Troops March Out, Resolve to Die

In the end, John did not agree to Leo's written pledge of military responsibility. Instead, he had him accompany Hawk on the campaign as a temporary staff officer. Mia would serve as the deputy commander for this battle. Once the commander and deputy commander had been decided, John did not hesitate any longer and immediately assembled the troops for deployment.

Naturally, aside from providing the Steel Bone Corps with standard supplies, John had also specially allocated five Medium Annihilation Crystal Cannons and fifteen shells of the corresponding model to ensure victory in this battle. Each shell, once detonated, could destroy nearly everything within a three-kilometer radius and create a mana-null crystal zone lasting fifteen days, greatly weakening Mages. According to Marda and the others' calculations, the mana-vacuum field created by such a crystal zone was enough to prevent Mages below the Upper Tier from casting magic, while even transcendent Mages would have their spells weakened by at least sixty percent. Even Crown Tier powerhouses would be affected to varying degrees. At the very least, activating a Crown Tier Domain would consume at least twice as much mana. Of course, if the highest-spec Heavy Annihilation Crystal Cannon were used, the permanent mana-null crystal zone it created could theoretically greatly restrain Crown Tier powerhouses. However, the aftermath would be difficult to deal with, and the cannon's immense weight and size made it unsuitable for ambushes. It might instead expose their position and allow the enemy to strike them specifically. More importantly, the shells for the Heavy Annihilation Crystal Cannon were not yet perfected and could be detonated by the slightest mishap during transport. If anything went wrong, the twelve hundred men, Hawk included, might be blown straight to heaven by the heavy shells before they even reached the front line, let alone