Limitless The Strongest Revenant

Perhaps seeing the greed in my eyes, Vincent grinned smugly as he began. He led us to a gun on wheels. It had a 16.7-foot barrel and looked like a knight's spear pointed skyward.

If you asked any soldier in the world, "What do you want more by your side than your lover?" they would answer only one thing. "The biggest gun you can give me." And the biggest guns any army could field were not the ones carried by people. It would be those on wheels.

While most people equated war with knights, there was a reason they were no longer around. And while muskets had something to do with their decline, what ended them was something else.

It was something that changed the face of war. Something that made the medieval armored knight, the symbol of military power, obsolete.

It was, of course, the field artillery.

Sure, there was medieval siege artillery like ballistae, catapults, and trebuchets. But their slow nature and piss poor accuracy made it impossible to use against anything that could move.

Before the invention of artillery, armies had only two classes of troops available to them. Infantry and mounted cavalry. The knight, of course, was the poster child for the latter. The shock and intimidation factor of a line of heavy knights charging at you was something few could endure.

Being trampled under the weight of a 1200-pound armored warhorse plus the weight of a fully armored knight at 200 pounds was a fucking nightmare. There was hardly anything that could stop a powerful armored cavalry charge. In those days at least.

With the invention of guns, the "knight" itself became extinct. I mean, what was the point of training for decades to die from a bullet fired by a peasant with a musket? But while the armored knight faded away, the concept of the cavalry did not.

They were still used to devastating effect during the American Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic Wars. Because muskets had a long time between shots, the mounted cavalry could still kill them with ease if they got too close. In response, the cavalrymen lost their armor and opted for speed instead.

Of course, as the musket developed, so did the black powder cannon. Then they noticed that the cavalry had significantly less impact in the presence of these big guns. And so, they did what any reasonable man would do. They ripped the cannons off the walls and put wheels on them.

Because of the size and power of these weapons, they not only destroyed cavalry, but infantry as well.

Have you ever seen what a cannon ball bouncing off a square formation did? It was the stuff that broke men and gave them PTSD.

Still, cannons were slow; even when pulled by horses, they were often left behind during assaults or retreats. And they were considerably easier to destroy by cavalry. Because the cavalries were fast, they often bridged the gap when the guns couldn't hit them.

This created a new dilemma for the cannons. If they were discovered by the mounted cavalry, they would be destroyed. But without them, nothing could stop the horses from destroying the infantry. So, they decided to do look towards archer for inspiration.

They mimicked what archers did to gain distance. They raised the cannons at angles of 45 to 90 degrees. Changing the firing angles from straight paths to parabolic arcs like bows, creating a new concept of warfare.

Long range indirect fire.

This invented a new class of artillery, one that could fire beyond what it could see. What would happen if cavalry formations couldn't see the guns, but were shot by them? The result, of course, was annihilation.

Used to great effect in the Napoleonic Wars, the concept of attacking with infantry, cavalry and field artillery became the new standard for combat. Howitzers, carrying the legacy of these lessons, naturally became a staple of modern combat.

"My lord, feast your eyes on the M777 howitzer. Manufactured by Britain's BAE Systems, it fires 155mm shells that completely destroy enemy lines. It has a range of 13 miles for the M107 rounds and 19 miles for the M795E1. We have over 1000 rounds for both."

13 fucking miles. That was 21 kilometers in metric. And that wasn't even the maximum distance. Zombie hordes would be helpless if these weapons were unleashed. If people with brains were slaughtered, what would happen to the zombies? How would they even know where the shots were coming from?n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

'Exa, give me the specifications of an M107 HE shells.'

[Yes, my lord. They use M4A2 "White Bag" propellant, weigh 95 lb. (43.2 kg), and are filled with 15.1 lbs (6.86 kg) of TNT. Their lethal radius is a little over 100 ft (30 m).]

'And the M795E1?'

[They use a two-directional course-correcting fuse, which gives them increased accuracy. They are heavier at 103 lb. (46.7 kg) and are filled with 23.8 lb. (10.8 kg) of charge liner TNT OR IMX-101. Their lethal radius is greater at 164 ft (50 meters)].

'Fucking bullshit.'

Vincent made a dispirited face. As he added.

"I apologize my lord, as these are still being used by the military it was hard to get many of them. We only got 6 units and unfortunately we were unable to procure any Excaliburs."

The M982 Excalibur was the latest in smart artillery rounds. It was basically a small target-seeking rocket fired from a howitzer. It was a shame we couldn't get some, but for now what we had was more than enough.

"That's fine Vincent. 6 guns is already enough for an artillery battery, and we will be hitting zombies, so just the M107s will be enough. We can always upgrade to Excaliburs in the future."

I once asked Lilly as we cuddled after sex. Apparently, David doesn't want to steal hardware from the US military. It was extremely difficult to explain how we could buy these things in bulk with our circumstances.

Vincent used backroom and under-the-table means to get them. And while I could just use death resonance to brute force my way to obtain them, the time it took to cover the paper trail was not worth it.

Especially when we were about to be invaded in the coming months. I learned this from Aki, Bella and Jas. The Reapers used human intelligence agencies to spy on the other battlefronts and gather information about them.

This was even before the continents decided to go for each other's throats. It was as if everyone knew it was going to happen eventually, so everyone had the groundwork in place.

While the Reapers were fighting with soul equipment and {Fates}, the other aspects of the war, such as intel gathering, were on par with modern militaries.

For this reason, Lilly advised me not to be so aggressive in acquiring military hardware. It would expose my hand not only to the Reaper spies, but also to Trinity. Such complications were the reason why Vincent, who was a human, carried around a soulgear made of devil remains.

Looking at the six M777s, I realized that I needed to find and train battery crews as soon as possible. After inspecting the howitzers, I followed Vincent to the next and most numerous of his toys. Despite being in an airplane hangar, it was quite cramped because of these things.

"With your acquisition of the 24th floor, my lord, I believe you would need to upgrade your infantry. Therefore, I have procured vehicles to turn them into mechanized infantry. This would allow you to deploy large numbers of soldiers quickly."

Mechanized infantry, contrary to what the term implied, was not infantry enhanced with mechanical components like androids. It was used for a much more boring term. Basically, it meant people who got on trucks or jeeps to move around.

The girls and I all noticed this during the Song of the Sirens battles. Running wasn't fast enough for the rest of Hellsend to keep up with me or the Sirens. Wraiths, even Phantoms, were practically human compared to us.