That evening, the telegram arrived at the Kingdom of Romania Army General Staff.
This was already the second urgent telegram sent from the Carpathian Mountain defense line within a single day.
The first one arrived in the morning, stating: "The enemy has launched a large-scale attack on the pass. Repelled, but the enemy has sufficient troop strength, excellent equipment, and tight organization. Requesting reinforcements."
At that time, the General Staff's reaction was relatively calm.
The border defense troops on the Carpathian Mountains and the Austro-Hungarian mountain troops had been fighting back and forth for a long time; this wasn't the first time reinforcements had been requested.
So the Romanian General Staff, following standard procedures, prepared to dispatch nearby border defense troops to strengthen the defense.
But the contents of the second telegram that arrived in the evening made these high-ranking officers of the General Staff feel as if the sky had fallen.
What did it mean that a massive armored airship, suspected to be a "new type of transport assault vehicle," had appeared?
What did it mean to request consideration of contingency plans for after the pass fell?
You must understand, the Romanian home defense troops had built up their confidence through years of border conflicts with the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
So most frontline commanders would, at most, only request support... If even they believed the pass would fall, it meant the enemy's offensive far exceeded expectations.
It's not that the Kingdom of Romania Army General Staff hadn't run simulations prior to this.
When the Saxon-Austro-Hungarian allied forces shattered the Serbian Army's main force and bore down on Belgrade, they had guessed whether the Saxon and Austro-Hungarian Empires would consider attacking Romania to relieve the pressure on Bulgaria.
But they absolutely never expected the Saxons to move so fast.
Within a few days, they not only moved elite attack forces to the foot of the mountain, but now even that iconic armored airship was in position.
You have to know, even when fighting the main force of the Serbians, the Saxons hadn't deployed their armored airships...
Although this feeling of being "valued" by the enemy had a certain unique flavor, the Romanians clearly didn't really want to experience it.
Chief of the Army General Staff, General Ferdinand Mavrocordatos, walked up to the large-scale map hanging on the wall, looking at the markers just urgently updated by the staff personnel.
From the Predeal Pass to the capital, Bucharest, the straight-line distance was 112 kilometers, and the road distance was less than 150 kilometers.
Along this 150-kilometer route, the terrain suitable for defense could be counted on one hand—the high grounds on both sides of the Prahova River Valley could serve as one ambush zone, and the Kingdom's most important radiant crystal mining area, Ploiești, was another.
Beyond that lay the flat Wallachian Plain, completely indefensible.
"Gentlemen."
General Ferdinand turned around, looking at the assembled staff officers and department heads.
"From the pass to the capital, based on the normal marching speed of current national armies, the enemy vanguard could reach the city walls of our capital within a week at the earliest."
"If the opponent has a large number of vehicles and good logistical supply, this time will be even shorter."
Hearing this conclusion, the officers in the conference room immediately began discussing and arguing. The generals' faces were ashen, their voices rising and falling.
"We must reinforce the Predeal Pass immediately."
"That is our last line of defense!"
"But we don't have much mobile troop strength left within our borders..."
"Then send all remaining garrison troops over!"
"Along with the police and reserves—anyone who can hold a gun, send them up!"
The Chief of the General Staff slammed his hand heavily on the table, cutting off the arguments.
"Quiet."
He swept his gaze around the conference room before speaking:
"Can anyone offer some operable suggestions, rather than continuing this empty talk at a time like this?!"
"General..." a staff officer raised his hand cautiously. "Our main force in Bulgaria—"
"I know what you want to say." General Ferdinand interrupted him.
He looked back at the map, taking up his pointer and drawing a line from Bucharest to the Kingdom of Bulgaria theater in the south.
The main force of the Kingdom of Romania's Army was currently engaged in fierce combat with the enemy within the borders of the Kingdom of Bulgaria.
In exchange for the Kingdom of Romania dispatching troops to attack the Kingdom of Bulgaria, the Britannians and the Balkan Coalition had offered extremely generous terms.
These included, but were not limited to, ceding the Austro-Hungarian Empire's Transylvania region to Romania after victory, while also allowing the Kingdom of Romania to participate in the territorial partition of the Kingdom of Bulgaria...
The territory of the Kingdom of Bulgaria was only so attractive.
But for the Romanians, who had always coveted Transylvania as a "buffer zone," the first condition was almost impossible to refuse.
Just like right now... because there was no buffer zone, once the enemy crossed the Carpathian Mountains, they could slaughter their way to the capital in a matter of minutes.
So the Romanians gritted their teeth, conducted a national mobilization, and sent their main army to strike into the Kingdom of Bulgaria from the north.
But now, the allied forces of the Saxons and the Austro-Hungarian Empire had directly shoved their guns at their front door.
Chief of the General Staff General Ferdinand looked at the enemy and friendly positions on the map, sneered coldly, and made his final decision.
"First, all remaining home defense troops within our borders are to immediately reinforce towards the Predeal Pass!"
"Second..."
He took a deep breath and paused.
"Notify the Third Army on the Bulgarian front line. Order them to immediately withdraw one corps from the front and return home by rail as quickly as possible."
"One corps?!" A high-ranking officer stood up in shock.
"I think that's too few! If our railway capacity were larger, I would gladly pull the entire army back!"
General Ferdinand said bluntly.
This high-ranking officer, usually responsible for liaison with the Coalition, could only brace himself and say: "General, withdrawing tens of thousands of troops suddenly—what about the offensive in Bulgaria? How will we explain this to our Entente allies?"
General Ferdinand didn't answer this question.
He walked to the window, looking at the brightly lit streets of Bucharest, and remained silent for a long time.
Finally, he said only one sentence.
"If the capital falls, what is the point of Transylvania?"
The conference room plunged into silence once more, but no one raised an objection.
That night, an encrypted telegram from the Kingdom of Romania Army General Staff was dispatched from the central telegraph station in Bucharest, transmitting southward along the telegraph lines laid along the Danube River to the forward command post within Bulgaria.
The police and reserves in the capital, Bucharest, were also fully mobilized and began distributing weapons.
The Army General Staff also briefed King Ferdinand I of Romania on the situation that night, advising him to relocate to Constanța on the Black Sea coast as soon as possible, along with other royal family members and the Kingdom's parliament.
For the Kingdom of Romania soldiers manning the multiple defensive positions around the Predeal Pass, tonight was destined to be sleepless.
Half the sun had already sunk behind the mountains to the west, and the sky was darkening at a visible rate.
In a trench, several Romanian soldiers leaned against sandbags, clutching somewhat hardened black bread and taking intermittent bites.
Suddenly, a low hum came from in front of the position.
The sound was distant at first, but quickly grew clearer, even causing fine ripples to appear in the accumulated water at the bottom of the trench.
The soldiers stopped what they were doing and poked their heads out to look down the mountain.
They saw that the behemoth that had landed during the day was actually flying again.
The massive hull of the L15 armored airship cast a giant shadow in the afterglow of the sunset, slowly advancing toward the pass's defensive positions.
"What kind of monster is that..."
A young Romanian soldier swallowed hard, dropping the bread in his hand into the muddy water without retrieving it.
To the Romanian soldiers in the position, the aerial war machine brought both fear and astonishment. In their hushed discussions, this enormous airship was like a creature straight out of mythology.
The L15 armored airship eventually stopped about two kilometers away from the position, and then its altitude began to climb steadily.
Two thousand meters... two thousand five hundred meters...
It then hovered at a medium distance.
Just as the Romanian soldiers in the position were discussing the aerial war machine, sharp shrieks suddenly tore through the evening air, finally exploding on the surrounding mountains, followed by the rumble of artillery from the distance.
The enemy artillery below the mountain had opened fire.
However, the first volley landed very scattered. Several shells hit barren slopes hundreds of meters away from the position, blasting dirt into the sky. A few more landed directly on surrounding ridges. The accuracy could be said to be off by a hundred thousand miles.
"Terrible aim! These Saxons have no idea how to shoot artillery in the mountains!"
A bolder sergeant mocked loudly, trying to ease the tension of the surrounding soldiers.
But in the command bunker at the highest point of the pass, Lieutenant Colonel Popescu wasn't laughing.
Holding his binoculars, he stared fixedly at the hovering armored airship in the sky, feeling certain the enemy wasn't just hovering there for no reason.
The second, third, and subsequent volleys arrived quickly.
And the Romanian soldiers in the position could no longer laugh.
Because as the number of volleys increased, the impact points of the shells noticeably converged toward the center of the position. Until a 105mm high-explosive shell directly hit a protruding rocky outcrop near the position. The violent explosion instantly shattered the multi-ton boulder.
Rocks of all sizes, mixed with shrapnel, flew in all directions at extremely high speeds.
Several Romanian soldiers who couldn't dodge in time were struck by the flying rocks on the spot, screaming as they fell into pools of blood.
"Take cover! Everyone retreat to the bomb shelters and tunnels!" Lieutenant Colonel Popescu roared at the messengers.
Mountain pass positions naturally have an abundance of rocks. The geological structure here guaranteed that artillery explosions would produce terrifying secondary damage. The lethal effect of those flying rocks was no worse than shrapnel.
The Romanian soldiers who had been watching the show outside, or attempting to locate the enemy artillery positions below the mountain, scrambled and crawled back into the trenches and bunkers.
More and more bombardments followed, and the accuracy was visibly increasing.
Shells exploded almost right at the edge of the trenches. The deafening explosions echoed back and forth in the narrow valleys, hurting people's eardrums.
In the command post, Lieutenant Colonel Popescu quickly received casualty reports from various positions.
Based on this fragmented information, the Romanian officer finally confirmed his most dreaded suspicion.
The Saxons were using that massive armored airship for artillery spotting. That airship was currently acting as an artillery observation balloon with an excellent field of view.
The observers on the airship could clearly see the impact point of every shell, and then transmit the correction data via radio to the artillery positions below the mountain.
Lieutenant Colonel Popescu deeply felt the meaning of powerlessness, because there wasn't a single weapon in the pass's defensive positions capable of reaching the aerial war beast.
Even heavy machine guns and mountain guns at maximum elevation were completely useless against an airship hovering above three thousand meters.
He could only watch helplessly as the enemy's bombardment grew increasingly precise.
"Send orders to the artillery positions: open fire! Suppress the Saxon artillery below the mountain!" Lieutenant Colonel Popescu slammed his fist hard against the dirt wall.
The regimental adjutant hesitated upon hearing this order.
"Commander, we can't pinpoint the enemy's exact location. Firing blindly will expose our artillery emplacements."
"Then lay down suppressive fire!! It's better than just sitting here getting bombed!"
The several mountain guns of the Romanian defenders finally roared, pouring shells toward the general direction down the mountain.
However, to Popescu's surprise, after firing a few more precise volleys, the enemy artillery below actually ceased fire entirely.
Immediately following, as the sun completely vanished below the horizon, the sky quickly darkened, and the entire mountainous region was plunged into pitch blackness.
Under these circumstances, let alone counter-battery fire, even finding the enemy artillery positions below became a problem.
After blindly firing dozens of shells, the Romanian artillery had no choice but to cease fire in frustration.
Quiet returned to the positions, with only the groans of the wounded and the hurried footsteps of medics echoing in the night wind.
Just as Lieutenant Colonel Popescu was reviewing the hastily compiled casualty reports, the artillery battalion commander of this garrison force—an old officer with a face covered in gunpowder soot—lifted the flap of the command post and walked in.
"Lieutenant Colonel, something's not right." The old officer took off his helmet and wiped the sweat from his face. "The Saxons weren't conducting fire preparation."
Popescu turned his head.
"What do you mean?"
The old officer walked to the map, tapping it with a calloused finger.
"The frequency of their bombardment just now wasn't actually that high. They paused for quite a while after every volley. That's not how you lay down suppressive fire at all."
Popescu: "You mean..."
"They were ranging their shots from beginning to end, sir," the old officer said gravely.
Popescu's heart sank, and a terrifying possibility suddenly hit him.
"Are you saying they used the last light before nightfall and that airship to accurately map the coordinates of our main positions?"
The old officer nodded heavily.
"Not just that... The enemy artillery has highly likely already set all their firing data. This way, even with poor visibility at night, their artillery can fire directly based on the ranged parameters! And our artillery is completely blind at night, totally unable to counter them!"
Hearing this, Lieutenant Colonel Popescu felt his vision go dark.
"We're doomed..."
Because if that was true, it meant the enemy would highly likely launch an attack under the cover of darkness.
With precise artillery cover, the success rate of a night raid would increase drastically.
Although he didn't know when the Saxons would choose to attack the pass positions, there was only one thing he could do right now.
"Order all companies to heighten vigilance! Increase night watch personnel. All security positions must maintain double sentries! The moment you spot movement below the mountain, fire signal flares immediately!"
The messenger took the order and left. Lieutenant Colonel Popescu walked back to the observation slit. Looking out at the pitch-black mountains, he realized that for the Romanian soldiers in the position, tonight was destined to be a sleepless night.
Coincidentally, L15 armored airship captain Lieutenant Colonel Andreas also became one of the insomniacs tonight.
After the armored airship completed its artillery spotting and landed back on the field maintenance platform, he handed all duties over to Executive Officer Grigor. Then, like the other off-duty crew members, he returned to the captain's quarters to sleep.
According to the current preliminary plan, the L15 would deploy for an assault mission in the latter half of the night. He had to catch up on sleep now to prevent being sluggish later.
Andreas lay on the relatively soft bed, eyes squeezed shut, trying to steady his breathing.
But the moment he thought about that insane plan, he found he couldn't sleep at all.
He never expected that after arriving in the mission area with the airship, the first core mission he would receive was preparing to drop the entire Kampfgruppe commander and three Armored Knights from mid-air.
Even in plains regions, such an unprecedented mission would be considered an extremely dangerous experimental project.
Not to mention they were in the Carpathian Mountains, an area with complex air currents and rugged terrain.
True, at the beginning of the war, Morin had led assault troops, utilizing an armored airship's breach, to drop from the sky into the Liège Fortress.
That operation successfully created chaos, helping the main force quickly bypass that hard bone known as the "strongest fortress in Europa"...
This battle became a legendary tale within the Imperial Air Force, and the Air Force General Staff even organized a dedicated group to study this kind of aerial assault and airborne tactics.
But the problem was, the status of Friedrich von Morin was vastly different now.
He was now an Army Colonel, the overall commander of a Kampfgruppe of over ten thousand men, the supreme mastermind behind this Carpathian Mountain surprise attack.
A person like this actually intended to personally participate in the assault? And air-drop with three eighteen-ton Armored Knights?
"Are you kidding me?!"
Lieutenant Colonel Andreas sat up abruptly, various thoughts colliding in his head.
He admitted that the Air Force had long begun testing loading Armored Knights onto armored airships and conducting rapid deployment.
But all those tests were conducted at safe rear bases, and were far from entering the practical combat phase.
Who would have thought he'd run smack into it himself?
Upon learning of this dangerous mission, Lieutenant Colonel Andreas originally thought Morin's subordinate officers would raise some objections, fighting tooth and nail to stop their commander from taking the risk.
But to his utter surprise, those Army officers seemed completely accustomed to Morin personally participating in assaults.
A few young officers even seemed eager to try, wanting to jump with him.
"Seriously, what kind of people make up the Imperial Army..."
Andreas let out a groan, rolled over, and buried his head in his pillow, forcing himself to fall asleep quickly.
Meanwhile, in the cargo bay area at the bottom of the airship.
While some couldn't sleep tonight, others were dead tired.
Morin was one of those dead tired people.
He was currently yawning while watching the loading of the Armored Knights with Ludwig.
Technicians bustled between the massive mechanical legs, using specially made locking mechanisms to secure the Armored Knights firmly to the load-bearing base plates of the cabin.
Soon, the massive elevator of the L15 armored airship's cargo bay began operating, emitting a deep mechanical grinding sound.
Thick steel cables pulled taut, slowly hoisting the three prepared "Siegfried Mark I" units into the Armored Knights' dedicated cabin.
Looking at Morin, who had been yawning non-stop beside him, Ludwig couldn't help but speak up.
"Are you sure we can jump down with you while piloting the Armored Knights? These things weigh eighteen tons! If we fall, we won't even find intact corpses."
Morin rubbed his eyes and waved his hand.
"Relax, you won't die~ When I was at the Teutonic Knights forward base previously, I discussed this with Director Sims and Master Staudinger. As long as there is a pilot inside, the Armored Knight can also be affected by [Feather Fall]."
Hearing Morin's words, Ludwig's eyes widened.
"So you plan to cast magic on us?"
"Right. That's also why the three of you need to stay inside the Armored Knights. Otherwise, on just an empty Armored Knight, [Feather Fall] really wouldn't take effect."
Morin spoke nonchalantly, then suddenly seemed to remember something and added:
"By the way, when we're about halfway down the jump, I'll activate [Feather Fall] for the three Armored Knights. Don't worry!"
Ludwig and the other two Teutonic Knights froze on the spot.
"Wait, Friedrich, what nonsense are you sprouting! Not activating it from the start, but waiting until we're halfway down?"
"Yeah."
Morin nodded as if it were a matter of course.
"This is learning from the lesson at the Liège Fortress... Back then, [Feather Fall] was activated too early, people drifted in the sky for too long, and were blown by the wind. Several assault troops drifted far away, and it took half a day to find them."
Morin pointed to the night sky outside.
"The terrain here is special. Below are all valleys and cliffs. If you land outside the pass positions, you and your machines will plunge straight into the valley, and then we really won't be able to dig you out... So we must ensure the precision of the landing point."
"The solution is to let the Armored Knights free-fall, and when we are close to the ground, I will use [Feather Fall] to decelerate you... This ensures both speed and controls the landing point."
Ludwig swallowed hard, his throat feeling a bit dry: "What if you cast the spell half a second too slow?"
Morin smiled slightly: "Then you'll become metal pancakes."
Looking at Ludwig's expression, Morin burst into laughter and patted his shoulder.
"Don't be nervous, my friend... I'll literally cling to your outer armor and jump down with you. And I have a lot of confidence in my casting speed!"
"Furthermore, I believe that once this tactic matures in the future, Armored Knights can be fully equipped with [Feather Fall] modules, allowing pilots to choose the activation time themselves. Then I won't need to jump with you."
Speechless, Ludwig could only stare blankly at the three secured steel behemoths.
After the Armored Knights were loaded, Morin, Ludwig, and the others also boarded the airship to rest in the temporary cabins.
Almost as soon as Morin's head hit the pillow, he began breathing evenly.
He fell asleep instantly, leaving Ludwig and the other two Armored Knight pilots looking at each other in dismay.
The cabin was filled only with the slight vibration of the airship engines idling.
Ludwig looked at the other two.
"Can you sleep?"
The two elite Teutonic Knights, who were considered battle-hardened veterans, looked nervous and shook their heads vigorously.
"My Lord, it would be weird if we could sleep..."
Ludwig sighed, lay on his bed, and pulled the covers up.
"Even if you can't sleep, close your eyes. Make the most of the time to rest for a bit. In a few hours, we're going to experience free-fall."
Time slipped away quietly in the darkness, soon arriving at 4:00 AM the next day.
The Romanian defenders on the Predeal Pass position endured an extremely long night.
In the first half of the night, worried the enemy would sneak up in the dark, most people were highly tense and couldn't sleep at all, their nerves stretched to the limit.
Torches and searchlights on the position swept the mountain slopes ahead from time to time. Any rustle of the wind or grass would draw a burst of blind firing.
But as time passed, there was no movement below the mountain.
Human energy is limited. The exhaustion following high tension is often more fatal.
At 4:00 AM, the most vulnerable point of the human biological clock, many could no longer hold on.
In the trenches, besides a few duty sentries forcing their eyelids open, the vast majority of Romanian soldiers hugged their rifles and fell into deep sleep. Some were even snoring loudly.
Meanwhile, in the valleys below the pass, the situation was the exact opposite.
Lines of soldiers were marching rapidly and silently.
These instruction unit soldiers and Austro-Hungarian mountain infantry, who had gone to sleep early yesterday, woke up punctually at 3:30 AM under the low shouts of their NCOs.
No clamor, no lights.
Everyone expertly checked their gear in the dark, chambered rounds in their rifles, and hung grenades in the most accessible spots on their chests.
Then, the massive force rapidly transitioned from a camped state to a marching state, sneaking toward the target area along predetermined routes.
After half an hour of forced marching, these soldiers had approached their respective mission areas, finally lying silently in wait on the cold rocks and dirt at the assault jump-off positions less than a kilometer from the Romanians' pass positions.
Just then, a low hum sounded from the sky to the rear—the L15 armored airship took off.
Its massive bulk almost blended with the darkness of the night sky; only the roar of its engines echoed through the valleys.
This noise quickly woke the Romanians on the pass positions.
A few sentries jolted awake, rubbing their eyes and trying to locate the source of the sound in the night sky.
Lieutenant Colonel Popescu also tumbled out of his camp bed in the command post, grabbing his webbing and running outside.
Before they could make any substantial reaction, the Kampfgruppe's bombardment began.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
The artillery positions below the mountain instantly spat out dazzling tongues of flame, turning half the night sky crimson.
The various artillery units, which had already established simplified firing tables before the sun went down yesterday, now had a very simple task:
Input the data, and deliver a continuous stream of shells onto the enemy positions.
The precise night bombardment displayed terrifying lethality.
The first wave of shells landed flawlessly on the Romanians' forward positions. Soldiers still deep in sleep were swallowed by the explosive firelight before they could even scream.
The fierce artillery fire completely suppressed the Romanian soldiers in the known positions, forcing them to huddle tightly in trenches and bunkers, covering their heads with their hands to evade the bombardment.
The bombardment was not only suppression, but the signal to initiate the assault.
Halfway up the mountain, the instruction unit and Austro-Hungarian mountain infantry lying in the dirt rose simultaneously.
"Forward!" The officers issued the order in low voices.
Soldiers lit torches and turned on flashlights.
Points of limited brightness interwove on the dark mountain slopes, illuminating the steep paths leading to the pass.
Masses of infantry, weapons at the ready, launched a ferocious assault toward the pass under the cover of artillery fire.
The Romanian observation posts on the pass positions noticed this scene.
"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!"
The sentries frantically beat alarms and blew sharp whistles to warn the others, the shrill sounds seeming weak and desperate amidst the explosions.
But under the precise artillery preparation, the other Romanian soldiers simply had no capacity to stop the allied advance. Anyone who dared leave the trenches and bunkers would immediately be struck by flying shrapnel and scree.
A full twenty minutes of artillery preparation.
When the bombardment finally ceased, the entire Predeal Pass position was completely shrouded in smoke and dust.
The traumatized Romanian soldiers looked up, staring at each other. Many had blood seeping from their ears, unable to hear anything.
"Into positions! Prepare for combat!" Officers continuously ran through the trenches, waving pistols and shouting themselves hoarse.
Hearing the orders, the Romanian soldiers quickly grabbed their weapons, stepping over the corpses of their comrades and the scree to rush toward the outer defense lines.
They knew the enemy infantry must have already crept close.
However, as the ringing in their ears gradually faded, a strange sound reached them.
It wasn't the battle cries of an infantry charge, nor was it gunfire.
It was the massive noise of piston propellers churning the air, and this sound was extremely close to them, almost right overhead.
Lieutenant Colonel Popescu, who had just rushed out of the command post trying to find a better observation point, abruptly looked up. The surrounding Romanian soldiers also stopped in their tracks, looking up into the night sky.
By the light of the fires burning on the position, they faintly saw a gargantuan dark shadow, indescribable in words, hovering directly above their position.
Heavy armor plates gleamed with a cold metallic luster in the firelight, and the hatch at the bottom was slowly sliding open.
...
Before the Romanian soldiers could react, a blinding white light erupted overhead.
All the searchlights on the belly of the L15 armored airship clicked on simultaneously. Several thick beams of light stabbed straight down, illuminating the entire ridge and the pass between them as bright as day.
The Romanian soldiers who had just climbed out of their tunnels and trenches to man their defensive positions instinctively threw their hands up to shield their eyes from the intense glare. Some even thought an artillery shell had detonated an ammunition dump.
Meanwhile, at an altitude of over 1,700 meters.
In the cargo bay of the L15 armored airship, Morin was clinging to the frontal main armor of the "Siegfried Mark I, Modified" piloted by Ludwig, his hands death-gripping the grab handles provided on the edge of the armor plate.
The high-altitude wind was like a knife carrying bursts of freezing air, slapping against his face relentlessly.
Even though Morin was wearing flight goggles, they only ensured he could keep his eyes open. Furthermore, the effectiveness of these early goggles was truly limited, with wind constantly seeping in through the gaps.
"Friedrich... Friedrich! This thing is swaying!"
Ludwig's voice came from the external speakers on the Armored Knight's chest cavity, carrying a distinct note of panic.
At this moment, the cargo bay floor beneath the Armored Knight was fully open. The 18-ton steel giant dangled in mid-air, suspended entirely by the mechanical securing mechanism above it.
A turbulent air current hit the airship's gas envelope, causing the entire hull to tilt slightly. The mechanical securing mechanism emitted the groaning sound of twisting metal, and the Armored Knight swayed with it.
Morin's body swayed as well, but his arm strength, enhanced by the modification potion, made him feel as if he were welded to the outer armor; he couldn't be thrown off.
He grinned widely at the front main armor of the Armored Knight—in "Sympathetic State," Ludwig could acquire a panoramic view of the outside world directly through the armor, so Morin knew very well the other could see his expression.
"Leave everything to me, just relax!"
Morin opened his mouth and shouted.
But the howling of the high-altitude wind was too loud; the simple sound pickup devices on the Armored Knight's shell couldn't catch his voice at all.
So from Ludwig's perspective, the scene became this—Morin clinging to the front of the Armored Knight, flashing an eerie smile while muttering something unintelligible.
"What are you saying? I can't f*cking hear you!"
Ludwig shouted until his voice almost cracked, but Morin had no time for him now.
He turned his head, glancing at the crewmen standing inside the guardrails on both sides responsible for operating the securing mechanism, and made an "OK" gesture—thumb and index finger forming a circle, the other three fingers extended.
The thumbs-up gesture hadn't yet become popular in Europa in this era.
However, this circle gesture had long been universally understood across European nations due to telegraphy and trade with the North American colonies.
The crewmen on both sides assisting with the airdrop returned the same gesture.
The signal lights inside the cargo bay flickered on. The dark red glow quieted everyone down.
Morin took advantage of these few seconds of preparation time to glance downward.
Under the beams of the searchlights, the outline of the pass position was crystal clear—trenches, bunkers, artillery emplacements... even more intuitive than what he saw on the system map.
Simultaneously, in the observation gondola beneath the airship, Chief Gunnery Officer Lieutenant Gray was staring down at the illuminated pass position through thickened glass.
Compared to the independent fire control rooms equipped on specialized combat airships, the fire control room on the L15, a converted assault airship, was vastly simplified and directly merged with the observation gondola.
The space was suffocatingly cramped; Lieutenant Gray was practically curled up in his seat operating the controls.
"Gunnery Chief in position! Target area confirmed!"
He grabbed the voice tube and shouted to the bridge.
In the research conducted by the "Advanced Combat Technology Research Department" of the Air Force General Staff, the theory of laying down suppressive fire to "clear the LZ" (Landing Zone) prior to an armored airship airdrop, providing a better landing area for the airborne units, had already been proposed.
Therefore, the L15 armored airship, acting as a tactical verification unit, naturally undertook the task of theoretical validation.
Although not equipped with heavy firepower, Captain Andreas's voice soon echoed back into the observation gondola: "All guns fire at will! Suppress ground targets!"
Lieutenant Gray turned to another voice tube on the fire control console, issuing orders to all gun emplacements on the underside of the armored airship:
"All underside gun emplacements, attention—fire at will! I repeat—fire at will!"
"Heavy machine guns prioritize covering the trench lines; autocannons concentrate fire on machine gun positions illuminated by searchlights!"
Shortly after the order was given, several twin-linked MG08 heavy machine gun turrets positioned beneath the airship opened fire almost simultaneously.
Tracer rounds poured down from an altitude of over a thousand meters, drawing dense red lines of light in the night sky, intertwining with the white beams of the searchlights.
At this altitude, the accuracy of heavy machine guns was significantly reduced.
But the gunners employed a saturation fire tactic—two MG08s fired in long bursts, sweeping the barrage from one end of the trench to the other, and then back again.
In the face of probability, some bullets would always find their targets.
Some 7.92mm bullets fired almost vertically into the open trenches. Romanian soldiers were hit without any cover, and screams rose and fell in succession.
Meanwhile, the gunners of the twin-linked 20mm Becker autocannons, following Lieutenant Gray's guidance, concentrated their fire on several machine gun positions illuminated by the searchlights.
The twenty-round magazines of the Becker autocannons indeed limited sustained firepower, requiring manual replacement after emptying a magazine. But Lieutenant Gray, taking this into account, had already arranged for grouped, alternating fire in advance.
"Gun emplacements one and three, fire first! Emplacements two and four, stand by!"
From the observation gondola, Lieutenant Gray kept his eyes on the impact effects below while constantly correcting his orders.
"Emplacement one, correct left! Emplacement three, good—reload! Emplacements two and four, take over firing!"
After three rounds of burst fire, several Romanian machine gun positions were left in a mess. Sandbags shattered and scattered; soldiers hit directly by the 20mm autocannon shells were torn apart on the spot, leaving not even a complete corpse.
Several heavy machine gun positions originally attempting to fire down the mountain were quickly silenced.
At this moment, the L15 armored airship in the sky finally reached the airdrop position. The red light in the cargo bay blinked rapidly.
The crewmen completed their final preparations; the quick-release buckles on the securing mechanisms were in a standby-to-release state.
Morin took a deep breath and looked down one more time.
On the pass position illuminated by searchlights, the Romanians were fleeing in all directions in chaos.
Immediately after, the heavy machine guns and autocannons ceased firing simultaneously, leaving a clear airspace. The signal light in the cargo bay also changed from red to green.
"Drop!"
The operators in the cargo bay pulled down three sets of quick-release levers simultaneously.
The crisp sound of metal clashing rang out in succession as the three "Siegfried Mark I, Modified" units detached from their securing mechanisms simultaneously.
The Armored Knight Morin was clinging to dropped suddenly—free-fall had begun.
"Ahhh—if I fall to my death, even as a ghost I won't agree to you and Patricia being together!"
Ludwig couldn't help but scream inside his cockpit.
The pilots of the other two Armored Knights weren't faring much better. Despite being battle-hardened Teutonic Knights, experiencing free-fall inside an eighteen-ton steel machine was completely different from riding a roller coaster.
The sound of the wind instantly turned into a shriek.
Morin's hair was flattened against his scalp by the airflow. Even with flight goggles, his eyes were blown so hard he could barely keep them open.
The altitude they were dropped from was 1,700 meters. The distance to the pass position, sitting at an elevation of over 1,000 meters, was just over 600 meters. Thus, the entire descent process wasn't long; in fact, it could be said to be extremely fast.
Therefore, Morin had already completed his spellcasting preparations before the airdrop—four white feathers grasped in his hand trembled wildly in the violent airflow.
One second, two seconds, three seconds—
That was enough.
Morin's lips began moving rapidly. The syllables of the incantation miraculously weren't torn apart by the wind; they were even clearly audible in his own ears.
[Feather Fall] activate!
Mana poured from Morin's body, instantly covering the Armored Knight he was clinging to, as well as the other two steel giants falling simultaneously on either side.
The instant the spell took effect, Ludwig clearly felt the change inside the cockpit.
That sensation of falling, which gave his bladder a peculiar feeling, rapidly subsided in an incredible linear fashion.
The eighteen-ton Armored Knights decelerated from a rapid plunge to a feather-like descent within less than three seconds.
By the last few dozen meters, Ludwig finally felt that bizarre sense of weightlessness.
Looking down through the panoramic vision of the "Sympathetic State," he could clearly see the Romanian soldiers on the pass position, heads thrown back, mouths wide open.
Their faces were etched with disbelief.
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
"Boom!"
Three muffled but not violent sounds of impact rang out. The mechanical feet of the three Armored Knights smashed three shallow craters into the pass position.
Despite the deceleration of [Feather Fall], the impact of an eighteen-ton total combat weight landing on the position still kicked up a massive amount of scree and dust.
At the very last moment before landing, Morin leaped from the Armored Knight, shedding the residual impact force with a roll, and ended up in a stable half-crouch beside the foot of Ludwig's "Siegfried Mark I, Modified."
When he straightened up, the submachine gun in his hands was already leveled.
In a trench less than twenty meters ahead of him, over a dozen Romanian soldiers were staring dumbfounded at the three steel giants standing tall on the pass. Their cognitive frameworks completely collapsed in that instant.
When Lieutenant Colonel Popescu rushed out of the command bunker, he ran right into this scene. He had never made any preparations to fight Armored Knights on a mountain pass position.
Not because of negligence, but because in the eyes of most people, this was common sense.
During border frictions with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the other side had also tried deploying Armored Knights, attempting to rely on the natural enemy of infantry to capture the pass.
But these ten-plus-ton steel giants simply couldn't maneuver normally on narrow mountain paths. After two consecutive Austro-Hungarian Armored Knights tumbled off cliffs and were completely destroyed...
This became the consensus of all mountain defense commanders on both sides.
But now, three Saxon Imperial Armored Knights had bypassed all mountain roads and defense lines, dropping straight down from the sky.
"Holy Mother Mary..."
This was the only phrase Lieutenant Colonel Popescu could squeeze from his throat at this moment. He then grabbed his adjutant and rushed toward a concealed tunnel at the rear of the position.
"No matter what, we cannot let the enemy pass through here!"
"Da-da-da-da-da!"
The MG08 heavy machine gun mounted under the mechanical arm of an Armored Knight opened fire first.
At such close range with a flat trajectory, the dense barrage instantly swept across the nearest section of the trench.
The closest Romanian soldiers had no time to dodge, falling in swathes to the ground.
Those further away scrambled frantically into the trenches, but the commanding height of the Armored Knights turned the trenches into a semi-open shooting gallery.
Morin also raised his left hand. A red signal flare tore through the night sky, blooming into a blood-red light above the pass.
Halfway up the mountain, the allied troops charging towards the pass all saw this signal flare.
The moment the red signal flare rose, the assault troops halfway up the mountain boiled over.
The soldiers of the instruction unit instantly understood the meaning of that signal flare—the Commander was already on the pass.
"Charge with me!"
Rommel and the others, who were leading men upward, felt a surge of adrenaline. Waving their hands, they accelerated and sprinted wildly upward.
And the soldiers behind them, equally pumped up, howled and followed suit.
The speed at which these soldiers ran was absurdly fast. On the steep scree slope, they were surprisingly not much slower than sprinting on flat ground.
The Guard soldiers incorporated into the combat order followed closely behind the instruction unit.
They managed to maintain formation at first, but it didn't take long for them to realize that the instruction unit troops ahead weren't "charging"; they were practically racing for their lives.
A few Guard NCOs who considered their stamina not bad began panting heavily, their feet slipping on the scree slope.
"What's going on! We're all in the Guard Corps, what the hell are those guys in front eating?"
First Lieutenant Werner of the Guard, who was attacking alongside the troops, cursed while running upward desperately. His military boots crushed a loose piece of rock, and he almost tumbled.
Another Guard captain beside him grabbed his arm and pulled him up. The two exchanged a glance, both seeing an indescribable expression on the other's face.
It was a bit embarrassing...
Not embarrassing in front of the enemy—but embarrassing in front of their allies.
Werner gritted his teeth, turned his head, and roared at the Guard soldiers behind him.
"We are all Guardsmen! Run! Don't lose all our face!"
That roar actually worked.
The Guard soldiers also got competitive, every single one of them risking their lives to charge upward.
The assault speed of both units increased. Looking from afar, the pitch-black mountain slope was dotted with dancing points of light—torches and flashlights—and these points of light were surging toward the pass at an astonishing speed.
At this moment, on several other axes of attack, the Austro-Hungarian mountain troops also saw the red signal flare rising from the pass.
Colonel Holzer stood behind a protruding rock halfway up the mountain, looking through binoculars toward the pass.
The muzzle flashes of those three Armored Knights firing were exceptionally conspicuous in the dark night.
The officers of the 2nd Kaiserjäger Regiment behind him, listening to the deafening battle cries from other attack directions and watching those points of light clearly accelerating, all had somewhat complicated expressions on their faces.
The 2nd Battalion Commander lowered his binoculars, sighing softly.
"The Saxons... how on earth do they train soldiers like this?"
Colonel Holzer didn't answer his question.
But the thoughts churning in this Austro-Hungarian colonel's mind were actually the same as those of every officer present... If the Austro-Hungarian troops had this kind of drive, would the war have turned out this badly?
"Stop standing around."
Colonel Holzer put away his binoculars and drew his pistol from his waist.
"Send orders: the entire regiment accelerates its advance—coordinate with the Saxons to take the pass!"
On the pass position, the battle had reached a white-hot stage... or rather, it had directly entered a one-sided state.
The other two Armored Knights, following the tasks previously assigned by Morin, were suppressing the Romanian defenders on the position.
The eighteen-ton steel giants marched with heavy steps, moving laterally along the trench lines.
Every few steps, the twin-linked MG08s on their mechanical arms would spray a burst into the trenches, sending sandbags and dirt flying everywhere.
Any Romanian soldier who attempted to lean out and organize a counterattack would be covered in a hail of bullets the next second.
Even more fatally, these two Armored Knights consciously covered several communication trenches leading to the forward positions with their firepower.
This meant the Romanian defenders couldn't reinforce the front lines—the resistance faced by the charging allied infantry would be drastically weakened.
Meanwhile, Morin was currently crouching near the foot of the third Armored Knight piloted by Ludwig. The two coordinated their attack toward the artillery positions and command post at the rear of the pass.
With every step the nearly six-meter-tall steel giant took, the surrounding ground trembled.
The Romanian soldiers hiding in the trenches only dared to turtle their heads. Listening to the increasingly close metallic footsteps, the rifles in their hands shook uncontrollably.
Ludwig advanced with the Armored Knight for about fifty meters. Ahead appeared a zigzagging communication trench and several semi-buried bunkers.
Morin rolled out from the cover of the Armored Knight.
His speed was incredibly fast. With just a light push of his toes against the gravel ground, he sprang forward six or seven meters.
His submachine gun opened fire while he was moving.
"Da-da-da—"
A short burst swept across the lip of the communication trench. An officer who popped his head up in the trench was taken down before he could even fire his gun.
Morin rushed to the edge of the communication trench and leaped down without hesitation.
There were four or five Romanian soldiers still in the trench.
Inside the narrow communication bunker, the remaining men reacted. Some drew their pistols, while others attempted to lunge for their rifles.
But the reaction speed advantage granted by the modification potion made Morin's performance in this close-quarters firefight "crushing-tier." He could even execute "pre-firing" in face-to-face situations.
While tumbling in from the trench opening, he had already completed his aim in mid-air, pulling the trigger the moment he landed.
Three seconds later, the trench fell silent.
Morin flicked away the empty magazine. The [Mage Hand] had already grabbed a fresh magazine from his chest rig in advance, inserting it into the magwell almost without interruption. The entire sequence of movements was smooth and seamless.
He looked back to confirm Ludwig's Armored Knight had caught up, took a running start to vault out of the trench, and, using the massive body of the Armored Knight for cover, rapidly approached the next trench.
Ludwig watched all this through the panoramic vision in his cockpit.
The wide-angle view provided by the "Sympathetic State" allowed him to track every single one of Morin's movements.
But the problem was that Morin's movement speed was too fast.
Or rather, it could no longer be simply described as "fast."
That man's method of movement completely defied Ludwig's understanding of the limits of human kinetics.
Vaulting out of the trench, shooting, reloading, rolling to evade, sliding, and shooting again—there was almost no pause between the entire sequence of actions; it was fluid to an uncomfortable degree.
The panoramic vision of the Armored Knight's "Sympathetic State" inherently possessed a slight lag. It was perfectly fine for tracking normal infantry movement, but Morin's physical capabilities, enhanced by the modification potion, had far exceeded human limits.
Therefore, his figure appeared stuttering in Ludwig's panoramic view, like a strip of movie film missing frames.
One second Morin was on the left side of the trench, and the next second he darted behind a sandbag bunker, the movement process in between almost completely missing.
In that instant, a thought that sent chills down his spine suddenly popped into Ludwig's head.
If Morin's speed were any faster... would even an Armored Knight fail to react in time?
He was a battle-hardened Teutonic Knight; he knew all too well what that meant.
Currently, the biggest advantages of an Armored Knight were the flexibility of a humanoid weapon and the survivability brought by heavy armor. But if there existed a target fast enough that an Armored Knight couldn't track it, and it was also a "high-threat mage unit"... then those advantages ceased to exist.
"Friedrich..." Ludwig called out over the loudspeaker.
Morin had just darted out from behind a piece of cover and was loading a new flare into his flare gun. Hearing Ludwig's voice, he looked up.
"What's wrong?"
"When you were running that fast just now... do you know I almost lost track of you?"
"Lost track of me?" Morin said while holstering the flare gun. "It shouldn't be that bad, right?"
"Your movement speed is so fast it's causing lag in my sympathetic vision."
Ludwig's voice came through the loudspeaker, clearly audible between the gaps in artillery explosions.
"Well then, I'm pretty damn awesome!"
Morin didn't have time to talk to Ludwig right now, because he had already flanked the side of the second trench.
This section of the trench was clearly the main corridor connecting to the command bunker; there were far more people inside than before.
Morin didn't jump in directly.
He pulled a grenade from his waist, unscrewed the cap, pulled the cord, counted for two seconds, and tossed it in.
"Boom!"
The explosion echoed in the trench, scattering clods of dirt and scree everywhere.
Immediately following, Morin rushed in. Pressing the stock into his shoulder pocket to completely control the submachine gun's recoil, he slid forward while precisely delivering the remaining bullets in the magazine into the chests or heads of target after target.
The mud underfoot made his slide significantly longer than anticipated. By the time he stopped, there was no one left standing around him.
He casually grabbed two somewhat outdated spherical grenades from a fallen Romanian sergeant, swapped magazines, vaulted out of the trench, and continued forward.
Just then, a frantically firing strongpoint appeared in Morin's field of vision.
It was a large fire bunker built with sandbags and timber. Inside were at least multiple heavy machine guns and a large number of Romanian soldiers actively firing.
Their firing direction wasn't towards Morin, but towards the allied infantry charging halfway up the mountain.
From this angle, that heavy machine gun was laying down enfilading fire on the main climbing route leading to the pass. If this strongpoint wasn't eliminated, the troops charging up would suffer heavy losses.
But the construction of this bunker was too sturdy. Submachine gun rounds couldn't penetrate those logs and sandbags, and it wasn't on Morin and Ludwig's planned route.
Fortunately... they weren't the only ones fighting.
Morin drew his flare gun and fired a white signal flare toward the fire bunker.
The white ball of light burst open above the bunker, illuminating that area brightly.
The L15 armored airship in the sky had already decelerated and lowered its altitude, hovering less than 300 meters from the pass.
In the observation gondola, Chief Gunnery Officer Lieutenant Gray immediately noticed that white signal flare.
"White signal flare! Target marked!"
Lieutenant Gray quickly confirmed the target location through the observation window, then grabbed the voice tube.
"All gun emplacements, attention! Focus fire on the location marked by the white signal flare!"
The twin-linked MG08 heavy machine guns and 20mm Becker autocannons turned almost simultaneously, pouring an overwhelming rain of bullets from the sky.
The shooting accuracy still couldn't be considered great, but under this kind of concentrated saturation fire, the dispersion of impact points conversely became an advantage.
Within a radius of twenty or thirty meters around the location marked by the white signal flare, explosions of bullets and autocannon shells erupted everywhere.
That large fire bunker took direct hits from at least a dozen 20mm autocannon shells.
The logs were blown to pieces, the sandbags were torn open like rags, and the men and heavy machine guns inside were reduced to a pile of scrap metal and mangled flesh. The incessant chatter of the machine guns came to an abrupt halt.
Morin looked up at the massive dark shadow in the sky, then turned around and continued pushing toward the artillery positions at the rear of the defense line.
Ludwig's Armored Knight followed closely behind, its heavy footsteps crunching over trenches and the remains of bunkers, crushing everything in its path.
In the subsequent process of one man and one machine clearing out the rear artillery positions, they met with almost no decent resistance.
These Romanian artillerymen at the rear of the pass position never expected enemies to slaughter their way through from the depth of their own defenses.
Twelve 65mm mountain guns and a few heavy artillery pieces originally intended to be a "secret weapon," along with piles of ammunition, were left behind as the remaining artillerymen scattered like birds and beasts after Ludwig's Armored Knight kicked over the first mountain gun.
But Morin didn't pursue those routed artillerymen.
Because before the battle commenced, he had already extracted the most likely locations for the entrances to the mountain demolition tunnels from the mouths of those experienced Austro-Hungarian mountain veterans.
These tunnels were the true threat to this offensive.
The mountain blasting during the day had already proven that even if the explosives in just one tunnel were detonated, half a mountain slope, along with the troops on it, could be buried.
And right now, thousands of allied infantry were charging towards the pass from all directions.
If the Romanians detonated other pre-buried tunnel explosives at this time, it would be a massacre.
This was also the main reason Morin personally made the jump.
He bypassed the remains of several destroyed fortifications and moved rapidly along the eastern edge of the pass position.
According to the descriptions of those Austro-Hungarian veterans, behind a rock face on the east side of the pass lay a camouflaged tunnel entrance, which was the main access to the demolition chamber inside the mountain.
Ludwig's Armored Knight followed slightly further back, but the terrain on the east side became increasingly rugged, even featuring drop-offs several meters high. This complex terrain made it impossible for an Armored Knight to pass through easily.
"I might not be able to get through," Ludwig shouted through the loudspeaker.
Morin waved at him, signaling him to provide fire cover from his current position, intending to go over alone first to assess the situation.
It wasn't that he was being overly confident, but since landing, aside from four [Feather Fall] spells, he had only used one [Mage Armor] and [Darkvision].
Right now, the spells loaded in his spell slots could be considered quite abundant...
But just then, Morin noticed an anomaly.
On the system map, a string of small points of light was moving rapidly, and the direction they were moving was exactly toward the tunnel entrance he had marked in advance on the system map to find.
Seeing this, Morin took a few strides, climbed atop Ludwig's Armored Knight, and looked in that direction.
Under [Darkvision] and his own significantly enhanced night vision, Morin saw that in the dim firelight, about twenty or thirty figures were scrambling up the mountain on the east side of the pass using their hands and feet.
Many of them were dressed as combat engineers, carrying large leather backpacks and entrenching tools.
"Crap, someone really is going to trigger a mountain blast. Are these people crazy? Blasting on their own pass position..."
Seeing that the path between himself and this section of the mountain was too rugged, and interspersed with some depth positions, making a quick breakthrough impossible, Morin gritted his teeth and jumped directly onto one of the mechanical arms of the "Siegfried Mark I, Modified."
"Ludwig, Protocol Three! Throw me over!"