Chapter 364: Silver Sparrow Captain Standing By 1 |
Karl lay in the pile of rubble, the remains of the broken wall pressing against his back.
He looked at the sky.
That fortress was descending.
The clouds parted on either side of it, like water split by a ship's bow. Sunlight streamed through the gaps in the clouds, illuminating the fortress's metal shell.
A shadow fell from the fortress's base, directly covering the ruins of the inner wall, covering the still-burning demon corpses, and covering him.
He coughed a few times, then laughed loudly.
"So that's how it is."
He pushed himself up from the ruins, using a broken stone for support.
Everyone had underestimated these slimes.
Including Casaric, and these demons.
The slimes had successfully deceived everyone.
What did they think slimes were?
Bouncing gel lumps in the swamp?
The lowest tier of magical creatures?
Even the orcs thought they were just a slightly smarter bunch of blobs, who happened to get lucky and tame a giant dragon.
But wrong.
All wrong.
This kingdom, born from the swamp, had been accumulating strength from day one, and was only now beginning to show its edge.
Even if this was just the tip of the iceberg, it was enough to shock everyone.
But none of that mattered on this battlefield anymore.
Karl pulled his gaze away from the fortress.
As long as Casaric was still alive, the Slime Kingdom and the Orc Palaver remained allies.
As for later, they'd deal with that after Casaric was dead. What a kingdom that could secretly build a floating fortress in a swamp meant for the Orc Palaver was a problem for tomorrow.
Today's problem was Casaric.
Karl turned around.
He stood on the ruins. Behind him was the descending metal fortress; in front of him stood the orc army, frozen in place.
The warriors gripped their weapons, heads tilted back, mouths hanging open. The frost wolves perked up their ears, tails drooping, emitting low whines from their throats.
Karl took a deep breath.
"Orcs!"
"Rally again!"
He raised his right fist above his head, his voice exploding from his chest, cutting through the smoke, cutting through the wind kicked up by the fortress's descent.
"For the Palaver!!"
His roar was swallowed by the orcs' unified battle cry. The wave of sound spread outward, so powerful it made the shadow cast by the fortress tremble.
"Attack!"
Karl's fist dropped.
The orc army surged forward once more.
...
Within the slime army's position, Nilly's eyes widened as she saw the descending floating fortress.
She emerged from the shadows, standing on the roof of a half-burned inn. The fortress glided past right over her head.
That round metal base slid past less than a hundred feet above her, casting the entire street in shadow.
Her mouth was hanging open.
"Is this big guy really this powerful?"
She knew the Little Majesty had those elves and dwarves tinkering with some mysterious stuff deep in the swamp.
A flying fortress—just like the one in Floating Winterhold, pretty much the same deal—but no one had told her it was *this* powerful.
She'd even snuck out during her free time to take a look. Ahem, of course, it absolutely wasn't skipping class.
Back then, that metal shell couldn't fly yet. Half of it was still lying in the dock, like a giant egg half-buried in the ground.
No.
Hadn't those little brats, Leon and the others, tested that main cannon?
What was it called again... Ah, Demon Crusher.
Damn it. Such an impressive thing and they didn't tell their Auntie about it. Just wait until she got back to deal with him.
In the shadows, Leon sneezed.
If he could hear Nilly's thoughts right now, he'd absolutely shout his innocence.
He really had wanted to tell his aunt back then.
But she'd been eating honey biscuits at the time, nodding "mm-hmm, mm-hmm" while eating, then said "Auntie isn't interested in this stuff" and ran off.
Nilly, for her part, was fine. She'd always known the Kingdom was secretly developing the floating fortress.
But when the soldiers of the Merchant Alliance army and the Restoration Army saw the fortress descending, they were completely stunned.
This thing was also their Kingdom's?
Nolan stood at the crossroads of Kingdom Avenue. His gaze cut through the smoke and landed on the descending fortress.
Samuel stood beside him, his eyes also fixed firmly on the slowly descending fortress.
Both of them were silent. The shock in their hearts was no less than that of the soldiers under their command. It was a long time before they snapped out of it.
Cold sweat suddenly broke out on Nolan's back. If the Merchant Alliance had resolutely refused to surrender back then, then the ones who would have first witnessed the terror of the floating fortress might very well have been them.
Louisa, riding her warhorse, was also staring at this fortress.
She had seen the power of the Demon Crusher. She thought she knew how terrifying the floating fortress was.
Now she realized she had still underestimated it.
Underestimated what a flying fortress meant in war.
What was a traditional siege like?
It was pulling the legion up to the city walls, setting up scaling ladders, pushing battering rams, charging head-on into arrow rain and boiling oil, piling up bodies to make a path to the top of the walls.
It was a siege. Siege for three months, five months, half a year. Siege until the food in the city ran out. Siege until the defenders on the walls started eating rats.
But a giant dragon didn't need all that trouble.
It just had to fly over the city and spew its breath, and it could change the course of the battle. This was a method of warfare that any kingdom found hard to resist.
Of course, taming a giant dragon was incredibly difficult, almost impossible.
But now, the appearance of a floating fortress changed everything.
It was like a giant dragon. It didn't need scaling ladders, didn't need battering rams, didn't need a siege. It flew directly above the city walls and aimed its cannons at the top.
Those walls that had stood for hundreds of years, considered impassable barriers by countless people, were nothing more than a slightly higher horizon in front of it.
The traditional pattern of war had been changed.
Louisa pulled her gaze away from the fortress.
Her homeland was burning before her eyes. The dome of the Broomflower Opera House had collapsed. The mural of the Sun driving a chariot was buried under the rubble. In front of her, there was nothing but ruins, demon corpses, and drifting smoke.
But that wasn't what she was thinking about now.
What she was thinking was, if the White Horse Kingdom had also had a fortress like this back then, perhaps when the demons invaded, the Kingdom wouldn't have lost so many people.
Perhaps when the rebel army marched north, the walls of the Royal Capital wouldn't have flowed with rivers of blood.
Perhaps her father...
...
"Master, the Sky Oath is in position and awaiting your orders at any time." Silver Sparrow's voice came through the Gel Network from the floating fortress.
Chen Yu crouched on Peachy's back, his small eyes blinking once.
"Huh?"
"Silver Sparrow, how are you here too?"
"I asked her to come." Selene's voice cut in. There was a rare hint of excitement in the Elf Grand Sage's tone.
"Your Majesty, during the previous fortress tests, we switched out quite a few fortress captains. Humans, dwarves, elves, we even tried slimes."
"But we didn't have much time. It was very difficult to train a qualified fortress captain in such a short period."
"The Sky Oath's rune array is too complex. Just understanding the relationships between the runes would take months."
"I took Miss Olivia's advice and tried letting Silver Sparrow load into the floating fortress."
Olivia?
This silver dragon lady couldn't leave the castle for too long. The farthest she'd been was to check on the fortress's construction. She did seem quite interested in the floating fortress, so it wasn't strange for her to come up with this suggestion.
Selene's voice carried a hint of amusement.
"We didn't have high hopes at first. The interaction method of the floating fortress's rune array is different from the castle's. But astonishingly, after Miss Silver Sparrow contacted the Sky Oath for just a few minutes, she gained complete control of the entire floating fortress."
"How should I put it? The Sky Oath came alive in her hands. Even if we trained a skilled and professional fortress captain, they wouldn't operate it better than her."
Chen Yu thought, of course.
What was Silver Sparrow? A castle spirit.
Since her birth, she had been inside the castle for over a thousand years. She was even older than Olivia, the silver dragon lady. She was a true old-school maid.
Maneuvering a floating fortress was probably as natural to her as a human using their own arm.
But for Silver Sparrow to control the Sky Oath from thousands of miles away was, of course, aided by the Gel Network and those signal amplification towers.
The Gel Network was like an extension of her thoughts, allowing her consciousness to reach every corner covered by the Gel Network, rather than being confined to the small castle.
From the moment she connected to the Gel Network, she had gained a certain kind of freedom. As the Slime Kingdom expanded, her will would spread across the entire continent with the construction of the Gel signal amplification towers.
At that point, it wouldn't be much different from being a Deity.
But Silver Sparrow wasn't very ambitious. What she liked most was still soaking in the Slime City's Kingdom Library, reading new books together with the Slime Scholars connected to the Gel Network.
Besides that, it was just observing Olivia's afternoon tea and flower gardening routines.
It could be said that, aside from her somewhat cold tone, she was absolutely an excellent mechanical maid.
"Master."
Silver Sparrow's voice rang out again.
"Report from the crew inside the fortress. Life energy traces detected beneath the city wall ruins, still active."
Chen Yu raised a gel hand.
"Then attack."
"Crush them!"
His voice transmitted through the Gel Network into the Sky Oath.
"Yes, my King!"
"Blow them away!"
The Slime crew members in charge of observation, along with those Slime Artillery, bounced excitedly. They quickly swapped out the Gray Gravel Crystals to charge the Battery Array.
"Reporting to the King, Captain Silver Sparrow, reloading complete!"
Silver Sparrow's voice overpowered everything.
"Target locked."
"Range correction, angle correction. Arcane Energy charge at ninety-seven percent. Ready to fire."
"Fire." Chen Yu gave the final order.
On the ruins.
Azazel stood up. His originally dark red skin was now charred and ugly.
Balzac was beside him. His injuries were worse. His left eye was gone, leaving only a black hole in the socket, the edges still smoking.
But luckily, they weren't dead. Unlike that one fallen demon warlock, who hadn't even been able to cast a single soul spell before being blasted into nothing but dust.
"What the hell is this thing?" Azazel looked up at the fortress, still shaken.
He could feel his own voice trembling.
It wasn't just because of his injuries.
It was a strange feeling welling up from inside him.
A feeling he hadn't had in centuries. Even when he was trapped in the Bottomless Hell, locked in eternal darkness, ground down by endless hunger and pain, he hadn't felt this.
Fear.
He was feeling fear.
Balzac beside him let out a low whimper.
"Azazel, we..."
He didn't finish.
Azazel knew what he wanted to say.
Run.
Run back to the Abyss.
They had only recently escaped the Bottomless Hell. When they tumbled out of the Fissure, they thought they were free. Centuries of imprisonment were finally over.
The Material Plane. Living creatures. Fresh fear. They pounced on all of it like beasts starved for centuries.
But in just the few centuries they had been away from the Material Plane, it had become so strange. So strange that even demons felt fear.
Now they wanted to go back.
Wanted to go home.
Just then, the fortress's cannons lit up again.
The two terrified demons scrambled to flee.
Amidst the thunderous roar of successive cannon fire, the inner wall collapsed.
White stones broke off from the wall, one by one. They tumbled through the air before crashing down. Dust surged from the cracks, swallowing the entire wall.
The rumbling sound spread across the entire battlefield and lasted for a long time.
When the sound faded, the inner wall no longer existed.
This white stone wall that had stood there for centuries, under the bombardment of the floating fortress, was now nothing more than a continuous pile of rubble. Glassy cross-sections glistened with strange luster in the sunlight. Scorch marks from the high-temperature melting were everywhere.
The path leading to the Royal Palace was completely unobstructed.
The joyful cheers of slimes rose from within the slime army.
"Hooray, long live the Kingdom!"
"Long live the Kingdom!"
The Believers of the Great Slime Religion and the human soldiers nearby also joined this celebration.
"Long live the Slime God!"
"Long live His Majesty!"
Voices rose one after another.
Galvin raised his sword, its tip pointing toward the direction of the Royal Palace.
Louisa and Nolan also raised their Staff and bow, ordering the legion to advance.
The entire legion began to move forward.
The Sky Oath glided overhead.
That silver fortress flew so low that people on the ground could see every single rune on its shell. The arcane runes flowed across the metal surface like liquid mercury.
The Goblin Ripper's cannon barrels extended from its sides, accumulating energy, bombarding the demons on the ground.
The number of Goblin Rippers on the floating fortress was outrageously high—at least fifty of them. It could be said that Anvil had practically moved half the Slime Artillery Regiment up there.
The demons had no means to resist this kind of high-altitude bombardment. Even if groups of imps tried to fly up and attack, they would be blocked by the activated Kingdom's Shield magic formation, then picked off one by one by the mages and archers on the fortress's deck.
The demons began to rout, completely clearing the path for the slime army's advance.
In the ruins, Azazel climbed up again, disheveled.
Facing the encirclement about to close in, Azazel wanted to break out. But Karl, gripping his Battle Axe, had already mounted his frost wolf and was pursuing him again.
To the south was the slime army, and above them floated that terrifying fortress.
They could only flee frantically toward the east.
But at that moment, Chen Yu flew over on his sword, landing on the city wall ruins, blocking the two demons' escape route.
Azazel and Balzac exchanged glances.
Karl was chasing them from behind. The floating fortress was drifting over from the south. The best direction to break through seemed to be in front of them, at this slime.
Although this slime looked very strange, a slime was a slime. They had seen plenty of these after-dinner desserts in the Abyss.
How powerful could this thing be?
Azazel gripped his great axe tightly, a low growl erupting from his throat.
[Fear Aura]
With him at the center, waves of fear spread outward.
This fear could make prey lose their will to fight before he even pounced, make a warrior's hands start trembling before they could swing their sword, make the bravest person freeze stiff when facing him.
The fear surged toward Chen Yu.
But perhaps it was his imagination, Azazel felt the slime in front of him suddenly turn much more purple. It was as if a surge of Mana was welling up within its gel.
Azazel charged forward.
The great axe was raised above his head. The axe blade, reflecting in the sunlight, showed signs of notches and curled edges. His body crashed down like a collapsing mountain.
"Lowly magical creature, get out of my way!"
His roar exploded from his chest.
The great axe fell.
But before anyone could see what happened, he was sent flying backward, crashing into the ruins.
A few seconds later, the Gray Mist receded. Azazel lifted his head from the ruins. His mind seemed to be a complete blank from that fall. His face was full of the confusion of "Who am I, where am I, who hit me?"
Balzac stood in place, maintaining his pouncing posture. Seeing Chen Yu's gaze gradually shift to him.
Balzac's throat moved.
He withdrew his fist and said seriously:
"Honorable Slime King, I am a good demon."
Karl's eyebrow twitched.
When Azazel charged out just now, he thought he was going to see a fight.
But even *he* hadn't seen how Chen Yu made his move. That demon was sent flying like a pebble kicked away by a child.
