A Scout came rushing over to Fred from the south, “Report.”

“Go,”

“Men have been spotted fleeing on the enemy side; Daniel reckons another hour to repel the enemy from the wall.” The fighting had been going on for 3 hours by now.

“Tell Daniel to keep firing at them, even when they reach the palisades,”

“Understood.”

“Wait, are we giving up the surprise of the range of the cannons?” Mendes commented.

“Once they start fleeing, they will view the palisades as safety, if we show them at this time that it is not safe, they are more likely to flee completely.”

“So are you planning to end the fight today?”

“Right, I’m going to meet up with my men, take care.” Fred rode off to the bastion.

“Damn it. I’m supposed to be ok with this plan.” Mendes grumbled. He was a traditionalist and believed it improper to actively seek to kill nobles. It was quite safe for nobles to fight in wars, except for the rare accidents like an arrow through the eye slits, weapons couldn’t really kill a knight in armour.

Usually, you fight till one side surrenders or is knocked down, and then the loser is ransomed.

However, Mendes was about to command a battle that would see to 100 or more knights, Barons and counts dead.

Fred reached the bastion and as soon as he did, a scout from the top informed him that the infantry was rushing over.

“Excellent. Do not fire the cannons.”

“Understood.”

Fred could hear the twangs of crossbow strings go off. Fred stood at the bottom of the bastion with the marines and 200 halberdiers, “You nervous, men?”

“A little captain.” One called out.

“Relax, soldiers, we aren’t even the ones fighting yet.”

He heard the noise escalate. On the wall, a scout ran down and inform him that 5 ladders were up at the gatehouse and that they were climbing over.

“Men hug the wall, scout, go tell the other side the same thing,” He ordered the guy next to him. then he pointed at 2 halberdiers and a signaller. “You, you and you follow me, scout let’s go up.” He spoke to the one that came down.

They reached the top to look over the battlefield. There was a mass blob of 1-2000 men at the gate trying to climb up. Some were already fighting on top. Half of the crossbow halberdiers swapped to melee weapons and had formed up a 2 deep rank to block the invaders from coming to the bastion, while the rest of the men shot their crossbows down to the crowd.

‘Damn it,’ Fred could feel his heart pumping. He was in almost full plate armour; it wasn’t that protective to allow him to use a musket.

“Sire, men are making it down the gatehouse on the inside, but are getting shot at.”

“Great,” Fred commented, and then heard the cannons go off on the south end, however, the noise was different this time.

“It looks like they have started to use grapeshot,” Fred said. “Officer have all the cannons on this end been loaded with grapeshot.”

“Yes sire, they are ready to go.”

“Great, you know the plan yes?” Fred could see his nervousness and ask about the plans to allow him and the men to listen and focus.

“Our active cannons fire first, then we pull back to reload, then the other bastion’s active cannons. At which time we knock over the crenellations, push forward the spare cannons and fire them. The other bastion then copies.”

“Yes, hopefully, if we stage the firing the first cannons will be somewhat ready by the time the last cannons have fired.”

“Yes, captain.”

At this time, the enemy had managed to get a strong foothold on the gatehouse wall and was starting to get a position on the ground.

“Hopefully when the gates open the infantry will start pouring in and cause a bottleneck for the knights.” as he said this a scout had run over from the south.

“Go.”

“The enemy has begun to retreat en mass, those that are still fighting are doing so due to the bottleneck of the ladders.”

“I understand, has Daniel started firing on the enemy palisades yet.”

“No, they are still aimed at stragglers, Daniel is going to have them follow the last men and encroach onto the palisades.”

“Good.” At this point there was a huge commotion at the gates, when Fred and the scout looked over, they started to see a sea of people appear out of the gate on the inside, rushing towards the horse trap palisades. The scout was horrified, he hadn’t heard of the plan on this end.

“Tell Daniel to redirect reserves over to this end. However, don’t pick more than 50 from the top of the wall.” Fred then looked over to another scout, “Go inform the reservists to come over here, but let none leave from the top of the wall.”

“Understood.” The two scouts saluted and ran off. Fred looked over to the main enemy camp, but couldn’t see any movements except for the odd scout going to and from either the north or south.

The lightly armoured infantry that breached the gates were easy picking for the crossbowmen, the crossbows were able to pierce the shields but that would reduce its strength. Thankfully the crossbowmen were decent at picking their opportunities.

Fred had them practice a lot more than they usually would and the results proved the effectiveness.

“Marines!” Fred shouted down to them, “On the walls.” He then turned to the signaller, “Inform the other side the same thing.”

“Yes, captain.”

Halfway through the movement of the marines, a scout called out “Captain, Knights are coming.”

Fred looked over, they were starting to move, they weren’t charging, otherwise, their own infantry would soften the impact. As he watched, he noticed only 600 of the 1000 moving.

“What’s this, are they testing, but with over half their units. Factional differences, but so prevalent. Scout, have you ever heard of a telescope?”

“Telescope, sir?”

“A tube with two different size pieces of glass on either side, allows you to see further?”

“No sire, I haven’t heard of such a device, although I’ve heard that the republics sell a lot of glassware sire.”

“Ok.” Fred said, “I might need to make one.” He said to himself.

He could tell the difference between rank as the coat of arms would have more elaborated decoration surrounding it depending on whether they were a baron or Earl, but he couldn’t see the specific iconography,”

He could tell that most of the barons and earls were with the 600-man group, so this definitely wasn’t to test the waters.

“Captain, are you ready?” Fred said to the captain of the artillery.

“Yes, Sire.”

“Good, are you in sync with the other bastion?”

Captain nodded to the signaller, who sent a message over to the other bastion, and then got one back.

“Yes, Sire.”

“Good, over to you then,”

“Halberds!” Fred called down to the men on the ground by the bastion. “Come up, we need you to help close the gates.”

Labourers, go to that Crane winch and start bringing up the rest of the logs.” Most of the remaining logs were already on the wall, but they stopped the task when the enemy started to assault the walls.

“Ready!” the artillery captain shouted, Drawing Fred’s attention. “Fire!”

Fred saw the fire come out of the cannons, there was 8 in total in this volley, and then chaos ensued amongst the knights, Fred saw a lot of them turn into shredded meat and pink mist.

However, he saw a lot of blue flashes and sparks go off, The flashes were the signs of enchanted armour, while the sparks were the sign of them failing, and Fred saw a lot more flashes than sparks.

But this wasn’t a problem, Yet, you could beat enchanted armour using excessive force, and he had another 3 rounds to go.

The second cannon rounds, from the other bastion, fell on the horses. At this, a good 80-90 knights went down in the two volleys.

Then his men on this side toppled over the crenelations and pulled the 3rd battery forward.

“Alright men to the wall,” he called out to the muskets, once this and the next round fired, it would be their turn to try and get some pot-shots off.

The knights were in with the infantry when the first round went off, and it was hard for them to get themselves out of this situation. There were 21 rounds in each grapeshot, and most of them could travel through multiple people, resulting in over 150 infantry deaths.

It was a disaster for them, they had no knowledge of spacing out troops, except against trebuchets, and so the damage was magnified by them being all clumped up together.

At this the 3rd and 4th volley followed suit, shedding more men, and causing a lot more enchanted armours to fail. 1/3 of the horse unit was down and now it was Fred’s turn to fire some shots. The gaps created by the cannon shots were quickly filled in by the panicking infantry.

Fred was aiming at the horsemen, but if he missed, the bullet would just land amongst the infantries. “Fire!” Fred ordered and pulled his own trigger.

His log told him that he injured a Baron, the problem or benefit with muskets they tend to cause more injury than death, he would probably get the kill later, but at the moment he wouldn’t know, however, now there was an injured Baron in the crowd, probably screaming in pain, causing morale to plummet.

He loaded his musket, and fired another round, hitting a halberdier, and killing him. the log said he got a headshot, but as he was shooting down on a mass of heads, and was aiming for someone on a horse, it didn’t say much for his skills.

At this time the cannons were ready and were rolled back into positions.

*Bang, Bangbangbang*

The cannons went off again, felling more knights, and each volley doing more damage, but by now the knights were more spread out, maybe due to them figuring out or that the larger body of mass had been thinned.

From this, the enemy started retreating towards the palisades, Fred and his unit got 3 more shots off.

At this time George came over with a group of people and carriages, “Fred, get all of your men who have capped at level 10, quickly,”

The enemy had left the gate, allowing their side to close it, and the top wall was taken back.

Fred gathered all of the men over who had capped. He had no idea what was going on either.

However, some of the men did.

George opened the carriage to crates of Neutral mana crystals and one with a variety of mana types., the people with George started handing them out to the soldiers as they sat and started going through the ascension process.

“What’s going on?”

“I’ll tell you later, what element are you going with?”

“Thunder.”

George handed him a Thunder crystal and a bunch of mana crystals,

“Hold the thunder Crystal in your mouth and absorb the Neutral mana crystals through your Hands.”

Fred sat down; he saw many soldiers copy him.

Almost all of the soldiers were doing it, George had the labourers replace the soldiers on the walls with makeshift equipment. Most handed over by the soldiers.

George took the last create up to the artillerymen on the walls who were still shooting.

As soon as the guns fell silent, they too started the ascension process.

It took half an hour and as soon as it was finished, Fred felt so weak.

‘Status’

Status

Name

Frederick

????

Age

12

year

2

month

Ascension

4

Level

1

Body

Pre-teen

Super-Soldier

Esper

Race group

Human

Culture

Franconian

Social

F Earl/ M Duke

Bastard

Exp

0/80

0%

Exp Mod

190% (Pre-teen)

Sub-Race

Adeptus Astartes

Assimilation 42%, *4.3 modifiers to stat points

Military

Rank

NCO

Level

18

Command structure

30

6

Affinity

Lightning

39% (+156.2%)

Fire

12% (+65.6%)

Metal

8% (+57.6%)

Legion Trait

Thousand Sons

Class

Scholar

Legion Trait

Iron Warriors

Class

Engineer

Subclass

Subclass

Subclass

Subclass

Stats

points

Condition

Thousand sons

Iron Warriors

Health

200

151721

Stamina

200

42800

/128327

Mana

200

252464

Modifiable

Power

2650

218.78

100%

100%

Density

3185

302.40

100%

115%

Dexterity

1965

162.23

100%

100%

Vitality

2369

195.58

100%

100%

Endurance

2745

260.62

100%

115%

Intellect

3811

506.56

140%

115%

Wisdom

3725

495.13

140%

115%

“Err is this the best time to be doing this.”

“The enemy is retreating,” A scout who hadn’t capped reported.

“What happened George?”

“Daniel informed me that after he started bombarding the palisades the enemy just ran for the hills, and with the damage done on your side, making it a good 2500-3000 dead, the enemy forces are sapped.”

“We did that much damage?”

“I know, it’s at least 50% of their troops, I’ve only ever heard of such a battle in past tales, and they are usually famous battles, because of the high casualty rate. It usually takes only 15-20% of casualties for one side to give up.”

*Congratulations*

A message just popped up in Fred’s face.

When he focused on it, the contents opened up.

*Congratulations* you have won the battle: Siege of Bristol; Defender.

3000 exp has been awarded. (First battle, +1500 bonus exp, first siege, +1500, first defender +15000)

3000 military exp has been awarded. (First battle, +1500 bonus exp, first siege, +1500, first defender +15000)

750 free stat points have been awarded. (First battle, +375 bonus exp, first siege, +375, first defender +375)

5500 exp has been awarded based on your contribution.

5500 military has been awarded based on your contribution.

900 free stat points have been awarded.

You are now a Sergeant: +10, +2 command

Rewards were modified based on your command performance which was above your qualification.

Bonuses:

[Cannon warfare battle tactics; in progress 40%

10 battles must be performed for the basic tactics to be complete.

Battle of the siege weapons Battle of the south assault Battle of the north assault

Once complete, you will receive bonuses based on how many battles you participated in.

Current participation: 3]

[Command structure improvements: +30, +6]

[Military skills: 10]

“Bloody hell,”

“You got your battle rewards,”

“Yeah, a lot.”

“They will seem like a lot for now, but later down the line they won’t.”

Fred had a lot of free points, 3580 to be exact. He placed 500 each into Int and Wis, and 1000 each into Den and End, with the rest into power.

‘Status’

Status

Name

Frederick

????

Age

12

year

2

month

Ascension

4

Level

7

Body

Pre-teen

Super-Soldier

Esper

Race group

Human

Culture

Franconian

Social

F Earl/ M Duke

Bastard

Exp

1840/5120

36%

Exp Mod

190% (Pre-teen)

Sub-Race

Adeptus Astartes

Assimilation 42%, *4.3 modifiers to stat points

Military

Rank

Sergeant

Level

24

Command structure

70

14

Affinity

Lightning

39% (+156.2%)

Fire

12% (+65.6%)

Metal

8%(+57.6%)

Legion Trait

Thousand Sons

Class

Scholar

Legion Trait

Iron Warriors

Class

Engineer

Subclass

Subclass

Subclass

Subclass

Stats

points

Condition

Thousand sons

Iron Warriors

Health

250

1659858

Stamina

250

1372813

Mana

250

2607822

Modifiable

Power

3230

1866.68

100%

100%

Density

4185

2781.38

100%

115%

Dexterity

1965

1135.61

100%

100%

Vitality

2369

1369.09

100%

100%

Endurance

3745

2488.96

100%

115%

Intellect

4311

4011.18

140%

115%

Wisdom

4225

3931.16

140%

115%

His stats looked like a lot, but his stamina was down under 50% from the day’s war. Except for running around and firing his musket, he didn’t even do much.

He picked up a stone by his side and squeezed, the stone instantly crumbled.

“Ha,” George laughed, “You’re in the big leagues now, lad,”

Fred tried bending his armour but to no avail.

George saw this. “The metal comes from a mana spring, it won’t bend that easily, it is naturally reinforced with magic.”

Fred didn’t understand this, he would have to test this out until he crushed that rock, everything felt normal, however on reflection, he only really came into contact with things that came from mana springs.

Whether it was the wood from the wood elven forest that was filled with all sorts of nature mana springs or the fire powder, come to think of it, he felt that the powder was a lot stronger than old earths black powder, and gun powder, he had to measure fewer quantities for the cannons.