Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 700 Suppressive Artillery Barrage

Above the vast, boundless icy sea and snowfield, a fleet of airships that were traveling at high speed suddenly slowed down, dispersed, and hovered hundreds of meters above the ground.

"Pay attention to the northwest at 11 o'clock, about three miles away from us... Let me see, it's the northwest area number four!"

An air combat mage, seated in an airship, held a folded ruler in his hand and compared it with the unfolded map. After repeated calculations and verifications, he finally locked onto the area marker where the reconnaissance target was located.

"Notify the artillery units that they can request a barrage!"

The colleague in charge of piloting the airship pulled down the hover mode lever, leaned out of the airship's pod, and looked down at the vast white snowfield in the distance... On the originally flat ice layer, many bulges appeared crookedly, which did not look like natural compression caused by the ice layer breaking and moving.

For aerial mages with increasingly sophisticated reconnaissance experience, there's no need to land on the ground to check the situation; they can immediately tell that these are signs of the Lizardmen digging ice trenches beneath the ice.

The alchemy communicator crackled with a series of beeps: "Artillery position received! Artillery fire to commence in three minutes! Reconnaissance units, move away from the area immediately and be alert for enemy aerial attacks!"

The airships scattered nearby received the message almost simultaneously, immediately activated their power supply systems, regrouped, and sped towards the base...

Looking towards the No. 13 estuary from high above, the mages could already see the black outline of the No. 2 floating island with their naked eyes. Although it was nearly thirty miles away, the colossal alien battle fortress still gave people an invisible sense of shock and oppression.

A few minutes after the return flight, a series of familiar whistling sounds suddenly came from the sky above, followed by a deafening roar of thunder. Dozens or even hundreds of snow columns suddenly burst into the snowfield in the area where we had just hovered for observation, and the surrounding ice surface also shattered instantly, with large amounts of solid ice scattering and flying in all directions.

Before anyone could turn around and observe the bombing's impact points, a second round of bombing followed...

The artillery bombardment, meticulously calculated, was more than enough to ensure that the shells hit the designated points accurately. The squares neatly divided on the map each represented an enemy-occupied area that urgently needed to be cleared. As soon as the reconnaissance troops locked onto the target, the heavy firepower units slowly advancing from the rear would unleash a massive barrage of long-range firepower without hesitation.

Under the intense barrage of artillery fire, many dark, gooey things quickly burst forth from beneath the ice on the once white snowfield... These were the shattered limbs of the demon lizardmen who had been digging ice trenches below, along with a large number of black water worms that they had transported there for concealment.

Long before the official launch of "Pest Control Plan," the engineering troops of the Ice Sea Base had already ventured deep into the battlefield ruins to survey the remnants of the ice trenches left behind by the retreating Lizardmen... To break through the ice layers that were harder than basalt, these alien races could only rely on the explosion of red lightning, combined with the repeated burning and melting of black water. This also meant that they could not dig too deep at all, and could only ensure that they were less than two meters below the ice surface.

A single solid magic explosive bomb can create a crater about 1.5 meters deep. The shockwave generated by the explosion can reach an area three or four meters below the ice. For enemies crowded in the ice trenches, if they are within ten meters of the blast point, the shockwave will be absolutely fatal. If they are even less lucky and are hit directly by the shell and penetrate the ice above their heads, they will almost certainly not be able to leave behind a complete corpse.

This massive long-range firepower coverage still left the mages, who were used to small-scale ground combat, feeling shaken even after experiencing it many times... The pleasure of ruthlessly crushing the enemy was almost unbearable.

This is far more effective than the mass spell counterattack they used in the Evil Moon Mountains, risking a close-quarters attack from the demons. "Hahaha! Do these alien insects think we can't find them by hiding under the ice?"

"After the shelling, the ice tunnels they dug out were probably filled with blood, flesh, and mud!"

"Just you wait and see... Before long, those lucky survivors will scramble out in a panic and run back to their floating island fortress."

"Should we... turn back and give chase?"

"Be careful what you say! Don't forget His Majesty and the Commander's instructions. No matter what happens, we must strictly follow orders and return obediently... The airship is running low on fuel."

As they had predicted, after several rounds of shelling, hundreds of lizardmen emerged from an ice trench that had collapsed from the bombs. They pushed and shoved their way out, ignoring the blackwater worms buried inside, and fled directly toward the second floating island.

A new round of shelling arrived swiftly and precisely at the right time. As if possessing a prophetic ability, the artillery positions several miles away cleverly changed their shells from solid shells to exploding shells with greater area-of-effect damage.

The ice field was instantly littered with blood and flesh, and people and horses were thrown about. Even the winged beings who had just emerged from the ice trenches had not yet had time to flap their wings and fly into the sky to take cover before they were directly engulfed by the shrapnel from the exploding shells and torn into a pile of red and black fragments in an instant.

The artillery units were clearly anticipating the enemy's speed and distance of escape, and were skillfully carrying out progressive firing. At this rate, they could annihilate all the scattered demon lizardmen in no more than three rounds of shelling... As for the few that managed to escape, there was no need to expend too much ammunition resources to wipe them out.

Seeing that the outcome was already decided, the airship squadron stopped looking back at the battle situation and increased its speed again to return to base.

……

Indeed, the command's decision to delay the counterattack against Floating Island No. 2 and to implement the "Pest Control Plan" was quite effective... Despite employing tactics such as digging trenches under the ice to secretly advance, the Lizardmen forces that continued to invade the surrounding areas from the Thirteenth Sea Surge were unable to catch the human army off guard as they had during the first night raid.

With the close cooperation of the Northern Army's reconnaissance and heavy firepower units, the area controlled by the Lizardmen is being gradually compressed. Every square representing enemy-occupied territory is being transformed into a safe zone under human control due to their frequent air raids and artillery bombardments.

In the forward command post of the Ice Sea Base, on the giant sand table depicting the entire war zone, the deep red squares representing dangerous areas... right now, only the No. 2 floating island at the No. 13 sea outlet, which is visible, and the area around the No. 17 sea outlet, which is shrouded in mist due to geothermal activity, remain.

(End of this chapter)