Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 578: Counter-Air Raid (Part )
Nelson stood in the defensive fortress on the city wall, his eyes fixed on the alchemical telescope, and sweat was faintly seeping from his palms.

This was the first time he had seen the Demon Lizardmen in person. These monsters flew low over the treetops in the dense forest, and their wingspan alone was probably four or five meters long.

Compared to the anatomical specimens displayed in the city hall and the magic stone images that they were forced to watch repeatedly at military meetings, the living targets clearly gave him a sense of oppression.

"One hundred and twenty! Colonel, after three statistical calibrations, we confirm that the total number of incoming enemies is one hundred and twenty!" The soldier responsible for observing the entire process came closer and reported.

Nelson frowned slightly and couldn't help but emphasize, "One hundred and twenty! What kind of people are they? These monsters can't be described as human!"

Observed through the alchemical telescope with amplified visual range, the enemy's appearance and figure were clearly discernible, with bat-like thin wings, limbs twisted inversely that were far beyond those of an ordinary person, swollen joints... and the deep red crystal visor on the front of the head, and the breathing sacs behind the ears that kept expanding and contracting.

Each winged creature carries a rusty blackwater weapon tank on its back, but this does not mean that the opponent will only use blackwater attacks. The previous attack on the Ice Sea Base outpost clearly showed that these monsters that evolved the ability to fly in a short period of time strangely possessed both blackwater and red light attack methods.

The cannons on the city walls had already removed their waterproof coverings, and the soldiers from the two battalions had also entered the designated combat area. No one showed any panic, and not even a whisper was heard among the soldiers. Everyone's eyes were fixed in the same direction.

Everyone has an ultimate goal in mind that must be achieved absolutely... Never let a single winged creature easily cross the city wall's air defense line and directly invade the royal capital where the people live!
General Pierce, the commander-in-chief of the army, is currently at the Ice Sea base thousands of miles away. The Northern Army is currently commanded by Colonel Vaughn, the commander of the 1st Independent Regiment. He has also climbed onto the city wall and is discussing enemy tactics with Nelson in the Command Fortress.

"All beam weapons are preheated. Cannons and machine guns won't be of much use against these fly-like creatures. I think they'll disperse the moment they approach the city walls and try to cross them and enter the capital."

After all, Vaughn had fought the enemy once. Although he had never actually faced the Winged Creatures, he knew quite a bit about these guys from a large number of meeting replays and actual combat footage.

Moreover, the Northern Army is obviously superior to the Defense Army in terms of status and combat power. It is not considered as an abuse of power to directly give Nelson advice on how to deal with the situation.

Nelson felt a little unhappy, but he forced himself to ask, "Should we consider what to do if they accidentally break through the defenses? Some factories and industrial parks near the northern city wall haven't mandated evacuation."

Vaughn shook his head and said decisively, "That's unnecessary. The independent airship regiment has already taken off. Even if the enemy attempts to forcibly climb to a higher altitude to avoid the city wall's anti-aircraft beams... they will be directly exposed to the airship team's long-range sniping. Our air force is also equipped with light-speed weapons."

As soon as he finished speaking, the observing soldier immediately reported loudly: "Sir! The enemy is approaching the city wall! The specific distance is estimated to be within one mile!"

"They really are trying to gain altitude!"

"Defense Battalion 1 requests to open fire!"

"Second Defense Battalion requests to open fire!"

Nelson raised his hand to pick up the communicator and was about to speak... but Vaughn grabbed his arm and said in a deep voice, "Wait! Let them get closer!"

Although there was only a moment's hesitation, the communicator continued to receive requests to open fire from combat units in various areas.

It also includes real-time reports from several observation points.

"Target confirmed! We've reached a distance observable by the naked eye, 800 meters... 700 meters... 600 meters!"

"Eleven o'clock! The targets are deployed in a goose formation!" "Five hundred meters!"

Vaughn released his restraining arm and whispered, "You may give the order to fire!"

……

Shike tried to open his eyes wide, staring intently at the eleven o'clock direction in the north, keeping the enemy's high-speed flying figure firmly in his field of vision.

Not long after joining the army, I saw the enemy's corpse specimens during the recruit training, and repeatedly watched the battle videos during night study, but today on the city wall was the first time I saw the appearance of the demon lizard man with my own eyes.

But he didn't feel afraid. Although his arms trembled slightly due to nervousness, it was only because he was unfamiliar with beam weapons... Moreover, with the old soldiers teaching him, he probably wouldn't have the chance to personally operate this newly installed new weapon.

They had originally thought that the enemy would try their best to climb higher before approaching the city wall, attempting to completely cross the wall and directly invade the royal capital. However, they had overestimated the enemy's intelligence. After briefly climbing to a height of about 200 meters from the ground, this group of winged creatures immediately formed a formation and dived towards the soldiers gathered on the city wall.

Perhaps the enemy thought that these soldiers, who were directly exposed to the view, were defenseless and sitting ducks...

When beam energy weapons are mounted on airships, they mainly use cluster attacks to concentrate energy to the extreme in order to achieve ultra-long range. However, the air defense weapon system deployed on the city wall does the opposite. It abandons the maximum range of two thousand meters and uses a honeycomb device to change the energy beam into a covering scattering. Although the range is less than five hundred meters, the concentrated fire of dozens of beam cannons is enough to weave a firepower network with almost no gaps in the sky.

In many actual combat exercises, they were even able to make fist-sized spherical targets dropped by airships unable to successfully pass through the fire coverage area and were directly cut and shattered by the dense light beams.

When the order to fire came from the communicator installed on the city wall, Shike subconsciously turned his head to look at his veteran instructor, and found that the other party had an expression of inexplicable confidence and disgust on his face. He skillfully raised the angle of the beam cannon and instantly put the target diagonally above into the center of the sight.

"Aiming locked!"

"Fire!"

The veteran took a deep breath, grinned, and pulled the trigger of his weapon.

The muzzle of the beam cannon instantly burst out with a bright glow. As soon as a thick beam of light spurted out from the barrel, it immediately turned into countless tiny points of light, splashing in front of the weapon like flowers scattered by fairies, forming a huge, dazzling light net.

Almost at the same time, several air defense combat teams on both sides opened fire at the same time. The violent buzzing of energy weapons made Shick's eardrums hurt slightly, and the city wall seemed to boil instantly.

The Winged Demon Lizardman dived and hit the impenetrable air defense network head-on.

The next moment, a cluster of eye-catching red and black "fireworks" suddenly exploded in the sky.

As the "fireworks" bloomed, a large number of flesh and blood fragments fell from the sky. In the chaos, Shik even saw a small piece of flesh wing fragment falling squarely a few meters in front of him under the impact of the beam energy.

The air was suddenly filled with a strange yet disgusting smell of rust that everyone found unfamiliar and disgusting.

(End of this chapter)