Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

Accompanying the cannon fire was the task of filling in the trenches.

Antonio and Layton had chosen two points of attack on the eastern and western sides of the city wall, both identified as weaker sections of the wall from intelligence reports.

Each legion was responsible for one direction of attack, tasked not only with destroying the wall but also with filling in the trenches at these locations.

Amid the loud shouting of Captain Hoffman, the defending troops hurriedly ran up to the city wall, and the sentries on the ramparts screamed with all their might, "The triangular fort! They're coming from the triangular fort!"

A large number of soldiers pushing carts poured out from the triangular fort occupied by the Venetians; they rushed into the trenches, filling them with soil and wood from their carts.

"Shoot them! Shoot them!" Captain Hoffman on the city wall roared, snapping his stunned subordinates out of their daze.

The defenders, regaining their senses, immediately used crossbows and muskets to shoot at the Venetians below. The distance between them was so close, and there were so many Venetians, that firing at random would bring one down.

Following a few more huge bangs of stones shattering, the light cannon outside the city fired again to suppress the defenders on the city walls. Flying debris filled the air, its force comparable to arrows,

and Captain Hoffman, who had just been giving orders, screamed and waved his arms frantically, his face covered in dust, with blood streaming from his tightly shut eyes.

The shards had flown into Hoffman's eyes, plunging the strapping man into a frenzy amid severe pain and darkness. Hoffman's men tried to hold him down, but he roared, drawing his sword and swinging it wildly, forcing everyone around him to give way.

Hoffman could no longer hear what people around him were saying; he shouted and swung at the imagined enemy, stepping backwards. His men watched helplessly as their captain fell backward from the breached parapet and plummeted to his death below the city wall.

Meanwhile outside the city, Venetian musketeers had also arrived. Using the trench walls for cover, the Venetian matchlock gunners fired fiercely at the defending soldiers on the city walls.

The trench outside the city wall, hastily dug, was shallow, less than two meters deep, about the height of a man. Standing in the trench, the musketeers could just rest their guns on the edge.

The merlons atop the city wall had been battered during the previous days' cannon fire and were now in ruins, offering scant protection to the Tanilian soldiers atop the wall. Any attempt to peek over would meet with volleys from several matchlock guns.

Yet the Tanilians on the wall knew that once the trench was filled in, the wall would be next, and then everyone would die.

The ferocity of the defenders was ignited; the Tanilians howled to embolden themselves, leaning out to use crossbows and muskets to kill the tightly packed Venetians below.

From their high vantage point, they looked down at the Venetian musketeers in the trench, who were almost completely exposed.

The two sides engaged in a brutal exchange of lives at a distance nearly close enough to "put a musket to the forehead."

The crossbowman Stave suddenly thought to use "Greek fire" to burn the Venetians.

Stave ran down the city wall. Soon, he returned carrying a jar spouting blue flames.

He shouted, "Greek fire! Greek fire!" as he rushed to the parapet. Just as he was about to throw the Greek fire into the enemy-filled trench, a lead bullet shot from below hit him squarely in the chest, causing him to fall backward onto the city wall.

The burning sulfur from his jar spilled all over him, and his screams, mingled with the smell of charred flesh, even reached the Venetians below.

However, Stave's actions reminded the others that the trench was seven or eight meters from the base of the city wall; boiling oil and pitch couldn't be thrown that far, but they could be if placed in jars.
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While the defenders were looking for jars on the city wall, William Kidd arrived at the east side of the wall with reinforcements, bringing two short-barreled cannons.

"Here! Don't bloody line them up straight! Fire from the side!" Seeing the gunners absurdly trying to carry the cannons straight over, an infuriated gun commander Berta kicked the gunners who were carrying the cannon and cursed, "Idiots! Get lost!"

The two short-barreled cannons were brought by Berta to a slightly curved section of the city wall, positioned diagonally towards the Venetians below.

The gunners frantically assembled the gun carriages and loaded the ammunition. Berta aimed personally and lit the fuse.

With two booming blasts, the short-barreled cannons unleashed a storm of grapeshot that tore through the bodies below.

"Good! Good! Good!" The gun commander bellowed three times, his voice harsh as he urged his men on: "Reload! Keep firing!"

As the Tanilian cannons slaughtered the Venetians below, the Venetian cannons outside were cleansing the city walls of Tanilian soldiers.

The Venetian gun crews 200 meters away, seeing the smoke and flash from the city wall cannons firing, immediately adjusted their aim towards the two short-barreled cannons.

A four-pound cannonball hit one of the short-barreled cannons, sending the cast iron cannon flying off its carriage, severing the arm of a gunner.

Berta immediately moved the other short-barreled cannon to a new position.

One side atop the wall, the other below, the Tanilians and Venetians were essentially aiming guns at each other's heads.

Everyone would die here; it was only a matter of time.

Before today, the Tanilians had understood the importance of the triangular fort, but it was only now that they truly realized they had still underestimated its significance.

Losing the triangular fort was tantamount to ceding control of the trench. Had the triangular fort still been in Tanilian hands, the Venetians would not dare rush into the trenches like they were doing now, since the cannons positioned at the fort would have pulverized them.