When the Saintess Arrives, No King Exist-Chapter 839 - 790: Military Exercise

"Deploying such a thin formation, it'll scatter at the slightest run," Adelaide looked at the distant Gallar Array, puzzled.

"We've been practicing the horizontal array for three weeks now," Grover spat while tying a legging on his calf. "This thing is useless for combat, no idea why we're practicing it..."

Standing on the scheduled drill ground, Dieterbert, who had rested all day yesterday, remained silent.

The first three weeks were fine, but during the middle three weeks of horizontal array and flag signals training, the mountain people were full of complaints.

Learning Leia's language and flag signals was understandable, after all, language barriers could be a major issue in future battles, so they could comprehend this.

But this Gallar Array was seen as rubbish by all the veteran mercenaries.

Consisting of only five or six horizontal rows, it could be easily cut through by a charge from the knights.

Even worse, if the war dragged on too long, many who were cowardly would flee on their own, and the officers couldn't stop them.

As for those Holy Gunners, while powerful, they were still just crossbows, and could be positioned at the four corners in the Deng Jia'er Array.

Why learn all these strange commands?

However, after three weeks of formation training, they were suddenly allowed to use large formations in today's confrontation exercises.

The instructor had said that if they won this battle, they could arrange their formations as they wished, and even choose their own officers.

Moreover, the Saint's Grandson would treat them to roast lamb and free beer for dinner, and they'd receive a month's salary as a bonus.

But if they lost, not only would there be no roast lamb, they'd have to train extra, and the officers would be taken from the enemy's ranks.

This immediately fired up the Norn Mountain People.

As Horn and the spectators entered the field, the Military Police acting as referees blew their whistles first.

On the yellowish earth, the Norn New Army formed two large 2500-man formations, advancing toward the eight classic diamond-shaped rows opposite.

Sitting in the stands, the people who had been in night talks with Horn wore complex expressions.

Was Mr. Horn trying to prove something by having them observe?

Thinking of the earlier plasma bombs, many distressed expressions appeared on their faces.

Focusing back on the field, the leading two rows of the diamond formation and the two large formations had already entered the shooting range of the Holy Guns.

"Hoo hey! Hoo hey!"

Drawing his longsword, Adelaide, as the team leader, was the first to start the war cry, "For beer and silver coins!"

"Bang bang bang!"

But before he could finish, before anyone behind him could join in the chant, he felt a sharp pain in his chest.

"Cough cough cough, cough cough—" Slashing through the smoke with his sword, Adelaide clutched his chest with a grimace.

Looking at the red paint on his hand and breastplate, Adelaide was bewildered as he was pulled out of the lineup by the Military Police.

"You are dead, please proceed to the rest area."

A wooden tag with "DEAD" written in red was hung around his neck, and he hadn't even realized it.

"Hey, I haven't even fought yet, I haven't even started!" Adelaide shouted, chasing after the Military Police.

"You've been hit by the Holy Gun, you're dead, you... hey, you bastard, don't think I don't know it was you with that Holy Gun, who was it?"

Hit by three or four "stray bullets," the Military Police, unable to bear it any longer, ran toward the Black Champion Army.

Leaving Adelaide standing helplessly on the grass.

"Holy Gunners, counterattack, counterattack!" Turning his head, Grover shouted to his side's Holy Gunners.

However, as the solidified paintballs carved colorful paths through the air, almost instantly, the first row of Holy Gunners was focused down.

Clouds of red smoke exploded, and the Holy Gunners, faced with the overwhelming paintballs, clutched their bodies in pain.

Even though they weren't tightly wound, and used paint cloth balls,

getting hit on the breastplate still left bruises.

"How could this happen?" Watching the Holy Gunners fall one after another, Grover was livid, "Where's that arrogance you had earlier? Stand up!"

"If you think you can do better, go ahead!" The "dead" Holy Gunners retorted in coarse Norn language without holding back.

Because the formation was expanded into a horizontal line, the Black Champion's Holy Gunners had more numbers at any given time, leading to more firepower.

Plus, with over three years of training, the Black Champion's Holy Gunners could achieve firing frequencies of 30 seconds, even 20 seconds per shot.

On the Norn New Army side, there were also veteran Holy Gunners who understood Norn, but most were newly recruited Norn Holy Gunners from this summer.

Under the more concentrated firepower, the left Holy Gunner formation achieved a casualty rate of 20%.

With a whistle from the referee, the demoralized Holy Gunners on the left of the Norn New Army were called off despite their drooped heads.

After being hit by maybe six or seven rounds of paintballs, both sides finally entered the close-quarter pushing spear phase familiar to the Norn New Army.

Forming corridors with their booted legs, crossed long halberds and spears formed a dome.

Beneath this dome, hardwood swords and blades wrapped in cloth strips and paint powder clashed continuously.

Don't underestimate these hardwood weapons; even with cloth strips, a strike could still fracture bones.

In this aspect, the Norn New Army somehow managed to tie with the Black Champion.

An old district of mercenaries, a result of learning from childhood.

The spear-pushing battle at the front quickly developed into interwoven lines, with both sides covering and replacing each other, and front-line soldiers being continuously taken off by the Military Police.

"Something's wrong, something's wrong." Grover, with greasy sweat pasted on his forehead, pointed to the side. "The other side's flanking us."

With Grover's words, Dieterbert and the people around him looked up.

The yellow-gray grassland showed two horizontal formations rapidly marching under the forest of long spears.

Their position was at the sides of the two large formations!

While they were engaging with the front horizontal rows, the side formations of the diamond formation continued their quick advance.

Only now did they realize the enemy used just a thousand men to stop five thousand.

Behind this thousand, there was another thousand reserves, and on each side of the two large formations, another thousand was closing in for a flank attack.

In terms of space, the Norn New Army held the advantage with more manpower.

In terms of time, only the first three rows of soldiers were truly engaged, while the back rows were not participating.

Meaning that during this time, only 150 soldiers from a Norn Mountain formation engaged.

When Horn extended into a horizontal formation, engaging 150, even 180 soldiers from the first three rows.

As long as morale didn't collapse, in any given time, melee manpower was equal, even more for Horn.

"Left and right wings, lower your spears!"

"Hoo! Hey!"

Hundreds of spears at the formations' sides were simultaneously lowered, like a porcupine revealing its spines.

The tenacity of the Norn Mountain People showed as they raised their lances once more, aiming at the Black Champion War Monks approaching from the sides.

But this left the Square Array Commander in a dilemma.

The troops on the sides wouldn't engage in melee, just continuously fired with the Holy Gunners.

If they disengaged from the formation to engage from the side now, it would surely cause a split, leaving gaps for the enemy to exploit.

If they stayed put and took hits, morale would plummet over time.

Before the two Square Array Commanders could devise a strategy, another whistle blew.

"Second formation's left Holy Gunners suffer over 20% casualties, deemed morale collapse, off the field."

Adding to their troubles, two infantry groups facing directly were slowly retreating.

Both wings being under attack meant they couldn't pursue and could only watch the enemy rotate with reserves.

"Don't chase, don't chase!"

"Get back here, Nekhin, get back!"

The front-row Norn mountain people couldn't contain their rage and charged outright.

As the paintballs exploded into multicolored fireworks on these soldiers who broke formation,

they left the field in either powerless anger or dejection, pulled away by the Military Police. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

During the ensuing torment, with the referee's whistles blowing continuously, even the resilient Square Array Commanders launching repeated attacks couldn't reverse the defeat.

In less than an hour, with over 30% total casualties, the Norn New Army was declared defeated.

As for the Black Champion Army, only one infantry group suffered morale collapse due to reckless advances by the total assault of the Norn New Army.

Other than that, the rest of the units suffered less than 10% casualties.