After being forced to step down, the once-annoying nun eloped with me.

"...Sigh. Since you've put it that way, I'm willing to believe you completely. But Yang Hao...at least we must guarantee the safety of the three of us, understand?"

“I know exactly the order of sacrifice, and I know the value of the three of us, so you can rest assured—we will only come down to open the church after the battle is over... As for the rest, just wait for everyone to be ready.”

At this point, Yang Hao patted Fen's hair, and amidst the little elf's displeased expression that seemed to say "You'll see tonight," he picked her up amidst the elf's screams and the soldiers' sidelong glances, and then carried her, her face flushed, behind Theresa.

After waiting quietly for Teresa to finish her prayer, he reached out with his other hand and helped the little nun up.

"how's it going?"

"...Let's assume the people below are indeed from [Light]." Theresa pouted, took Yang Hao's hand, and stood up. Then she rolled her eyes at Finn, who was being held by Yang Hao: "After all, he's the bastard who even knows the embarrassing things I did when I was a kid... Seriously, flirting in broad daylight, shouldn't you at least consider my feelings?"

Want one?

"Hmph...we'll talk about it after we've finished dealing with things here—in short, I've already told [Light] that He should just stay down here and that's it. We can take Him away after we've dealt with the enemies on the surface...but He's really very weak right now, and in a sense, He's become a mortal being that can be killed."

We must prepare a safe environment for Him... In addition, we may need to pay extra attention to His current physical condition... However, there is good news: the God of Light does seem to be less powerful than we once thought.

Because if the God of Light were truly invincible, he would have come himself and taken the Light away long ago.

Theresa's statement left everyone silent for a long time.

Then, Fen jumped down from Yang Hao's arms, straightened the wrinkles in her dress, and tilted her head to ask a question:

"So, we've received definite good news: we can kill gods?"

“Strictly speaking, it is possible,” Theresa nodded. “However, this requires the help of the [Light]—otherwise, if we do it ourselves, wouldn't the United Nations perish along with the successful god-slaying? But if the [Light] is willing to provide assistance, then the problem won't be too significant…”

After receiving enlightenment from the God of Light, everyone gained a deeper understanding of the current state of the God of Light.

Firstly, the God of Light has been reduced from an invincible deity of faith to an ordinary god who can be killed.

Secondly, even if it is an ordinary god, the United Nations can only fight against it alone at the risk of national collapse, so everyone needs to obtain the help of the [Light].

Thirdly, in a sense, the God of Light seems to have completely abandoned faith, or rather, completely abandoned the faith known as the "Cult of the God of Light"... He seems to be transforming himself into something even more bizarre, and before he achieves complete success...

"We have about two years—but considering that the current God of Light doesn't seem to be as difficult to deal with as the recorded [Titan Demon], I think we should be able to annihilate it, right?"

"To be honest, we haven't even encountered the Titans yet—if we had to name a closest Titan, it seems the Ice Calamity in the north is actually the one we've met before?"

"In other words, if we can defeat the Ice Calamity, then defeating the damn God of Light will be a piece of cake—and it's said that the Kingdom of Eden also killed a Titan demon during its descent, right? With their help, perhaps things will actually be quite easy for us?"

"It seems like Teresa and Finn don't have a very good impression of Elena, do they?"

“That’s another matter! Internationally, we certainly recognize the value of Eden State! But... but when it comes to Elena, that’s a different story!”

The little nun was a bit agitated. As she re-boarded the airship, she even bit Yang Hao's wrist, making her look less like a proper Basilica and more like a little female cat who had discovered her master was having an affair.

Finn wholeheartedly agreed, but Yang Hao felt wronged—after all, Elena only wanted to be friends with him, and they were just friends, so why did it have to be like this?

However, explaining now would only make things more complicated—in desperation, Yang Hao could only calm Teresa down a little by putting his finger on her tongue. Afterwards, the group went behind Arthur and the others who were working diligently, and quietly watched them modify the airship once again.

Rather than a "modification," it's more like an "emergency reinforcement"—after all, there's simply no way to modify the airship's appearance right now. Instead of going through all the trouble of reinforcing the airship's structure once again, it's better to use the elves' enchanting abilities to make the entire ship more practical.

The areas that need to be enhanced using the elf's enchantment are the machine guns and heavy machine guns on both sides of the airship, the hull of the airship, and the two thermobaric bombs mounted below.

Among them, the machine gun requires the least enchanting—on the one hand, you only need to ensure that the machine gun can operate normally without exploding when used in the air; on the other hand, it is better to spend magic power on more valuable things than to waste it on the machine gun itself.

Moreover, to put it bluntly, the machine guns currently used by Golem on airships aren't exactly very accurate to begin with. Instead of constantly reinforcing its weaknesses, it would be more practical to focus on improving its strengths.

"To prevent heat transfer from a barrel explosion... and to ensure the structural stability of the gun... overall, the machine gun doesn't need many enchantments—these shells can only support us for a maximum of five minutes of continuous firing..."

Finn murmured thoughtfully as she calculated the amount of ammunition stored in the airship's cargo hold. After realizing that no matter how much she conserved it, she couldn't sustain continuous firing for even ten minutes, she shook her head, concluding that the airship could not provide fire support across the entire battlefield.

Yang Hao agreed, and further explained that the airship would not remain directly above the battlefield, but would wait on the side of the pre-arranged fire zone. He then replied with considerable emotion:

"Therefore, having the gunners fire in short bursts is key to this operation—of course, the most crucial point is that we must avoid the airships unleashing their firepower as much as possible before the enemy shows any openings... It's best to wait until the believers are huddled together deep in the fire before opening fire. This way, the casualties on the believers from the side will increase significantly... And as long as we stay at an altitude below 200 meters, the accuracy of the machine guns is actually within an acceptable range."

"But the enemy wouldn't be foolish enough to cross the area guarded by the airship, would they? And at a height of 200 meters... how are we supposed to conceal the airship's movements?"

"Don't the elves have a magic called 'Invisibility'?"

When faced with Finn and Teresa's question about how to hide the airship, Yang Hao simply smiled and said that invisibility would be enough.

For helicopters or gunships on Earth, the constant, unmistakable noise from their engines and the dust stirred up by the airflow as their rotors rotate make it nearly impossible to completely detect their presence, even if they were optically invisible.

However, in this world, when faced with a floating ship that can fly quietly and causes almost no airflow disturbance, it is possible to make the floating ship disappear without a trace, if one can make it visually disappear without a trace.

The elves happen to possess invisibility magic that can block vision—a magic that had already proven its value when they infiltrated the capital of Roman.

It can not only make the human body invisible, but also make the equipment worn on the person invisible. Moreover, the airship is not that black dragon lady who is almost immune to magic. Most of the sophisticated equipment on it can only function properly through magical technology. Under such circumstances, it would be an extremely easy thing to make the entire ship and its crew invisible through invisibility magic.

The only problem was... those who remained invisible on the ship might risk falling because they couldn't see its structure... so after much consideration, Arthur and the others didn't completely enchant the ship. They only ensured the ship had about 80% invisibility before stopping their work.

"A stealth effect of about 80%... as you can see, is within our acceptable range."

Yang Hao shrugged, looking down at the illusory deck beneath his feet. The nun beside him seemed frightened by the direct view of the ground from such a height, gripping Yang Hao's arm tightly, which made Fen roll her eyes repeatedly, completely at a loss for words.

With the help of a partially invisible invisibility spell, the airship exhibits an invisibility effect that makes it "completely undetectable from a distance, only barely discernible upon approach." As a result, the believers on the ground cannot see the airship, which is over two hundred meters high, and the people on the airship are not hampered by the completely invisible vessel, fearing they might fall off.

Overall, after enchanting the airship with the [Invisibility] spell, Yang Hao could confidently position it to the side of the fire trap, waiting for the believers to fully enter the trap before launching a surprise attack. Unless a mage in the believers' army possessed the [Breaking Invisibility] technique, no one would notice the enormous vessel hovering in the sky until the airship opened fire.

Besides the stealth enchantment modification to the airship, the most important aspect of this enhancement is naturally the improvement of the two [Thermobaric Bombs].

"After all, if we were to drop bombs from directly above the enemy, we would not only have to travel a long distance... but more importantly, at a height of 200 meters, we might also be affected by the blast wave."

Dr. Joseph, while diligently wiping the sweat from his brow, explained to the three emperors just how important Arthur and the others' work was:

"Besides, it will disrupt our deployment on the flanks, causing us to lose a period of firepower and waste a lot of time... So after thinking it over, using [Enchanting] to make the thermobaric bombs [self-deployed] should be a good choice. And to put it bluntly, at this stage, the kill radius of the enchanted thermobaric bombs exceeds 500 meters. Even if we throw them from a distance and don't hit the exact center, it should be enough to completely block the retreat route of those believers."

Dr. Joseph provided the blueprints and design concepts, and the enchanted cloud bombs produced by the Eden's production line theoretically have a kill radius of over 500 meters.

Moreover, the working principle of thermobaric weapons is very simple: throwing, impact, and explosion. With just three stages, it can inflict devastating damage on a large area of ​​enemies.

It can be said that the United Nations cannot find a more effective large-scale weapon of mass destruction than thermobaric weapons at present. Apart from the fact that the production cost is ridiculously high for the United Nations, thermobaric weapons are indeed the most useful consumable at present.

The area of ​​effect of a thermobaric bomb is so large that it doesn't even need to be thrown directly at the target location to effectively strike the enemy. In this case, it might be better to use magic to launch it from a distance into the target area than to have an airship fly directly above the target area to drop it.

The simplest way to achieve the "projectile" effect is to enchant the grappling hook of the thermobaric bomb twice.

The first enchantment was a special one called "Thrust"—in traditional elven society, this type of enchantment was typically applied to arrows. It could give arrows a higher speed and a longer range after firing.

The second enchantment is called "Precision"—another enchantment elves use on their arrows. Its main purpose is to make the arrows more accurate, slightly adjusting their trajectory during flight to precisely hit the enemy target during a projectile flight over a distance of up to two kilometers.

The two enchantment techniques mentioned above are currently widely used on all firearms and a small portion of ammunition in the hands of the elves. Fortunately, one of the elven mages on this emergency mission is skilled in both enchantments... With their help, the final enchantment enhancement of the airship is progressing steadily. Meanwhile, Dr. Joseph, seeing that the work was nearing completion, began explaining the principles behind the upcoming thermobaric bomb launch.

They will first determine the approximate area that the two thermobaric bombs will hit.

Then we focused our fire on the [Thrust] enchantment, launched the thermobaric bombs from the hook, and watched as they flew toward the target area with the help of the [Precision] enchantment.

Finally? In the end, naturally, we'll just wait for them to explode and that's it.

"After all, that's the principle... We have to admit that the simpler and more practical the principle of a weapon is, the better—it's much more practical for us to just throw out two thermobaric bombs than for mages to chatter on for an hour or two while casting spells of mass destruction."

Dr. Joseph's conclusion left Yang Hao somewhat amused and exasperated, prompting him to reply:

"When you design weapons in the future, could you make them a little simpler?"

Faced with Yang Hao's suggestion, Joseph paused for a moment, then firmly shook his head and said that this was a man's romance, so he could only refuse.

Hopefully, this man can still maintain his so-called "romanticism" even when he's being ganged up on by the logistics team. With this thought in mind, Yang Hao brought his two wives to the bow of the airship, where they found Naruja and Miss Heilong Nia resting on the illusory, transparent deck.

The Ling Clan Chief had no opportunity to use her skills this time. She simply went to the ground to create a few barbed wire fences made of golems and tough clay before returning to the ship early to rest. Now she was lazily basking in the sun, lost in thought, while the black dragon beside her curiously observed this small, animal-like girl.

Miss Black Dragon is the most important character in the upcoming battle, so even if she doesn't want to rest, she has to get some rest before starting her work.

Upon seeing Yang Hao approach, Miss Nia began to complain:

"I was terrified when the ship turned transparent. I almost grabbed Miss Naruja and flew away. If someone hadn't told me it was just the effect of [Invisibility] magic, I really would have run away..."

"Is there no similar magic in Isgard?" Yang Hao asked curiously, glancing timidly at Theresa sitting down at the table in front of Nia. He then noticed that Finn had somehow climbed onto his back. "I remember Isgard seems to be quite skilled in some [support] magic, right? Invisibility magic is also a type of support magic here, you know?"

"Impossible. Our magic is so scarce there, how could we possibly have the ability to enchant an entire... uh? airship! So Your Majesty Yang Hao, you absolutely cannot use invisibility magic as payment for my efforts this time... after all, we have no use for it at all!"

"What a pity."

"You're definitely regretting that you couldn't scam us, aren't you?!"

"No, I just regret that Isgard lost a versatile magic spell. How could I possibly have any intention of harming you?"

Looking at the black dragon in front of him, who was already quite exasperated because of the many times he had tricked him, Yang Hao simply smiled and gave an explanation before starting to think about the next steps.

After all, the highest level of lying is to fabricate a lie from the truth—and Yang Hao was indeed sincerely assuring the Black Dragon. He truly wouldn't harm Ysgard this time, and the invisibility magic did indeed have many uses, but he didn't say he wouldn't trick Ysgard later, did he?

After all, he had already agreed to go on a business trip to Isgard in a while... It would be better to squeeze as much profit as possible out of his country before the trip than to arrive and get nothing, right? So, after much thought, in order for the United Nations to gain more benefits in the future, Yang Hao made a promise despite the disapproving looks from Theresa and Finn:

"If you can handle this job, Miss Nia, then we are willing to adjust the current price of magic storage devices so that Isgard can purchase more magic at a lower cost."

"...really?"

"real."

Seeing the black dragon's eyes widen, Yang Hao silently added in his mind: Anyway, the United Nations will no longer need to worry about magic power in the future. Selling magic power at a cheaper price and making Ysgard more dependent on magic power will definitely be a more profitable choice.

On one hand, it's because the Kingdom of Eden will soon be constructing the Colossus and the Artificial Magic Reactor on the surface. On the other hand, it's because only when Ysgard further increases its magic consumption can the United Nations' monopoly on magic generate greater profits with lower unit prices and higher quantities.

However, Black Dragon clearly didn't notice this problem—she seemed to think that the more [magic] there was, the cheaper it was, the better... But what would actually happen? Just look at how primitive and modern nations depend on [oil] to find out.

In this world, the slower Ysgard consumes mana, the lower their demand for mana. Conversely, the faster Ysgard consumes mana, the higher their demand for mana.

Just like with food, a family of five can eat from one plot of land and probably have enough to eat and drink every year, with some surplus left over. But if someone rents a second plot of land from this family, and then takes it back when they have five more mouths to feed, wouldn't that lead to famine?

While Yang Hao wouldn't stoop to such a low level... he was still quite willing to further tighten the noose around Isugard's neck with these five extra mouths. Moreover, Nia hadn't noticed the problem; rather, she hadn't realized just how dependent Isugard would be on the United Kingdom once they developed a dependence on magic...

...Or perhaps, she had already seen through the problem? She just felt she had the ability to resolve future dependency issues?

Yang Hao just stared at Nia, and Nia looked back into Yang Hao's eyes with a meaningful gaze.

"I hope you will keep your promise..."

She had actually seen through Yang Hao's ulterior motives, but it was true that Isgard desperately needed magic right now, even if it meant becoming addicted to it later. They needed magic right now! And a lot of it!

As for how to solve the problem of magic addiction? How to solve the problem of the United Nations' monopoly on magic? That couldn't be simpler...

All that's needed is for His Majesty Yang Hao to establish an "unbreakable" relationship with Isgard when he comes on his business trip. Nia has already figured out Yang Hao's character—he can be ruthless to outsiders, but when it comes to his "own people," isn't he all bark and no bite, even if he's harsh with them?

(All we have to do is put in a lot of effort for Margarita... Phew, I don't believe that when Margarita is pregnant with your child, you'll still be trying to trick us!)

Beneath the black dragon's calm face lay towering waves.

Yang Hao suddenly felt a chill run down his spine, as if he were being watched by someone...

As they exchanged smiles and made their promise, the ranger observing from atop the airship reported spotting the army of believers. This army, composed of farmers and a small number of priests, would likely arrive around the [Fire Field] before noon, but intriguingly, something strange seemed to be hovering above their heads...

Yang Hao and the others exchanged glances and used magic to look directly in the direction the rangers had indicated—what they saw were down-on-their-luck but fanatical farmers and a group of low-ranking priests constantly making the sign of the cross on their chests.

Above them, there were skeletal angels seemingly chanting hymns and holding weapons, and a faint golden line extending towards the diocese of St. Petersburg.

Although the God of Light could not descend directly, he commanded his angels to come to his aid...?