"Boom..."
The mortars' low, deep reports rolled out from the heart of the Bohemian artillery position like the roars of ancient beasts. Dressed in dark uniforms, the gunners loaded them with practiced strength and orderly precision.
Artillery Major Ackerman stood behind the artillery position with his hands clasped behind his back, admiring the six enormous bronze mortars as they spat two-meter tongues of flame one after another.
White smoke rose from their muzzles like ghosts in the night. Huge, heavy shells hurtled toward the walls like meteors, like flaming whips wielded by Death.
Every report seemed an extension of his heartbeat, every reload an expression of his thirst for victory, making Ackerman's face bloom as brightly as a chrysanthemum.
Besides the mortars, fifteen Field Eagle Cannons purchased from Minisia and twenty Cast-Iron Cannons-six-pounder field guns and twelve-pounder Siege Heavy Cannons-also fired sporadically, making their presence known.
Ackerman was utterly absorbed in the imperial artillery's battering and suppression of Hegrande City's walls. This was a tangible demonstration of the Bohemian Empire's army's glory.
Under the sustained bombardment of the six bronze mortars, the guns on Hegrande's front wall had all but fallen silent. Only a handful of small cannons remained active on the battered ramparts, firing a shot and then shifting position as best they could, stubbornly proving the Bagnians' tenacity to the Bohemians outside the city.
Hegrande's defenders had not yet given up resisting.
Ackerman paid no attention to the shells fired by those few small cannons.
Iron shot no bigger than a baby's fist could not penetrate the gun emplacements the Bohemian artillerymen had spent days building. Low walls piled up from sandbags and thick wooden planks effectively protected the gunners and cannons behind them.
Yet just as Ackerman was reveling in the might of the imperial artillery, distant