Chapter 299: The Flaws of the Silver Hand
The fighting power of the Silver Hand is actually very strong, because all its members are tall, strong and skilled men.
Most of them wield broadswords, halberds or large hammers - basically heavy weapons with no lack of lethality.
Their defenses were not bad either. Most of them wore chain mail tunics inlaid with steel plates, which was a composite armor suitable for infantry. Plate armor was not easy to make, and movable joints were difficult to create. The hydraulic stamping equipment on the banks of the Aire River had not been built in time, so naturally not all members could be equipped with it. Only Klose and others wore their Mettenheim plate armor.
But a full set of composite armor actually has very good defensive capabilities. In this era, ordinary noble knights can only afford this thing.
In addition, the core personnel are all equipped with mithril arm armor, so at least ordinary swords are not a problem for them at all.
When fighting hand-to-hand with the enemy, there are actually very few troops that can defeat them. Many times, they can defeat their opponents by strength alone - when the strong men wield swords and hammers, the shields in the hands of the enemy are basically useless.
The hammer was a huge piece of iron weighing eight to twelve pounds . It was actually used to knock down city walls, and the shield could not block it.
But now, they are facing a group of fallen people...
A group of inhuman monsters that far surpass them in strength.
The sledgehammer is certainly very lethal to the Can Knight or other humans, but it won't do much when it hits the Fallen - at most it will just cause some fractures...
Unless you hit the head, you can't kill it.
After all, the Fallen are all walking corpses. No matter if they are missing limbs or have broken bones, as long as they are not dead, they can still retain most of their combat power!
Moreover, heavy weapons like hammers have a huge problem - poor balance.
This thing cannot be retracted once it is swung out, and it is basically impossible to adjust during the attack. It is really not easy to hit the opponent's head accurately.
The greatswords of the Mettenheim people are not so bad, and they are very good at the "New Year's Sword Technique" and are very skilled in beheading and other tasks.
But the problem is that the sword skills of the Mettenheim people are bold and unrestrained - this kind of swordsmanship requires a lot of space.
In other words, the Silver Hand cannot form a dense formation to attack.
——Of course, the same goes for halberds and sledgehammers, they need to be spread out, otherwise they may easily injure friendly forces.
The reason why Klose had his troops surround the enemy on three sides was because they could not attack in a conventional formation and they needed more space.
But in this case, the original numerical advantage seemed not so great - those Fallen had maintained their dense formation without moving, and when facing attacks, they even quickly formed a shield formation.
Therefore, when the Silver Hand came into contact with the Fallen, it was like it was fighting with a small number of enemies - the enemies were standing very densely, but the Silver Hand was relatively scattered.
At the same time, since the enemies formed a shield formation, the first attack of the strong men holding sledgehammers was aimed at the shield.
The sledgehammer is a sharp weapon for breaking shields. It is reasonable to smash each one you hit.
The shields in the hands of the Fallen were indeed broken by one blow, but the force of the hammer did not make them move at all - even the hand holding the broken shield did not move!
And just as the enemy's shields were shattered, the Hammermen faced the counterattack of the Fallen.
They had just swung the hammer and had not yet recovered all their strength. At this moment, they were temporarily unable to move their feet.
At this moment, the Fallen Ones slashed at the Hammermen with their swords - it was obvious that these Fallen Ones still had good swordsmanship, or some kind of instinct.
The weapons in the hands of the Fallen were actually nothing special, just ordinary long swords or conventional weapons such as hand axes and machetes, but that seemingly light swing of the counterattack actually chopped many sledgehammers in half, including their armor!
Even the Mithril Armguards of the Silver Hand couldn't stop it - the power of these Fallen Ones was too terrifying!
They abandoned their souls and gained inhuman strength. Many of the fallen even had their swords cut off by the first strike...
The originally sturdy composite armor was like paper in front of the terrifying power of these fallen ones!
So, after just the first wave of attack and a brief contact, the troops led by Klose lost dozens of hammermen, basically all of them were killed in one blow!
"Back off! Everyone back off!"
Klose realized that he had made a mistake. He shouldn't have faced the Fallen with conventional combat methods!
Moreover, these fallen ones were completely different from those encountered in Changhe Town before - they did not seem to have completely lost their minds.
Those Fallen Ones did not chase after the retreating Silver Hand, but continued to line up in neat rows, still extremely quiet.
After Klose and his men retreated dozens of meters, the Fallen even restored the circular formation into a horizontal queue and began to slowly approach like a wall.
"If only those Noldor were here..."
Summer looked at the approaching flesh and blood monsters somewhat helplessly and said something to Klose.
Indeed, if the Noldor elves were here, these fallen ones would only be shot through the head by accurate arrows and would not pose any threat at all.
But now, there are only the Silver Hand and the Free Legion - there are not many long-range attack methods.
The Silver Hand, which relies on strength as its main means of attack, would not be able to win in close combat against a Fallen whose strength far exceeds its own, and would surely suffer heavy losses...
Sometimes it is just like this, there is always something stronger than nothing. When facing the Legion of Dread on the seashore, the arrows of the Noldor did not play much of a role; and when facing the Fallen in the wilderness, the Silver Hand was indeed difficult to control.
"Throw the spear up!"
Klose frowned and called the Free Corps members to come forward.
Many of the Free Legion were indeed equipped with javelins, especially the gladiators from the Bacchus Empire.
Then a wave of javelins flew over.
But almost no one on the other side fell...
Many javelins did pierce the bodies of the Fallen, but they showed no reaction at all - a puncture wound was nothing to the Fallen...
It is obviously not easy to hit the head accurately with a javelin, and more than half of the Fallen on the opposite side have shields in their hands. Although they seem to react slowly, they can still protect their heads by holding up the shields.
As a result, after throwing a wave of javelins, Klose immediately regretted it.
The Fallen on the opposite side suffered almost no losses, and they picked up the javelins at their feet or stuck in their bodies and threw them back!
Although their throwing skills were not very good and most of the javelins missed the target, the few javelins that were aimed directly at the target caused casualties without exception - under the inhuman strength of the Fallen, the javelins thrown back were so fast that they could not even be seen clearly!
The powerful force of the javelin can even penetrate the human body completely - there is no way to block it, and no time to dodge!
This is really troublesome.
Although the brothers had seen more difficult Legions of Terror and had no fear of the Fallen, they all realized the troublesomeness of these enemies...
Close combat is difficult, and throwing a javelin will kill you...
There were some crossbows, but they were only equipped by Sigismund's scouts, and the number was relatively small. Most of the people's accuracy was not very good, so it was difficult to achieve any effective results against those zombies.
Avoiding the attack didn't seem to work either, as Klose had already taken a detour to avoid them before, but they were still able to miraculously block a large force in the wilderness.
The biggest problem was that at this moment, another group of enemies came from a distance...
They are still Fallen, and not many in number, perhaps one or two hundred - but this means that the Fallen will continue to gather here!
"Sinclair, do you have any good ideas? If this continues, there will be more and more Fallen, and we can't seem to get rid of them in such a short time!"
Klose turned and asked the scout captain Sigismund.
"We can't waste time... How about we disperse the main force? Split into small teams to bypass them. I'll lead the scout team to lure them here, and you guys go directly to Guihu Town!"
Sigismund did give a reliable solution.
"We can give it a try... Spread out the squadrons to the vicinity of Guihu Town and gather when the signal arrows sound!"
Klose also thought this was a good idea, so he immediately gave the order.
After all, the more important task now is not to kill these fallen people, but to get to Amy as soon as possible.
A squadron actually consisted of more than ten knights and thirty sergeants. The Silver Hand and the Free Legion were divided into thirty teams, each with about forty people. They began to follow their captains and go in different directions.
Only Sigismund did not move. He ordered the scouts to shoot several rounds with crossbows, temporarily pinning the Fallen down.
Actually, this was a good idea, because the Fallen did not pay attention to the small teams that dispersed, nor did they divide their forces - all the Fallen began to chase Sigismund's scouts.
It seems that the order these Fallen Ones received might be to stop the large-scale troops.
Perhaps they could sense the location of large-scale troops through some special guidance, and even implement some simple tactics, such as fighting in formation or ambushing in dense forests.
However, they can probably only obey orders to a limited extent and do not have any flexibility and are unable to respond according to actual conditions.
After everyone dispersed, Sigismund's 80-man scout team became the largest team, so the fallen ones were still executing their original orders - to block or destroy large-scale troops...
So Sigismund and his scouts began to retreat quickly - in the opposite direction of Weird Fox Town, so that the large army could successfully get rid of these troublesome monsters.
But it didn't take long for Sigismund to find that his own idea had gotten him into big trouble - he couldn't get rid of these degenerates!
The Fallen actually don't run very fast. While they gain strength, they certainly lose some of their dexterity and agility.
But the thing is... they are not afraid of getting tired!
Moreover, none of them bear any weight—not even skin, so they carry less weight than a person wearing nothing...
Sigismund and the others were not the kind of monsters that wouldn’t get tired, and they had a lot of equipment on them.
Although they were faster than the Fallen, they could not shake off the Fallen who were chasing them no matter how they ran and stopped. They were basically being chased like dogs.
As a result, Sigismund was chased for more than ten miles. He felt that he had no way to go to Guihu Town, so he led his team straight to Talboa.
…
On the other side, after dividing his troops, Klose raised the golden griffin flag when he could see Guihu Town from afar, and shot a flare arrow into the sky as a signal.
He planned to reunite the scattered teams here and then charge into Guihu Town.
Klose has now realized that the Silver Hand force currently has big problems.
But as long as he can reunite with Amy, these problems will no longer exist. Amy's griffin claws can just make up for the shortcomings of the Silver Hand.
However, before he could gather his troops again, several strange small teams appeared in front of him.
There were several cavalry squads, and each squadron looked to be quite elite cavalry.
Although the equipment of these cavalry teams looked varied, Klose could see that each of them should be a seasoned warrior, but... the discipline of these people seemed very poor, quite poor.
Each of them brought with them a random assortment of things, such as vases covered in silver foil, copper pots, leather, and even women’s skirts and underwear…
There were also some people with them, all of whom were wounded with incomplete limbs, basically dressed as villagers, and there were also children among them, who were probably their captives.
It was obvious that these cavalrymen had just completed a separate robbery, and must have done so in a very violent manner - most of the people in each cavalry team, including the horses, were covered in blood.
“Who are you?!”
Klose had a vague feeling that he might be in trouble again... These cavalrymen were probably not good people, but the scattered troops had not yet arrived.
"They are not our people... Gather!"
The cavalry on the opposite side did not respond to Klose's question, but started to gather together shouting.
Klose suddenly realized that these cavalrymen also gathered after seeing the signal arrows...
Those cavalrymen were obviously enemies, and since they were all cavalrymen, their gathering speed was naturally much faster than that of the Silver Hand.
Then, the cavalrymen released the villagers with mutilated limbs and threatened Klose: "Surrender! Or become like them!"
The wounded limped towards Klose, as if they wanted to get away from the opposing cavalry as quickly as possible.
The cavalry followed behind the wounded, driving their horses around them with laughter, and occasionally shooting one or two arrows at the wounded, as if to make them escape faster.
"What's going on? What are they doing?!"
Klose drew his sword and asked the villagers who had fled to his side in panic.
"That's Oswood of Furler! The sadistic executioner!"
A villager who was barely still conscious answered quickly. His face was covered in tears and his body was covered with scars. One of his ears had disappeared, leaving only a bloody ear hole.
It was obvious that he had been cruelly abused before.
"Why? Is that guy famous?"
Obviously, Klose had never heard of this name. Neither had any of the members of the Silver Hand. There was not a single Sarleon native in the Silver Hand or the Free Legion. They were either from Mettenheim or from the Baccus Empire. Sigismund was also a Firdsweil native born in Ravenstern...
