Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 228: Operation Tearing
Matthews Willy dragged his heavy body and moved to the side of Phil Holden with unsteady steps. He raised his hand and released a small amount of thick frost mist, which instantly froze the huge bloody wound on his waist.

"Is this what you call...staying away from the frontline center and making a big noise?" After treating Fair's wound, Matthews couldn't hold on any longer. He spread his legs and sat down against the tree trunk, catching his breath. "We almost killed two high-level spellcasters here... Is that a big noise?"

Fair chuckled twice and rarely refrained from arguing. He took out two small crystal glass tubes from his storage ring, shook the light green crystal liquid inside, and took out one and put it into Matthews' hand.

"Drink it... These are the last two bottles I have in stock. They're magic potions concocted by the old men in the Quinn family, made with extracts from the core of the golden tree..."

Matthews took the glass tube with a look of surprise, holding it in his hand, reluctant to unscrew the cork. "What? Is it true that the Quinn family illegally cut down the Golden Forest? No wonder those high elves regard them as their number one enemy."

Fair was too lazy to explain too much. After drinking the potion, he closed his eyes and rested for a while. He propped himself up and walked to the headless corpse of the "promoter". He picked up the strangely shaped metal crown and looked at it in his hand.

This thing looked crudely made, with no magical fluctuations inside. It didn't look like any special demonic weapon, but Fair couldn't tell what material it was made of, so he could only put it away and take it back for research.

After searching the dead demon priest's body for a while, he found nothing except some strange black pills.

"I just don't understand why these demonic spellcasters are so reluctant to use magical tools. Instead, they would rather stitch their bodies together with those of demonic beasts, transforming them into something neither human nor ghost..."

Matthews also briefly regained some strength, stood up and asked, "Alright, let's return to the canyon outpost as soon as possible. Every moment we stay here increases the danger..."

Feier raised his eyebrows and chuckled, "Go back? Are you crazy? Since we've come all this way and suffered such a huge loss, we should go straight to the supply transfer station and give them the roof off!"

……

"boom--"

Suddenly, a violent fire broke out in the deep forest ahead, and a thick smoke mixed with dust rose up.

Damo Franky only felt the ground beneath his feet shaking slightly.

These are the low- and mid-level spellcasters of the scout regiment, who are using cluster casting to engage in a spell-battle with the hybrid monster regiment below.

A few breaths later, a cloud of thick smoke and dust exploded in the distance, and dull bombardment sounds began to be heard continuously. Even through the reconnaissance eyes connected to his own mind, he could not penetrate the smoke and flames to see the scene on the battlefield clearly.

This is completely different from the permanent fortress at the canyon outpost, where they wait for the enemy to tire themselves out and resist the attacks of the demon army. The supply line located in the rear of the demon front center has a supply transfer station every few dozen miles.

The demons would build these transit stations into small fortresses and station a large number of priests with spellcasting abilities and berserk warriors to guard the war supplies shipped from the northern demon kingdom in the rear of the wasteland.

A huge reconnaissance eye demon is trained and stationed in the fortresses of these transit stations. As long as one place is attacked, the reconnaissance eye demon will immediately send a warning signal to other transit station fortresses around it through the mental connection network, attracting a large number of demons to support and counterattack.

This is also the main reason why every time the Federation sends a small group of high-level spellcasters to invade and attack the supply lines, they will encounter extremely fierce defensive resistance and often return empty-handed.

But today's offensive situation was obviously different. After they secretly advanced to the vicinity of Supply Line No. 3, they did not encounter resistance from a large number of demon troops. Franky flew alone above the transit fortress and used a powerful wind blade to directly cut off the head of the reconnaissance eye demon, so that it no longer continued to emit sharp warning screams.

The battle to attack the fortress lasted for nearly a quarter of an hour, and no supporting demons arrived from other nearby transit points.

Soon, the mages of the scout regiment destroyed the outer defense wall of the transit fortress. A large number of berserk demon soldiers and hybrid monsters poured out from the gap in the wall. As soon as they showed their heads, they were singled out by the Spear of Annihilation, and their bodies collapsed and shattered as they fell to the ground.

The attack effect of this Annihilation Gun is really too powerful... Franky thought with some pain that it was a pity to use these precious Annihilation bombs to deal with these low-level berserkers.

It would be great if we could train a team of spellcasters who specialize in using the Gun of Annihilation, and use their mystical-enhanced binocular vision and spell reconnaissance eyes to form an assassination team that only targets high-level demon priests and hybrid monsters.

At least it was better than those in his own regiment who were used to casting spells manually, had terrible accuracy with their annihilation spears, and often had to waste several rounds of ammunition to kill a single berserker demon. This change in perspective even amused him. Just a month ago, he had believed that scout mages should be determined to die, fighting alone behind the demonic headquarters north of the Evil Moon Mountains, fulfilling their glorious promise to defend human territory with their blood and lives.

If we had acquired this weapon earlier, perhaps we wouldn't have suffered such heavy casualties...

Franky looked at the demon soldiers who kept falling and dying in front of him, and couldn't help but feel a little sad - the spellcasters of the scout group were all loyal members of the orthodox Federation. Most of them came from major magic academies in the southern border, or from wizard families close to the orthodox factions of the Federation, and stood out and were selected to join the group.

He gave up the chance to be hired as a spellcaster consultant by secular nobles, abandoned the comfortable life in Alaye or other wizard kingdoms' capitals, and resolutely rushed to the Evil Moon Mountains to resist the alien invasion, and then fell asleep quietly on the battlefield...

"Master Frankie!" the scout mage in charge of reconnaissance shouted at him, "The demons in the transit fortress have been completely wiped out, but we still haven't found any demon reinforcements from other stations..."

Franky frowned and said in a deep voice, "Carefully search the fortress for the remaining demon soldiers. Don't let go of a single one still breathing. No matter how badly injured they are, as long as their bodies are intact and they've been injected with the strengthening secret medicine, they can jump back into battle... We can't leave them even a shred of vitality to recover!"

He paused, finally unable to hold back, and began to reprimand, "Tell the scout mages to conserve their annihilation ammunition! Don't forget your identities as battle mages! Without the lance of annihilation, can't we use our own combat techniques to kill those demon soldiers? Annihilation bombs must be used at critical moments!"

Since they were conducting surprise attacks in the enemy's rear, the scout regiments often did not choose to capture demon prisoners. After all, they would soon become weak and die after losing the continuous injection of the strengthening secret medicine, and there was no need to waste time and energy sending them back to Blackrock City.

"So what should we do with the sealed strengthening potions left in the transit fortress? Or should we destroy them all like before?"

Franky then remembered what the scout commander, Sir Andre Weiss, had repeatedly reminded him of before setting out - if they found any secret demon-strengthening drugs on the supply line, they must be seized and brought back intact, as they were important raw materials used to accelerate the mass production of annihilation ammunition!
Thinking of this, he instantly perked up and ordered his scout mages on standby to quickly enter the damaged transit fortress and begin counting and transporting the secret medicine storage tanks stored there...

Perhaps the more energy storage tanks captured, the more sufficient annihilation bombs can be exchanged for your own regiment. In this way, you won’t have to worry about the consumption of ammunition in future combat operations!

……

Reiner stood beside several oversized magic web teleportation arrays in the magic arsenal, his soul fire flickering in the eye sockets of his metal head. He watched the numerous rusted energy storage tanks that kept flashing out of the teleportation arrays, silent...

The military factory's production supervisor stood beside him, wiping the sweat from his forehead with a handkerchief. He frowned and asked, "What the hell is going on? For the past few days, a large number of these junk cans have been continuously delivered to the teleportation array. Some are empty, while others are filled with low-quality liquid magic energy... The purity is very low. After we collect them, we need to purify them again with the blood-summoning device before we can use them... It's really troublesome!"

Reiner sighed softly and said, "It's okay. The Lord has already instructed that the empty cans be taken to the iron foundry for smelting, and the liquid magic energy with insufficient purity be sent to the magic vehicle factory. They will be responsible for the re-purification work..."

Anyway, Lord Harvey said that these were battle spoils sent by the Federation. It doesn't cost a penny to keep them, good or bad. Who would despise free metal materials? It would also be nice to remake them into civilian iron tools.

The production supervisor nodded and tentatively asked, "Master Reiner, then...should we continue to produce the ammunition for the new weapons? The Federation's orders are always too small. I only need to arrange three shifts to complete the production task. Can't they...purchase more each time?"

Ever since Harvey transferred the manufacturing business of the anti-magic weapon, the Gun of Annihilation, to the Alchemy Exploration Society for a share of the profits, the Pioneer Territory's military factories saw a sharp drop in business. In addition to being responsible for repairing and maintaining the territory army's magic guns, only two automatic production lines operated by alchemy beasts were still in operation to produce magic gun bullets.

The annihilation bombs that only have a damaging effect on demons are actually a by-product of the production of magic energy bombs. They don't even need to open a separate production line to complete the task. A large number of beetle shells that have been exhausted of pure magic energy in their bodies can produce the annihilation bullets that the Federation urgently needs.

The military factory, which used to be brightly lit and operational even at night, is now unable to fully operate its five automated production lines during the day. A large number of technical workers responsible for auxiliary work for the alchemy beasts are idle all day long, receiving basic wages and working in the factory.

In the words of Lord Harvey...

"The Federation has no money for the purchase. What can I do? I can't ask them to pay in installments, can I?"

Reiner couldn't help but recall the inventory he'd taken of the castle's warehouse. He recalled the recently arrived crate of gold pounds, along with the various precious magical materials and refined magical minerals the Federation had used to settle its debts...

"Sir... how much did you sell an annihilation bomb to the Federation? You're not really going to bankrupt them, are you?"

(End of this chapter)