When the Saintess Arrives, No King Exist-Chapter 727 - 683: Escape!

"Ha... ha... ha..."

With his hands on his knees, Tasjin stood by the riverbank, gasping for breath.

Although they fled in advance and didn't run towards the riverbank, of the dozen or so companions, only five remained.

The rest were either swallowed by the swamp or couldn't outrun the Master Knights.

They seized the opportunity and managed to escape along the original path to a dry land hill, barely saving their lives.

Under the damp and oppressive river wind, these five companions looked at each other, their faces covered in mud and helplessness.

"Let's rest for a while and bandage the wounds," Tasjin said, his voice hoarse, enduring the pain. "Otherwise, even if we escape, we'll die from infections."

This damned Black Snake Bay climate, where even a minor wound can get infected with tetanus.

Leaning against the palm tree trunk on the hill, Tasjin held out his hand for a companion to cut out the rotten flesh struck by lead pellets, then turned back to gaze at the marshland.

After the deafening cannon barrage earlier, this skirmish had reached its end.

Though a group of knights organized small-scale counterattacks multiple times, causing some casualties, under the Holy Wind of the Hawk Cannon and Holy Gun, these small resistances vanished into the void.

The rumbling of cannons still echoed in the sky, and knights in flamboyant clothes continued sprinting across the grasslands.

On the crisscrossing reed streams, Master Knights in heavy armor cautiously hid, their silhouettes faintly visible behind the shrubs.

This group of knights was relatively lucky.

The unfortunate ones were caught by a few cannons and, in their panic, were driven to the riverbank, only to be greeted by the Griffin Cannons on the river surface.

Tasjin turned his head with mixed feelings, his murky little eyes looking at the river surface, watching hundreds of elegantly dressed floating corpses drift by, day and night.

Yet this was just the tip of the iceberg, as there were still hundreds of knights who couldn't remove their armor in time, floating beneath the water.

Frightened by the Griffin Cannons, the knights, driven by the Divine Punishment Army, chose to jump into the nearby Mo'en River.

In a sense, this was the right choice because knights could swim underwater a short distance even while wearing heavy armor.

With some luck, they might find a gap and manage to escape the encirclement.

But regrettably, Saint Jeanne, who showed no martial ethics, came along. Standing on the hill, Tasjin frequently heard the crackling of lightning and saw flashes of electricity bouncing on the water surface.

Soon after, the river surface would be filled with river bass turning their white bellies upwards and knights with white eyes.

After witnessing the Saintess's power, the knights ceased their dumpling-making antics and, with tear-stained faces, knelt down, shouting in clumsy Leia language, "We surrender! We surrender!"

They were forced to remove their armor and, under the gunpoints of the Holy Gunmen, were shackled with heavy plaster cuffs on their legs and hands.

If it weren't for the swamp terrain, if it weren't in Black Snake Bay, then at least half of these 3,000 knights could have escaped.

As it stands now, probably less than five or six hundred managed to flee the battlefield, excluding those killed in action. This time, Horn is estimated to capture close to 2,000 Falan Knights.

When the river wind blew from the swamp, Tasjin could clearly smell the scent of blood and sweat, mixed with the scorched odor of lightning and the shrieks and groans of the Master Knights.

A hearty and crushing defeat.

Clenching his teeth, Tasjin let his companion extract the deformed lead and cut away the lead-fragment-laden rotten flesh with scissors; his voice trembled, "Alright, let's move on." 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

"To where?" asked a slightly inexperienced young mercenary.

Tasjin glanced at the battlefield, "We can't stay in Black Snake Bay. Let's move forward a bit, find a small raft, sneak back to camp, grab our money and luggage, and board a merchant ship out of here."

"Aren't there over ten thousand soldiers under Solaburg City? If we just run, how will we get jobs in the future?"

"If they won't keep us here, there'll be another place that will," nodded another mercenary, his head pale as he used a branch to hold his broken arm. "Count Kazi brought 3,000 formidable Full-Armored Extraordinary Knights and still lost; how could the over ten thousand Guards and soldiers under Solaburg City win?"

It's undeniable that these mercenaries, who have fought for years, are like seasoned survivors, each having their own methods of treatment and emergency response.

"That's not what I meant. How do we explain to the Duke?"

"The Duke?" Tasjin coughed, his throat raspy, "You just watch, when the defeated knights find Bodosa, from here to Dragonfly Bay, if he sets foot on land once, I lose the bet."

As soon as he finished speaking, his stomach rumbled like thunder, and as if contagious, the stomachs of those around him started growling too.

After all, they had just fought a battle, coupled with a series of running and life-or-death speeds, everyone's stomach was empty.

Luckily, Tasjin followed the principle of leaving the last bit of food, saving some bread and salted fish, which they barely made into a stinky foot sandwich they shared among the five, rubbing their stomachs as they continued on their way.

......

"Ugh!" Beimang Lai quickly covered his nose, looking with disgust at the medicinal soup in front of him, pleadingly glanced at the service soldier with a full beard before him, "Can I not drink this?"

"No," the battle group's field surgeon and barber firmly pushed the bowl to Beimang Lai's lips, "It's a hemostatic soup. You mustn't leave a single drop."

Grumbling over his bad luck, Beimang Lai gritted his teeth and drank the soup in one gulp, immediately sticking out his tongue like a puppy and frantically licking a cereal bar.

It was unfortunate for him. During the pursuit of the knights, he was bitten in the thigh by a crocodile, and if not for his companion's quick response, he might have been done for.

The battle lasted only an hour; the true combat part barely took half an hour, yet it took a full three hours to clean up the stragglers and sweep the battlefield.

The swamp terrain was really unsuitable for deployment, not to mention that it was specifically for pursuing enemy Beastman Cavalry. Both sides' infantry had to continually skirmish within the grass and streams.

But the outcome of the battle wouldn't change because of these small local victories.

As dusk fell, not only had the two battle groups walked out of the muddy ground and cleaned the battlefield, but they even set up camp.

Each honeycomb coal stove raised blue flames, with water bottles filled with Mo'en River water boiling white bandages for wrapping wounds and various decoctions.

The post-battle medical care system and advanced hygiene concepts rooted in the Salvation Army kept Horn Army's death rate low, yet compared to the contemporary times, the disability rate was extremely high.

Surrounding the honeycomb coal stoves were groups of monks wrapped in thin blankets, drooling as they awaited the hearty army stew featuring purple eggs and meat.

The quartermasters were in high spirits, pulling out all the blue mallow coffee for each wounded soldier to have a sip.

Holding a cup of the blue liquid mixed with milk, vanilla, cinnamon, and powdered sugar, Beimang Lai, amidst the envious and jealous gazes of other healthy soldiers, deliberately took an elegant robe to inspect.

Those Full Armor Knights were treasures from head to toe. Even a random ring could sell for seven or eight gold pounds, and though these were second-hand war clothes, they could each fetch one and a half gold pounds.

It's not just clothes, but also armor.

This battle, aside from anything else, managed to replenish the Divine Punishment Army's iron armor supply fully.

Previously, only the officers of the Divine Punishment Army had chest and full armor, with ordinary soldiers using either discarded old armor from the Imperial Guard or the worst chain mail.

On the battlefield, soldiers collected over 1,800 sets of complete armor, and more than 400 damaged sets, enough to fill the gaps in the Divine Punishment Army's armor supply and then some.

Imagining himself majestic in iron armor, even the typically reserved Beimang Lai couldn't suppress a somewhat sneaky smile on his face.

"Alright, stop gawking at that rag. Mad, is it your woman?" A nearby monk slapped his hand, "Now that your leg is injured, when we march into the enemy's Solaburg camp, you won't stand a chance, that's the real treasure."

Beimang Lai's face, which was previously beaming with smiles, suddenly fell.