Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 547: Mines and Bombing

"Wayne and Duff, those two bastards!" Pierce paced back and forth in his office, muttering to himself, "Your Majesty, please immediately issue an order through the military to strip them of their command of the Isengard Expeditionary Force!"

Vaughn stood there at a loss, looking at the furious commander and not daring to speak... But His Majesty did not seem angry at all. Instead, he stared in a daze at the action request document sent back by Isengard.

"Don't be so angry... They were just asking, not actually disobeying orders." Harvey pointed at the documents in front of him with a strange expression. "To be honest, I had initially considered infiltrating secretly to gain internal intelligence on the Lizardman's floating island fortress."

He paused, then tilted his head to look at Chris and Benoit, who had been summoned to the meeting, and said pointedly, "But right now... I've come up with a more suitable method. It can both effectively obtain intelligence and tentatively verify the defensive strength of the floating island fortress."

Chris and Benoit exchanged a glance and said in unison, "Your Majesty, are you planning to deploy high-explosive bombs, which are still in the development stage, into battle?"

Harvey nodded and chuckled. "That's right. Since Wayne and the others call Floating Island No. 1 a turtle shell, let's try bombing it from the air with high-explosive bombs to make a hole in the top... and see what's inside."

It is indeed impossible to completely destroy a huge military target like the Central Fortress with just one round of bombing, but if the actions of the air combat units can also lure the enemy and divert the attention of the ground infiltration forces at the same time, then in a sense it is a good tactic that kills two birds with one stone.

Duncan took the initiative to stand up and said, "If Your Majesty intends to use the airship again, then please leave the task to me... The three of us, the Eye of Illusion, and the Astrologer, will be familiar with the operation."

"Yeah, it's feasible!" Harvey nodded. "But the high-explosive bombs are too heavy, so one airship won't be enough... Besides the reconnaissance type to be sent to the Ice Sea base, I want to deploy all ten transport types that the military factory has rushed out this time into the operation."

These words immediately cheered up Chris, who said happily, "An airship can carry at least five bombs. Your Majesty... if we deploy fifty bombs at once, even a small hill can be razed to the ground in an instant. As for that floating island fortress... it's not impossible to cut off half of the top!"

Let this infiltration operation, which was independently requested by the expeditionary force, be their first defensive counterattack against the Demon Lizardmen!

……

After waiting anxiously for nearly two days, the expeditionary force's hidden base where Wayne and Duff were stationed finally received the joint approval sent back by Harvey and the Northern Military Headquarters. The infiltration plan was unexpectedly unanimously approved, but the operation required the addition of a temporarily organized airship bombing team. By using aerial bombs dropped from the sky, the ground infiltration team would have the opportunity to divert the enemy's attention.

After the expeditionary force spent half a day building the only complete long-distance teleportation array in their possession, a steady stream of airship modules and ammunition supplies were immediately delivered to the vicinity of the Isengard Rift. Along with the supplies were also sent... a group of mid- and high-level spellcasters led by Duncan.

The participants of the bombing team are all familiar faces. In addition to the three high-level wizards who have always cooperated well with the Northern Army, there are also necromancers such as Michelle who came from the Magic Academy.

"All ammunition and supplies are in place. Tomorrow at dawn... we can officially begin our operation!" Duncan said sternly, looking at the special forces members who were trying on the demon lizardman equipment. "I must remind you again that this skin armor can only provide a basic confusion effect. Without knowing how the enemy communicates internally, the risk of exposure will be very high if you encounter those monsters head-on..."

Duff chuckled and continued, "I understand! Mr. Duncan... The most covert way to infiltrate is to eliminate all enemies who discover our tracks along the way!"

The infiltration plan, personally formulated and refined by His Majesty, was simple. The aerial bombardment team consisted of twenty spellcasters, each in pairs, aboard ten airships, arriving above Floating Island No. 1, deliberately luring the enemy's attention... before dropping heavy bombs and detonating them, drawing the full attention of the Lizardmen. The infiltration team, led by Dav, consisted of ten Bloodline Warriors, a special forces unit. Following previously acquired intelligence, they entered the water at the edge of the valley's sunken sea, submerged, and quietly entered the floating island from below. They then gathered internal intelligence and attempted to plant a small number of timed-detonation Dragon Flame bombs in concealed areas, creating a gap for their subsequent evacuation.

……

Time quickly passed midnight, and the newly assembled airships were all inflated and started. The spellcasters of the bombing team boarded the airships one by one. Each airship carried five bombs according to its maximum load, and slowly rose into the air and flew towards the valley in the direction of the big rift.

After struggling to put on the skin armor peeled off from the corpse, Duff and the others each put on a cloak with an optical camouflage coating, climbed onto the magic car, and under the cover of the support troops led by Wayne... quickly rushed towards the big rift.

In order to supply sufficient fuel to the large number of airships, the expeditionary force almost exhausted their stored liquid magic energy. If the operation was not a great success, it would be equivalent to paying for most of the materials used to build a permanent base in exchange for a meaningless exploratory attack... This loss is unacceptable to the expeditionary force.

So beneath the surface of seemingly reckless and adventurous actions, everyone involved in the operation was extremely cautious.

About an hour later, the air and ground forces successfully arrived at the valley entrance. Taking advantage of the fading bright moonlight, the airship team easily found the bombing target of this operation - the floating island fortress that suddenly emerged from the huge sinkhole in the center of the valley was quite eye-catching. Although it was pitch black and stood quietly in the center of the lake, the vegetation on the entire valley floor had been destroyed and flattened, but the dark shadows on the ground constantly reflected a faint red light, which could still clearly point out its direction.

Those were a large number of demon lizardmen walking out of the floating island, with the deep red crystal masks on their faces reflecting the moonlight - even in the darkest night before dawn, they still walked out of the floating island and busily carried out expansion work... cutting down the trees that were still growing tenaciously, driving away and slaughtering the panicked beasts, but not for the purpose of obtaining meat supplies.

The Astrologer and the Eye of Illusion were driving an airship together, looking down from the sky... She hated these strange alien races coming from the deep sea of the Far North. These insect-like monsters seemed to be incompatible with everything they were in. Once they took root, they began to destroy all natural existences around them for no reason.

"I really hope we have enough airships and bombs to bury them completely in the valley rift."

The Eye of Illusion was busy operating the airship. Upon hearing this quiet complaint, he couldn't help but chuckle and said, "I'm afraid everyone on the airship in the sky right now has the same idea..."

As he was speaking, the airship in front of him that Duncan was riding sent a signal to start the operation. Eye of Illusion took a deep breath, and with a slightly unfamiliar movement, turned the mechanical lever. Five bombs fell along the simple slide rail to the bomb release port under the pod.

"Ready, countdown, three, two, one! Drop the bomb!"

When the alchemy communicator received another instruction, the astrologer and he pulled the joystick again.

The heavy high-explosive bomb instantly escaped from the released grapple of the bomb drop port and silently and quickly smashed into the huge floating island directly below.

(End of this chapter)