Chapter 427 — The War Machine Turns Again
Blade of Dawn · Page 2 of 5
The young knight stepped forward half a pace. "My lord, for the past half month we have been shipping components for all types of heavy and light artillery, along with industrial parts, to the Carol region, and using the existing magic-net there to build an arsenal for manufacturing weapons and ammunition. At present the northern region has sixteen 'Justice' railguns and one hundred twenty-seven 'Persuader' light railguns on standby, with ample ammunition. In addition, two thousand soldiers of the First Combat Corps and two thousand of the Second Combat Corps are waiting in the north."
"That will do." Gaoyang nodded slightly. To take over the lands of the nobles throughout the Southern Region and maintain basic order in the several control zones, he had to leave a certain number of troops behind in the Southern Region itself. And he had no intention of attacking Rock Fortress with the traditional human-wave siege tactics; in his view, the forces currently assembled in the north were sufficient.
Then he looked at Sojilin. "Can the Steel Rangers take part in real combat now?"
"New soldiers must see blood sooner or later," the high ranger replied. "They have waited a long time for this day."
"Very good. There is a task suited to you," Gaoyang nodded. "Your task is to work with our agents inside Rock Fortress…"
After laying out the Steel Rangers' assignment, he turned to Hetty. "On the matter of grain reserves and the recent propaganda work…"
Gaoyang confirmed the situation within the domain one by one and assigned each person their task, but he never mentioned Byron. After a while, the middle-aged knight of mercenary origins finally could not hold back. "My lord, and me? What is my task?"
Gaoyang looked at Byron and pondered briefly. "There is indeed a task for you, and an important one, but first I must confirm another matter… Rebecca, how goes the progress on the Rainbow Light device at Camille's end?"
"Rainbow Light device" was not a final name, merely the designation of a project in progress. Though the project belonged to Camille, Rebecca was the highest person in charge of the entire Magical Technology Research Institute, and she knew its progress inside and out.
At Gaoyang's question, Rebecca, who had been slightly woolgathering, snapped back to attention and put on a rather troubled expression. "Still the heat dissipation problem… With an energy-focusing structure that large, the accumulated heat simply cannot be channeled away in time. We are trying to use ice-and-snow magic circles to forcibly suppress the temperature of the focusing structure, but so far we have not found an ice-snow rune substrate that can operate stably under strong interference—the previous cooling rings all burned out very quickly."
"So apart from the heat dissipation problem, the Rainbow Light device can already operate?"
Rebecca nodded. "Yes, both prototypes can run—just not for more than a few seconds."
Gaoyang nodded slightly, then turned and looked at the huge map hanging on the study wall.
Rock Fortress was indeed utterly different from the "stone forts" found in most of the Southern Region. It was a fortress in the truest sense, one armed with powerful magical technology. It possessed a formidable magical barrier, and that barrier could draw on the magic of the natural world to continually repair itself. Unless its operation could be interrupted, the effect of bombarding the fortress with heavy guns would be greatly diminished.
According to Camille, the Rainbow Light device, which destroyed its targets with pure magical energy, was better suited to dealing with magical shields than the magic-crystal cannons. So in any case, he hoped to use this new weapon when attacking Rock Fortress.
In his mind's eye, surveillance images from the high-altitude satellites surfaced.