Chapter 22 The City of Destruction <TOC> Chapter 24 Chatter and Laughter Vanishing in a Puff of Smoke
Translator: SumTLMan
Twelve hundred years ago, steam-powered-mechanical technology was discovered by adventurers exploring an ancient civilisation ruin, and human civilisation has entered the steam-powered-mechanical age ever since.
With the shelter of mechanical cities, humanity was no longer dominated by darkness and fear, and entered the golden age of population growth.
From then onwards, humanity went from being a vulnerable race languishing on this fog-covered continent to a powerful one at the top of the food chain.
The great scientist who built the first steam-powered mechanical city, Dorena Spoglin, was Omagh Empire’s First Empress.
From then onwards, the ancient feudal kingdoms were divided into what is now known as the two great empires. One was the “Sidhe Empire”, which continued the ancient feudal traditions, while the other was the “Omagh Empire”, which followed the path of steam-powered technology.
……
“Steam-Powered Technology” is the foundation of the Omagh Empire.
The steel monster that was slowly emerging from Storm Lake before them is a mechanical city that represents the crystallisation of science and steam-powered technology, that embodies the culmination of generations of scientists from the “Omagh Royal College of Sciences”— [The City of Destruction]!
This mechanical city belongs to the “Behemoth Overlord Grade”, the ultimate grade of war fortress and a weapon made purely for warfare.
Although it had no ordinary residential buildings and wasn’t as large as some of the other mechanical cities belonging to lords, it had an overwhelming advantage in firepower and mobility compared to the mechanical city in its grade.
All of the designs on the entire mechanical city exists solely for carrying out warfare.
The huge, exaggerated composite tracks that held up the gigantic conch-shaped mechanical city are as indestructible as a steel can.
At first glance, one can see a 200-metre-high armoured defence wall that looked as solid as a reservoir dam. As one looked further upwards, one can see spiralling floors densely packed with super artillery guns with frighteningly large calibres, aiming 360° in every direction, leaving no dead angles…
It had state-of-the-art steam-powered boilers, steel-flame furnaces, city-breaking cutting machines, war hammers, expulsion machines, harpoons…
This was a steel monster that is armed to the teeth.
The moment it emerged from the waters, the steam-powered tanks, which had built up a lot of pressure, violently released their pressure valves as the white steam-vapours floated up as if a colossal beast had climbed straight out of hell with monstrously fierce flames following behind.
The three main “War Beast Grade” mechanical cities belonging to the “White Wolf Bandits” forces in front of [The City of Destruction] trembled like hyenas at the foot of a lion.
“This thing… Is too powerful!”
From afar, Rayne looked up at the mechanical city that had suddenly emerged from the lake and couldn’t help but swallow his spit.
The steam-powered machinery in front of him, which represented the pinnacle of technology in this world, struck him with a hundred times more impact than any aircraft carrier he had seen in his past life. This science and technology tree is a little too crooked for his taste…
……
This time, the “Black Market Fair” has brought together the vast majority of the bandit gangs in the southern region of the Omagh Empire.
There were more than a hundred bandit gangs with mechanical cities, plus thousands of those micro-mechanical cities used for supplying and transporting troops…
In the blink of an eye, he immediately froze. The first round of artillery shells from [The City of Destruction] was already blasting intensively away.
Boom, boom, boom, boom…
The deafening roar of heavy artillery shells exploded in the sky.
At that time, thousands of shells fell down like raindrops on the bandit gangs’ mechanical cities by the lake, setting off a massive shower of explosive fire rain.
The thing that had made Rayne’s jaw drop the most was…
At this moment, he witnessed the mechanical monster slowly crawling ashore and “swallowing” a smaller mechanical city whole like a whale!
Yes, swallowing whole!
When the mechanical city came ashore, the exaggerated walls split open like a colossal beast opening its jaws to reveal a hot steel chamber that looked like a volcanic crater.
Then dozens of harpoons shot out and easily penetrated the nearest small mechanical city, which, like bound prey, couldn’t escape or struggle free even with all its might.
When the winch pulled back the mechanical city, before the bandit gangs in the mechanical city could even escape, the people were dragged into the furnaces and turned into molten iron along with their mechanical city…
This mechanical city which rolled onto the battlefield had forcefully crushed everything on its path with an invincible posture!
……
“Steam-powered boilers running at full pressure, boiler workers add more coal… Add more coal now!”
“Artillerymen, reload ammo for the counterattack…”
“Don’t panic, everyone, it takes a long time to reload ammo for the larger artillery guns… Everyone hurry up and spread out!”
“…”
The bandit gangs were also extremely quick to respond in the face of battle, and after being initially caught off guard by the first round of artillery, the team commanders reacted quickly.
One by one, the steam-powered mechanical cities increased their power and spread out in all directions.
Although their artillery wasn’t as powerful as [The City of Destruction’s] cutting edge technology, the distance was far enough away for them to fire intensively and destroy some of the buildings on the mechanical city…
After all, no matter how fierce the enemy was, there was only one mechanical city.
……
The shores of Storm Lake suddenly erupted into chaos.
At this moment, [White Wolf] Barzel finally understood where his bad feeling was coming from.
He viciously stared at the Omagh people in front of him. His tone revealing his malicious, murderous intent: “Do all of you think that by setting up an ambush in advance for us with this behemoth mechanical city that all of you will be able to wipe out the hundreds of bandit gangs that have gathered here today?
Although [The City of Destruction] was unrivalled, it was a fool’s errand to think that this one super mechanical city would be enough to wipe out hundreds of bandit gangs!
In his view, this siege campaign will be like the numerous other siege campaigns carried out before, all of which ended in vain.
After a pause, he said with a grimace: “[The City of Destruction] may be powerful… But we still have enough time to take all of your heads before we escape!”
“Oh? Then we’ll wait and see…”
The several Omagh people stood their ground as if they didn’t care at all about his threats.
“Hmph!”
Barzel grunted and spoke no more nonsense in his silver werewolf incarnation, opting instead to taut his muscles and ready himself for a strike.
“Brothers, the reward for whoever kills the Omagh Grand Prince is 100 million lire!”
All of the surrounding bandits were bloodthirsty outlaws that licked blood at the tip of a knife. As soon as they heard this promise, they wailed with excitement at the prospect of the reward. The moment the leader made his first move, all bandits around began swarming to tear the Omagh Royal Family’s side to pieces.
But then something else happened.
……
Suddenly, a cloud of blood-red blobs exploded in the sky.
PIU~BOOM!
PIU~BOOM!
PIU~BOOM!
…
A series of fireworks shot up into the sky, exploding into a massive cloud of blood-red mist. In just a few breaths, a faint red fog carpeted along the shores of Storm Lake, diffusing into the air.
“Again? What the hell are these guys up to?”
Barzel’s nose sniffed, catching a faint whiff of medicine and instantly revealed a hint of suspicion.
What puzzled him was that this mist wasn’t poisonous, and the explosion didn’t hurt anyone, so what was it for?
Vaguely, he felt something unpleasant as he hesitated to raise his wolf paw at the moment.
In another moment, the black-robed aide beside Grand Prince Quentin gave a sweeping glance at the bandit gangs as he spoke again: “I’ve been planning this day for three years… You didn’t think I’d let you all escape so easily, did you?”
Three years of planning?
Barzel gave a second thought and immediately became extremely fearful.
From the moment he had been ambushed, he had been keenly aware of how odd the situation was.
Firstly, there was no sign of any large mechanical city movement near the shores of Storm Lake, which meant that [The City of Destruction] had been lurking in ambush for at least a few months.
Secondly, the “Black Market Fair” location had been discussed and negotiated with the leaders of several of the largest bandit gangs in the south, and now they had all fallen straight into a trap…
This meant that there was a “mole” in one of the major decision-makers amongst the bandit gangs!
All signs pointed to the fact that since long ago, their trade fair had fallen into this plot.
With this in mind, Barzel knew that if things were dragged on for any longer, something else might change.
After giving his command, he went straight into battle.
“Do it now, kill the Grand Prince of Omagh!”
At that very moment, several members of the Omagh Royal Family’s side also began their preparations.
The heavily armoured Knight Commander Rhine’s fighting aura surged as he unhesitatingly stopped a bandit gang member from advancing. As the strongest knight in the Royal Court, he had a strong defence that could easily withstand an artillery blast!
As the Archmage [King of Hell] Heme finished channelling his spell, a hexagram flashed and summoned a four-headed eight-metre-tall “Inferno Demon” to shield Grand Prince Quentin…
At that time, the “Hyacinth Tavern” was caught in the midst of a fierce battle.
…….
On the other side…
Rayne, who had already run a few kilometres away, naturally noticed the “red fireworks” exploding in the sky.
“This mist… It isn’t a graphite bomb or something else, right? Is this world so technologically advanced?”
When the thought had just crossed his mind, the mist fell and entered through the air filter of his gas mask…
The smell, however, hit him like a cat being given catnip, sending him a jolt.
“Huh… No. Is this a medicinal powder?!”
Rayne had been a magic potion master apprentice for a few days and was no stranger to the smell of medicinal herbs.
The red mist was inhaled into his respiratory tract, and suddenly it was like cold water dripping onto a frying pan, causing the blood in his body to boil.
“No, there’s something wrong with this medicinal powder!”
The abnormal changes to his body caused Rayne to instantly panic.
His intuition told him that a catastrophe was imminent!
Just then, he suddenly felt a tingling sensation all over his skin and body, as if some hairs were being blown by the wind, making him continuously itch.
Raising his hand, he saw thin red hair-like lines growing like crazy on his bare skin!
“What’s going on here?”
In just a breath or two, red hairs nearly an inch long had grown out of all of the pores on his body, and then his whole body took on a look of a red-haired baboon.
The red hair grew longer and longer, accompanied by a feeling of severe dehydration, blood loss and a strong sense of vertigo washing over Rayne’s mind.
One look at his physical condition projected by his “Wisdom Brain”, and it was immediately clear!
[Warning! A catalyst for infection, ‘Zombie Potion’ has been activated, host death expected in 30 seconds…]
[Warning! A massive invasion of unknown life forms detected…]
Chapter 22 The City of Destruction <TOC> Chapter 24 Chatter and Laughter Vanishing in a Puff of Smoke