Chapter 1328 - 1327: Luck Arrives and Can’t Be Stopped...

Chapter 1328: Chapter 1327: Luck Arrives and Can’t Be Stopped...

What is that weapon? What is its principle? What is that phenomenon that seems to create spatial tearing? What is the energy that violently shakes the entire impact zone and can even block the mental connection between the aberration legions?

Countless questions filled the minds of Maselus and every "commander" with consciousness around him. However, at this moment, they no longer had the leisure to ponder such "academic questions"—only one fact was fiercely striking their cognition:

Those Cecil people, who had deployed an entire air fortress fleet, still had a sharp blade concealed. They possessed a weapon with tremendous power and astonishing range, something that could even shoot from Ruby City to Wolf Spine Mountain in one shot! Moreover, it flew many times faster than sound, with the power to directly flatten a mountain peak!

Maselus turned and ran, and the treant priests he had brought, who were aiding in commanding the aberration legions, also turned and ran. A large group of twisted and deformed treants sprinted across the scorched mountains, creating a surreal scene. Behind them, the wandering aberrations and monsters also received orders. They began moving in all directions haphazardly, creating vast areas of smoke, heat sources, and magical surges to interfere with the Cecil people’s observation and targeting—in theory, this should be effective.

At the same time, on the Dawn of the mortal world sky fortress hovering over Ruby City, a factory-like building on the edge was brightly lit. The bright lights of the Magic Crystal Street Lamps and engineering lights illuminated the external walls of this rectangular building. Its specially designed sloped roof and the walls on either side already extended mechanical "wings" resembling Magic Energy Wingboards. Complex mechanical structures extended from the building’s interior, with intricately arranged rune triggers fixed at the ends. Massive waste energy and heat were releasing from the edges of these "wings," with a layer of mist shrouding the building and rapidly dissipating at high altitudes.

Inside the building was also brightly lit. Many Mage Technicians and mechanical soldiers busied themselves around a massive equipment composed of complex tracks, charging devices, and cushioning units. Some technical assistants summoned Frost Nova near certain pipes and power beams to cool overheating elements within the system.

A low roaring sound suddenly came from a partition wall at the end of the room. The partition wall then opened, revealing a pipeline transport chamber inside. A "car" resembling a subway carriage but with a rounded exterior stopped in the slot of the pipeline. When the door opened, Rebecca, who came from the control center, stepped out. She walked towards the highest-ranking technical supervisor on-site, her eyes shining as she looked at the large device in the center of the room: "How’s it going? Is everything working well?"

"Your Highness!" The technical supervisor immediately stood at attention and saluted Rebecca, then picked up a record board nearby, reporting excitedly, "The supercritical acceleration phase has met design standards. We just successfully hit target number one on Wolf Spine Mountain and completely destroyed the target—now the system is cooling down. In a few more minutes, we can perform the second shot!"

"Oh, great!" Rebecca nodded with satisfaction and quickly walked to the large device, standing on tiptoe to observe—she was of course familiar with these things because it was under her leadership that this massive, complex multi-segmented track system, massive Magic Capacitors and overload devices, specially designed waste energy release and magical energy balance units, and the "timing clock" capable of precisely activating multiple sequential booster devices were developed. The initial prototype of all this was the "Missile Extreme Accelerator" built for a "super-speed flight project" by the White River.

The Missile Limit, a mysterious critical point, refers to a barrier encountered by all material flying objects when reaching speeds several times the speed of sound. In the mindset of traditional mages, this speed barrier, known as the "Missile Limit," was an insurmountable obstacle, a "wall of truth" set by this world for the material world. For many years in the past, due to the mental limits and magic backlash issues inherent in traditional mages using human talent to cast spells, this "barrier" was indeed never breached. Therefore, traditional mages unwaveringly believed in the concept of "the Missile Limit being insurpassable."

Until a determined girl named Rebecca, alongside a group of equally determined "non-mainstream mages," used a bunch of tireless, loss-immune, extremely precise machines capable of repeatedly accumulating energy to accelerate a metal rod beyond the theoretical value of the Missile Limit.

That day, with a loud bang on the White River, that seemingly ordinary metal rod blew up the laboratory, pierced through the facility’s outer wall, and almost caused a terrifying explosion on the White River bank...

On that day, Grand Governor Aunt Heidi’s hand trembled repeatedly when approving funding, while Rebecca and her assistants celebrated for an entire night.

Rebecca approached the acceleration device, reaching out to touch the still warm charging unit and the calibration support group behind the tracks, feeling the next wave of power brewing in this incredibly powerful weapon, a bright smile appearing on her face.

To this day, the various phenomena and underlying principles observed when objects are accelerated beyond the Missile Limit remain unexplained. Even Rebecca, who personally completed the experiment, has not found the theoretical support behind it all. However, recent research by Lady Milmina on the "Unified Wave Hypothesis" suggests that it may involve the "wave boundary" between matter and non-matter. The former Supreme Magus further speculated that the massive energy released by matter when it exceeds the Missile Limit might originate from the collision of the "Entity Wave Domain" of the hyper-speed movement with the "Ethereal Wave Domain" of the surrounding magic-pervasive environment...

Of course, Rebecca is interested in these "theories behind the phenomena," but even if these theories are still imperfect, it does not hinder her pursuit of practical use. Thus, she put the "Missile Extreme Accelerator" into action, using it to create the most powerful Big Boom in human history—the Supercritical Accelerator.

This thing is a fine creation, capable of launching attacks from a great distance. The massive energy accumulated by material as it moves at high speeds through the magical power field is rapidly released the moment the projectile stops, instantly obliterating the enemy and their ancestors—eighteen generations back—without any uncontrollable subsequent damage. This is far better than the Purgatory Incendiary—of course, the Purgatory Incendiary is also a good thing, it’s just that its power easily overshoots expectations since living fire elementals are indeed unstable things.

As a result, the youngsters in the technical department privately gave nicknames to the supercritical acceleration phase and the Purgatory Incendiary, naming the former the "Ash Scatterer Gun" and the latter the "Lineage Breaker Bullet"—such names cannot be written in reports.

Rebecca’s mind was filled with useful and not useful thoughts, but these scattered ideas did not occupy much time. She quickly jolted out of her rambling and realized that the system was almost done cooling. She also noticed something significant: "Speaking of which, we’re still using the previously designed tracks at the front end..."

"Yes, Your Highness," the technical supervisor immediately replied, "We have included the quick-release tracks in the production plan, but the factory still needs time to adjust. Before replacing with new tracks, the Supercritical Accelerator uses the previous ’three-shot track’—it can still fire two more times now."

"Alright, no need to give a grand name to a track that can only fire three times in total..." Rebecca said quickly, feeling embarrassed by the name "three-shot track." She waved her hand, "Prepare for the next shot, aim towards Dragon Spine Mountain again—the Main Brain sees complex, chaotic magical flows there, indicating that the enemy’s command center should be nearby. But those creatures are quite cunning; they’ve managed to create interference barriers... Just fire randomly, leave two sets of backup tracks, use up all the remaining tracks."

"Yes, Your Highness!" The technical supervisor responded with a beaming face. Clearly, following Rebecca in weapon development, no one in the group could resist the allure of Big Boom’s commotion. "Everyone get ready, take your positions, load the accelerating body into the tracks!"

"Received, begin loading the acceleration body..." "Acceleration body loaded, energy circuit clear, heat barrier activated, operational shield activated, all personnel move behind the safety barrier..." "Prepare to absorb additional impact, magic capacitors charged, release in ten seconds..." "Main Brain, activate auxiliary stabilizing engines and prepare to record launch data..." "Main Brain understands, corresponding systems activated, begin data recording—"

Within the factory-like vast "main cannon chamber," a large number of technical personnel rapidly completed their work, then quickly moved to a platform at the rear of the structure, several layers of magic barriers rising up to isolate the operators from the dangerous "supercritical acceleration period," preventing fatal damage from the terrifying heat and noise once the accelerator was operational. Next to Rebecca, a magic web terminal projected the image of the Main Brain located in the control center.

The power of the supercritical accelerator at startup is so immense that the Main Brain must activate auxiliary engines to ensure the fortress’s perimeter framework doesn’t tear apart, while also being a new device still in the testing phase, requiring the recording of its operational process by the Main Brain.

The brief charging process ended swiftly, the countdown reached its end, a humming noise came from the accelerator’s direction, Rebecca nervously watched as the device made its final adjustments to the guide rails’ positions, then saw a stream of light suddenly injected into the end of the rails—an echoing hum burst followed by an ear-splitting roar that could be felt even behind several layers of protective barriers.

Even with the Main Brain pre-stabilizing the recoil, everyone on the platform was still shaken intensely.

The acceleration body disappeared into the dark night sky like a broad beam of light, Rebecca couldn’t help but shake her head, mumbling as she dug into her ears: "Wow—my brain is buzzing..."

The projected Main Brain on the nearby magic web terminal promptly echoed its creator: "Honestly, it’s indeed buzzing."

"Perhaps we should consider better protective measures next time, or simply set up the control mechanisms in another room..." Rebecca muttered, her gaze then falling on the spare rails and acceleration bodies stacked not far away, "But that’s for later... Let’s just fire all of these first!"

...

More chaotic and unruly than usual, the wind swept through the dust and sand across the Gondor wastelands. In the dark and cold depths of the wasteland, aberrations like mountains and seas gathered in the plains and valleys, numerous twisted and menacing Treant Priests encircling a hill at the center of the plains. These fallen dark Druids took root in the heart of the dark realm, forming a chilling forest, exchanging various intel continuously with the root network meticulously laid underground over centuries, orchestrating the affected aberrations and bio-monsters like a highly efficient command center.

This massive legion itself was like a vortex, constantly drawing in "feral" aberrations wandering deeper in the wasteland, making them blindly gather closer, becoming new soldiers of the legion.

At the heart of all this, at the top of the hill, was the current Archbishop of the Oblivion Association, Balken.

The leader of the dark Druids dug his roots deeply into the hill’s soil, connecting with the sprawling underground root system, gathering and channeling information from countless lower nodes into his mind, allowing him to control the legion’s every move, gain insights from the legion’s expansion outside the wasteland, and understand the resistance and encroachment progress of those mortal realms.

The legion’s expansion was not without setbacks, as the mortals’ resistance was fiercely courageous—yet overall, the legion still pushed outward, with some rune stones successfully deployed in the predetermined Deep Blue Rift amidst the wasteland’s incursion beyond the northern front.

However, as time goes by, even such advances are encountering increasing resistance... The initial surprise assault advantage gradually faded as the mortal realms prepared, and the alliance among them increasingly shows effectiveness in guarded mutual assistance defense systems and simultaneously operating land and sea transport systems, making it difficult to hold the lines steady, even stabilizing the situation day by day.

Yet, the dark Druids did not despair, for from the very beginning... they accounted for the possibility that the legion could not completely destroy the civilized world.

Their ultimate goal was not to breach all civilized nations—they needed only to breach certain pre-selected regions and then cast enough rune stones.

The greatest disadvantage of the mortal realms is their ignorance of the rune stone deployment locations, which areas must absolutely not be abandoned, and the actual progress of the hidden plan behind the assault actions.

The cold wind passed over the wasteland, the leafy branches of Balken stirred in the night sky, immersed in overall control of the legion, calculating the plan’s ultimate progress and the remaining life expectancy of those pitiful mortals destined to become part of history in the process of evolutionary ascendance. Suddenly, an intense neural pulse transmitted through the root network into his consciousness, making the dark Druid abruptly open his eyes.

"Archbishop," one nearby priest immediately asked, "what happened?"

Balken’s ocher eyes fixed on the western dark horizon, breaking the silence solemnly after a long pause:

"Maselus is dead."