Your war hammer is too fake

"Do not regard the dwarves as bloodthirsty maniacs, human knight," the archmage shook his head. "Just last year, the Caledonians and our forest cousins ​​rashly launched a war that should not have happened. The situation got out of control and almost turned into the Second Longbeard War. Fortunately, the wise Majesty Finubar personally went to the Border Princes to meet with the High King of the Dwarves, thus avoiding the worst outcome. Although dwarves are irritable, stubborn, and inflexible, as long as you master the right methods, even dwarves can communicate... although this usually requires great restraint and tolerance."

"Secondly, although dwarves are greedy, they hate magic and magical creations. The magical treasures on the floating city are an amazing fortune for any race, but they are worthless to dwarves because dwarves never use magical items. They only believe in their own rune creations. If there are dwarf works in the treasures collected by the floating city, just return them to the dwarves. As long as this is done, the dwarves will not interfere in this matter."

Hearing this, Sir Roderick nodded in understanding, then suddenly looked at Gustav. "Mr. Schmidt," in front of the expedition's most important and only sponsor, even the Holy Grail Knight had to carefully consider his words, "I think this is a very good proposal. We have no reason to conflict with the dwarves..."

“… Damn it, what kind of image do I have in your eyes?!” Gustav was stunned for a moment, then rolled his eyes at Roderick in annoyance, “I have no objection. I don’t want to offend the dwarves for no reason! I heard that a lot of things have happened in the Mountain Kingdom in recent years. Sigmar, they have actually begun to recover their lost territory!”

"I heard about this when I was in Tyrell. It is said that a witch called 'Lady of the Young Moon' helped the dwarves to eliminate the greenskins and ratmen in their territory," Ser Rodrick took over the conversation. "She was an extremely powerful witch. Every merchant and traveler who went to the Sea Gate swore that her magic tore the earth apart and created a mountain range out of thin air. And she did this to protect her territory from the harassment of the greenskins."

"Lady Young Moon..." When mentioning someone, Solyak lowered his eyes, "Dwarves hate magic so much, but they trust a witch so much. This is really amazing, isn't it?"

For some reason, Gustav always felt that there was something subtly wrong with the tone of the blind elf, but he couldn't tell what it was. "Anyway, as long as it's reasonable advice, I have no objection," he said, "I came to this hellhole to pursue wealth and fame, not death."

"You will get what you want," the Grail Knight said. "We will all get what we want."

Hearing this, Soryak smiled without saying anything, while Gustav nodded with a heavy expression.

Chapter 402: The Faceless

Dragon Islands, inland of Dreadrock, where the Faceless Men are settled.

Ever since the roots of the Second Generation of the Oak of Ages - which still has not been officially named - extended to the Dragon Islands, the Faceless Men and their various belongings that had previously been forced to stay in Tal O'Kar were all sent to this isolated place and started a new life in the ruins of the temple city.

It might not be appropriate to call it a ruin. After occupying the three main islands of the Dragon Archipelago, although there are still about 1,000 to 2,000 remnants of lizardmen active on the islands, various supporting construction works were launched immediately. The alchemists of the Shuofang Army spent a lot of effort to set up a water barrier that could cover the entire temple city ruins, and the mana required to maintain the barrier was directly drawn from the spiritual vein network.

Thanks to the water barrier, all kinds of facilities on the Dragon Islands can be built and operated as usual even when the rainy season comes. It's just that it's more troublesome to transport materials in, after all, the grasshopper transport boats can't withstand too harsh a climate. Compared with the Gravel Island and Dragon Tooth Mountain, which only took outposts and warehouses and have not yet entered the development stage, Fear Rock is the first major island in the Dragon Islands to be taken, and An's Zhendan has invested all the engineering forces that can be mobilized here.

The ruins were cleared, and all the remaining Lizardman buildings except the Great Pyramid were demolished, and the ground was re-leveled. During this process, the hatching pools on the three main islands played a huge role. After these facilities left by the ancient saints were seized by the Holy Scripture of War, a batch of Lizardmen could be hatched regularly every month. Since the hatching pools themselves had been seized by the Holy Scripture of War, the newly hatched Lizardmen were born as system units.

It takes more than 200,000 points to seize control of all the hatching pools in a large pyramid, and this is based on the fact that the hatching pools in the Dragon Islands are relatively small. Fortunately, this is a one-time investment, and a batch of free lizardmen troops will be hatched every month. These Ah Lizards belonging to the Lord of the Holy Scripture do not need to spend anything extra. Since taking over the Dragon Islands, Xiao Yiyue has accumulated hundreds of lizardmen warriors and thousands of friends, as well as several giant lizards.

Relying on these biological weapons that are naturally adapted to the local environment, the Shuofang Army strangled the Lizard Communists on the island with extremely high efficiency. By the way, they were also able to arrange for the spirit lizards and giant lizards to assist the human engineers, which greatly accelerated the progress of the cleanup and reconstruction of the temple city. Even the independent community used to accommodate the Faceless Men was built by them.

"How is the sorting progress going?" An Jiuyue asked.

[We have rebuilt the database and data index, but it will take some time to fill in all the entries.] The former Chairman of the Faceless Men's Council of Minds, the only remaining Master of Minds, and now the Director of the Faceless Men's Community, Jilan Soul Blade, answered respectfully. [Even in the most difficult years, we did our best to preserve the precious legacy of our ancestors, at least the most important information was all preserved. Master, I am not excusing us, we...]

"Alright, I don't mean to blame you," the girl waved her hand. "Kilan, remember, I am from Zhendan, not those messy barbarians out there. I know how troublesome the task I gave you is, but you gave me a surprise. I originally thought that it would take at least ten years just to extract and organize all the information in the memory matrix."

[Thank you for your understanding, Master.] Jilan gently pressed his left chest with his right hand and bowed to the girl.

“History, language, writing, art, knowledge, skills. The most valuable wealth of a race is not gold and land, but these intangible things.” The Jiedushi put her hands behind her back and stared at the rows of hexagonal crystal columns on the cool and dry marble floor that were taller than her. “Look at it on the bright side. At least you have preserved the most important things and passed them down from generation to generation. The Faceless Empire has long become history, but the Faceless Men have not.”

As she spoke, the beautiful girl with silver hair and red eyes sighed quietly. The Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties all had the Book of Changes. The Xia Book of Changes was called Lianshan, and the Shang Book of Changes was called Guizang. However, only the Zhou Book of Changes was not lost, although the content had been changed so much that even its mother could not recognize it. An Jiyue was not a researcher of ancient Chinese, but she still felt extremely sorry for this.

It is precisely because of this regretful feeling that An Jiyue specially inserted some private goods when writing the settings for Anshi Zhendan: In Anshi Zhendan, including the Three Changes, many ancient works have not been lost, but have been preserved by the fox sisters. As the earliest historians of Anshi Zhendan, the fox sisters are not only responsible for writing the "History of the Upper and Lower Worlds", but also work part-time to preserve books. They have the most and most complete ancient books in the entire Anshi Zhendan.

The Faceless Ones were lucky. Although some of their memory matrices were inevitably destroyed in the war or were missing, the vast majority of them were carefully preserved to this day. The history of some memory matrices can even be traced back to the time when the Ancient Saints first came. When they were forced to evacuate from the underground world, due to the tight time schedule, it was impossible to take away the memory matrices step by step. All the memory matrices could only be randomly stuffed together and transported away all at once.

When they arrived at Kosotar, the Faceless Ones had just settled down when all kinds of troubles came to them endlessly, and they had no time to sort them out. Some packaged memory matrices were not opened until the Faceless Ones surrendered to An Jiyue, and were sent to Tal O'Sul and finally to the Dread Rock...

After two major moves in a row, Kieran didn't know if he had missed anything important; fortunately, the most difficult days were over. Although Fear Rock was not very suitable for living, it was safe enough.

"The wisdom of the Faceless Ones will be used by me," An Jiuyue said, "I will combine the knowledge of Zhendan and the Faceless Ones to create the most powerful war machine in the world. Chaos is certainly my primary enemy, but the remains of those outsiders, those cold-blooded reptiles are also my enemies, and the only thing I can give to my enemies is death."

Kiran didn't say anything, just listened quietly.

"Let's end the tour here." An Jiyue turned around and walked out of the only door of the database. "You don't need to worry about other things, just focus on the tasks I assign to you. Jilan, how do you feel about being ordered around by those cold-blooded reptiles?"

The Faceless Men's original ratmen slaves were all executed by the Kaldorei after they arrived in Tal O'Sul, allowing Morgan to earn some pocket money; on the other hand, because they could not adapt to the harsh environment of the Green Hell, most of the cavemen brought by the Faceless Men from the underground world died of tropical diseases, and there were almost no ones left. An Jiyue could not let her own people serve this group of moths, so she simply drew some of the system lizardmen for the Faceless Men to dispatch.

[Not as interesting as I thought, Master.] Jilan answered truthfully.

"Tsk... I'm leaving now. You guys just leave it at that for now."

As he spoke, the governor walked towards the door, and then the deputy commander of the Jinyiwei quietly emerged from the shadows, with an expressionless face, and followed his master without saying a word. When An Jiyue walked out of the fortress-like building where the database was located, the torrential rain that was originally pouring down suddenly stopped outside the coverage of the water-repelling barrier.

The rain clouds dissipated due to the girl's thoughts, and the blazing sun shone over the Temple City, where more than half of the city had not yet been cleaned. They stopped a four-wheeled flatbed cart towed by a triceratops, and An Jiyue led Jin Zhifan to sit in a pile of newly mined stones without any care, and then signaled the spirit lizard driving the cart to start quickly.

With the help of a ride that was not convenient for them, the two arrived at the aviation take-off and landing area of ​​the Fear Rock Base, where a specially prepared grasshopper gunboat had been waiting for a long time. Facing the scorching sun at noon, the gunboat slowly took off and flew north.

Bing Ruomei is still waiting for her in Jingning, and the two will go to Xuanshui together.

The author says:

Author's note: The previous one was bottom, not center, so it was a mistake.

Answer to reader "Reader1709666840":

The first question is, I missed the magic swordsman... Ahem, the magic swordsman is of course a proper spellcaster, although the spellcasting ability is rather special (specializing in various low-level spells, and can't cast a big move), but their identity as a mage is unquestionable. The second question is, although [Flying Clouds and Driving Mist] can lead people, but as a top-level combat force, Lao Xiao shouldn't waste her energy on such things, not to mention that [Flying Clouds and Driving Mist] can't lead too many people. An Jiyue's limit is to lead a thousand fully armed heavy infantry, and Xiao Yiyue can only lead eight or nine hundred at most.

Chapter 403: Eating, Sleeping, and Playing Doudou (Part 1)

Jingning, the military governor of Shuofang Army.

The small fleet, consisting of two Swift-class frigates and a Junma-class light transport ship, had stayed in the city for four days. It would not take that long to simply replenish supplies, and the three new warships did not need regular maintenance. On the day the fleet arrived in Jingning, Bing Ruomei, as the de facto representative of the Heavenly Court to NATO, was welcomed into the Ningguo Mansion for hospitality, while An Jiyue went to the Fear Rock.

Bing Ruomei did not comment on An Jiyue's disappearance for a whole day, and did not even ask. When the Anxi Army Jiedushi appeared in front of Xiuyanqing again, the first thing the Bing family's aunt said after a polite greeting was to ask about her troublesome second sister. Would she be able to see her this time?

"Laobing, cough, what can I say about Alan's condition... I can only say that her condition is very stable," An Jiyue coughed dryly to cover up her embarrassment, "Because of Taixu, her soul was severely damaged. I tried my best but could only prevent the injury from getting worse. She can only move for a maximum of one hour a day, and she must enter a deep sleep at other times. I will make arrangements in advance, and you will be able to see her after we arrive at Xuanshui."

"Thank you for your concern, Duke." Although the official canonization from the Heavenly Court had not yet been issued, this did not prevent Bing Ruomei from changing the way she addressed An Jiyue. "Alas, there is only one hour in a day... What should I do if I get married..."

Hearing this, An Jiyue couldn't help but twitch her lips. She suddenly understood why Bing Ruolan reacted as if she was about to cry when she learned that her adopted elder sister was coming over.

"Ayue will be back soon. I'll talk to her about some things in person, and then we can set off," the girl could only change the subject inconspicuously. "If we start from Jingning, we can reach Xuanshui in six days."

Among the main air routes currently available in Anshi Zhendan, the Xuanshui-Jingning route is the only one that can fly in a straight line without having to follow the terrain and topography below. The reason for this phenomenon is also very simple: Xuanshui and Jingning both have the highest-standard Tongtian Tower among the three-level barrier towers of the Jiuzhou barrier, and the strong elemental force signal it emits is the most conspicuous navigation beacon. Even if there is no navigation equipment on the ship, as long as there is a spellcaster, it will never fly wrong.

In contrast, the Xuanshui-Marienburg route was much more troublesome. If departing from Marienburg, the airship first had to go upstream along the Reik River, and after reaching the confluence of the rivers at Nuln, it would turn south and enter the Thor River, and then fly south to Hornburg, located in the western section of the Black Mountains, not far from the Wintertooth Pass.

The reason why they had to go to Hornburg was that it could provide alcohol fuel supplies, and the ships of the Wester Air Force all used marine steam engines. Alaric Ranulfson, the king of Hornburg, was an old stubborn man who respected tradition and rejected new technologies. Not to mention new gadgets like rotorcraft, he didn't even trust muskets and cannons. But even so, Hornburg still had a certain amount of steam machinery and matching alcohol reserves.

After completing the fuel supply at Hornburg, the airship from Marienburg will make a small turn, pass through the Wintertooth Pass and cross the Gray Mountains (Note 1), and then enter the Border Prince Territory. Arriving here, the voyage has entered the final stage, because as long as it enters the Border Prince Territory, the battle wizards on the ship can "see" the Xuanshui Tongtian Tower. The rest is to move straight towards the goal, and at most land once at Haimen Pass to purchase some supplies.

The Coast Heavy Industry Group, a state-owned enterprise and comprehensive military manufacturing center in Westerland, is located in the former elven town of Marienburg. The ship-borne light spears produced for the Kaldorei were delivered to Xuanshui in this way. As part of the Eclipse-class frigate OEM project, Tianhe Shipyard can manufacture all the parts needed for the Eclipse-class, except that the light spears must be provided by Coast Heavy Industry. This new type of magic attack device was jointly developed by the Zhemu Royal Court, Westerland, and the high elves of Dustan. The Shenzhou Fleet is also interested in this thing, but it did not participate in the research project, so naturally it does not have the corresponding manufacturing technology.

A similar example is magic armor. Anshi Zhendan is interested in these new technologies, but due to the extremely limited research resources and the lack of anyone who can take the lead except An Jiyue himself, they can only wait for Morgan to complete the research before introducing the full set of technologies. As for the light spear? The Shenzhou Fleet believes that this thing has not been fully tested, especially not tested in actual combat, and plans to introduce it after the technology is mature.

"...Once all six Eclipse-class ships are in place, Morgan will organize a long-distance armed reconnaissance of Zetland," An Jiyue said, "The main purpose is to test whether Zetland can still activate the energy dome (Note 2)."

Because Bing Ruomei was the liaison officer of the Heavenly Court to NATO, An Jiuyue revealed some of the information that could be revealed when she came, such as the general situation of the first batch of founding members of NATO, and the suspiciously close relationship between the An Zhendan and some of the founding members of NATO. Even the "true identity" of Knight Ji was revealed. Anyway, no matter which version the Zhendan people belong to, they lack reverence for the existence of gods.

Bing Ruomei did not question the inside story that Egwene was the real goddess of the lake. To be more precise, as a dragon descendant, Bing's wife did not care at all about the existence of these beings who were not as ancient as her ancestors. She was obviously very curious about how the Duke of Wu got in touch with the Knight Ji, but she wisely did not ask.

"The energy dome is a defensive facility powered by a giant spiritual network. The specific principle is unknown. The only thing we know is that its defensive power is extremely exaggerated, and only magic toads have the authority to activate it," An Jiyue continued. "If Zetland's energy dome can be activated, it means that there are active magic toads in the temple city; otherwise, it means that Zetland's magic toads are in a dormant state, and then we have a chance to do something."

As a hammer guy who is familiar with the background setting, An Jiyue will never bite the energy dome head-on. In this world, there are not many defense facilities that can withstand her full-strength attack, or the bombardment of an entire flying fleet. The lizardman's energy dome happens to be one of them. Fortunately, this thing also has a weakness, that is, only the magic toad knows how to activate it.

In the original End of Days, the Skaven were able to wipe out the Lizardmen because GW forced most of the Magic Toads to sleep. Even after the Skaven army had broken through the outer defenses of the Temple City and rushed into the Great Pyramid, they were still sleeping. In that shitty script, some Magic Toads were eaten alive by the Skavens while they were sleeping. They were the strongest mage race in the world, but they died so casually and humorously.

Then the ratmen succeeded in pulling down the evil moon, and the remaining magic toads tried their best to open a super-large shield to intercept most of the evil moon fragments, and at the cost of their lives, they blocked this blow that could destroy the world. In the end, the few survivors boarded the escape ship (made of rock) left by the ancient saints to leave the planet, and the lizardmen left the stage.

It can be said that as long as every temple city has a conscious magic toad and is not forcibly killed by the rat assassin or the like, as long as the energy dome is activated in time when the rat army attacks, even if the ratmen fill the entire race, it will be absolutely impossible for them to capture any temple city with the shield open before Archaon's destruction!

Thinking of this, even though she and the lizardmen were enemies, An Jiyue still felt a surge of anger in her stomach, and was eager to find a punching bag to beat him up. Noticing that the Jiedushi's expression seemed a little off, Bing Ruomei was about to speak when the door was pushed open and the dusty Xiao Yiyue walked in.

"I'm here," the Shuofang Army Jiedushi nodded to Xiuyanqing first, then looked at the other Jiedushi in the room, "You said you had something to tell me in person, what is it?"

Hearing this, Bing Ruomei was about to stand up and leave when she saw An Jiyue motioning her to sit down. "Before attacking the Spire City, I think it is necessary to ensure the safety of Chengze Mansion itself," An Jiyue replied, "Don't worry about the ogres. The southern part of the Sorrow Mountains is the sphere of influence of the Big Gold Fang. That fat guy doesn't care about the south... but the bad Ah Duan in the Black Castle must be dealt with."

After a pause, the girl continued, "I am going to assemble a fleet to go and greet your northern neighbor. Just in case, someone must stay in Jingning to look after the house. So, do you want to go or should I?"

……

Note 1: Although Wintertooth Pass is adjacent to the Black Mountains, it is still geographically part of the Grey Mountains.

Note 2: A super-large magic shield that can cover the entire temple city. In Warhammer, only the Lizardmen have this kind of defense facility, and even the Black and White Bean Sprouts don't have anything similar.

Chapter 404: Eat, Sleep, and Play (Part 2)

The Dark Land, a hellish place worse than the Badlands.

In the distant past, when the Nehekhara were still alive and the Darklands were not yet called the Darklands, this was once a fertile land. In the heyday of the ancient Nehekhara Empire, the armies of Khemrikha expanded their borders to this land, and at that time the sky here was still blue and the ground was still green.

However, at a certain point in time, due to a series of natural disasters caused by geological activities, the fertile land turned into the dark land it is today, a ghost place where the sky is always shrouded in smoke and dust.

The Dark Land, sandwiched between the World's Edge Mountains and the Mountains of Sorrow, is a land that is wider and more desolate than the Bad Lands. It is bounded by mountains to the west and north, the Ruin River that flows from north to south into the sea to the east, and the Sea of ​​Dread to the south. To the southeast of the Dark Land, the Ruin River still flows with dark water, separating the cruel land of the Dark Land from the narrow country of Nobula, forming two distinct worlds.

As the main base of Chaos Dwarves in the south, Black Fortress, ruled by the exiled Warlock Prophet "Ashes" Drazhos, is located on the southeastern edge of the Dark Land. It is very close to the Ruin River and just across the river from the Flayed Rock. As an industrially developed city and an impregnable fortress, Black Fortress not only guards the border of the Zar Empire, but is also the starting point for slave hunting and plundering in more distant countries.

After the humiliating defeat two years ago, Drazhos led the Azog Legion back to their home base, licking their wounds while quietly recovering their strength. In order to make up for the huge losses during the expedition to the Mountain Kingdom, on the one hand, Drazhos increased the intensity of looting, using slaves and spoils of war to exchange for manpower and other support from other Chaos Dwarves; on the other hand, Drazhos had to carry out the above actions carefully to avoid suffering more unnecessary losses.

After Jingning gradually became a new trade node on the Spice Road, Drazhos had his eyes on it. He sent a slave-catching team to test the defense of Chengze Prefecture, but this small force of dozens of Chaos Dwarves and two hundred Hobgoblin slaves was destroyed as soon as they entered the alert range of the Shuofang Army - a Grasshopper II gunboat called by the patrol team destroyed them with a volley of fire, and the rest fled in all directions, and the army was in disarray.

After that, Drazhos never sent anyone in this direction again, even though the Chaos Dwarves had the same vengeful temper as the Order Dwarves, so the Warlock Prophet must have included the Cathay people in his personal revenge list. For the Chaos guys who are good at playing double standards, no matter if they are Chaos shrimps, Chaos dwarves or anything else, if you don't let them plunder, enslave, and massacre you, then you are their enemy.

Although the harassment from the Black Fortress only happened once, An Jiyue did not ignore the threat from the Chaos Dwarves. In order to avoid being robbed during the attack on Spire City, it was necessary to beat up the threatening guys in advance until they were no longer threatening. Anyway, the Chaos Dwarves had to be beaten sooner or later.

After waiting for a few more days, reinforcements from Xuanshui arrived in Jingning. A fleet of two Eclipse-class frigates with elegant lines and three Kingfisher-class ships joined the fleet gathered here, forming a mixed fleet with four Kingfisher-class ships, four Swift-class ships, two Eclipse-class ships, and several Grasshopper gunboats.

Except for a Kingfisher class that was out on a mission, it could be said that the best air forces of the Lords of the Holy Scripture were all here. The job of leading the expedition was naturally taken over by Xiao Yiyue. The governor of the Shuofang Army said that she had never commanded a fleet properly. How could those small sampans of the Army Aviation be as powerful as the serious frigates of the Shenzhou Fleet?

So, An Jiyue stayed in Jingning to look after the house, while Xiao Yiyue led the fleet to find trouble with the bad Ah Duan. As for why she had to leave a Holy Scripture Master to look after the house, it was mainly because An Jiyue did not trust Imrick: as long as she thought of the large group of Kaledo squatting in the neighboring Indian subcontinent, the girl would find it difficult to feel at ease.

Although Imrick promised to give up revenge, An Jiyue would never rely on the reputation of this idiot for Jingning's safety, even though the girl believed in her heart that Imrick would keep his promise. When the main force of the flying fleet was dispatched and could not return in a short time, only An Jiyue had the ability to resist the dragons.

In order to ensure that Drazhos and his Azog Legion could be crippled in one go, the fleet also brought along the military horse-class transport ship that had accompanied An Jiyue on a trip to Zhendan, which was loaded with the new magic armor that Morgan brought from the Southland, plus a team of elite infantry from the Shuofang Army. Although King Changqing himself returned after defeating Asan, this batch of magic armor was left behind, after all, the originally planned actual combat test could not be carried out because Asan collapsed too quickly.

Since human pilots had not yet completed their training, the 12 trial-production Sabre Mk2 magic armors were all operated by Kaldorei pilots. This inevitably brought a little trouble: although Kaldorei were neither as arrogant as Asur nor as vicious as Druzy, they were elves after all and naturally distrusted noisy steam machinery.

Compared with the Mk1, the Sabre Mk2 places great emphasis on versatility. Morgan not only designed a control system specifically for it that can adapt to drivers of different races, but also had to sacrifice some performance indicators for this purpose; at the same time, the weapon equipment interface of this new armor is also highly universal, and can unconditionally adapt to the weapons of various Holy Codex Lord camps without any modification or the need to install any additional accessories.

When the first batch of trial production Sabre Mk2s were shipped out of the factory, they were not equipped with any other weapons except the fighting claws. After they were transported to Jingning, the Mohists of the Shuofang Army equipped them with dwarfs and flamethrowers produced in the Xuanshui Arsenal. The flamethrowers were actually accessories to the fighting claws, and the combination of the two formed a complete weapon.

The flamethrower mounted under the fighting claw is not a big deal. The elves' own version of the fighting claw was originally going to be equipped with a dragon's breath gun: this is a magical attack device that imitates the breath of a dragon. It can spray out supernatural flames that are enough to melt steel without the need for fuel. The required magic power is provided by the energy backpack hung on the back of the magic armor.

However, the Dwarfs were very different. The Kaldorei pilots hated this noisy, rough, unstable, and hot thing. Unfortunately, military orders were as firm as a mountain. No matter how many complaints they had, they could only follow orders honestly.

After watching the fleet take off, An Jiyue, who stayed in Jingning temporarily, sat in the office of the Jiedushi of the Jiedusi very naturally, and took over the political affairs of Chengze Prefecture and the military affairs of the Shuofang Army instead of Xiao Yiyue who was out fighting. After defeating the army of Jianta City and arranging for people to escort the prisoners to the road construction team to work, the Shuofang Army neither stayed in place nor marched towards Jianta City, but was taken back to Jingning by Xiao Yiyue.

Jingning and Spire City are both port cities. Considering the efficiency of operations and material consumption, Xiao Yiyue is trying to mobilize a fleet, well, the kind that floats on the sea, to attack Spire City by sea.

After sitting in the office for three days and finishing all the government affairs that Xiao Yiyue had accumulated during this period, An Jiuyue opened the window at the right time under the guidance of some intuition, and just in time saw the fleet returning in the sky.

[Group leader #An Jiyue: I saw you. ]

[Admin#Xiao Yiyue: Yeah. Where are you now? I mean the specific location.]

[Group leader #An Jiyue: In the exclusive office of the Jiedushi of the Jiedushi. ]

[Admin#Xiao Yiyue: I'll be right over. Some things can only be explained in person.]

[Group leader #An Jiyue: Okay. To be honest, I’m also curious about what happened on your end…]

Chapter 405: Eating, Sleeping, and Playing Doudou (Part 2)

Two days ago, Black Fortress.

Under the bombardment of ten frigates, the light transport ship carrying Xiao Yiyue, 12 Sabre Mk2s, and a team of elite infantry from the Shuofang Army slowly approached the Black Fortress, which was still firing back. Originally, in the plan of the Shuofang Army Jiedushi, it would take at least one day to suppress the anti-aircraft firepower of the Black Fortress and destroy the main artillery positions to open up a landing site for the army. However, the battle situation did not develop as she had expected.

Somehow, the defense of the Black Fortress was much weaker than her most optimistic estimate. When the flying fleet brought the Black Fortress into the range of its main weapons and began to fly around it, a fierce counterattack broke out in the city. Under the bombardment of projectile cannons and tracking rockets, some giant rockets over six meters long flew out from every corner of the Black Fortress and flew into the sky fleet.

As the fleet was performing evasive maneuvers and maintaining its firepower on the Black Fortress, these giant rockets actually turned in the air (Note 1), relentlessly shortening the distance with the flying battleships.

Fortunately, the attacking fleet was well prepared for this. When the fleet began to circle in death with the Black Fortress as the center, two newly commissioned Eclipse-class frigates were deliberately placed inside the fleet. Their location and their platinum paintwork, which was completely different from the Shenzhou fleet, made the two Kaldorei warships the first choice of the defenders.

Under the gaze of countless eyes, three giant rockets approached one of the Eclipse-class ships, until they broke through an invisible boundary, and multiple groups of cluster lightning on the sides of the two Eclipse-class ships fired at the same time. In an instant, winding silver snakes danced wildly in the air, and violent lightning beams whipped the outer shell of the incoming rocket, blasting it in mid-air.

This was the closest the defenders came to a successful counterattack in the entire battle, and it was also the only one. As soon as the three giant rockets were launched, their trails exposed the location of the launchers. While the projectile gun crew was still calculating the firing parameters and the tracking rockets were busy loading ammunition, the two Eclipse-class ship-borne light spears fired a salvo, leaving several straight blue tracks in the retina of mortals.

The highly compressed wind of Quesh (Note 2) evaporated the Chaos Dwarf artillery crew and their launchers on the spot, and scraped a few shallow radial scratches on the dark stone floor. Compared with projectile cannons of the same level, the lethality of the light spear is not strong, and can even be said to be low, but it has the advantage of extremely high accuracy and faster firing rate.

Two high-threat targets were destroyed neatly by the Kaldorei warships, and the third one didn't survive for long. Before the Chaos Dwarf artillery could complete the complicated reloading process, the somewhat embarrassed Aurora Air Force focused its fire on the third target, overwhelming it with excessive firepower. When the smoke and dust cleared, only the bumpy city wall remained.

Then, the battle entered garbage time. The walls of the Black Fortress were piled with all kinds of vicious weapons invented by demon blacksmiths, their power and brutality were enough to make the bravest mortal army nervous; but these things were basically designed for ground targets, and the few Death Howler rockets could not reach the flying fleet: the latter had been hovering at the limit of the range of the projectile cannon, and would rather sacrifice the accuracy of the artillery than rashly break into the Chaos Dwarfs' firepower network.

The "death spiral" lasted for an hour, and the various artillery positions on the surface of the Black Fortress were removed one by one. During this period, the defenders fought back relentlessly, even if the range was not enough. However, everything was in vain. In the face of the artillery fire from the sky, the Black Fortress's impregnable defense system was dismantled bit by bit, and the war machine that cost Drazhos countless efforts was destroyed, and the precious Chaos Dwarf soldiers died in vain.

With only some consumables, the outer defense of the Black Fortress was quickly defeated. However, the battle was so smooth that Xiao Yiyue hesitated a little: Could this be some kind of trap? Unlike their order cousins, the Chaos Dwarves worship the power of magic. In Chaos Dwarf society, spellcasters must be priests of Hasut, the undisputed ruling class in this dark and twisted country.

As a warlock prophet who is one of the most famous in the Chaos Dwarves, why didn't Drazhos try to use magic to turn the situation around when the conventional troops were completely suppressed? Was there another plan, or...

This person is not in the Black Fortress at all?

In any case, the established plan would not stop because of the commander's hesitation. Two Eclipse-class frigates equipped with shields - after sacrificing countless lives, the Mohists finally overcame all technical difficulties and produced a practical ship-mounted shield generator - escorted a Military Horse-class light transport ship to a gap in the Black Fortress that was blown out by force, and lowered the armored springboard at the stern of the ship.

The transport ship did not land because there was not enough space for it to land. The Black Fortress was built by hollowing out a rocky mountain. The urban area on its surface was stacked like terraces, and on the top was the Hasut Temple, which was shaped like a bull's head. No matter which layer, there was no large open space, so it was impossible for the transport ship to land.

Therefore, the transport ship could only turn its stern toward the city and its bow outward, and then let the armored ramp hit a gap in the city's outer wall with a clang. As soon as the armored ramp was lowered, a burst of arrows flew in from a distance, mixed with the rapid sound of broad-bladed muskets, all flying towards the open stern of the transport ship.