Chapter 179 : Silver… Silver-colored…
Chapter 179: Silver… Silver-colored…
In the steam-filled bathroom, Mitia lay back in the bathtub, soaking, while Anna stood behind her, washing her long hair.
Half-squinting as she looked at the ceiling shrouded in water vapor, scenes she had seen in the Otherworld still involuntarily surfaced in her mind.
Funika said that she had never felt a particularly strong sense of threat. It wasn’t that she didn’t care—she was, in fact, quite puzzled as to why the difference between their perceptions had been so vast.
In terms of strength, Mitia was naturally not as strong as Funika, but the gap was limited. At most, she couldn’t beat Funika; escaping, however, would not have been a problem at all.
Because of this, Mitia could only arrive at one explanation: deep within her memories, there might exist a vague image corresponding to that kind of existence—and it was precisely something she could not deal with. That was why such a severe warning had been triggered.
She had also asked in detail whether there were other things in that world, but Funika said there might be, or there might not be.
Because the vast majority of places resembling industrial facilities she had seen within the territory of the Seris Alliance were plastered with extremely conspicuous and easily recognizable danger and prohibition symbols.
Even without understanding the language, skulls and X marks were still easy enough to recognize~
Previously, she had only needed corpses and had no interest in those things. By sheer accident, the things she ended up using were actually quite convenient.
Mitia, however, thought of how near-modern industrial equipment in that world could be of tremendous benefit to her—but… now, she did not dare to act rashly.
She could not determine the source of that sense of crisis. She only faintly sensed that within those texts lurked a kind of energy she could not comprehend.
If she were to bring those machines out, would that be equivalent to bringing that ‘thing’ out as well? She could not guarantee it, nor did she even have a way to test it.
Thus, in the end, she dispelled the desire to plunder the resources inside. You should only eat as much as your bowl can hold—if gold pancakes fall from the sky, you still need to be able to catch them, rather than be crushed to death.
Judging from the scene in that Otherworld, for the magic world on this side to reach that kind of bizarre, world-ending effect, even the Goddess of Magic who created the world might not necessarily be able to achieve it.
Destroying a civilization and making a civilization actively seek destruction were two completely different things.
And through fragmented observations, Mitia felt that the probability of this civilization ‘actively’ seeking death was clearly much higher.
The Alliance was composed mostly of ordinary people. If it were merely a near-modern civilization, it was not worth her bearing such enormous risks.
Perhaps after becoming a god, she could make another trip to investigate the specific situation?
At the very least, she needed to find a way to peer through the layer of red mist shrouding the sky, to see whether she could determine that world’s approximate coordinates through the stellar systems.
Was it truly an Otherworld, or another planet within the same universe, or an independent Other Dimension? The answer to this question was very important to her.
But there was one thing Mitia could be certain of: if Funika could stumble upon a dead Otherworld, then such worlds were absolutely not rare.
When you can see a cockroach appear in the light, it only proves that the dark places are already too crowded~
‘Your Majesty, the Dmitria Church launched surprise attacks last night against Golotsk, Chernit, Uyanchi, and Mitoten, advancing along four directions.’
‘Under the joint command of four marshals and bishops, Golotsk was taken in just one night, and they are now pressing toward Roshek. Chernit State has also lost more than half its territory, and contact battles have broken out in the other two states as well.’
Anna finished wrapping Mitia’s wet hair. Mitia sat up, her graceful upper body exposed to the air, her ample curves bouncing slightly. “Hm? Mitoten? Isn’t that the port where our transport ships are about to dock?”
Anna’s cheeks flushed slightly as she handed Mitia a towel. ‘…Yes. The ocean-going fleet should reach Mitoten Port in about two days. The exchange students are traveling with the fleet as well.’
“What’s the fleet’s configuration like? Can it guarantee the students’ safety? Remember to have the Ministry of Foreign Affairs explain the situation to both countries—especially the Church.”
Taking the towel and casually wiping her upper body, she stood up. Her jade-like feet, still carrying a faint mist of moisture, stepped onto the soft carpet as she gently opened her arms toward Anna:
“Warn those god-bothering fanatics—warships are our country’s maritime territory. If they dare to ‘accidentally’ drop something and cause ‘collateral damage,’ then we’ll dare to accidentally flatten their Belzetsk Deepwater Port.”
‘Sil… silver…’
“What?”
‘N-no, nothing! I meant, understood.’
Mitia hadn’t heard clearly at first. When she reacted, black lines covered her forehead. “Are you wiping me or not? If not, hand me the bath towel!”
‘Wiping…’
“Then hurry up. I may not be afraid of the cold, but I don’t have an exhibitionist habit.”
Watching Anna hesitate and dawdle, Mitia shot her a glance. Back then, Anna had insisted on helping her wipe her body no matter what. After so many years, Mitia herself had long grown used to it—yet Anna seemed to be regressing instead.
Putting on her nightwear without undergarments, she leaned back in a rocking chair with her feet propped on a footstool. Mitia comfortably closed her eyes again, waiting for the other maids to dry her hair.
As for Anna, she took advantage of this time to arrange the tasks Mitia had instructed.
This life was truly refined and indulgent—she barely needed to lift a finger the entire time. All she had to do was lie around, leaving everything else to the maids and Anna. She was only responsible for smelling nice.
Compared to the calm Seris Alliance, Chernit State on another continent had turned into a living hell.
“Kill! Break through them!”
“Where’s the artillery? The magic crystal cannons? Fire! Blow the city gates open!”
‘Sir, no good—the magical shield of Chernit City is too thick. We can’t break through it at all.’
“qumd of ‘no good’! Bring the scepter over here! If we can’t break through Chernit today, I’ll send every last one of them to atone before the Goddess!”
Amid the roars of the battlefield’s supreme commander, a flying fortress hundreds of meters in diameter hovered in midair, slowly advancing toward the gates of Chernit City. Thousands of aerial cavalry riding flying magical beasts escorted it.
When the distance between the two sides closed to within a kilometer, the side of the flying fortress facing Chernit City suddenly split open, revealing a massive cannon barrel engraved all over with runes.
At the commander’s order, light and darkness alternated at the muzzle. The abundant Magical Elements in the surroundings, along with the fortress’s internal large-scale Magitech Engine, were drained at astonishing speed.
Then, a thick magical beam dozens of meters in diameter slammed into the massive magical shield enveloping Chernit. Blinding light and violent elemental fluctuations blasted soldiers from both sides within a hundred-meter radius into the air, creating a vacuum zone.
Aside from the shield directly resisting the beam glowing brilliantly, the magical shield in other directions dimmed almost instantly—clearly, it was diverting elements from elsewhere.
After about ten seconds of stalemate, cracking sounds rang out incessantly, growing denser and denser, until the shield finally shattered completely and the beam struck the thick city walls.
“Boom!”
Amid the deafening roar, the section of wall struck—along with the city gate—was reduced to flying rubble. The stones sprayed outward like dense bullet rain in all directions.
Countless soldiers on both sides who had yet to react were smashed into unrecognizable pulp by the kinetic force of the fragments. Even Mechanical Soldiers met the same shattered fate when hit.
When the energy fluctuations subsided, where were the city gate and walls? Only a crater over a hundred meters wide remained, with streams of dark-red blood flowing into it and continuously evaporating—silent proof of how many wronged souls had died there.
One shot carved out a crater over a hundred meters in diameter and dozens of meters deep. Within a kilometer, almost nothing was spared—like a drop of ink falling onto white paper, spreading into a stark black blot.
Watching from a high vantage point in the distance, John Rawls sucked in a sharp breath. This thing’s firepower was a bit excessive~
And this was only the residual energy after shattering the city’s defensive shield. If a full shot struck the surface directly, the crater’s diameter would probably double with ease.
A single round from the Alliance’s 152 howitzer could blast a pit roughly forty meters across, with fragmentation killing power within about three hundred meters. One shot from this thing could scatter the ashes of an entire Alliance artillery battalion.
‘What do you think, Count John Rawls? Not bad, right? The “Scepter” fortress’s charged strike can unleash power equivalent to a full-force blow from an ordinary Saint-level expert. As long as it gets within firing range, almost nothing can defend against it~’
The young noble beside him said smugly, his face full of pride. John opened his mouth, about to offer some polite praise—
Before John could speak, a deep humming sound rang out, followed by a sharp, tearing explosion echoing above Chernit City.
A gigantic ballista bolt wrapped in red radiance tore through the air. Like a spear thrust into a flock of pigeons, every aerial knight in its path was vaporized as it slammed directly into the flying fortress, which had no time to evade.
The bolt pierced effortlessly through the shield and deep into the interior. No one knew what it hit, but the hundreds-of-meters-long flying fortress erupted into a violent explosion in midair, like dark clouds collapsing.
The dazzling magical elements became a nightmare for the escorting knights. When the radiance faded, only the flying fortress—trailing black smoke as it plummeted toward the ground—remained. As for the hundreds of aerial knights, it was as though they had never existed at all.
John: “…”
Young noble: ‘…’
The slap to the face came too fast, like a tornado. The young noble’s expression shifted through green, black, and red in the span of a second. After a long pause, he finally spat out through clenched teeth: ‘Damn it! The God-Falling Ballista! That old Tsar actually dared to deploy this thing on the border?’
John turned, intending to ask what exactly this thing was, only to see the other man’s hurriedly departing back. John nearly lost his composure.
After thinking for a moment, he also left the area. After spending some time as a noble, he understood their nature well—craving money and power, cherishing their lives. Whenever they gathered, it was bound to revolve around those three things.
Besides, there was no longer any need to watch this battle. Although Chernit City managed a last-moment counterattack that destroyed the flying fortress,
the collapse of an entire stretch of city wall—including the gate—combined with the annihilation of the defending soldiers atop the walls, meant there was no chance left to hold.
Strictly speaking, the Tsarist Nation of Roshek was the attacking side. However, with the involvement of the Wokingmeh Consortium led by John Rawls, the Church chose to strike first, catching the enemy off guard.
With Seris supplying intelligence, John knew very well that if this dragged on until Alliance support—namely the Little Sherman light tanks—arrived at the battlefield, they would be in an even more passive position. It was better to strike early and disrupt the opponent’s deployment.
At the same time, achieving favorable results in the early stage was also extremely beneficial for boosting the Wokingmeh Consortium’s stock prices.
In any case, for the Alliance, it didn’t matter who held the advantage—as long as the state of war was maintained. John had considerable autonomy in his choices.
This war, which the Seris Alliance watched closely, gave the Alliance General Staff a brutal eye-opener the moment it began.
Putting other things aside, just the battlefield presence of ordinary soldier-grade Mechanical Bodies—equipment they themselves also possessed—completely refreshed their understanding of such units.
In the Subcontinent, soldier Mechanical Bodies could previously only sustain high-intensity combat for five to ten minutes. In the Derro War, where the opening was already a storm of bombardment, their cruising endurance multiplied several times over.
In high-intensity combat, their self-sustainment started at half an hour; in normal combat, close to an hour; and while marching, it could reach around two hours.
From this, it became clear why the major powers of the Main Continent universally fielded Mechanical Bodies in massive numbers. This kind of battlefield endurance was truly terrifying.
Without the debuff of elemental suppression, all kinds of magical alchemical equipment shone brilliantly on the battlefield. Bolt-action rifles still retained decent effectiveness, but at best they served as weapons for expendable troops.
A captain-level Mechanical Body warrior could guide a large-area spell from afar. Without a mage anchoring them, an infantry regiment of over a thousand would be reduced to ashes on the spot, utterly incapable of affecting the maneuverability of Mechanical Body units.
Heavy machine guns, however, could still perform quite well. Fortifications enhanced with magical shields were hard to break, and the mindless deluge of high-powered bullets in intersecting fire was extremely troublesome.
Artillery was even more effective. While fragmentation damage and explosive force were heavily mitigated by the shields inherent to Mechanical Bodies, shockwaves and similar effects were impossible to defend against.
Often, the Mechanical Body itself remained largely intact, but the soldier inside had already been shaken to death. Moreover, the rune circuits of the Mechanical Body could also be damaged, frequently leaving units with immobilized limbs waiting to die on the battlefield.
As for the Church’s ultimate weapon—the flying fortress—its offensive power was terrifying. Yet from John’s observations, its defensive capability was likely its weak point. The surrounding aerial knights were its true reliance.
In close combat, they could dive at extreme speed from the sky; at range, they could coordinate with their mounts to unleash combined magic covering all angles, even using their mounts’ magic to conduct ultra-long-range single-target strikes.
The Tsarist Nation’s God-Falling Ballista was an even more specialized creation. Its bolts were forged from the hardest materials and propelled by extremely compressed Magical Elements.
It required no magical ability to operate. With its magic-piercing tip and the kinetic force of violently compressed elements, it tore through all defenses in the most direct, point-to-point manner.
A weapon said to injure even a god if taken head-on.
In truth, this thing was a semi-fixed weapon, suitable only for targets that could not move or moved extremely slowly. If the opponent’s speed was even slightly faster, the ballista—burdened by its heavy rune-based pressure storage apparatus—would struggle to keep up with directional changes.
And according to John’s careful observation, even low-tier soldiers—previously little more than cannon fodder—were now making proper use of what had once been largely decorative magical armor. At the same time, they could all release ranged magical attacks, with same-element spells fusing into combined magic.
Often, the two sides hadn’t even made contact yet before magic was already flying everywhere, spells flung continuously until they finally collided violently.
Logistics were also remarkably simple. Massive beasts over ten meters tall, called burden beasts, could carry enormous amounts of supplies on their backs. A single one was usually enough to support the long-term logistical needs of a force numbering in the thousands.
After comparing everything, while it might not be accurate to say they could completely trounce the current Alliance, the Alliance’s advantages were nearly exhausted. In terms of soldier quality, there was still a considerable gap between the two sides.