Among the remaining soldiers, one finally snapped back to reality, turned, and tried to run back. But in the process of turning, blood splattered from behind him.
He stumbled forward a few steps, then tripped over a corpse and landed on a body that was still warm.
As if from a spring, fresh blood poured out of the hole in his back; it was only then that this fleeing Shireck soldier realized he hadn't even caught a glimpse of the enemy.
Scattered across the battlefield, the few surviving soldiers scrambled and ran for their lives. Since they were moving targets, the soldiers at the tranquil Great Tang security forces' positions weren't inclined to waste their ammunition.
After all, in less than 10 minutes, they had already fired a total of 3,000 bullets, roughly the amount expended by two legions in a single charge.
"What just happened? Why did it jam all of a sudden?" Working the action of his weapon, the marksman was checking it over in his cover position.
After all, the canvas ammunition belt wasn't as reliable as one might think; in fact, these first-generation feeding systems had a terrifyingly high failure rate.
Tang Mo had always wanted to replace canvas belts with metal ones, but the war had arrived before he could implement this plan.
The assistant gunner took out a new ammunition belt from the ammo box at his feet, attached it to the weapon, and after a thorough check, he spoke, "This one should be better; I reckon it won't jam for a while."
"Everyone's run off! What bad luck!" The marksman re-aimed, only to see no more standing life on the battlefield.
Shireck's attacking formation consisted of three square formations advancing side by side, a formation spread out like a legion in full. They had entered Brunas's outskirts, so they were ready for combat.
The entire legion's supply wagons and other gear trailed behind them, and the cannons were still mobile, a few hundred meters from the frontline, hence they had not been attacked by machine gun fire.
The loss was to the three infantry square formations at the front of the legion; these soldiers were slaughtered cleanly by the new automatic weapons within a mere 10 minutes.
More than 1,000 soldiers were nearly wiped out in 10 minutes, with probably fewer than 20 managing to escape back to where the supply troops were located.
The corps commander watched his troops get massacred, dumbfounded. He saw his three battalion commanders shot down and killed amidst the chaos.
What depressed him more was that all three battalion flags had been left on the battlefield, signifying his corps was effectively annihilated.
"This, this is... this is witchcraft! It's magic!" Stunned, the aide-de-camp at his side stuttered, trying to speak.
He genuinely couldn't fathom any weapon in this world capable of bringing down a fully manned legion with such ease.
"The enemy, the enemy has... has..." The corps commander tried to agree with his aide-de-camp, to attribute the catastrophe to some nonsensical explanations like magic, but he opened his mouth and ultimately didn't dare to come up with any excuses about witchcraft or sorcery.
"Runner! Runner! Quickly! Quickly report what happened here to Lord Gis!" After a long moment, the commander regained some composure and shouted to the runner beside him.
Frankly speaking, he was relying on his numerical superiority at this moment to play dirty—the enemy wouldn't dare to counterattack due to their insufficient numbers, so he'd just bombard them slowly!
Moreover, Gis felt that he had a sufficient supply of shells and decided to use them for reconnaissance, to probe Tang Mo's strengths and weaknesses.
He then gave the order, "Let those fifty field guns fire! Bombard! Wherever we suspect the enemy might be, bombard that area!"
"At your command, sir!" The officer in charge of the artillery immediately turned to convey the order, as such matters demanded urgency.
At this moment, Gis turned to another direction, called out to a specific officer, and instructed, "Additionally, have Baron Stela's troops stand by! After firing 250 shells, his troops will start, initiating a probing attack!"
Gis had his concerns despite being confident about his advantage in both the number of cannons and ammunition; he did not believe his artillery was superior.
In the Battle of Northern Ridge, Earl Fisello had unveiled a new type of powerful cannon, which Gis knew was a product of the Great Tang Group.
To avoid Tang Mo's extortionate demands by deploying new cannons again, Shireck had not purchased this type of new cannon.
They had acquired a C64 model from Suthers and studied it, but without being able to figure out the ammunition, their attempts at copying ultimately failed.
In summary, Gis had great reservations about Tang Mo's artillery, which is why he initially didn't plan to concentrate his artillery to challenge the Great Tang Group's head-on.
Gathering the artillery now was also because the Great Tang Group had not revealed their cannons but instead used other new weapons first, which caught Gis off guard.
According to Gis's current plan, after several rounds of bombardment, he would immediately deploy the infantry to deprive Tang Mo of any chance to fire.
"Boom! Boom boom!" After being silent for over a dozen minutes, Shireck's cannons finally roared, one solid shot after another, smashing onto the nearly empty land where scarcely anyone could be seen.
To the commanders of the Great Tang Group's security forces, the enemy seemed to be firing wildly without any aim, merely wasting ammunition.
One shell landed on corpses that had not been cleared in time, shattering them into pieces—a ghastly and horrific sight.
Another shell struck the flat ground, bouncing high and rolling far before coming to a stop in an empty space.
The spot where this shell landed was at least 20 meters away from the trenches of the Great Tang Group's security forces.
Given the flat trajectory of field artillery shells at the time, and the use of solid shot, there was virtually no damage to the defensive fortifications of the trenches. If one were to be hit and injured in such circumstances, it could only be attributed to extremely bad luck.
This level of misfortune was akin to walking down the street and suddenly being struck in the head by a falling object from above...
The soldiers of the Great Tang Group's security force, huddled in their trenches holding their weapons, were chewing on jerky without taking this level of bombardment seriously in the slightest.