Trench Bolts and Magic

Chapter 274 Eiffel Tower VS War Beast
The tragedy that occurred on the Champ de Mars was immediately detected by two armored airships hovering over eastern Paris.

In fact, before the lightning had fully gathered, piercing alarms had already sounded on the bridges of L28 and L29.

"High-intensity magical reaction detected! Location: War God Square! Energy level is rapidly increasing!"

"It's the Eiffel Tower!"

Captain Schneider, the captain of the L29 armored airship, rushed to the observation window immediately.

He didn't even need a telescope to clearly see that the spire of the steel tower was gathering a chilling blue electric light.

"Quickly! Use the loudspeaker to warn the ground troops! Tell them to evacuate Ares Square immediately!" Schneider yelled at the communications officer beside him.

"Yes! Colonel!"

However, it was all too late.

Before the communications officer could even pick up the megaphone, the devastating lightning bolt had already struck from the sky.

All the officers on the airship's bridge watched helplessly as the thick bolt of lightning instantly engulfed the vanguard that was approaching the iron tower.

From their perspective, the scene resembled a divine punishment from the gods in a myth.

The entire bridge fell into a deathly silence.

Everyone was so shocked by the horrific sight before them that they were speechless.

“They’re all finished,” a young observer said, his voice trembling.

That was an entire company, more than two hundred Imperial soldiers, gone in just a few seconds.
"Damn it!"

Schneider slammed his fist on the control panel, his eyes turning bloodshot with rage.

"All submarines are on Level One combat readiness!"

He turned around abruptly, his voice hoarse with extreme anger.

"All turrets, prepare to fire! Target: Eiffel Tower!"

"Simultaneously broadcast throughout the city! Warning to all ground troops! The Eiffel Tower is under attack! All units must immediately move away from Champ de Mars!"

"Yes!"

Meanwhile, at Paris Gare de l'Est.

Morin and his training assault battalion were escorting the 'Odin' armored train as it slowly pulled into the deserted station.

When the Gallic government evacuated, it took almost all the working trains with it, leaving the huge Gare du Gare de l'Est station unusually quiet.

After instructing the assault battalion soldiers to confirm that it was safe, Colonel Lucas simply had the 'Odin' park directly in the spacious workshop of the locomotive maintenance area.

"Alright, soldiers, get out of the vehicles! We've arrived!"

Morin, standing at the door of the command train like a vintage train driver, shouted to his training battalion soldiers.

After playing for so long, I can finally take a good rest in this world-famous city.

However, they had barely jumped out of the car and hadn't even had a chance to stretch when a dull, loud noise came from the west side of the city.

"boom--"

The sound was like a muffled clap of thunder in the dry season.

"What's going on? Is it thundering?" A soldier instinctively looked up at the sky. The weather was clear and cloudless.

Molin's heart skipped a beat.

Mr. Gordon is here again.

His damn intuition started alerting him again.

Sure enough, the next second the armored airship's loud broadcast rang out throughout the skies above Paris.

"Warning to all ground forces! The Eiffel Tower is under attack! Repeat! The Eiffel Tower is under attack! All units immediately move away from Champ de Mars!"

The broadcast echoed clearly through the empty city.

At the Gare du Gare de l'Est in Paris, all the Saxon soldiers who had just disembarked stood frozen in place.

Morin felt dizzy and disoriented; he felt as if he had ascended from being a 'jinx' to a higher level.
He exchanged a glance with Manstein and Kleist beside him, and they both saw shock in each other's eyes.

"problem occurs!"

Just then, Colonel Lucas also jumped down from the command car of the Odin, his face grave.

"Captain Morin! You heard that too, didn't you?"

“I heard you.” Morin nodded. “Colonel, what exactly is going on?”

“I don’t know either!” Lucas shook his head. “Let’s go! To the station’s clock tower! That’s the highest point around here!”

Without further ado, the group ran towards the towering clock tower of the station's main building.

Although Paris has a neat urban layout, there are not many tall buildings, so the view should be excellent.

But in reality, those uniformly styled, four- to six-story Ottoman-style buildings also act like high walls, dividing the city into a huge maze and severely obstructing the view.

Morin and the others jogged up the narrow spiral staircase of the clock tower.

When they finally reached the observation deck at the top of the clock tower, panting heavily, they could see the situation to the west.

Then, everyone was so shocked by what they saw that their mouths dropped open.

On the west side of the city, the entire upper half of the massive Eiffel Tower was enveloped in a raging blue electric current.

Countless tiny electric snakes slithered and leaped wildly across the steel tower, making a crackling sound.

The entire iron tower seemed to have transformed into a giant blue pillar of light connecting heaven and earth.

"Holy crap, sun-drying!"

Molin stared at this surreal scene, his mouth agape in an "O" shape.

He had only one thought in his mind.

Isn't this Red Alert 2, the game I played when I was a kid?
So, the geomagnetic storm coils have arrived?
The atmosphere on the bridge of the L29 armored airship was extremely tense.

"Colonel! We've lost radio contact with the First Army Command! There's strong electromagnetic interference!"

The communications officer took off his headset and reported, his brow beaded with sweat.

"As expected."

Colonel Schneider's face was grim, but he wasn't surprised.

"Look at the state of that tower now, it would be strange if it could even send out radio signals."

"Since we can't get in touch with headquarters, I'll take command on-site according to the 'Armored Airship Combat Regulations'!"

Schneider abruptly waved his hand, his voice carrying an undeniable decisiveness. "Open fire on all main guns! Blast that damned iron frame to pieces!"

“But Colonel, the General Staff’s orders are to ‘occupy’ and ‘control’,” the adjutant whispered a reminder.

"Screw orders!" Colonel Schneider cursed. "It's the one attacking us! This is self-defense! I'll take full responsibility for any problems that arise!"

"Yes!"

Without saying another word, the adjutant immediately issued orders to the fire control room.

"Main guns fire! Target: the center of the Eiffel Tower! One salvo!"

"Roger! Turrets one through four are fully loaded!"

The massive twin-mounted 203mm naval gun turret slowly rotated, aiming at the distant target.

At the same time, the L28 armored airship also made the same response.

Upon seeing that their allies were ready to open fire, their captain did not hesitate to issue the attack order.

"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"

With a series of loud bangs, sixteen heavy 203mm anti-tank rounds, trailing pale blue contrails, roared out from the muzzles of the two armored airships and flew toward the Eiffel Tower.

At this point, the straight-line distance from the airship to the iron tower was only about 2 kilometers, which was almost point-blank range for such a large-caliber naval gun.

Given the sheer size of the target, all the gunners believed that this attack was a sure thing.

From the clock tower of Paris Gare du Gare de l'Est, Maureen and the others could also clearly see the sixteen streaks of light that pierced the sky.

"The airship has opened fire!" Kleist shouted excitedly.

"Well done! Blow it up!" Colonel Lucas also pumped his fist.

In their view, no matter how outrageous the iron tower was, it was still a steel structure.

The Iron Tower wouldn't be much more sturdy than shells fired from 203mm naval guns, shells designed to breach fortresses with magical shields.

However, just as the sixteen shells were about to hit the Eiffel Tower, the countless electric snakes coiled around the tower seemed to suddenly come to life!
They converged in an instant, forming a visible blue force field composed of pure electric current around the tower!

"Om-"

Sixteen shells crashed into the blue shield, and then... something strange happened.

The shell did not explode, nor did it penetrate the shield.

It was as if they had crashed into a soft yet resilient wall, their flight paths being abruptly deflected at an angle.

Ultimately, sixteen shells grazed the edge of the Eiffel Tower and landed in the Seine River behind it, splashing up four towering columns of water.

"."

"."

Everyone who witnessed this scene, whether on the airship's bridge or in the clock tower of Paris Gare du Gare de l'Est, was stunned.

"W-what's going on?" Kleist stammered, even wondering if he was seeing things.

"The shell... changed direction?"

Colonel Lucas also looked on with disbelief.

"What is that? A magic shield? No, I've never seen a shield that can turn cannonballs!"

Only Morin's expression became more solemn than ever before.

He seemed to already know what it was: an electromagnetic deflection field composed of a powerful electric current!

However, Morin quickly felt relieved.

After all, this is the Gauls' Tower of Magi, a unique 'wonder' in the whole world.

In a certain RTS game, a 'wonder'—something built with the resources of an entire nation—can result in an unconditional victory.

Now that the Eiffel Tower has displayed these 'amazing skills,' it's totally understandable!
Looking at the giant tower crackling with electric arcs, Morin felt as if his brain had been trampled by the 'Explosive Elephant Tribe'.

Just as everyone was in shock, the Eiffel Tower made another move.

"Warning! High-energy reaction detected! It's about to retaliate!"

This time, its target was no longer the ground, but the two enormous threats in the sky.

Several more thick bolts of lightning shot out from the top of the tower, like several wildly dancing electric snakes, and with astonishing speed, they devoured the two armored airships!

"Evade! Evade at full speed!"

Colonel Schneider reacted immediately and let out a desperate roar.

"Max engine power! Emergency steer to create distance!"

The propellers of the two armored airships roared loudly as their massive hulls began to clumsily adjust their course.

The bolts of lightning pursued relentlessly, leaving blinding trails across the sky.

Fortunately, the armored airship's magical shield had some 'hardness', and the lightning attack wasn't as direct as the 'anti-air solar flare', so for the time being, the electricity only pulsed around the armored airship's perimeter.

When the two ships retreated to an airspace about five or six kilometers away from the iron tower, the pursuing lightning bolts finally dissipated into the air, hundreds of meters away from the airships, due to the great distance.

"Huhu."

On the bridge of L29, Colonel Schneider, leaning on the control panel, was panting heavily, his back soaked with cold sweat.

For a brief moment, he really thought he was going to die.

"Report damage!"

"Report, Colonel! The spell shield strength has decreased, but the airship is undamaged! It seems we've moved out of the Eiffel Tower's attack range!"

Schneider finally breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing the report.

He looked again at the giant tower in the distance, still shrouded in electric light, his eyes filled with apprehension and lingering fear.

"What the hell is this?"

On the clock tower of Gare du Gare de l'Est, Colonel Lucas looked at the unscathed Eiffel Tower in the distance and couldn't help but curse.

Morin didn't speak; he just stared intently at the tower, his mind's system interface frantically refreshing new information.

[Building Name: Eiffel Tower (Loire Valley Tower, Gallo-La Gazzetta d'Or)]

[Status: Battle Form Activated]

[Constant Spells: Eagle Eye, Lightning Bolt, Chain Lightning]

[Spells to be activated: Animate the dead, Summon the undead]

(End of this chapter)