SWDnovel #678 - hiss hiss hiss
#678 - hiss hiss hiss
The starry night was like a painting, with the starlight falling into the lakes, filling them with light.
In front of this crescent-shaped forest plain, a village surrounded by log walls emitted faint hissing sounds in the quiet night.
In the center of the village, several human thigh bones were stuck in a large iron pot, with strands of pink flesh still clinging to them.
Holding a spear, Udhema sat blankly on a small stool in the watchtower, staring at the silent and warm swamp plain.
For a snake person, this kind of land was the best.
They could freely graze their lizards, plant their snake berries, and frolic happily in the marshes.
According to those upright people of the church, after expelling those secret societies, they, the snake people, could obtain these lands, lands that originally belonged to them.
As early as thousands of years ago, even before the Ayr Empire landed on the East Continent, they were the masters of Black Serpent Bay, living happily in the streams and jungles.
Until the Ayr people landed on the East Continent and drove a large number of Norn tribes to migrate eastward, the snake people, who had no iron weapons and could not ride warhorses, quickly fell into decline, ceding this land to the Norn people.
Millions of snake people migrated from the plains to the Green Dragon Forest Sea, and by the time they settled in the volcanic valley and built houses, only more than 100,000 remained.
So, bipedal humans were the enemies of the snake people, and the snake people should not cooperate with them in any way.
For Udhema, this was just the old priest's nonsense. No matter who threw a piece of meat in front of him, he would be willing to take a scimitar and help them kill.
Suddenly, Udhema's oval head moved. He stood up abruptly, hissing in one direction.
But in his field of vision, the distant swamps and forests were still calm, as if wondering if what had just flashed by was a rabbit.
In terms of human vision, snake people can basically be considered nearsighted. Most of the time, they rely on smell and special thermal induction to distinguish things.
"Buzz—"
A sudden gust of wind blew up the thatch on the spire. Before Udhema could react, he saw a circle of mud suddenly fly up twenty steps in front of the wall.
Why did the mud suddenly fly up?
The snake sentry still stood blankly behind the railing, trying to identify what the sphere in the center of the mud was.
However, before he could identify it clearly, the night wind brought the sound of flaxseed oil and the rattling of a turning crank.
Not good. At this moment, Udhema realized what was happening. He immediately turned around, preparing to grab the gong hanging on the pillar, but it was already too late.
A deafening roar came, and three rows of dim firelight flashed behind the distant bushes.
Of course, that was not the light of gunpowder being fired, but the light of the lubricating oil wrapped around the iron ball being violently rubbed and ignited, only to be extinguished by the wind.
Udhema hissed in horror, raising his scaled head, the blurred thermal sensation in his retina rapidly approaching.
He opened his mouth to shout, but at this critical moment, he couldn't utter a word.
The wooden wall made a piercing groan, the pointed logs exploded, and shattered wood chips crackled against his scales.
In the flying iron bullets, Udhema completely forgot his duty to warn, curled up behind the railing of the arrow tower, and shivered with his head in his hands.
"Is it an earthquake?"
"The stars in the sky are falling, run!"
"It's the punishment of the gods, it's fire rain."
"What's going on?" Several scantily clad transcendent knights rushed out of the house, shouting with drunken steps, "Is it an earthquake? Who's on guard, speak up!"
No snake person answered him. All the snake people were running around in terror. Only the snake nobles took out their whips in exasperation, scolding in hisses.
All around were screams and terrified hisses. Snake soldiers in the houses, naked, slithered out of the windows or doorways.
The second round of shelling arrived as scheduled, and the snake people almost instinctively prostrated on the ground, the sound of screams and cries completely exploding.
The scorching iron balls flew over the heads of the snake people, like countless meteors streaking across the morning night sky.
Even in the houses that were not shelled, snake people could be seen holding their heads, screaming and hiding behind the walls and houses.
But occasionally, lucky iron bullets could still easily pierce the walls.
You must know that, according to the tests that Horn had conducted, the Falcon Cannon could create a penetration depth of 0.7 meters in a gravelly sand breastwork at a distance of 400 meters.
The double-layered elm walls of this village outside the city were not even half a meter thick. Under the concentrated bombardment of 24 Falcon Cannons, the walls were almost riddled with holes after two rounds of shelling.
"Advance 150 meters and conduct the third round of shelling. The infantry regiment will follow and press forward."
At Molmont's shout, a total of 2,000 soldiers from the four infantry regiments of the Divine Punishment Army launched an assault on the village in the light of torches and the night.
At a distance of 400 meters, they did not encounter any arrows or javelin counterattacks. The Divine Punishment Army rushed to the village walls just like that.
The knights guarding the village finally gathered a wave of snake soldiers. Just as they turned a corner, they saw five rows of hundreds of Holy Riflemen aiming their dark muzzles at them.
"Don't be afraid, charge! They only have less than two hundred people."
"Hiss...die...hiss—"
"In the name of the Supreme Dragon God, climb and charge with me!"
Looking at the slithering snake soldiers, the officer standing in the first row calmly drew out his saber and waved it heavily in the starlight.
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"Praise the Holy Wind!"
"Bang, bang, bang—"
………………
When the sun rose, what Horn saw when he dismounted at the entrance of the village was snake people lying all over the ground, belly up, hands bound behind their backs, lying on their backs like salted fish.
The morning light shone on the green, black, and white scales of these snake people, now emitting a lake-like golden light like light spots.
Horn squatted down and carefully observed these peculiar creatures.
Their lower bodies were snakes, while their upper bodies were more like lizardmen. The sides of their long, oval heads had closable ear holes. Most of them were only wearing rough clothes made of bark and sagebrush.
"Where did these snake people come from?" Horn turned around and asked a local wizard who had been rescued.
The wizard angrily kicked a snake person on the ground: "They are all man-eating barbarians who ran over from the Green Dragon Forest Sea."
"Are snake people the same as beastmen?" Horn asked again, but the answer came from the other side.
"No, no, no."
Turning his head, Horn saw an old wizard with a white beard, standard in demon hunter novels, being supported by Novia as he walked over.
He leaned on a tree root crutch, wore glasses with broken lenses, and gave Horn a kind and peaceful salute: "You know, beastmen and humans can have offspring, but snake people are oviparous and cannot have human offspring, so they are not a human subspecies, but a different species."
"You are?" Horn looked questioningly at Novia, who was supporting him.
Novia introduced generously: "This is Old Havel, an expert in demonology. Those guys from Baldhead Society are just his great-grand-disciples."
The old wizard smiled self-deprecatingly: "I originally escaped through the temple tunnel, but unfortunately I'm old and my old arms and legs can't run anymore, so I was caught by these snake people... Speaking of which, what are you going to do with these snake people?"
"Maybe lock them up for a few days, give them some rations after the war, and let them go home on their own." Horn glanced at the snake people lying on the ground like salted fish, feeling a headache.
"Can I give you a small suggestion regarding the resettlement of these snake people?" Old Havel, with his kind face and eyes, glanced at the injured little snake people on the ground with some pity.
Horn was helpless: "They are too much of a threat. At most, I will release some of the wounded and children."
"No, no, that's not what I meant." Old Havel quickly shook his head. "I mean, it's too wasteful to just send them back like this."
Horn stared blankly at the chattering old man in front of him.
"These snake people, like their bodies, are soft, boneless, and have no backbone. They are also very good at planting and taking care of crops. They have no ambition by nature. As long as they have a full meal, they can be honest and obedient." Old Havel paused, stomping his crutch in distress. "Such good slaves, how can you just let them go like this?"