Chapter 310 — The Gaosong Improvement Plan
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
The shell detonated within the target zone, and a thunderous roar reached every ear. Gao Yang said that this roar had erupted not only upon the target but upon the traditions of this world: from this day forward, the walls of nobles would no longer be impregnable, the towers of mages would no longer be beyond challenge. For centuries, this power to tear through rock and steel had been held firmly in the hands of the extraordinary; but now, it took nothing more than a militia recruit trained for three months to pull a lever.
Some people lapsed into a daze.
Jenny stared blankly at the blossoming ball of fire, measuring in her mind just how much magical force it was equivalent to. Although she had personally taken part in optimizing the acceleration rails, the instant the shell detonated still surpassed her imagination.
She thought of her terrifying mentor, and wondered how many shots he could withstand before that rail cannon—one? Or two?
It made no difference how many he could withstand, because in the new order the lord was forging, anyone who set himself against Cecil would face ten thousand guns firing at once.
Those who had tried to use magic shields and protective amulets to withstand volleys from heat-ray guns had already proven that with their own lives.
Hetty, too, sank into a daze. Her first thought was how vastly different this war machine was from the bomb-hurling catapults used in the Second Defensive Battle, and after a moment's thought she realized these were weapons of two entirely different concepts.
A catapult was, in many cases, only a deterrent: a massive stone or a burning fireball would soar into the air and come crashing down upon heads or city walls with irresistible force, and the pressure it exerted was fatal to the private soldiers of traditional nobles who had little sense of honor or duty. But beyond damaging morale, the actual destruction a catapult could inflict in a battle was quite limited; it was merely a supplement to ranged attack when battlemages were in short supply—and in most cases battlemages were always in short supply. Their role was usually only to kill key enemy units, create battlefield interference, or counter the enemy's mages.
But this magical device, which the Ancestor had named the "Magic-Crystal Rail Cannon," was a weapon truly aimed at destruction.
Accuracy, range, destructive power, stability, ease of operation... every one of these metrics served a single purpose: to achieve the effect of destroying the target efficiently, accurately, and swiftly... just as the Ancestor had said, once the shells roared, the castles of traditional nobles and the shield walls formed by knight orders would all be swept away into nothing.
Byron watched the smoke cloud gradually disperse in the north wind, then raised a hand to scratch his somewhat unkempt gray-white hair. "This thing packs more punch than the ray gun... and a hell of a lot more than a catapult."
"If the battlefields of the future are all filled with this sort of thing..." Philip, however, was frowning at the distance. "Where do knights and heavy infantry go from here?"
Byron glanced at his partner and shrugged. "Didn't you just see it? The knight stands off to the side shouting 'fire,' and the infantry handles the loading and pulls the lever."
The earnest-natured Philip inevitably sank into a state of agonizing: "...I can't help feeling this kind of combat is missing something in the way of honor..."