The story of the black silk female knight

"Let's call it Requiem... Requiem for the Labyrinth of Time."

"Requiem? What a strange name... Just like Prince El's demonic sword, is it some kind of special sentiment of yours?"

Tia raised her eyes to look at Valensa, then yawned and closed them again.

"Fine, whatever makes you happy... then let's call him that."

"This name is great... Hey, baby, why are you sleepy?"

Seeing Tia suddenly seem to want to hug her to sleep, Valensa was immediately displeased, her azure eyes filled with resentment:

"That spell you just used really tormented me, I still feel terrible... Aren't you going to take care of it and go to sleep?"

"Um... but I'm out of energy, and I've used up all my magic... why don't you go find Sister Friedia or just take care of it quickly?"

Despite saying this, Tia reached out and hugged Valensa's waist tightly, clearly not intending to let her go.

"No energy and no magic left? Hehe, that's easy."

Valensa immediately understood Tia's meaning, deactivating her divine particle armor, leaving her in only a disheveled white lace shirt:

"Don't worry, baby, I'll help you recover your strength and magic first, then you can play with me until tomorrow... That spell you used to split into three was really great, baby. After your magic recovers, can you use it again to give me some fun?"

"Hmph, what a greedy fool~~"

Tia gave Valensa a charming glance:

"What if I split into three and attack you from all sides? Could you withstand it?"

"Who is afraid of whom?"

Valensa immediately puffed out her chest even more, her face full of arrogance:

"One-on-many is a basic skill for female knights, come and give it a try!"

"Just try it!"

……

In short, from the day Valensa entered Tia's room to hand in her report, no one saw either of them again until the next morning.

The following morning, in the conference room of the expeditionary force's new camp, everyone from the underground ruins except for Friggia and Velenkasa was present, waiting for Tia to read Valensa's report.

This time I'm really reading a report.

"Yes, I understand the situation."

In fact, Tia already knew the contents of the report, so she only glanced at it before throwing the document back onto the table, bracing herself with her hands and pressing her chest against it.

"The war to exterminate the wild beasts may begin!"

"Great!"

Princess Yu jumped up excitedly and even pulled the embarrassed Gina to give her a high-five in celebration. Then she couldn't wait to ask Tia:

"Should I assemble the undead army now? My children have long yearned to drink the blood and flesh of wild beasts, huff huff~~"

"Your Highness, please don't rush... In this war, the undead legion will still be the main force. You will have many opportunities to show your abilities later, but don't rush now. I need to test the current tactics of the wild beasts first, and then demonstrate the new era of warfare concepts to my students."

Tia smiled and shook her finger:

"And when it comes to the best way to start a new era of warfare, nothing beats a large-scale air raid... It's so romantic to have the air force launch a bombing raid at the same time as declaring war... So, how many skeleton crows does His Highness El currently have at his disposal? What is the maximum carrying capacity of each one?"

"The skeleton raven..."

Princess Jing tilted her head and closed her eyes, presumably activating the power of the magic sword Frostmourne to self-examine Valensa's army.

A moment later, she opened her eyes again:

"These things aren't very combat-effective. I've always used them as reconnaissance units, so the previous production was small, not even 1000... To be precise, there are currently 879."

As for the maximum load capacity of the skeleton raven... I haven't actually tested it, but last time I carried Miss Wei's equipment, which weighed around 10 pounds, to an altitude of 10,000 meters to strengthen the signal, and there was no problem at all.

Should I start mass-producing skeletal crows? If I have enough materials, I can mass-produce around 10 in about 5 days.

"No need to rush into mass production... This is just a test. 879 skeleton crows that can carry about 10 pounds each are enough."

Tia waved her hand again, picked up the intelligence documents on the table, scanned them, and then selected three to set aside separately:

"Let's try it out on these three large settlements of wild beasts."

"...Baby, are you planning to bombard the settlements of wild beasts with skeletal crows?"

Valensa understood Tia's meaning and asked with some confusion:

"Will this work? With a payload of only about 10 pounds... it's not enough to use a nuclear bomb, is it? That weight isn't even enough to trigger the critical mass for nuclear materials to undergo a fission reaction."

"The opportunity to strike first is very important... I can't just waste it, can I? How about I choose the largest wild beast colony and charge in, giving them a burst of special pheromone solution? I reckon wiping out 200 million wild beasts in one go wouldn't be a problem, and several of those Radiant-rank wild beasts would also die."

"Hmm, starting like this can indeed inflict heavy losses on the wild beasts in one fell swoop... but what will happen after that? Have you thought about it carefully?"

Seeing that many people in the meeting room seemed to agree with Valensa's plan, Tia sighed with a wry smile and explained:

"It is not hard to see from the various actions of the wild beasts that the wild beasts, which have been stripped of their status as intelligent life by us humans, are not stupid at all. They will make targeted changes based on our weapons."

The special pheromone solvent is our trump card. If we use it right away, the wild beasts will be able to roughly deduce the performance of the special pheromone solvent based on our results.

The loss of a large settlement, 200 million ordinary wild beasts, and several wild beasts at the Radiant Rank is still not unacceptable to the current wild beast population, much less fatal.

They could easily change tactics after that and choose a strategy completely opposite to their current scorched-earth approach... For example, they could use the ancestral spirit ritual mentioned in your intelligence to drastically reduce the number of individual wild beasts and greatly increase their strength, and then scatter and hide, waging guerrilla warfare against us in various parts of the Wild Ridge. What should we do?

The entire Barrens cover an area of ​​over 450 million square kilometers, while Prince El's undead army numbers at most 80... If a guerrilla war breaks out, it could go on forever.

"Hmm...that's true."

Valensa nodded in realization, then asked curiously:

"So, darling, you want to...?"

"Well, it's what you think."

Tia narrowed her eyes and chuckled softly:

"Our initial probing and offensive will not only fail to achieve significant results, but will also incur some losses, making the wild beasts believe that their current strategy is effective."

Of course, we can't appear too weak. We still need to show the wild beasts some new weapons and tactics that we haven't used before... but not weapons of mass destruction like nuclear bombs and special pheromone solvents, but weapons and tactics that pose a great threat to small groups of wild beasts.

In short, my plan is to turn the tables on them... to make the wild beasts clearly understand the benefits of their current scorched-earth tactics, so they will further reinforce their scorched-earth policies, ideally concentrating large settlements, or even gathering all the wild beasts together... Hmph, just like that story you told me when I was little, Valencia, if you want to burn your opponent to death on the water with fire, you have to trick them into chaining their ships together first, it's the same principle.”

Having been explained to this extent, everyone naturally understood Tia's tactical thinking and no longer questioned some of her seemingly strange deployments, and they all readily executed them.

For example, the upcoming Skeleton Raven air raid operation.

In order to avoid alerting the wild beast patrols near the border of the controlled areas, Princess Yu did not withdraw all the skeleton crows, but left more than 200 to continuously scout the sky above the border between the two controlled areas.

The remaining 600 skeletal crows were gradually gathered by Princess Yu and equipped with prototype bombs that Tia had brought from the Allied Forces base, in preparation for an air strike mission.

The easiest weapons to produce after the revolution in military industrialization have never been firearms, but rather simple and easy-to-use bombs, and the coalition forces were no exception.

This prototype bomb is a mass-produced product made by mass-producing a certain alchemical bomb formula using industrial equipment assembly lines.

It's not impossible to make purely technological bombs using explosives, but after testing, it was found that conventional technological bombs are simply too inefficient.

Preparing high explosives is incredibly difficult for someone who has never been exposed to chemistry. Some of the minerals found in this world are not even available in our technologically advanced civilization, and with the added influence of magical elements... it's hard to say whether those explosive formulas are even usable anymore.

Moreover, this world has fire-attribute magic crystals, and the powder of high-quality fire-attribute magic crystals is definitely more powerful than most explosives... Instead of blindly learning the bombs of technological civilizations, it is better to just learn the ideas and let alchemists simplify and mass-produce existing alchemical bombs, turning them into cheap goods that can be mass-produced instead of luxury items that require mid- to high-level alchemists to craft by hand.

Doing so would undoubtedly harm the interests of some alchemists... Some alchemists make a living by making alchemical bombs and selling them to adventurers and mine owners. If alchemical bombs can be mass-produced cheaply, who will they sell their expensive, handmade bombs to?

There were definitely complaints and protests, but they were useless.

With the Central Continent Empire facing a formidable enemy, all private interests must give way.

As long as they don't want to become corpses or slaves, they must make the coalition as strong as possible.

Those who rise to the ruling class are not foolish; they understand these principles, hence their resolute attitudes.

If anyone dares to stand up to the coalition forces for personal gain, the coalition forces will not hesitate to make an example of them.

In this environment, don't alchemists whose main livelihood is about to be taken away only have one choice?

If we cooperate well with the coalition in developing new weapons, we might even become a war hero. Even if our previous business doesn't work out, we'll still have other options in the future.

So, after a couple of days of bickering, the alchemists quickly got along. Under Tia's guidance, they exchanged techniques and brainstormed ideas, and soon they had the first generation of alchemical bombs that could be mass-produced on an industrial assembly line.

This alchemical bomb is about the size of a can of cola, but its outer shell is not metal. It feels somewhat like plastic, but not the kind of plastic that comes with advanced technology. Instead, it is a product of alchemical wastewater that has been cooled and solidified. It is flammable, and the air produced after burning is toxic.

Each bomb weighs about 2 pounds. Two bombs can be tied together with a rope, and the skeleton crow can hold them with its claws, one claw per bomb.

After the prototype alchemical bomb was assembled, more than 600 skeletal crows took off in a flurry, first ascending to a safe altitude of about 15,000 meters in their own territory, and then heading towards the area controlled by the wild beasts.

On the ground, some agile skeleton soldiers were also prepared, burying themselves in the ground to avoid the beast patrols as they advanced deeper into the beast-controlled area.

Before the final operation, Tia made a small revision to the battle plan... The three large settlements of wild beasts that were originally planned to be bombed were still to be bombed, but the small camps set up by the wild beast patrol soldiers along the way could not be overlooked.

At the very least, some should be destroyed. By contrasting the heavy losses of the patrol camps with the successful defense of the large settlements, the wild beasts will further realize the benefits of scorched earth and concentrating their forces.

The idea of ​​hitting a ground target with a bomb from 15,000 meters in the air is too difficult for a former good-for-nothing like Princess Yu. She simply doesn't have the eyesight or predictive ability, so she needs to have skeleton soldiers on the ground to help with positioning.

Thus, the first wave of bombing began very quickly.

The first to suffer were the patrol camps on the outermost edge of the wild beast control zone... They were called camps, but they were really just a few simple tents gathered together for the members of the wild beast patrol team to rest.

It was lunchtime, and one of the beast patrolmen had just prepared a bowl of mashed potatoes, mushroom sauce, and worm meat, and was about to enjoy it when an alchemical bomb fell from the sky, overturning its food bowl and turning it into a fireball while it was completely bewildered. The bomb also burned down the two tents next to it.

"Enemy attack! From the sky! Those damned humans have come up with a new trick!"

The other beast patrolmen only realized what was happening then, but it was already a bit too late.

Amidst the explosions and screams, two more beast patrolmen were instantly engulfed in flames... Their Pearl-level strength prevented them from being burned to death immediately, but instead caused them to writhe on the ground, howling in agony.

But it didn't work... This is one of the biggest differences between alchemical bombs and conventional bombs from the technology side.

The main killing mechanisms of conventional bombs on the technological side are blast impact and fragmentation, while the most powerful killing mechanism of alchemical bombs is burning.

The processed fire-attribute magic crystal powder is difficult to extinguish once ignited, and it has a strong adsorption to skin, cloth, and fur. Once it gets on your skin, it will burn the target to ashes.

The few beast patrolmen who were lucky enough to escape being hit directly by the bombs tried to extinguish the flames with sand and their clothes, but all of them failed.

They wanted to use the collected water to irrigate, but they dared not... Water is extremely precious among the current wild beast population, even more so than the lives of most individual wild beasts.

Chapter 34: Trying to break through?

"withdraw!"

"Split up and run! Take the water and food that haven't been destroyed yet!"

In the end, the beast patrolmen who were lucky enough to escape the alchemical bombs chose to abandon their comrades, who had been turned into fireballs, and scattered in all directions.

But none of them managed to escape.

The skeletal crows that were carrying out bombing missions at high altitudes had indeed run out of alchemical bombs they were holding and needed to go back to replenish them, but the skeleton soldiers responsible for locating them on the ground still had plenty of ammunition.

Several skeleton soldiers who had been hiding in the ground immediately jumped out and opened fire with their automatic rifles at the fleeing beast patrolmen.

Cultivators at the Pearl level and above do have ways to confront automatic rifles head-on, but these methods certainly do not include facing away from the gun barrel.

The few beast patrolmen who had narrowly escaped the alchemical bombs were not so lucky this time; they were all shot more than 10 times and killed on the spot.

This scene is just one aspect of the war... As the air raids officially began, almost all the patrol squads on the outskirts of the beast-controlled area were attacked in this way, suffering heavy losses.

Even for patrol squads equipped with Beast Shamans and Beast Warlocks, the situation was only slightly better... They could indeed spot the skeletons lurking on the ground in advance, but at the same time, they would also expose their own positions and be bombarded by alchemical bombs.

Those beast shamans and beast warlocks who are only at the Pearl level can block automatic rifle bullets with their spell shields, but a 2-pound alchemical bomb falling from 10,000 meters above... even if it doesn't explode, its kinetic energy alone can penetrate their shields.

However, accurately hitting a humanoid target with a bomb dropped from 10,000 meters in the air is not easy... Therefore, many survivors survived in the beast patrol teams equipped with beast shamans and beast sorcerers, and retreated to large settlements with some of the water and food they had collected.

The skeletal crows and skeleton soldiers did not pursue these wild beasts too closely. Instead, they continued their rapid advance into the wild beast-controlled area, bombing the patrol camps along the way. Soon they arrived at the large settlement that Valensa had encountered during her first reconnaissance.

They did not encounter any powerful wild beasts along the way.

Somewhat strange.

According to Tia and Valensa's estimates, the skeletal crows, in conjunction with the skeleton soldiers' bombardment, could only bully the beast patrols, and would be of little use against Radiant-rank experts... As long as the beasts sent out two or three Radiant-rank experts with flying abilities, it would be enough to destroy all the skeletal crows and skeleton soldiers far away from large settlements.

But the beasts did not do that... None of their strongmen made a move, ignoring the beast patrolmen falling one after another amidst bombs and bullets.

Those beast patrol soldiers are all elites of Pearl rank or above... Even if these elites are mass-produced by some means, there's no need to waste them like this, right?

After all, the consumables used to create these elite creatures are all highly talented juvenile wild beasts... Is the wild beast using juvenile individuals as expendable resources to protect adult individuals? Shouldn't normal intelligent species groups reverse this when facing danger?

Tia didn't quite understand the beasts' way of thinking and behavior, but that didn't stop her from continuing to carry out the planned air raid.

After sweeping away the patrols outside the beast-controlled area, the skeletal crows finally began dropping alchemical bombs on the large beast settlements protected by the sandstorm barrier.

This time it wasn't so easy after all... Not a single alchemical bomb managed to land successfully; almost all of them were destroyed in the sandstorm, and some didn't even have time to detonate.

However, it wasn't entirely useless. The toxic gases generated by the burning of the outer shell after the alchemical bomb exploded were successfully incorporated into the airflow circulation inside the sandstorm barrier.