What kind of weapon was that? What was the principle behind it? What was the phenomenon that seemed to cause a spatial tear? What was the energy that shook the entire impact zone and even cut off the mental connection between the Mutant army?
Countless questions filled the minds of Marcellus and every conscious commander around him. But at this moment, they had no time to think about these 'academic questions'. There was only one fact that strongly impacted their cognition.
Cecil's people, who had taken out an entire sky fortress formation, were still hiding a sharp knife. They had some kind of powerful weapon with an amazing range, which could even shoot from Red Jade City to Wolfridge Mountain! And it flew many times faster than the speed of sound, and its power could directly flatten a mountain!
Marcellus turned and ran, and so did the treant priests who were in charge of commanding the Mutant army. A large group of twisted treants ran wildly on the scorched mountain. It was an incredible scene. Behind them, the wandering Mutants and behemoths began to move irregularly in all directions, creating a wide range of smoke, heat sources, and magic reactions to interfere with the observation and aiming of Cecil's people. In theory, it should be effective.
At the same time, on the Earthly Dawn sky fortress above Red Jade City, a factory-like building built at the edge of the area was brightly lit. Bright magicite street lamps and engineering lights illuminated the outer wall of the rectangular building. Mechanical 'wings' like magicite wings had been opened on the specially-made sloping roof and walls on both sides of the building. Complex mechanical devices extended from the inside of the building, and at the end of the wings was a precisely arranged rune substrate. At this moment, a huge amount of waste energy and heat were being released from the edges of these 'wings'. A layer of dense fog shrouded the building and quickly dissipated in the air.
The building was also brightly lit. A large number of magicite technicians and mechanical soldiers were busy around a huge equipment composed of complex guide rails, charging devices, and buffer units. Some technical assistants were summoning frost nova next to some pipes and power beams nearby to cool the overheated things in the system.
A low whistling sound suddenly came from a partition wall at the end of the room. Then the partition wall opened, revealing the pipeline transportation cabin inside. A 'car' that looked like a subway car but had a round shape was parked in the pipeline slot. When the door opened, Rebecca, who had come from the control center, stepped out. She looked at the large equipment in the middle of the room with glowing eyes as she walked up to the technical supervisor. "How is it? How is the work?"
"Your Highness!" The technical supervisor immediately stood up straight and saluted Rebecca. He then picked up the recording board next to him and reported excitedly. "The supercritical acceleration period has reached the design standard. We have successfully hit target number one on Wolfridge Mountain and destroyed the entire target is completely. Now the system is cooling down, we can shoot the second shot in a few minutes!"
"Oh, oh, not bad." Rebecca nodded with satisfaction. She quickly walked up to the large equipment and stood on her tiptoes to observe it. She was no stranger to these things because she had personally led the team to create this thing from the beginning to the end. The large and complex multi-segmented guide rails, the astonishing scale of the magic capacitors and overload devices, the specially designed waste energy release and magic energy balancing units, and the 'timer' that could allow multiple connecting devices to be activated accurately. The original prototype of all these things was the 'missile limit accelerator' built in a 'super-high-speed flight project' at the Whitewater River.
The missile limit was a mysterious critical point. It referred to a 'barrier' that was difficult to break through when flying at several times the speed of sound. In the view of traditional mages, this speed barrier called the 'missile limit' was an unbreakable obstacle. It was a 'wall of truth' that this world had set up for the material world. In the past many years, because traditional mages relied on human talents to cast spells, they would inevitably encounter the problem of mental limits and magic recoil damage. This' barrier 'had indeed never been broken through. Therefore, the traditional mages had always firmly believed that the missile limit was unbreakable.
Until a stubborn girl named Rebecca led a group of similarly stubborn 'non-mainstream mages' to accelerate a metal stick to the theoretical value of the missile limit with a bunch of machines that would not tire, were not afraid of wear and tear, and were extremely accurate and could be stacked repeatedly.
That day, there was a loud bang on the White Water River. The ordinary-looking metal stick directly blew up the laboratory, broke through the outer wall of the facility, and almost caused a terrible explosion on the bank of the White Water River …
On that day, Grand Consul Heti's hands trembled as she approved the funding, but Rebecca and her assistants held a celebration for the whole night.
Rebecca came to the accelerator and reached out to touch the charging unit that was still emitting residual heat and the calibration support group behind the guideway. Feeling the next force that was gradually brewing in this amazing weapon, a bright smile appeared on her face.
To this day, the phenomena that occurred after an object was accelerated beyond the limit of a missile and the mechanism behind them were still unexplained. Even Rebecca, who had completed the experiment in person, had not found the theoretical support behind all this. However, Ms. Mirmina's recent research in the field of 'unified wave hypothesis' seemed to suggest that it had something to do with the 'wave boundary' between matter and non-matter. The former master of magic further speculated that the enormous energy released after a matter exceeded the limit of a missile might have been accumulated by the collisions between the 'substantial wave domain' of the high-speed motion and the 'virtual wave domain' of the surrounding magic environment …
Rebecca was, of course, very interested in the theories behind these phenomena. But even if these theories had yet to be perfected, it did not affect her pragmatism. She put the Missile Limit Accelerator to use first and used it to build the most powerful supercritical accelerator in human history.
This thing was a good thing. It could attack from a very long distance away. Moreover, it could move at high speed within the magic field. The huge amount of energy accumulated would be released the moment the shell stopped moving. It could instantly wipe out the enemy and their ancestors. There was no uncontrollable follow-up damage. This was much better than the Inferno Bomb. Of course, the Inferno Bomb was also a good thing. However, the power of the Inferno Bomb could easily exceed expectations. After all, living fire elementals were unstable things.
Because of this, the boys in the technical department privately gave nicknames to the Supercritical Acceleration Stage and the Inferno Incendiary Bomb. The former was called the "Bone Ash Cannon", while the latter was called the "Bullet to End All Descendants". This could not be written in the report.
Rebecca's mind was whirling with thoughts of usefulness and uselessness, but those messy thoughts did not take up too much of her time. She soon snapped out of her thoughts, and noticed that the System's cooldown was almost over. At the same time, she also noticed something else. "Speaking of which, the front end is still using the rails we designed before …"
"Yes, Your Highness." The technical supervisor immediately nodded. "We have included the rapid replacement rail in the production plan, but the factory still needs some time to adjust it. Before we replace the new rail, the Supercritical Accelerator is still using the previous' three rail '. Now, it can still fire two more times."
"Alright, there's no need for such an awesome name for a rail that can only fire three times …" Rebecca felt awkward when she heard the name 'three rail'. She quickly waved her hand and said, "Get ready for the next shot. We'll still shoot at Dragonspine Mountain. The Cortex Prime saw a very chaotic flow of magic there. The enemy's command center should be nearby. But those monsters are pretty cunning. They actually know how to create a hybrid interference barrier … Just do whatever you want. Leave two sets of spare rails, and we'll use the rest of them up."
"Yes, Your Highness!" The technical supervisor immediately said with a red face. Obviously, the team behind Rebecca who was in charge of weapon development did not dislike loud bangs. "Everyone, get ready. Load the accelerator into the rail!"
"Accelerator loaded …" "Accelerator loaded, energy circuit unimpeded, heat barrier activated, operation area shield activated, all personnel move behind the safety barrier …" "Prepare to absorb additional impact, magic capacitor charged, release in ten seconds …" "Cortex Prime, start auxiliary stabilizing engine and prepare to record the launch data …" "Cortex Prime, understood. Corresponding system activated, start recording data —"
Inside the 'main cannon warehouse' that was as large as a factory, a large number of technicians quickly finished their work and ran to a platform at the end of the building. Several layers of magical barriers rose, isolating the operators from the dangerous' supercritical acceleration period 'to prevent fatal injuries from the terrible heat waves and loud noises when the accelerator was working. A magical Net terminal beside Rebecca, on the other hand, projected the image of the mainframe in the control center.
The supercritical accelerator's power was so great that the Cortex Prime had to activate part of the auxiliary engine to ensure that the framework at the edge of the fortress would not be torn apart. At the same time, this was a new device that was still in the testing phase, and its working process naturally needed to be recorded by the Cortex Prime.
The short charging process quickly ended as the countdown reached its end. A buzzing sound came from the direction of the accelerator. Rebecca nervously watched as the device fine-tuned the position of each rail for the last time. Then, she saw a stream of light suddenly injected into the end of the rail. There was a buzzing sound, followed by a deafening roar even though there were several layers of protective barriers.
Even though the Cortex Prime had already stabilized the recoil beforehand, everyone on the platform was still shaking from the impact.
The accelerator had disappeared into the night sky like a thick beam. Rebecca could not help but shake her head, picking her ears as she muttered, "My brain is buzzing …"
The Cortex Prime, which was projected on the magic network terminal, agreed with its creator. "To be honest, it is buzzing."
"Perhaps we should consider more effective protective measures later, or simply set the control mechanism in another room …" Rebecca muttered, before her eyes fell on the spare rails and accelerators stacked on a shelf not far away. "But that's a matter for the future … Let's get these things out of here first!"
…
A wind more chaotic than usual swept across the Gondor homeland, which was covered in dust and gravel. In the depths of the dark and cold wastelands, a sea of mutants gathered in the plains and river valleys. A large number of twisted treant priests surrounded a hill in the middle of the plains. These dark Druil had planted their roots in the heart of the dark kingdom, forming a chilling forest. They were constantly exchanging information with the root network buried in the wastelands for hundreds of years, like a highly efficient command center of the army, controlling all affected mutants and biochemical behemoths.
This massive army was like a vortex, constantly attracting the 'wild' mutants wandering in the depths of the wastelands, blindly drawing them closer and becoming the new soldiers of the army.
And at the center of it all, at the top of the hill, was the current head of the All Things Will Die, Borken.
The leader of the dark Druil had his roots deeply embedded into the soil of the hill, connecting with the root network that spread underground. Information from countless lower nodes converged and divided in his mind, allowing him to control the movement of the entire army at any time. As the army expanded, he could also understand the situation outside the wastelands, as well as the resistance of the mortal kingdoms and the progress of their fall.
The army's expansion was not going well. The resistance of the mortals was very strong. But overall, the army was still pushing outward. Apart from the northern perimeter, the wastelands had spread to a certain extent, and a portion of the runic stones had followed the army into the civilization's territory and were successfully placed into the predetermined Deep Blue Rift.
But as time passed, even this advance was met with greater and greater resistance … The advantage of the sudden attack was gradually disappearing. The mortal kingdoms had already reacted, and the "alliance" they formed gradually showed its usefulness in this process. The defensive system and the transportation system that worked on land and sea at the same time allowed them to hold the line of defense with great difficulty. In fact, the situation was becoming more and more stable by the day.
But the dark Druil were not too disheartened. Because from the start … they had considered the possibility that the army could not completely destroy the civilization.
Their ultimate goal was not to conquer all the civilizations in the first place. They only needed to conquer a portion of the predetermined regions and place enough runic stones there.
And the biggest disadvantage of the mortal kingdoms was that they did not know where the runic stones would be placed. They did not know which regions must not be abandoned, nor did they know the actual progress of the real plan behind the attack.
As the cold wind blew across the wastelands, Borken's branches and leaves trembled in the night. He was immersed in the control of the army as he calculated the overall progress of the plan and the remaining lifespan of the mortals who were destined to become history in the path of evolution. Suddenly, a strong nerve pulse was transmitted into his mind through the network of roots, causing the dark Druil to open his eyes.
"Head Hierarch." A cleric nearby immediately asked, "What happened?"
Borken's tawny eyes stared at the dark western horizon. After a long while, he broke the silence with a deep voice.
"Marcellus is dead."
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