David lit a cigarette and gazed out across the beach.
Corpses covered the beachhead, and the heavy stench of blood filled the air.
The Guardpoint Ridge garrison had suffered devastating losses. Only three of its twenty medium-sized warships remained, seventy percent of its soldiers were lost, and every cannonball had been fired.
The cigarette burned down without Captain David taking a single puff. Only when the ember reached his fingers did he pinch it out.
David rose and slowly made his way toward the gun tower, dragging his right leg.
The tower's second floor was packed with wounded. When Priest Sasin saw Captain David approach, Sasin shook his head helplessly.
David looked around and forced a smile onto his pale face.
"Do everything you can. They're all so young. Some aren't even twenty."
Without a word, Sasin bent down to apply medicine and bandage David's right leg.
"Save the power of the Holy Light for the wounded."
Sasin bent down, saw the exposed white bone, and felt tears well up.
"You should have come sooner. Otherwise, you'd have spent the rest of your life with only one leg."
"I can hold out."
Sasin closed his eyes in prayer, and a sacred glow appeared in his palm. But it lasted only an instant before the Holy Light gradually faded.
Sasin had long since exhausted the power of the Holy Light. Now, Sasin was no different from an ordinary physician.
"Now I finally understand why you never dared make me any promises." Sasin finished bandaging David and rose to apply medicine to the other wounded.
"Reinforcements are here! Lieutenant David." David let out a long breath and dragged his right leg out of the gun tower.
Proudmoore Keep.
Guardpoint Ridge lay within the Second Fleet's coastal defense zone and guarded the