“Once an army’s morale is broken, the battle is lost. The war might still be going on, but the battle is lost for certain.” - Liang Shi-zu, famous military strategist from the Huan Confederation.

Even from afar, while he was fighting off the enemy soldiers, Reinhardt noticed the commotion at the enemy base camp from afar and knew that the last part of his plan had started to come into play. He gave another signal using his whistle, one to redouble their assault, and jumped into the fray once more once he did so.

The enemy soldiers were already on the verge of breaking, but their morale was held teetering above the breakpoint by the presence of the knights amongst them, who did their best to stem the incoming tide with their lives. Their efforts did fine on the flanks, where the members of the city’s home guard were not pushing too hard, as they were instructed mostly to be there to visibly block an escape from that direction.

On the other hand, the knights who were near the back of the encirclement were nowhere near as lucky, as there Grünhildr led her platoon to push up the hill forcefully, leading the push herself right from the very front. The burly woman’s pair of axes had their blades and points clad in her innate void magic, as they cleaved straight through anything and everything in their way.

Not even the knights in their full plate armor could withstand her, as their armor was just made of good steel, not out of expensive material that even incorporated anti-magic properties like the noble she once faced in Posuin. Her strike sheared through their weapons, shields, armor, and bodies with equal ease, and already some of the knights were backing away in fear at her approach.

From the top, Grünhildr’s mother Daleeni similarly engaged the surviving Kolain knights fiercely. The middle-aged half-orc’s axe might not be clad in void like her daughter’s, but it was large and heavy, to the point that her blows would dent the plate armor and crush the flesh beneath, if not sever entire sections when she landed on thinner areas of the armor.

Reinhardt joined her once he returned into the fray after giving the order. He brought his polemace down in a vicious blow aimed towards one of the remaining Kolain knights, who he caught by surprise. The man – or woman, hard to tell when they wear full armor – raised their sword to block the blow, probably out of reflex, but that did them no good.

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To block with a sword, a maneuver often taught in many swordsmanship techniques, was something one does against another sword or otherwise similarly light weapon. Reinhardt’s polemace was by no means a light weapon, doubly so since his had been built and sized specifically for his use. As such, trying to block a blow from it with a sword was merely an exercise in futility.

Instead the blow just broke through their defense and smashed down against their helmet, hard enough to press the helmet against the rest of the armor until it dented and crumpled inward. Blood flowed out from the slit of the helmet even as the knights toppled over to the side like a sack of potatoes, while Reinhardt looked for other knights to finish off.

His eyes quickly noticed another pair of knights who were trying to lead some of the enemy soldiers in pushing back against the assailants on their right flank, so he signaled some of his platoon members behind him using movements of his tail and ordered them to follow him. Ten members of his platoon and some home guard members flocked to him within a moment, and he led them towards the knights he saw.

They clashed against the building offensive from the flank, the soldiers faltering under the momentum of their assault, as Reinhardt led the way with his veteran mercenaries behind him. The Kolain soldiers might have experienced a few battles in the past ten years, sure, but they still held no candle against mercenaries who had been putting their lives on the line for money on the battlefield before they were even born.

It was not long before Reinhardt found himself face to face with the pair of knights trying to organize the soldiers, while his platoon members were keeping the other enemies away from him. He took on both knights at once, not too worried about fighting them one against two. It would be far from his first time anyway to do that.

The two knights seemed to have some sort of tacit understanding between them, as their movements were quite well coordinated. One of them struck high while another struck low, their strikes working together flawlessly. Still, their cooperation was far from enough to even out the odds, as they were facing some far stronger than them, who was also clad in enough armor to outright ignore some of their strikes.

As Reinhardt showcased when he caught one knight’s blade between two of the spikes adorning the top of his polemace and wrenched it aside, leaving the knight in question wide open. He also showed an opening to do that, and the other knight tried to save their friend by striking towards Reinhardt’s torso with his sword, only for it to bounce off the thick brigandine Reinhardt wore.

In the meantime, Reinhardt had already swung his polemace back the other way and struck the knight’s head from the side hard enough to severely dent their helmet and drop them on the spot. He then turned towards the other knight, who looked somewhat dumbfounded at Reinhardt and the fallen knight, and smacked the sword away from the knight’s hand, before he smashed his polemace against the side of that knight’s left knee hard enough to break the joint and make it bend the wrong way.

Then he just ignored the injured knight as some of his platoon members tied them up behind him.