drawing swords into the smoke, executing every wounded soldier yet alive with skilled cold-blooded actions.

The Seventeenth Legion’s knights were utterly bewildered.

Their proud blocking techniques, formidable shield walls, and heavy Black Steel armor were meaningless in the face of Magic Explosion Bullets’ absolute kill radius of ten meters and Red Tide’s high-mobility infiltration tactics.

The frost-eating soul-shocking rounds’ brief chaos hadn’t yet fully dissipated, and the battlefield was soon filled with small-scale explosions.

Each explosion signified the complete collapse of a squad’s combat effectiveness.

The tanks’ crushing, the Red Tide Knights’ harvesting, the blasting of Magic Explosion Bullets concurrently unfolding at the same time, on the same battlefield.

This wasn’t a battle; it was the execution of old-era knights by new-era knights.