Chapter 52 Bombardment Crow

Before the sun rose.

Jiang He walked into Leva City with the Crimson Baptism strapped to his back, closely followed by Charles XIII in silence. In fact, this individual made no effort to conceal the easily memorable moniker "the Thirteenth," and any soldier with a sound mind would know what kind of danger that implied.

Leva City was one of the largest industrial strongholds on the Prussian Western Front, with at least four main railway lines passing through it. Before the outbreak of the Battle of the Somme, Leva City served as a logistics hub, but with the continuous bombing by fighter planes, the once-prosperous city had been reduced to a devastated ruin.

As the morning light crept across the horizon, Jiang He threaded through an abandoned chemical plant. Rubble was strewn everywhere, and the roof overhead had collapsed and disintegrated, leaving only bare steel skeletons.

A British machine gun emplacement was set up here, manned by a total of twelve men guarding the outer street corner. Their sergeant had withered, yellowish hair, a drastically emaciated face, and a frenzied look in his eyes.

"Take out that firepower nest for me!"

On the ground floor of the soap factory opposite, a squad of Prussian soldiers was intensely setting up a mortar. Dense gunfire slammed against the walls, sending brick chips flying; while the Lewis gun lacked the sheer ferocity of the Maxim, it still held an absolute suppressive advantage over standard rifles.

"Stay right where you are."

Jiang He leaped straight out from a collapsed section of the chemical plant's second floor, rolling across the street and diving through a breach into the soap factory occupied by the enemy.

Charles XIII stood frozen in place, at a loss for what to do. He dealt a frustrated punch to his outer thigh, turned, and hurried down the stairs to follow. A machine gun nest was set up inside the chemical plant, making it an obvious target for the enemy, and it was no place to linger.

Jiang He crouched behind a damaged conveyor belt. The intense gunfire masked the sound of his advance, and as the artilleryman dropped a shell into the mortar barrel, Jiang He suddenly raised his sniper rifle. Almost without aiming, a bullet vanished into the chamber.

The fragmentation-effect round struck the mortar, shattering the steel and detonating the explosive. The shockwave and fierce flames created a magnificent display of fireworks, with smoke and dust surging straight up to the second floor. Six Prussians were killed instantly, while two others went down—one knocked unconscious, the other screaming in agony.

Drawing his revolver, Jiang He finished off the remaining survivors with two shots. Eight new horizontal lines appeared on the Codex page, representing eight Class-D military merits.

Almost simultaneously, a gunshot rang out from the distant bell tower. The bullet shattered the soap factory's glass and struck someone squarely in the back. The sudden impact caused him to stagger, but he rolled over smoothly behind the conveyor belt, crawling into a blind spot.

"Take cover!"

Hearing his commanding officer's warning, Charles XIII instantly dropped prone to the ground. A split second later, a bullet pierced his thigh, blood welling up to soak his trouser leg.

"Ahhh!"

Following his meaningless shrieks, Charles XIII's face twisted in sheer terror as he hurriedly cried out, "Save me, sir!"

Jiang He slapped his forehead. He had no idea why this fellow had insisted on tagging along, just as he couldn't fathom why his reaction to hearing "take cover" was to lie flat on the ground. Even the ceremonial military parade tactics of the British lines earlier felt like a complete amateur hour through and through.

"Wait here."

"Don't leave me, please save me, sir!"

Crawling to the entrance of the soap factory, Jiang He was nearly mistaken for the enemy by the sergeant in charge of the machine gun nest, who had heard the explosion and assumed the Prussians had blown themselves up out of sheer stupidity.

"I am Captain Rhein. There is a sniper in the bell tower at the four o'clock position. Provide machine gun cover."

With a bloodthirsty glint in his eyes upon learning the enemy's location, the sergeant strode right out of the emplacement into the street, raising his Lee-Enfield rifle to fire continuously.

"Blast that bell tower to pieces!"

Where the rifle bullets actually landed was anyone's guess, but the sniper's marksmanship was deadly accurate. A bloody mist burst from the back of the sergeant's head, and he collapsed backward into the dirt, lifeless.

Two infantrymen rushed out to drag away the sergeant's body, only to be picked off one by one with a single shot each. The remaining nine squad members never dared to lift their heads again, and a corporal assumed command.

Jiang He blinked in brief astonishment. Recovering his wits, he returned to his original spot. Charles XIII tried to crawl deeper into the factory, but the Prussian sniper, using him as bait, put a bullet straight through his arm, making his screams even more piercing.

"There are two grenades in your supply pouch, throw them out to block the bell tower's line of sight!"

Overwhelmed by agonizing pain and extreme terror, Charles XIII couldn't process a single word.

Opting for a different spot, Jiang He propped up his sniper rifle and aimed at the bell tower. Before his vision could even focus, a bullet struck the barricade right in front of him. The enemy had fired second and hit first, possessing battlefield-dominating sniper skills.

Intelligence Officer Wuhe: You've been targeted by a Gray Hawk Knight. Number 22 Little Crow from my unit is right around you. Pull back immediately before the ground infantry surrounds you; his ability is Eagle Eye.

Executive Jiang He: What is your perspective on birds?

Intelligence Officer Wuhe: It depends on whether they possess qualified intelligence. Ordinary ones are just expendable resources. I can share vision with the birds I've recruited, and I've now expanded the flock to over three thousand. Surveillance covers the entirety of Prussia, but I haven't found the rule-breaker yet—he hides like a turtle.

Jiang He silently acknowledged this as impressive; with that kind of intelligence-gathering capability, even without direct combat strength, it was crucial.

Executive Jiang He: Are you interested in bombing crows?

Intelligence Officer Wuhe: ?

...

Moments later, a normal-sized crow flew into the soap factory. Jiang He took out a black gemstone and handed it to it. His current stock of chaos bombs stood at 245 pieces, more than enough for casual expenditure.

Number 22 Crow grasped the black gemstone and departed. Jiang He raised his sniper rifle high above his head and fired repeatedly to draw the enemy's attention, while Charles XIII had already fallen unconscious from blood loss and sheer terror.

On the third shot, the bullet from the bell tower struck the decoy's shoulder.

Charles XIII's entire body trembled.

Meanwhile, a crow circled around from behind and dove from high above, dropped the black gemstone inside, and rapidly ascended. Upon impact with the ground, the shockwave and thermal radiation rippled outward like a tide. The top of the bell tower instantly shattered and exploded, rubble flying through the empty air as a human figure was blasted outward, plummeting raggedly into a distant factory building.

The Codex page recorded the kill: Class-C military merit +1.

Intelligence Officer Wuhe: Send a few my way. I'll dispatch three hundred birds over to help you farm military merits in Leva City. Besides, the more knights that die on your end, the more likely the rule-breaker is to expose themselves under the pressure.

Executive Jiang He: Acceptable.

...

In Berlin, atop the weathered stone walls of an ancient castle.

A large crow patiently and gently pecked at its feathers, meticulously preening them one by one. During this time, it constantly switched perspectives back and forth among the flock under its command, comprehensively collating the situations unfolding across various locations.

The master of the ancient castle accompanied his family to enjoy a bird battle taking place in the sky, where dozens of crows surrounded three waxwings, launching a fierce assault and continuously knocking the waxwings down from the air.

The fierce battle lasted half an hour, until the waxwings finally abandoned their resistance and joined the flock of crows.

Wuhe looked up, fixing his gaze on the host's expression. Generally speaking, knights who possessed extraordinary abilities and understood supernatural powers would likely grow vigilant upon seeing an organized mix of crows and waxwings; conversely, the likelihood of him being an ordinary person would increase. However, this judgment was not absolute and required a few subsequent procedures for verification.

"Twenty-four?"

Receiving the news from Leva City, Wuhe was startled. His exclusive executive was simply a mobile artillery regiment, and moreover, far more generous than expected.

"Observe for a bit longer."

Wuhe flapped his wings and departed. The item pouch could not transport living creatures, but he also commanded a sizable flock of birds in the real world. Initially, to complete missions, he had gathered mostly raptors, making it difficult for them to integrate collectively into society. If he didn't want to disperse them, he needed to find a suitable master for them.