Civil War Among the Armored Knights

An eerie silence fell over the battlefield.

Smoke still hung in the air, and the stench of blood was sharp, but the gunfire and battle cries had ceased.

On the high ground, Saxony's infantry and the fighters of the International Brigades gripped their weapons, watching the steel titans about to clash below the slope.

On the other side, the routed Royal Army and Britannian infantry also stopped and turned to look at their trump cards.

The killing ground that had belonged to the infantry moments ago had become a stage for the Armored Knights alone.

The lead Armored Knight of the Order of the Garter seemed utterly unconcerned that his side was surrounded. Instead, he took a step forward.

He raised his right hand and struck the Kite Shield on his left arm with his ornate Arming Sword.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The clear, ringing blows echoed across the battlefield like a formal challenge before an ancient duel—or, more plainly, an open provocation.

"He's really making a ceremony of it..."

Watching through his binoculars from the high ground, Morin could not help muttering.

But a moment later, the white Armored Knight received the Teutonic Order's blunt response.

Boom!

Ludwig fired first at the showy Britannian Armored Knight without a moment's hesitation.

Once he fired, the other eleven assembled Armored Knights of the Teutonic Order also trained their Little Cannons on the enemy at the center.

Boom, boom, boom, boom!

Eleven direct-fire cannons fired almost at once. Their shells shrieked through the air and engulfed the Order of the Garter's position.

Explosions rolled one after another. The ground shook, and dust and smoke surged skyward, swallowing all four white figures.

Yet only seconds later, the four white Armored Knights burst out of the smoke.

They formed a tight diamond and charged straight toward Ludwig and William, ignoring the shells that continued to rain down on them.

Morin kept his eyes fixed on them. He could clearly see a rippling shield surrounding each white Armored Knight.

When the Teutonic Order's shells struck the shields, rings of blue light spread across them.

Some kind of protective magic was clearly at work.

But that protection was not invincible. It had a limit.

Under the relentless bombardment of twelve handheld cannons, the ripples around the lead Armored Knight of the Order of the Garter grew more violent, while his shield faded.

At last, another shell hit, and the shield silently shattered like glass.

The shells that followed slammed unhindered into his white armor, blasting blackened craters into it and checking his charge.

But breaking the shield was about all the ranged bombardment could accomplish.

When the two sides closed to a hundred meters, Ludwig was the first to drop his handheld cannon.

The other eleven Teutonic Armored Knights followed suit, discarding their heavy ranged weapons and drawing an assortment of melee weapons from their backs or waists.

There were traditional greatswords, enormous two-handed battle axes, vicious Flails...

But most carried heavy Maces made specifically to break armor.

Engines rumbling, the black-and-white cross-marked Armored Knights brandished their brutal weapons and charged to meet the Order of the Garter.

At the same time, the Knight Squires on both sides swept around the flanks and crashed into one another.

Boom!

When steel met steel head-on, every onlooker felt as though their heart had skipped a beat.

The sight was overwhelming.

These colossal metal creations of magical and industrial engineering collided and hacked at one another in the most primitive, savage way.

Every impact sent dazzling sparks flying. Every swing tore through the air with a howl.

Morin soon spotted the differences between the two sides.

The Armored Knights of the Order of the Garter had sleek, refined outer armor, and their movements were graceful and swift.

No smoke poured from exhaust pipes on their backs. They were plainly products of magical engineering alone.

On the Teutonic Order's side, two exhaust pipes rose from the back of every Armored Knight, belching black smoke.

Those "tin cans" also moved in a more mechanical fashion, their broad, forceful motions possessed of the brutal beauty of heavy industry.

It was like watching custom-built machines beset by a pack of rugged mass-produced models: magical engineering against a hybrid of magical engineering and internal combustion.

In the world Morin had come from, internal combustion engines were being challenged. Here, they had become a kind of "new energy" instead...

And perhaps because this world used different fuel, its internal combustion engines clearly produced far more power than the earliest ones Morin knew. Only then could they drive such huge "tin cans."

Watching the fierce battle, Morin quickly understood why the Teutonic Order needed a three-to-one numerical advantage.

The difference in performance between the two sides' Armored Knights was plain to see.

Without superior numbers and weapons chosen for this fight, the battle would likely have looked very different.

From the moment the Armored Knights collided, the fighting turned white-hot.

The Teutonic Knights abandoned every unnecessary movement and simply hammered their armor-breaking weapons into their opponents.

The Garter Knights, relying on superior equipment and greater agility, brought down two Teutonic Knights in the initial clash.

But their relatively traditional Arming Swords were clearly useful only for striking vulnerable points. They looked better suited to cutting through ranks of infantry.

In a battle between Armored Knights, Arming Swords were plainly outmatched by Maces designed solely to break armor.

Sword strikes against thick armor often left nothing but white scratches. The opposing Maces, meanwhile, smashed through outer armor plates and left terrible holes.

Through a brutal exchange of losses, the balance of the battle slowly began to shift.

After parrying several blows in succession, one Armored Knight of the Order of the Garter had the shield on his left arm hewn away by a battle axe.

Then two Maces struck his breastplate at once, one from each side.

With a screech of twisting metal, two holes were smashed into the breastplate bearing its elegant crest.

The white knight staggered back, his movements visibly slowing.

Ludwig seized the opening. He drove his machine into the opponent before him and knocked him aside, then raised his Mace high and brought it down hard on the wounded Garter Knight's cockpit.

With a dull, thunderous crash, Ludwig's Mace crushed the cockpit completely out of shape.

When he wrenched the Mace free, scraps of flesh and blood clung to it.

The elegant white Armored Knight before him struggled and swayed twice, then sank helplessly to one knee and went still.