Chapter 1430: Formidable Offensive Power

Chapter 1430: Chapter 1430: Formidable Offensive Power

Depeo felt contempt for such shameless remarks, but given his current predicament, he no longer had the power to influence the situation in this gathering. Facing this suggestion and the hostility in everyone’s eyes, he could only express his stance with a bitter smile: "If sacrificing myself can save the family from dire straits, I personally have no objections, and I believe even the deceased Prince Delacuri would agree to sacrifice his bloodline to atone for his mistakes."

Upon hearing these words, everyone, including Vlad Hope sitting in the chief seat, became animated, beginning to let their subordinates discuss who to send for negotiations and what conditions would be accepted.

"If handing over members of the Delacuri Clan still doesn’t satisfy them, we can choose to cooperate with them, sending important members from our clan as their hostages," someone immediately suggested in the conference room.

"Do we really need to go this far? If we really do this, the Vlad family will have no place in the Blood Race on the magical plane!" Someone promptly questioned this suggestion, arguing that cooperating even by sending hostages was essentially submission! To submit to a once insignificant cornerstone plane force, the Vlad family will surely become a laughingstock among the Blood Race.

"Do we have a choice now? Blood Race! Dark Council! Not a single former ally helped us at a critical moment. Now that we’ve reached this point, do we still need to care about their opinions?" the one proposing sneered and retorted.

"Uh~! Would the other party accept such conditions?" Faced with the pressure of the situation, someone in the gathering finally succumbed and asked quietly.

"They should! The cornerstone plane has just emerged and needs powerful individuals to assist. Even a subpar blood servant from the Delacuri family managed to surrender and secure a position within their faction. We..."

He hadn’t finished speaking when the conference room door was suddenly pushed open from the outside. A guard hurriedly burst in, scanning the room before finally focusing on the new patriarch. Under everyone’s watchful eyes, he sped to Hope’s side and whispered a few words.

After hearing the guard’s report, Hope’s expression changed, and he immediately gestured for him to step aside. He then waved his hand towards the void, and a scene reflecting the shadows outside the city emerged above the long table. As soon as the imagery appeared, it immediately drew everyone’s attention.

"The guard just reported that they have begun setting up for the attack, and the deployment is happening quickly. I believe they will launch the assault soon," Hope announced, pointing at scenes in the imagery.

"What’s this?" Ordin stood up, looking at the large, bizarre machinery occupying the cleared field, puzzled, "Are these tools for sieging from the cornerstone plane?"

A member of the Blood Race stared at the images for a long time before speaking, "That thing should be a cannon!"

"Cannon? What’s a cannon?"

"Yes! It’s a weapon that uses alchemy materials as fuel to propel iron-based ammunition. Its power is slightly greater than a catapult, but it doesn’t pose much harm to us. Ancestors once visited the cornerstone plane and recorded such a weapon," a conference participant recalled a travel diary left by the ancestors and made a conjecture, adding as a precaution, "Though it resembles what the book records as the cannon, the details have significantly changed. After so many years of development, its power may have greatly increased."

"Catapults, huh! No matter how powerful they are, how powerful can they be! What we truly need to worry about is Pei Yan and those three prince-ranked powerful beings! They are the ones who can destroy our family," another family member immediately gained full agreement from the room, as they believed artifact refining mechanisms are flashy but impractical, potentially useful against low-level Blood Race but posing far less threat to the layers of defenses and magical arrays laid by the Vlad family for hundreds of years than those three prince-ranked powerful beings capable of world-ending powers.

Still holding onto a bit of hope in analyzing the situation, Ordin pondered for a moment and suggested, "Perhaps we can wait until the first round of attacks from the investigation hall fails, then propose a negotiation request."

"That’s a good proposal! But we must seize the timing, allowing them to know that the Vlad family isn’t easily breached, while also preventing them from truly enraging and dispatching the powerful beings. We need to..."

Boom! Boom! Boom!

Without any warning or sensing any large-scale source energy gathering factors, Vlad Hope, who had just been delivering a speech agreeing with Ordin’s proposal, hadn’t finished his words when a series of intense explosions nearly knocked him down.

At this moment, everyone in the room felt as though the gods were using massive hammers to fiercely strike the castle where they were located. The ground trembled, walls shook, neglected dust scattered from the ceiling, and the chandelier swung with the vibrations, flickering on and off. Everyone immediately employed various life-saving techniques to protect themselves while staring at the unfolding scene in terror.

"What happened! Did a prince-ranked expert make a move?" Amid the deafening cannon noise, a Blood Race member hid behind a chair, quivering and screaming loudly.

"How could it be? The Space Array hasn’t relayed any signs of source energy gathering!" Someone immediately refuted this. The reason they were able to safely hold meetings here was due to controlling the key magical artifact array of the space. The castle had a very sensitive response to any source energy gathering within the entire space. Even if a prince-ranked expert intended to destroy the Vlad family’s stronghold of years, they’d need to gather a significant amount of source energy and employ various forbidden techniques. This was clearly not the case; the surveillance array had not issued any warnings.

"It’s the cannons! Those things called cannons?" Amidst the chaos, someone finally focused on the image on the table, pointing at the weird firearms belching fire dragons, frantic and alarmed.

"Is this the weapon you claimed was only slightly stronger than a catapult?" Ordin quickly identified the source of the problem and angrily grabbed the subordinate who had earlier offered advice.

"I, I, I mentioned that after so many years of development, its power could increase somewhat."

"This isn’t ’increase somewhat’! These are fundamentally two different things!" Ordin didn’t bother with accountability and shoved him aside. As the rumbling cannon shots stopped for unknown reasons, Ordin waved the dust before him, watching his fellow clan members scurry in panic, a mix of anger and helplessness welled within him. He couldn’t help but loudly reprimand, "Calm down! Calm down! Delacuri really shielded you too well these years! By flaunting the name of the Vlad family, you could easily achieve goals others couldn’t. Has this comfort deprived you of the last ounce of courage?"