Trench Bolts and Magic

Chapter 276 We Need Better Shooting Positions
The light was so bright that it momentarily overshadowed the sun's brilliance.

Then they saw the electric current shield surrounding the Eiffel Tower suddenly shrink inward and then expand outward in an instant, becoming much brighter than before!

More than twenty seconds later, a sharp, ear-piercing screech followed by a muffled, thunderous explosion reached their ears one after another.

“It’s ‘Gungnir’!” Seeker immediately realized.

"It opened fire!" General Mackensen was also invigorated.

However, their excitement did not last long.

Because they clearly saw that the explosion occurred in the air some distance from the Eiffel Tower.

Although the shockwave from the explosion seemed to make the giant tower sway slightly, it was clear that the attack had missed its target.

"We're blocked?" a staff officer stammered.

Mackensen and Seeker exchanged a glance, both seeing seriousness in each other's eyes.

Even Gungnir's Radiant Crystal Reaction Missile couldn't break through that tower's defenses?

At Gare du Gare de l'Est, next to the armored train 'Odin'.

Morin and Lucas's hearts sank to the bottom as the reports from the artillery observation team came back.

"Colonel, the Brilliant Crystal Reaction Bomb was prematurely detonated by lightning at a distance of approximately 200 meters from the target!"

"It was detonated by lightning?" Lucas was stunned. "What do you mean?"

"Just as the shell was about to hit, the electric current around the Eiffel Tower was significantly enhanced, and a large amount of lightning directly formed something like an 'electric wall,' causing the scintillation reaction bomb to detonate prematurely."

Upon hearing this explanation, everyone fell silent.

Can you still play like this?
"but."

The artillery observer added:
"Although the shells were detonated prematurely, the violent explosion still seemed to have some impact on the tower. We saw that the electric shield around the tower became very unstable for a moment, and there seemed to be some charred marks left on the steel structure of the tower in the direction of the strongest blast impact."

"It worked?" Lucas's eyes lit up, his extinguished hope rekindled.

"In other words, as long as we can hit it, or get closer, we can cause it substantial damage!"

He immediately turned around and roared at the magic engineers and engineers behind him, "Did you all hear that! One more round! Reload immediately! I don't believe it can keep blocking like this forever!"

"Yes!"

Under Colonel Lucas's orders, everyone sprang into action once again.

Cooling, inspection, and loading.
The launch preparations for 'Gungnir' are once again proceeding smoothly.
-
Meanwhile, inside the Eiffel Tower, in the second-level main control area.

Chardonnay, the seventh-circle necromancer, was the second person in the entire city of Paris, after Master Eiffel at the top of the tower, to experience the power of 'Gungnir' up close.

When the Brilliant Crystal Reaction Bomb was detonated two hundred meters away, he could clearly feel the entire giant tower tremble violently under the terrifying shockwave.

The ribbons of light flowing on the wall momentarily became disordered.

For the first time, his expression turned somewhat grim.

The Saxons actually possess weapons capable of threatening this 'wonder'!

He immediately contacted Master Eiffel in the control room—the latter had by then become part of the Eiffel Tower and could hear Chardonnay's voice directly.

"Eiffel! Can you feel it? The Saxons' attacks can hurt us! Expand your lightning defense range! Otherwise, if they keep hitting us like this, who knows what might happen!"

His voice clearly carried a hint of impatience.

A moment later, the calm, emotionless voice of Master Eiffel echoed in his mind.

"understood."

Three simple words, and then silence.

But Chardonnay could sense that the violent currents swirling around the tower were expanding outwards at an even faster rate.

More than ten minutes later.

When the second shell from the 'Gungnir' roared in again, carrying the hopes of everyone on the armored train, it was met with an even more ferocious interception than the first shell.

This time, it didn't even make it within 300 meters before being precisely detonated in mid-air by several intersecting bolts of lightning.

The violent explosion created an even larger fireball in the air, but the shockwave it generated was much weaker by the time it reached the Eiffel Tower, causing only a slight sway.

Seeing this, Chardonnay finally breathed a sigh of relief.

A smile returned to his pale face.

Since the Saxons' ranged attacks pose no immediate threat, it's time to get down to business.

Just as Master Eiffel thought, the reason why this seventh-circle necromancer risked so much to return to Paris, supposedly to 'defend Paris,' was actually only a small part of his motivation.

More than anything, it was his covetousness of the enormous treasure hidden beneath Paris.

The Paris Catacombs.

That sacred place that buried six million skeletons and accumulated over a century of death and negative energy.

For Chardonnay, that was the ultimate artistic temple he had pursued throughout his life.

Chardonnay can be considered a born necromancer.

This talent is not only reflected in his spellcasting ability that he awakened at a young age, but also stems from his almost fanatical fascination with the power of life and death, and his obsession with using this power to change the world.

No one knows how Shardone acquired the knowledge of the Necromancer school; all they know is that this 'genius' embarked on the path of a necromancer from the moment he awakened.

His 'talent' in necromancy was fully displayed when he was seventeen years old.

That year, in order to give his grandmother a 'surprise' at her birthday dinner, he secretly sneaked into the family cemetery.
Then, using the newly learned skill of "Revitalizing the Dead," he "resurrected" his grandfather, who had passed away many years ago, and brought this "old man" to his grandmother at dinner.

Of course, in the form of a complete skeleton.

He still remembers the expression on his grandmother's face when he excitedly helped his grandfather, whose car was creaking, into the dining room.

It was a complex expression that mixed extreme shock, fear, and bewilderment.

Then, unsurprisingly, the old man's eyes rolled back, and he fainted from fright.

That night, the house was in complete chaos.

His parents took his unconscious grandmother to the hospital overnight and never came back to look for Chardonnay again.

That was also the last time Chardonnay saw his family.

The necromancer's astonishing actions quickly caught the attention of the 'Eye of the Loire' mage order.

Ultimately, the order of mages sent the highly respected Master Pasteur to take the wild mage under his wing as an apprentice and bring him back to the order for supervision and education.

After being 'taken in' into the mage order, Shardon's amazing talent in the necromancy school made the higher-ups of the mage order realize that this kid was indeed a once-in-a-century talent.

At the same time, most of the mages in the mage group had a surprisingly consistent impression of him—serious, boring, aloof, and eccentric.

A freak who would rather be with corpses and skeletons than exchange a single word with the living. He enjoys solitude more than friendship.

When Chardonnay turned his gaze to the enormous labyrinth of bones beneath Paris and attempted to absorb its vast amount of negative energy, the higher-ups of the mage order finally could no longer sit still.

They joined forces and imposed the most severe restrictions on him.

After all, this is Paris, the capital of the Gallo-Latin America Republic, and the center of the European civilization.

They will not allow anyone to turn this city into a giant necromancy experiment site.

Since then, Chardonnay has been waiting, waiting for an opportunity.

An opportunity that no one can limit anymore.

Today, he finally got what he had been waiting for.

After confirming that the Saxons' ranged attacks would not pose a threat to the Eiffel Tower in the short term, Chardonnay probed the core of the giant tower with his mental energy.

Just as he had anticipated, at first, something representing the will of Master Eiffel was full of resistance and rejection towards him.

But after Chardonnay expressed that he only wanted to "borrow" some of the power to "defend Paris," the other party remained silent for a long time before finally granting him access.

When Chardonnay's spirit connected with the surging, ocean-like magic of the entire tower, he felt as if he had become a god.

Endless power surged forth under his will.

He doesn't even need Eagle Eye to 'see' most of Paris (the range amplified by the Mage Tower spell).

Chardonnay's gaze pierced through the thick layers of rock, landing on the underground kingdom of the dead that had slumbered for centuries.

In his 'vision', the vast area beneath Paris was filled with such intense negative energy that it had almost materialized, like a black ocean flowing silently among countless skeletons.

They are just waiting for a voice to awaken them.

【Summon the Undead】. This is a powerful sixth-circle spell that can transform a corpse into a skeleton, ghoul, or undead, depending on its condition.
However, this spell has a great limitation: it can only be cast at night, when negative energy is most active.

It's still daytime.

However, Chardonnay was not in a hurry; he had another option.

That is, the third-circle necromancy spell that brought him fame and into the sights of the mage ranks—[Animate the Dead].

This spell, while not as powerful as [Summon the Undead], can only create one skeleton or zombie at a time.
However, the enhancement gained by this low-level spell will be even more pronounced under the terrifying magical amplification of the Eiffel Tower.

The Paris Catacombs are extremely vast. Although the main entrance, located in the 14th arrondissement, is some distance away, its underground extension has already entered the range of the Eiffel Tower's magical amplification.

A near-maniacal smile appeared on Chardonnay's pale face.

He mobilized the power of the giant tower, pouring his will into the spell model etched in his mind.

"Get up"

"My faithful servants"

"To offer my final loyalty to your city!"

His voice echoed in the main control room.

The next second, the black ocean in the Paris catacombs, which had been silent for a century, suddenly boiled over!
Endless negative energy was activated by an invisible force and then surged wildly into the mountains of bones around them.

In pairs of empty eye sockets, tiny points of scarlet light began to shine.

"Click-clack"

In the dark and deathly silent passage, a sickeningly painful sound of bones grinding together could be heard.

One skeleton after another, piled up in the walls, seemed to be pulled by invisible threads, slowly piecing together and assembling, before shakily rising from the ground.

Their empty eye sockets burned with crimson flames of the soul as they gazed blankly and emptyly at this world they had long forgotten.

At first, only one or two bodies were awakened.

But soon, like a wildfire awakening, a surge of energy began to spread at an astonishing speed into the depths of the entire underground tomb.

Hundreds and thousands, tens of thousands.
Countless skeletons rose from the pile of bones, converging into torrents of gray-black flesh that surged through the narrow passage.

Their only goal is the ground, teeming with the presence of the living.
-
"Blocked again!"

At Paris Gare du Gare de l'Est, Colonel Lucas, watching the fireball in the distant sky that had been prematurely detonated again, was so angry he almost smashed his binoculars.

"Colonel, this can't go on!"

Morin walked to his side, his expression equally grave. He had realized that this giant tower was highly targeted in terms of defense against live ammunition.

"The tower's lightning interception range has expanded; we can't hit it at all!"

"Of course I know!"

Lucas scratched his head in frustration:

"If we don't fight like this, what other choice do we have? We can't just stand by and watch, can we?"

They are now trapped in a vicious cycle.

The airship's conventional cannon fire couldn't penetrate that strange electric shield.

Gungnir's Glowing Crystal Reaction Bomb is powerful enough, but it can be detonated prematurely by the opponent's lightning.

Due to strong electromagnetic interference, they were unable to contact the command post outside the city or the airships in the sky, making it impossible for them to carry out effective coordinated operations.

"Colonel! Are you so dazed you've forgotten something?"

Morin looked at the train conductor in front of him speechlessly, his eyes like those of a newbie who had boarded a war behemoth during the 'final offensive'.

"You yourself said that 'Gungnir's' siege bombardment is its first form, so does it have a second form?"

Colonel Lucas slapped his forehead, as if struck by a sudden enlightenment:
"That's right, that's right, it definitely has a second form. I only recently received this train myself."

Morin shook his head speechlessly: "What is the second form? Can it deal with that tower?"

"Uh, the second form."

Lucas's face showed a complicated expression. He glanced at the Gungnir's raised cannon barrel and shook his head.

"Theoretically it's possible, but we can't use it in this position right now."

"Can't use it? Why?" Morin asked, puzzled.

"Because the attack method of the second form is completely different from the current one."

Lucas began to explain:

"It's not the kind of artillery fire that uses a curved trajectory, but a 'direct fire' mode that concentrates power and fires in a straight line."

"Direct hit mode?"

(End of this chapter)