When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

Chapter 1194 The Dragon Head Speaks

Whether worried or excited, the high monks returned with minds full of novelty and plans.

As for Horn, he had nothing to do in the afternoon, so he simply stayed at the shooting range to watch the bayonet drills.

These bayonets are longer than bayonets on Earth, reaching a terrifying 90 centimeters, and are even lighter due to the addition of mithril.

The weight of a 90-centimeter-long bayonet can even be kept at around 1.5 pounds.

With a 1.6-meter barrel and a 0.9-meter bayonet, the gun is about 2.5 meters long, a proportion that is quite similar to the broadsword of the Song Dynasty.

Horn initially thought mithril was aluminum, but it turned out not to be.

Mithril itself is not light; only its alloys, solutions, or compounds become light.

The weight problem has been solved; the strength problem will be solved by the Lightning Furnace.

The development of the slide bayonet was not a blind copy of Earth's slide bayonet by Horn; rather, it had its own underlying principles.

Regardless of who the enemy is, under the existing conditions, we need to move towards the slide bayonet.

The combination of spearmen and clockwork musketeers was an inevitable outcome.

Putting aside everything else, just considering a 500-man army, in the past, the Holy Gun Wind Force only had 300 or 200 men.

In this situation, pikemen must be retained.

Firstly, to prevent cavalry charges, and secondly, because the wind power of the clockwork guns was insufficient, spearmen were needed to finish off the attackers and break through.

However, with the development of a series of revolutionary firearms such as the breech-loading spring-loaded gun, the frequency and range of wind power were sufficient.

It was capable of both withstanding large-scale cavalry charges and finishing off enemy infantry phalanxes.

It's equivalent to having 500 musketeers and 500 pikemen instead of the original 300 musketeers and 200 pikemen.

Despite the increased complexity of individual soldier training, combat effectiveness and battlefield protection capabilities have been greatly enhanced.

Not to mention how much tactical convenience it can provide to Horn.

Warbands are composite units, and each warband can independently accomplish a portion of the tactical objectives.

Synthesizing is a long-standing tradition of the Holy Alliance.

Back then, you could combine one person into a company; now you can combine soldiers into legions into battle groups.

The main focus is on a combined battle group.

Although it has not yet developed to the three-line battle formation of Napoleon's era, the existence of extraordinary forces in this world makes the three-line formation too weak.

Therefore, Horn may adopt the Caroline infantry model of Carl XII, using six rows of musketeers mixed with a small number of extraordinary melee units instead.

Furthermore, the slide bayonet itself was not something Horn was trying to achieve at all; rather, he made many changes to it.

Despite the royal court's powerful military, not everything needs to be done by low-level vampires.

Moreover, not all vampires possess the abilities of high-ranking vampires; in fact, many high-ranking vampires are so well protected that they perform worse than low-ranking vampires.

Vampires of the sixth or seventh generation have bodies that are basically no different from ordinary people, or even slightly different.

These sleeved bayonets are all made of steel, and on the battlefield they may be doused with holy oil or even mixed with silver.

Silverware does little damage to a vampire's physical body, but it can cause significant damage to core organs such as the heart.

Although the melee combat ability of musketeers decreased after their introduction, their numbers increased by 50%.

Overall, it's a good deal, regardless of who you're dealing with.

Just as Horn was still thinking, he heard a panting sound.

"Your Majesty, Your Majesty!"

He looked around blankly, but saw no one. When he looked down, he saw a dwarf.

"Your Majesty! I have urgent news to report!" The dwarf was panting heavily, "It's...it's strange that something is happening with the dragon head in Jade Peak City!"

Horn raised an eyebrow at him: "What happened to the dragon head? Didn't Duvalon take it to intimidate, cough cough, those savage dwarves?"

Last month, the dwarven settlement in the western part of the Dragonsleep Mountains refused to cooperate with the Holy Alliance's mining plans. These dwarves are also members of the Dragon Worship Cult, but they didn't come down the mountain with the first group of dwarves.

Horn then sent Duvalon with the dragon's head.

After all, in the eyes of the dwarves, the dragon is the master of the mountains, and the dragon's head is more powerful than ten clockwork cannons.

During the Clockwork Motorcycle incident, Duvalon used this tactic to force a large number of dwarf master craftsmen to submit.

According to the plan, Duvalon should have already returned to Longshore with the dragon's head by now.

"It's not our dwarf brothers!" The reformist dwarf quickly waved his hand, swallowing hard to steady his voice. "It's the dragon head itself..."

Lord Duvalon had several children from the Soridor clan help him control the dragon's head to fly, using the necromancy passed down from the royal court.

A vampire, bored out of his mind, used the "corpse dialogue" ability on the dragon's head, and... and it actually triggered!

"A corpse talking?" Horn frowned.

The Soridor clan excels at communicating with corpses, hoping to glean information from Lilith's remains to travel to the world of the Immortals.

But as it turns out, a mutilated body can only produce chaotic babbling and achieve nothing.

The dragon's head has been worshipped for thousands of years, how could it possibly still trigger magic?

Just then, a young vampire, panting so hard he was about to vomit his lungs out, arrived, proving the saying that "high-level vampires who are too well protected are not as good as low-level vampires."

He paused for a moment before continuing, "When we used necromancy to activate the dragon's head, we only intended for it to open its mouth and intimidate the dwarves."

The moment the spell touched the scales of the dragon's head, a force suddenly rebounded, as if something inside the dragon's head was responding to us.

We instinctively used the corpses to communicate, and we actually heard...we heard voices!

"What's that sound?" Horn took a step forward.

The young vampire closed his eyes, as if recalling the eerie scene: "It was blurry, like the sound of wind carrying a howl, and some intermittent sounds of runes..."

We only caught a few words: 'elf,' 'witch,' 'god'...

There were also two repeated phrases in dragon language, which roughly translate to 'They stole the fire' and 'This is the furnace.'

"Elves? Dragons?" Horn's brows furrowed even more.

The vampire leaned forward and cautiously added, "We're certain that the soul inside the dragon's head hasn't completely disappeared!"
Ordinary corpse conversations can only access the memories of the last few hours of the deceased's life, but the memories within this dragon's head seem to be sealed within the skull, remaining undissolved for a thousand years.

Horn was silent for a moment. Was he a survivor of the old era?

According to historians' speculation and analysis, this dragon was probably beheaded during Lilith's time.

It's possible that Lilith or Mysella were the ones who made the move; it's not certain.

What if we could access these precious memories?
“We can’t glean complete information from the corpses’ conversations alone.” Horn raised his head, his gaze sweeping over the vampires present. “What methods do you have?”

An elder of the Soridor clan, who was listening in, immediately chimed in: "Your Majesty, the members of the Dreamless Hermitage are skilled in dream divination. They can delve into the fragments of consciousness remaining in the soul, and perhaps they can piece together the complete information!"

Horn thought for a moment, then turned and called out towards the entrance of the shooting range, "Edwin!"

Edwin ran over from the shade of a nearby tree, a notebook in his hand: "Your Majesty, what are your orders?"

"Go to the Dreamless Hermitage immediately and have him bring three of the most skilled dream divination practitioners with him. The sooner the better," Horn said rapidly. "No delays are allowed on the way."

"Yes!" Edwin didn't dare to delay. He immediately put away his notebook, mounted his horse, and the sound of hooves quickly disappeared on the road outside the shooting range.

He paused, then looked at the young vampire: "You guys come along too, and be assistants to the Hermitage. Tell them all the details, don't miss a single word."

"Yes, ma'am!" the young vampires quickly responded, their initial shock gradually replaced by excitement.

For these scholarly vampires, being able to participate in analyzing the remnants of an ancient dragon's soul is an opportunity even more precious than advancement.

As the vampires departed, Horn was lost in thought.

But suddenly he felt the sacred tree seed in his chest throbbing and heating up.

(End of this chapter)