Berserk, Total War: Second Son of Nobles

"What are these people doing?" John looked at these people with a telescope.

I saw that this group of people placed a black sheep-headed man sculpture in front of the formation, and then placed torches around it. Then a group of people wearing black coats and sheep skulls on their heads were dancing around it. There was also music accompaniment beside them. The sound was long and low, like the cry of a dying person. The only sound that could be heard on the entire grassland was their music, and their troops were like shadows in the dark, motionless.

"So they have to offer sacrifices before fighting, right?" John observed the group's every move with a telescope, wanting to see what they were doing.

After more than ten minutes of sacrifice, the dance finally stopped, and then ten tied-up people were pulled over from the back. These people were naked, with their hands and feet tied, and rags stuffed in their mouths. Although John could not hear what they were saying, he could feel that they were struggling and afraid of something.

So in front of John, after the cultists placed the sacrifices, the cult leader used a twisted dagger to stab a tied-up man in the chest before John could react, and then scratched inside a few times and took out a bloody object.

John stopped reading after this point. This was the cultists offering sacrifices in front of the battlefield in order to receive blessings from the evil gods.

"Stephen, order the artillery to fire at those cultists!" John ordered.

"Sir, this will accidentally hurt those trapped. They may be your people," Stephen advised.

"Just because they are my people, I want them to not suffer so much. If they want to blame someone, just blame their bad luck. They were born on this land and were bullied by these cultists and the artillery fired at them." John said angrily. There was no other way. The distance was too far and he didn't know what abilities these cultists were. If they were hit, so many soldiers would be lost in vain.

"Artillery! Reload!" Stephen had no choice but to order the soldiers to fire at the cultists, trying to kill as many of them as possible.

After hearing the order, the artillerymen quickly reloaded and adjusted the muzzles to aim at the cultists.

"Light the fire!" Stephen ordered.

In an instant, dozens of shells were fired from the muzzles into the darkness, and the entire cultist army was in chaos. As John observed through a telescope, he saw that the black sculpture of a goat-headed man was directly shattered by a shell and broke into several pieces. The entire sacrificial site was covered by shells, but the casualties were unclear, but there was some chaos.

After a while, the riot of the cultists stopped. It seemed that those just now were not the supreme commanders of this army. As expected, the cult leaders were all old perverts.

After waiting for a long time, there was no movement from the entire cultist army, but almost everyone in John's army looked a little tired.

"Ha! Have these people been bewitched by some evil spell? They are as stiff as wooden stakes." John clung to the wall, holding a telescope in his hand and occasionally checking to see if there was any big movement from the cultists.

"My lord, it's getting late. You should go and have a rest. These cultists don't seem to be very capable. Let the brothers resume their shifts and send out the cavalry tomorrow morning. These guys in plain clothes are no match for our knights." said the knight commander next to him.

"Okay, okay, then I'll go back... wait a minute, here they come, these cultists are finally moving," John said as he observed through the telescope. Finally, he found that there seemed to be something big behind the cultists.

As a group of cultists pushed it forward, John saw its true face: a heavy catapult.

"Everyone, the enemy has a catapult, please take cover!" John saw it and didn't think about why they had it. He directly ordered the soldiers to find a place to hide.

Just after everyone found cover, the cultists' catapults began their first round of firing. As the catapults fired, a group of black shadows spread out in the sky and landed in John's castle.

"Hey, these are not stones. They don't pose any threat to the castle." John took a look and saw packages after packages. He didn't know what was inside, but he always felt something was wrong.

Suddenly all the packages began to emit purple gas with a foul odor. Some soldiers felt nauseous after smelling it and then vomited continuously.

Only then did John realize that, my goodness, they were using poison gas warfare.

"Poison gas, cover your mouth and nose with a wet rag. Hurry up and die!" John shouted loudly. The knight next to him quickly wet the rag with water in the kettle and covered John's mouth.

The purple gas quickly spread throughout the entire camp. When the cult troops outside saw it, a man wearing a goat skull and a black cloak shouted, "The false God's lackeys have been disturbed by God. Warriors of the Kingdom of God, charge up and kill those puppets of the false God." After hearing this, the cultists below also screamed and began to charge.

"Sir, let's retreat. We can't go on like this." The knight at the side suggested, covering his nose.

"Where can we retreat to? It's just this short distance away." John looked around, trying to see where to retreat. Suddenly, he found that there was no gas next to the campfire or the larger fires. John immediately came up with an idea.

"Everyone, light the torches. Those who can hold weapons, follow me. Those who don't have the strength, let the people around you carry you. Let's rush out of the castle and show them whether the cultists are more brutal or we are. Let's fight them!" After John finished speaking, he lit the torches, and the purple gas floating around disappeared in an instant.

Seeing this, others followed suit, lit torches and gathered together, and immediately the purple gas around them dissipated.

The soldiers carried those who were unable to move due to inhaling too much poison gas, moved them together, and placed torches next to them to disperse the purple gas. After arranging a team of soldiers to hold torches to light the thrown packages, John and others put on armor and rushed out of the camp. Because the horses in the stable also inhaled the poison gas and were unable to move, John and others could only walk.

The cultists outside the city had just rushed forward for a distance when they discovered something was wrong. The purple air that had lingered for a long time was actually dissipating. Then the gate was opened, and a group of Midland soldiers holding torches rushed out and rushed towards them.

John saw this group of cultists, and he was extremely jealous of them, as if he were an enemy. He shouted directly: "For Mitlan, kill these evil gods and their lackeys, and leave no prisoners!"

The knights behind also roared, and for a moment the sound of killing was deafening, directly drowning out the sound of the cult troops, weakening the momentum of the cult troops' charge a little.

The cult's commander also didn't know why the purple energy that had made them invincible before was now useless, why these people were not hurt at all after absorbing the purple energy, and why these people felt like they were charging towards them like demons.

So when the cultists were not prepared, the knights in heavy armor charged directly into the group of cultists wearing only cloth, immediately setting off a bloody storm.

John used the shield in his hand to hit the cultist who was charging at him on the head, then pierced his throat with a sword. He then immediately pulled his sword out and slashed at the cultist's arm behind him, chopping off his head as he wailed.

His body functions told him that he was very tired, but his anger seemed to give him strength, allowing him to continue to kill every cultist in front of him, including his knights, like a wolf among a flock of sheep, killing any cultist he saw.

No matter how crazy the cultists are, there are smart people among them. When some cult leaders see that their own people cannot beat them, they naturally wake up from their beautiful dream that our divine warriors are invincible. Looking at the bloody scene before them, they are immediately frightened and run away.

How could the blood-thirsty soldiers let them go? When they ran away, they were immediately spotted by the soldiers behind them, who immediately sent some soldiers to chase them.

"Don't kill me, I'll surrender..."

John had just killed a cultist who tried to beg for mercy. He was covered in blood when he saw the fleeing cultists and immediately led his men to attack them.

The two sides chased each other and finally reached a cultist stronghold at dawn. When the defenders of the stronghold saw that there was a group of blood-stained demons chasing after their people, they quickly opened the door to let the fleeing cultists in.

After seeing the last cultist escape into the stronghold, John finally couldn't hold on any longer and passed out.