Ming Dynasty and New Rome and Infinite Magic Machine

Chapter 1576 The Elf Palace
Paris, midday.

When everyone's attention had shifted away, and when no one was watching, something unexpected happened over an inconspicuous phone call.

Shangluo, Faetong, and Victoria were among them.

"I didn't expect it to connect directly to Paris. Your signal is pretty good. So, it can be activated as long as no one is watching, right?"

"Hmm~~" Victoria curled her nose. "Isn't Roman technology amazing?"

"Why didn't you do this sooner! Why didn't you do this sooner? If you had started the teleportation five years earlier, you wouldn't be in this mess. Even if it had been just one year earlier, you wouldn't have needed me to organize the Golden Branch Ceremony."

Shangluo remembered that before this telephone booth existed, the Romans used the Mithraic sacrificial site for communication. In fact, they had used the Mithraic sacrificial site when they went to Berlin not long ago.

The problem with these shamanic sites isn't the need for space, but the inability to build new ones. All the current Mithraic sites were built over a thousand years ago. The Berlin site wasn't built within the city; rather, the city was built on its side. It has maintained its underground, crypt-like structure to this day. If it were a church built above ground, it would likely have been gone a thousand years ago.

However, not all crypts are so convenient. The crypt at Lake Nemi is quite troublesome, as it is very far from both the Firelink Shrine and the town of Achilles.

Now, this new telephone has rendered all other delivery facilities obsolete overnight—it has virtually no drawbacks except that it can only transport objects the size of a phone booth, cannot transport large quantities of goods, and requires a person to make the call.

If there is any limitation, it's that it cannot be used in crowded places. This is because the phone booth can only operate when no one is watching. Once someone is watching, the phone booth cannot transmit or receive calls.

This could be considered a final burst of energy before its demise. Rome, in its last moments, produced some technology worthy of a world empire, and this technology seemed to be rapidly developing. While Rome itself wouldn't have much time to use it, Shangluo could still benefit from it.

Using that phone call, they traveled directly from Alexandria to Paris, bypassing the barriers between matter and information and avoiding the hassle of phlogiston stealth, arriving directly in the heart of Paris.

The streets were deserted. The Prussian army was advancing towards Paris, and the entire city was tightening its defenses. Parisians used their barricade-building skills, blocking the roads with every available material. On the road they were on alone, sandbags, tires, pianos, mattresses, signs, toilets, and a huge pile of construction debris from who-knows-where were piled up to a thick layer four or five meters high, like a city wall.

Any movable and sacrificial supplies were used to build the wall, until the tanks could no longer pass through.

The high earthen hill was adorned with tricolor flags and ropes for climbing, facilitating passage for travelers. These ropes could also be withdrawn in case of enemy attack.

Some more practical barricades used wooden barrels, sandbags, and logs to build chest-high earthen walls on the streets as cover.

"Wow!" Faeton looked back in astonishment. "Shangluo, turn around and look."

Looking back, Shangluo saw five buses erected, forming a 15-meter-high iron wall. Steel cables stretched from the tops of the buses to buildings on either side, ensuring the erected buses wouldn't topple over.

"This is too professional!" Shang Luo was shocked. What is street politics? This is street politics. In the Ming Dynasty, street politics was nothing more than distributing leaflets supporting environmental protection. Once the Parisians realized they were going to fight in the streets, they could quickly build barricades strong enough to stop mechanized troops.

This bus is already a difficult case to deal with; it would probably require explosives or a battle for control of the buildings on either side to topple it. As for the earthen mound, it's even more hopeless. Even tank cannons probably wouldn't be able to break through it, because the tanks used by the Prussian army only have a caliber of 20 to 40 millimeters, which is only good for armor-piercing. Their explosive charge is simply not enough to penetrate such heavy fortifications, not even a bus.

The Prussian army was not without ways to deal with such fortifications. They actually had 75mm assault mortars that accompanied their infantry, specifically designed to get close and breach the fortifications.

But assault mortars simply reduce a tall mound to a shorter one; no matter how much they bombard it, the amount of earth remains unchanged. Even if an entire truckload of ammunition were used up, it would probably only make the hill barely passable. Such barricades are ubiquitous in the streets and alleys of Paris. Not to mention, during the bombings, Parisians with Molotov cocktails and plastic explosives were on their rooftops, ready to throw them at any moment.

"Tsk." Shang Luo turned to look at Victoria. "I told you, Your Majesty, a wise man does not stand under a dangerous wall. I told you this before, but you insisted on coming to see it. Now that you've seen it, you should go back."

"Goodbye." Victoria opened the phone booth door again without hesitation, because she knew she was still relatively vulnerable.

"Then, you guys be careful. I'll send you a text message to let you know I'm safe when I get back."

After waving goodbye to Shangluo and Fae, she made a phone call.

Next, as soon as the two look away, Victoria will disappear. The entire process will be completely silent and without any sound, light, or electrical effects; Victoria will vanish without a trace, as if she had never been there at all.

She should receive a text message once she returns to Cyprus.

Shangluo looked at his phone, but the expected text message did not arrive.

"Shangluo! Someone is watching us!!!"

Victoria's voice came from the phone booth that was right next to her; she didn't send it away.

Before the words were even finished, a gunshot rang out from afar—it wasn't a gunshot that traveled through the air, but rather the action of pulling the trigger, which was detected by the Celestial's senses. Without even looking, Shang Luo unleashed a bolt of tribulation lightning towards the source of the gunshot before it even reached him.

Following the path of the bullet, the lightning bolt pierced through it, turning the sniper rifle and his weapon, along with the gun, to ashes on the fifth floor of a building a street away.

"Tsk." Shang Luo shook his hand. "We went too far. We didn't catch anyone to interrogate. There must be more than one. Fae, I'll go with you."

"Understood." Holding the Sunrise Spear, she launched herself like a cannonball, flying straight to the spot where she had just been struck by the lightning.

The next second, she flew back, dragging a boy who looked to be about thirteen or fourteen years old with her.

"The one caught in the distance looks like an observer."

The little boy was thrown to the ground, rolled once, and immediately stood up:

"Wizards!! Wizards!!! It's wizards!!! You're all wizards! And witches too! So wizards really are real!"

The translation tool translators his words into a language that Shangluo can understand in real time.

"Uh," Shangluo raised his hand, "Don't get agitated."

"Don't come any closer! Wizard! Don't come any closer!" He pulled out a revolver, raising it with trembling hands. "If you come any closer, I'll shoot!"

"Tsk. Was this kid scared? Did you beat him up?" "How could I beat him up in a second? If you blasted his sniper to dust right in front of him, so badly that he couldn't even be pried off the wall, he would definitely end up like that."

"I said, kid, you—" Shang Luo had barely opened his mouth when the kid pulled the trigger. When the bullets came within 10 centimeters of his body, the Heavenly Nobleman would automatically activate his protective qi. The bullets, as if hitting homogeneous armor plates, would create a burst of sparks in mid-air before bouncing off elsewhere.

One, two, three, four, five, six—six bullets in a row ricocheted completely.

"Ahhhhh!!!" He was so scared that he dropped the bullet and ran away. Shang Luo just took a step forward without saying a word, grabbed his neck, swung him around, and pressed him against the wall with one hand.

He tried to pry it open with his hands, but Shang Luo's hands gripped it tightly like hydraulic clamps, refusing to budge. He couldn't even touch Shang Luo's skin; he could only feel the shield formed by the gale on his body.

"I'll give you one more chance. Who ordered you to ambush us here?"

"We...we didn't ambush you. No."

"Then why were your sniper rifles pointed here? And at just the right time?"

Their timing was too perfect. The teleportation could only activate when no one was watching the phone booth. This meant they couldn't possibly have witnessed the teleportation to Paris; they must have been looking elsewhere at that moment. And they hadn't fired, waiting only for Victoria to try and teleport back. Because of them, Victoria was the only one who could potentially be hit by a bullet.

"I...I don't know!"

“Hold on.” Phaethon pointed the tip of the Apollo Spear at his eyes. “Hold the tip and answer. You know we are wizards, right? So, in terms you can understand—this is a lie detector spell.”

He gripped the spearhead like a lifeline. He even cut his hand from gripping it so tightly.

"I really don't know anything! I don't know anything!"

Phaethon withdrew his spear, the gash in his palm now larger. The blood staining the spear tip made the lie detector even more effective.

“He’s telling the truth. He really doesn’t know,” Phaethon replied.

So, Shangluo let go of her hand.

The boy rolled to the ground, clutching his neck with his blood-soaked hands. His collar, cuffs, and neck were all covered in blood.

"What a terrible thing!" Shang Luo squatted down and took out a test tube of red wound medicine from his pouch. "Give me your hand."

He reached out his hand with some skepticism, and Shangluo handed him the medicine.

The wound inflicted by the spear tip healed instantly, as if nothing had ever happened.

"What about him?" Shangluo turned to Victoria and asked, "He just shot you, didn't he?"

"He wasn't the one who fired the shot, was it someone else? This kid... let him go. He's just a child."

"Hmm." Shang Luo turned around and pulled him up. "You're lucky. We 'wizards' and 'witches' aren't planning to hurt you today."

In truth, it was impossible to harm him. He was indeed just a child, and even in war, he wouldn't act rashly. However, this statement is very convincing coming from a "powerful wizard" who just unleashed lightning to turn a living person into ashes.

He burst into tears.

"You can keep crying. But I have a question for you now—what are you doing?"

"The school was closed, and they wanted me. They wanted me to be a military support staff member. They wanted me to hold up binoculars and observe."

"Tsk. Didn't anyone tell you that the Prussian army wouldn't attack? The Prussian army wouldn't invade Paris."

"I don't know. The school made us do it. The recruiters came to the school, and all the teachers were taken away."

"What a disaster! Go back and tell your superiors that your sniper is dead. Don't disobey those who are forcing you. You can continue fighting, don't worry. Because no Prussian troops will come into the city, you will surrender. As long as you stay calm after surrendering, nothing will happen. Understand? Nod if you understand."

He nodded vigorously.

"Fine. Here we go." Shang Luo grabbed his collar, threw him to the fifth floor, and slid him through the window. The highest point of the throw was right outside the window, so he landed lightly, as if he had rolled off a table.

Shangluo clapped his hands, indicating that Victoria could leave now.

The two looked away, and Victoria's text message came back a second later. When they turned back, Victoria was indeed gone.

“Ah,” Phaethon sighed, “something’s strange here. I suspect that elves are organizing the defenses here. Including your sniper just now.”

"You mean, even though he knows nothing, it's possible he's being manipulated by the elves?"

“Mind manipulation is one of the elves’ specialties. The elves can make them think they’ve discovered their target—but they also find themselves fighting a wizard. Sure enough, the news can’t be kept secret any longer.”

"Of course it can't be hidden anymore. The Wild Hunt army and armored formations are advancing together. Who knows if it's the magical world invading the mortal world? However, judging from his appearance, he seems to have a very bad impression of wizards."

"That's understandable. But he seems to lack understanding of 'wizards,' thinking that ordinary weapons can harm wizards. So, what do we do now?"

"Considering that it's possible an elf is manipulating things—we'll follow him. Once we capture an elf, we can ask him where the Elf King is. If we're lucky, we might be able to solve the problem on this trip. Perhaps, the Elf's palace is right beneath our feet."

“Ah ha.” Phaethon shook his head. “If he were under our feet, he wouldn’t be the Elf King, he would be the Rat King.”

(End of this chapter)