Nikolai gripped the rifle in his hands tight, his eyes filled with madness and cruelty—the most primitive beastliness of mankind when faced with the brink of life and death.
The comrades around him were the same, as if injected with chicken blood. They had cast aside their human identities and returned to savagery, swearing to tear apart everything before them that dared stand in their way.
Relying on their beastly nature, the Russians had expanded from vassals of the Mongols into the country with the most territory in the world today. By that same beastly nature, they had defeated too many enemies once stronger than themselves and won too many brutal yet glorious victories.
Had it been the Ottoman army of before, seeing the Russian forces now bordering on madness, they would most likely have turned and fled or dropped to their knees in surrender.
Even the most elite New Army might have been unable to hold its formation, their legs trembling uncontrollably; even the most reckless warriors would have steered clear of this tide of beasts.
Yet the Redcoat Army before them did not collapse. The British of this era possessed a peculiar coldness and numbness born of the industrial age. They merely carried out their officers' orders like machines.
Aim, fire, reload, aim again. Everything they did was efficient and mechanical. The British Army's commanders even had the leisure to punish soldiers who made mistakes.
Under the Redcoat Army's firepower, the Russian forces began their final charge. Fifty paces, thirty paces, twenty paces, ten paces.
Nikolai surged forward. The comrades behind him fell one after another, but he seemed driven by some primal force, charging onward in madness.
The Russians' close-range fire proved remarkably effective, clearing away a great swath of that red. But the moment a Redcoat