HLnovel Chapter 850 - 74: Hope
Chapter 850 - 74: Hope
Enrique was blown away again by the shockwave. Maybe a long time had passed, maybe only a moment; he felt as if he’d fallen into a bottomless swamp, his body unbearably heavy, unable to climb back up no matter what.
He forced his heavy eyelids open, only to find that right in the dirt before his eyes, half a blood‑soaked severed hand was stuck upright, the red‑and‑white splintered bone stumps making him feel a faint urge to vomit.
He immediately struggled with all his might, but even pouring out every last ounce of strength, he only just barely managed to roll over.
Looking at the smoke‑choked sky, streaked now and then by flashes of fire, Enrique thought, "Might as well just die like this. Then everyone will be together again."
The enemy’s flag suddenly appeared in his field of view. The Brits had already crept up onto the position.
A figure suddenly sprang out of the trench—a Werewolf, not as burly as a Corner, even a bit gaunt—who he had once been, Enrique no longer had any way of knowing.
Screams, flesh tearing, gunfire never ceasing.
Until he saw countless bayonets thrust into the Werewolf’s body, and then an officer wearing a Conductor’s saber chopped off his head with a single stroke. That wolf head rolled a long way over the ground, and as it rolled it turned back into a human face.
It was Stephen!
The mess cook who looked so skinny, always saying that once the war was over he would go back to New Naples, remodel his restaurant, and go on working as a chef.
In Enrique’s heart, a fierce "I have to do something" suddenly surged up. That feeling even drowned out his fear of death. He saw not far from him the broken flag buried in the mud, the yellow five‑pointed star standing there all alone, just like him.
That lonely little five‑pointed star filled his entire vision. The battlefield, the smoke, death—seemed to have all drifted far away from him. Without realizing it, he had already crawled up to the flag.
He stroked the rough flagpole and used it to prop up his body, slowly standing to his feet.
"Battery One hasn’t fallen yet."
That was what he said.
The British Army in the trench below spotted this Texas grunt courting death at the very first instant.
But just as they were about to open fire, they suddenly heard a shrill whistle. That was the signal for "emergency take cover." They didn’t know why, but the British Army soldiers who had been about to seize Battery One in one stroke all went prone on the ground.
...
The pain and death Enrique had been bracing himself for never came.
When he opened his eyes, he saw that the trench below had become a sea of fire. Everywhere were the screams of the enemy and the sympathetic detonations of ammunition.
The acrid stink of gunsmoke mixed with the nauseating stench of charred corpses, making him want to heave up everything in his stomach.
"Reinforcements?"
"Or our artillery finally supporting us?"
The next second, the "culprit" behind this scene revealed its silhouette from within the clouds—that was a terrifying Demon Dragon with three heads.
It was diving like a cannon shell, three Dragon Flames like iron plows scouring across the ground in crisscrossing lines, gouging deep furrows and forcing every fleeing enemy into bands of fiery Purgatory.
"It’s a Dragon Knight, our Dragon Knight!"
Enrique shouted hoarsely, wild with excitement. He didn’t know whether he was happy or furious; he couldn’t even find words to describe his own emotions. He only knew to raise the Lone Star Banner in his hand high and yell at the top of his lungs.
Until roiling thick smoke choked him into hacking coughs, tears streaming from his face. He curled up, clutched the flagpole, and sobbed in agony.
The comrades he’d lived and fought beside—just this morning they’d been eating together—and now in this whole empty trench, all that was left were stray limbs and broken remains.
...
Demon Dragon Ladon watched the people scattered and fleeing below, cruel smiles appearing on the faces of the Fire Dragon Head and the Highly Poisonous Dragon Head.
"Burn, burn, burn them all—purify these lowly bugs with flame!"
"Look, those poor bastards are still thinking of fighting back with the fire sticks in their hands. Do they really think Lord Ladon is still like when he first woke up, just standing there and letting them use him as target practice?"
The Knight on the dragon’s back said coldly, "Don’t get carried away—unless you’d like to sample death again."
Ladon’s greatest trait was that he never learned anything from his lessons—at least the dominant Fire Dragon Head didn’t. Losa very much suspected that in that hot‑headed skull, the brain was only about walnut‑sized.
"Your Majesty is right, you two had better not get cocky. The enemy are the mortal foes of the French bastards who once killed us. Their strength can’t be underestimated. Now that we’ve shown ourselves, we’re bound to draw the enemy’s full‑force annihilation."
The Cursed Dragon Head remained as cautious as ever.
Before the Floating Airship appeared, the Giant Dragon had always been the king of the skies.
They were something every army had to treat with the utmost caution. Even the equally fearsome ancient giants appeared in far fewer accounts in ancient military history than the Giant Dragon, and their impact on the course of battle was nowhere near that of the dragons.
Which meant that whenever a Giant Dragon appeared on the battlefield, it was destined to become the enemy’s primary target for binding down and ultimately destroying.
"What’s there to be afraid of? One comes, we kill one. Two come, we kill a pair!"
The Highly Poisonous Dragon Head was very much the bully counting on someone big behind him; if the sky fell, there was someone taller to hold it up.
Losa ignored Ladon’s constant yammering. His expression was grim as he looked toward the enemy camp. The bait had already been thrown out; next it depended on how the enemy would respond. In this battle, he would not rashly use True Dragon Transformation.
No one sits down to play Fighting the Landlord and opens with the double jokers.
"A pity. It’s confirmed that under New Basilicata it’s all ore veins, so there’s no way to root a Divine Realm there like we did against the enemy in the Alps back then. Otherwise, with one big detonation, enemy or us, we’d all go down together."
If he spent the entire essence Power of Texas to kill a hundred thousand British Army, burying half of Britain’s elite in the process, the French bastards would probably have to respectfully call him the Founding Father of France. But not everyone was as full of internationalist spirit as their King who got sent to the guillotine.
Boom—
Out of the gunsmoke, a red beam of light filled with the breath of annihilation shot forth.
The beam was incredibly fast. Even though Ladon reacted immediately, he found that red light beam clung to him like a bone‑gnawing maggot, tracing an arc through the sky and lancing toward his heads.
"Help, boss!"
Ladon’s cry, in outsiders’ ears, was undoubtedly a majestic dragon roar.
Boom—
The red beam exploded, smoke filling the heavens.
And the attacker, that towering armored monstrosity, revealed its form as well—the Iron Duke.
"Is it done?"
The Captain of the King’s Blade at his side asked.
He was also the next‑generation heir to the Iron Duke; once the current Iron Duke fell in battle, he would be the one to step up and take the position.
Vrrr—
The Iron Duke gave his answer with action. He pulled out his Chainsaw Sword and, strides like a falling star, leapt forward to kill toward the Demon Dragon’s position.
But immediately after, an identical red beam shot out from within that smoke—that was the other function of the King’s Treasure Ring besides storage: to absorb an enemy’s attack and send it right back.
Boom—
This caught the Iron Duke completely off guard, and it hit his body dead‑on.