Witch Troupe and the Undead

"Hmm..." Then it shouldn't mean completely destroying the research of the Great Sin Mages, but rather interfering with or disrupting their plans. If it meant completely destroying or causing enough damage, then it should be described as successfully ending the XXX crisis/disaster/nightmare.

"It could also be some kind of... seal?" Judging from this statement, the plan was launched simultaneously in several locations. Therefore, after completing their work here, they needed to rush to the next location to reinforce others. Judging from this corpse and the undead outside, it is clear that these people either failed completely or were wiped out at some point in the process.

“Insufficient intelligence and a limited understanding of the world’s culture and history are not enough to draw more detailed conclusions. We need more unearthed artifacts and written records as evidence.” Roach bit his nails as he pondered, which brought back some of his former feelings.

It's like an interesting puzzle game. There's only one answer, but countless guesses. There are no hints about the quantity or authenticity of the evidence. You have to peel back the layers step by step to find the final answer, just like a detective, but more demanding, because the truth won't "confess."

Even if you are certain that your answer is the only true one, it may not be the true truth. Unless time goes back to that point, any archaeological discovery and speculation is just a link in the chain of approaching the truth. No one dares to say or can say that they have the final truth.

"So, why is Livia so certain that there are technical clues to the living armor here? It's because..." Roach looked at the witch who was still fast asleep. It was because the living armor was essentially connected to the Great Sin spells. That's why Livia believed that there was such information in the Black Abyss Cemetery, a place where Great Sin ruins existed. But how did she know that there were Great Sin ruins below?

Because of Nile Riley, or because of...

Roach thought of Livia's "magic." It was no secret to Roach that she could hear or perceive worlds unknown to ordinary people, nor was it a secret that she could communicate with these beings. Wait... Consider what Sophie said about one of the characteristics of a true god being "ever-present."

Roach looked at the witch, vaguely thinking of something, but he wasn't quite sure because he had very little information at hand.

"Whether it's an experiment, a tool, or simply an innate superhuman sense, or even..." an incomplete true god. The constant presence of a true god can be understood as omnipresence, or as the ability to perceive everything happening anywhere. Doesn't that sound a lot like the Little Witch's ability?

No matter where she is, she can sense the whispers of the crystal spirits around her that ordinary people cannot hear, the voices of the souls of all things. According to Old Ma, if you completely oppose the Little Witch, you will feel the malice and hostility pouring down from the whole world.

However, the little witch is definitely not a god. Roach glanced at the little guy who was still sleeping. The fact that this guy could improve his physical strength through exercise meant that he was not a god. Besides, what god would be out of breath after walking a few steps?

Chapter Sixty-Seven: The Explosion, Though Late, It Arrived

The Hall of Sin, entrance. Climbing those three or four hundred steps was Livia's biggest obstacle to entering the fourth level. When she reached the first fifty steps, the little one looked around and even had time to feed the fairies biscuits.

At level 100, the blonde little witch began to pant, and when she was almost level 200, she could no longer walk and had to give up her attempt to climb up and obediently sit on the back of the black horse.

Her face was rosy, and her light golden hair was stuck to her forehead and cheeks with sweat. You'd think Livia had done some intense exercise, her physical fitness was really pathetic. But no one dared to say that out loud, they could only exchange glances like that.

The Hall of Sin is a standard fantasy-style fortress. At the entrance stands a towering gray stone statue, with a faceless warrior holding a halberd in both hands. On the walls on both sides of the gate are countless human face carvings. Roach keenly notices that these human faces do not express religious themes but rather have a more bizarre appearance.

The human-faced carvings depict a series of corridor-like structures, seemingly some kind of defensive structure. Overall, they don't resemble human architecture but rather the style of dwarves in fantasy, a fortress built by carving through mountains. Therefore, there are no walls or battlements as the literal meaning suggests.

The various corridors of varying heights and depths carved into the mountainside, along with the oval-shaped caves, formed its defense system. The corridors were used for archery, while the oval caves housed giant crossbows and various mechanisms.

For such a fortress, it is obviously difficult to break through using normal siege and climbing methods. The only way is to attack its gate, and the steps at the gate are also a defensive measure—preventing heavy engineering vehicles from being pushed directly to the foot of the city.

"Aside from the enormous scale of the project, it's practically a perfect fortress. Even..." Even modern armies have no reliable solutions other than bunker-buster nuclear weapons and sealing off the entrance when faced with something that has been built by hollowing out hundreds of meters of mountains or the earth's crust.

Roach stood before the massive stone gate, at least 30 meters high, admiring the exquisite sculptures on either side of the gate and the structural style of the gate itself. Even without familiarity with the history of this world, one could see that it had some similarities to the style of the Norse Vikings.

Whether it's the braided beard on the portrait, the hook-shaped axe and lightning patterns, or the style of the helmet, although they are similar, they all share common characteristics of people living in cold regions.

"Was it built by people from the North?" Roach looked at Vivi, who nodded. "Master Roach, you also have knowledge of historical sites?" Even though you didn't know the history of the church's evolution before, you could tell that it was built by people from the northern provinces.

"Dwarf style?"

“To be precise, it’s the style of the Blackwater Dwarves in the northern provinces,” Vivi noticed Roach’s confusion. “The dwarves living in the Empire can basically be divided into three ethnic groups: the Blackwater Dwarves of the north, who live in caves and are more skilled in engineering and mechanical manufacturing.”

They are the dwarves often seen in fantasy works, who love mining, forging, and crafting. They hollowed out a mountain in the North, hence the name "Lonely Mountain Kingdom".

Their entire kingdom was located inside the mountain, with a capital city, villages, and mines. It was a completely isolated and independent kingdom. Furthermore, a large number of huge sculpted human figures were carved on the outside of the mountain as a warning to outsiders and a guide for merchants.

"Within the empire's political system, the Kingdom of Lonely Mountain is a semi-independent vassal state with a fairly good relationship with the empire. However, this relationship only extends to the reign of the current emperor, who had a friendship with the princess of the Blackwater Dwarves when he was young."

"So what do the Blackwater Dwarf women look like?"

"Dwarf-like," Vivi didn't know how else to describe it. Livia tugged at Roach's clothes, looked up at him with her little face, and handed him a thin booklet. "A brief history of various peoples?" Roach glanced at the subtitle "How to distinguish between dwarves and elves." The title page also read, "A concise picture book suitable for children aged 6-7."

Roach opened the book with a strange expression. The book was filled with exquisite illustrations and was clearly a literacy book prepared for children from noble families. It didn't seem to be in the style of the Empire. He flipped to the back cover and sure enough, it was a product of the Kingdom of Rada.

The Kingdom of Rada has alliances with many other races to resist the expansion of the Empire. Therefore, for the local nobles, dealing with other races is an important part of their daily ruling life. In contrast, the Empire does not have such books.

The Blackwater Dwarf man's appearance matched Roach's stereotype of the dwarf race: he wore a metal horned helmet, his beard was braided into a thick braid that almost covered his entire belly, his arms and thighs were thick, and his bare feet were covered with thick, soft hair.

Feet are an important organ for the Blackwater Dwarves. They use the skin on the soles of their feet to sense the undulations and heat of the ground, thus avoiding areas with thin crust and searching for tiny cracks in the ground to determine the possibility of strata collapsing.

Dwarf women don't have a beard; they're roughly equivalent to compressing a very strong human woman, like Sophie outside, to 1.3 meters tall. While they might not be described as having a slender figure, they are certainly well-proportioned and agile, not at all like a barrel.

Besides the Blackwater Dwarves, there are also the Golden Dwarves who live in the western harbors of the Empire, the Wild Dwarves who live within the territory of the Kingdom of Rada, and the Bronze Dwarves who are common in both the Empire and the Kingdom of Rada, among several others.

Furthermore, not all dwarves are skilled in mining, forging, and engineering. For example, the golden dwarves are best at banking and commerce, the bronze dwarves are best at killing, and the wild dwarves are renowned for their animal husbandry throughout the continent.

"I'm curious, why do dwarves always like to build such huge structures? Is it because they are too short?"

"Don't say that in front of those dwarves, or you'll get wanted," Vivi said helplessly. "Whether they're Blackwater dwarves or Golden dwarves, they all have one thing in common... they're rich."

Of course they're rich. Roach only needed to glance at the "black water" that the Blackwater Dwarves used to drive their engineering machinery to know what it was. How could an oil tycoon not be rich?

"Alright, guys, stop chatting. The problem now is, how do we open this door?" The massive stone door was locked, and there was no mechanism to open it from the outside, which was normal, as the locks on fortress doors couldn't be placed on the outside.

"Hmm~" Livia placed her hands on the door and closed her eyes. Soon everyone heard the sound of some kind of giant mechanical device being turned inside the door. With a loud "click," "whoosh! hiss!" thick, scorching white mist spewed out from the vents above the door, followed by the sound of gears slowly meshing and rotating.

"Holy crap... a steam engine..." Roach didn't even need to guess; just from the sounds of the gears and connecting rods, and the constant hissing of the steam pistons, he knew what was used to open and close this massive stone door.

"Gah~" The steel ball embedded at the bottom of the stone door slid awkwardly in the groove, making a terrible scraping sound. "How did the adventurers get in before?"

"From over there... how did you open this door?" Sophie and the others climbed up as well, after all, the commotion was quite loud. The way the adventurers had entered before was through an almost rotten rope ladder in the corner that Sophie pointed out.

Clearly, they climbed over the wall directly. The collapses and crossbow bolts left by the ancient siegeers secured the rope ladders section by section, allowing them to climb to the hidden troop caves above and squeeze through the cracks in the city wall.

“I’m more curious about how that church managed to breach this city? Or did they not breach it, but simply seal it off?” Roach glanced at the angel’s corpse below the steps, then looked at the area around the gate on the steps, which showed almost no signs of battle.

The doors of the Hall of Sin opened, revealing a deep passageway behind it. At intervals along both sides stood imposing warrior statues, and candles, not yet fully burned, lingered on the completely rusted black iron lampstands.

As the gate was fully opened, the bones piled up on the other side of the gate were also pushed behind it. Roach and his men discovered that behind the gate were densely packed, desiccated corpses, and the door was covered with chilling scratch marks. One could imagine how desperately the people inside the city had pounced on the gate and frantically scratched at it.

“They starved to death…” Sophie examined the corpses and shook her head. “They were starved to death.”

"How did you figure that out from a pile of mummies and bones?" Roach asked curiously.

“I’m guessing,” Sophie said, using her long blade to pry open a corpse. “The bones haven’t changed color, so it wasn’t poisoning. There are no traces of curses or magic, no external injuries, so it didn’t starve to death. How else could it have died?”

"Why don't they eat people?" Roach asked a thought-provoking question, drawing horrified looks from everyone. "I mean, when they were starving to death, why didn't they resort to cannibalism? You know, whether it's a human or a beast, when they're starving to that extent, they lose all morality and reason."

“I think they are more like…” Roach examined the bones on the ground, “…suffocated, or as the saying goes, died of suffocation.”

“If they starved to death, there shouldn’t be so much fat left on their bodies, and the body oil shouldn’t be seeping out,” Roach said, pointing to the marks on the ground. “They wouldn’t have the strength and stamina to leave scratches on such hard rocks. Only those who suffocated would have such marks.”

Such corpses are occasionally encountered when excavating ancient tombs. In order to prevent tomb robbers and craftsmen from revealing the secrets of the tomb, ancient kings and nobles would often kill the craftsmen and bury them with them after the tomb was completed. Another method was to seal the laborers and apprentices who worked on the project inside the tomb after it was completed, so that they would suffocate to death inside.

“Let’s keep going. We’ve never been here before, and no adventurer has ever entered from the front.” Sophie and the others didn’t know how Roach opened the city gate, but Roach glanced at the lever by the door and guessed that Livia had sensed the existence of the lever and other mechanisms through the door, and then somehow “convinced” the lever to move on its own and open the door.

As the gate opened fully, the overhead lights hissed and ignited, but Roach's expression turned horrified. "Everyone, get out of here!" The air reeked of rotten eggs; there was a gas or natural gas leak!

As soon as the overhead light started to glow, Roach realized it was a damned gas lamp. To make matters worse, there weren't many working lights; the ones that weren't lit were hissing and crackling.

Roach grabbed the little witch's cloak, who was still in a daze, and carried her out the door as if she were a small animal. The little girl kicked Roach hard, her face puffed up with anger, seemingly very unhappy with the action.

"Run! It's going to explode!" Not to mention that some of the unlit lamps had already completely failed, the ones that hadn't completely failed started making strange "click-click" sounds—the internal ignition mechanism was striking the flint—in a semi-enclosed tunnel that was gradually filling with coal or natural gas.

"what!?"

"Boom!" The entire mountain shook, and even the Deathwhisper Fortress at the top of the Black Abyss Cemetery felt the ground beneath their feet rumble. Then, everyone watched in astonishment as a ball of flame rose into the air from within the Black Abyss Cemetery.

Blue flames shot out from every corner, and the spire at the top spouts shot streams of fire upwards like the chimneys of an oil drilling rig.

Over such a long period of time, it is unknown how much natural gas and coal gas has accumulated in these gas pipelines, or how much of the byproducts of extracting black water has accumulated beneath the fortress, given that the fortress is powered by black water.

Now, all of these collapsed and damaged pipes and appliances, which were sealed in the lower floors and individual rooms, were ignited one by one as the little witch opened the mechanism.

"Boom!" The earth shook violently. Every opening was spewing out rubble and flames. Half of the purplish-black mist was burned away. Since the city was not only inside the mountain but also underground, the adventurers watched in horror as many places in the third-level cemetery cracked, followed by raging flames.

"The Blackwater Dwarves are really stubborn. There must be a natural oil layer with a lot of natural gas down there..."

They used the natural gas inside as an energy source for gas lamps, as well as for building fortresses and controlling various levels of government. Of course, the oil and refined coal gas were also utilized, possibly as fuel for furnaces or as lighting fixtures.

These pipelines may have been incredibly advanced in the past, but after so many years of neglect, the gas well extractors were crammed with flammable and explosive materials. They just lacked a fuse, and the result… “Now the gas wells and oil wells are all ablaze; the Black Abyss Cemetery probably needs a new name.”

Roach stared expressionlessly at the fiery fountains that exploded from the ground in the distance. Everyone could feel the ground beneath their feet heating up, and the air quickly became almost suffocating. Livia, clutching her pointed hat tightly to her head, crouched on the ground, shivering.

"Master Roach, how long will this explosion last?"

"Look at how much stuff is below. Optimistically, it will be cleaned up in a few months or years. Not so optimistically... it may take decades or even a hundred or two hundred years to burn."

The good news is that because the intense fire elemental energy has diluted the power of death, the Black Abyss Graveyard may be downgraded from a "dangerous" to a "perilous" area. The undead and other monsters that previously lived here will likely have to relocate. Moreover, such a concentrated fire elemental energy means that there are plenty of usable mana resources available everywhere for arcane mages.

However, the fourth level, which has now been transformed into a giant castle-shaped furnace, needs to be separated into a separate "Perilous Zone." Also, this place should be renamed something like Volcano Castle or Ironforge Castle.

In the Deathwhisper Fortress castle district, after finally finishing another application for the Alchemy Society, Viscount Carius lamented when the Empire would send a new garrison viscount to free him from this damned affair. Deathwhisper Fortress was currently being funded by him, and as a fiefdom noble closest to the front lines, he dared not refuse to spend the money.

The viscount rubbed his arm and looked up to see what was happening in the Black Abyss. He saw a pillar of fire erupt with a deafening roar, followed by a series of explosions. He even saw part of the cliff collapse in the explosions.

"Holy Lord, what's going on?" Then he thought of who among those who had been granted access to the Black Abyss before. Master Roach, who had made great achievements in explosive weapons, no, he couldn't be called Master Roach anymore. With the power and magnitude of this explosion, regardless of whether he was still alive or not, he had to be called "Great Sage Roach".

The Alchemy Society would at least best bestow upon him the title of Sage, and then beg him: Great Sage, please relinquish your supernatural powers!

The power of this explosion is so great that even the emperor would be the first to oppose it, let alone a nation-destroying one. It's at least city-crushing and fortress-pulling level.

"Several months!!!!?" Sophie pointed in horror at the ever-expanding fountains of fire, then at the fortress that was being used as cover but was also starting to heat up intensely. "Several months!?"

“Yes, a few months is considered fast. It could take several years, or even decades or centuries.” Thinking of some giant coal mines on Earth that have been burning for decades, Roach said that this was indeed fast.

Fortunately, this is a fantasy world. Apart from the Blackwater Dwarves, no other country has begun to use steam engines and petroleum energy. The reason is unclear. It may be because the Dwarves keep their technology secret and have convenient arcane magic and alchemy, resulting in a low demand for new energy sources. Also, the chemical value of petroleum has not been developed.

If this happened on Earth, and you heard that such a large oil or natural gas well in your territory had exploded and burned to a horrible state, the local government would probably rush over on the spot. This enormous fortune, not only failed to be caught, but also fell into a cesspool—that's roughly the situation.

"Judging from the scale of the fire and explosion, ordinary oil doesn't easily reach its flash point... Hmm, it's high-quality light oil."

On Earth, the local government would be crying its eyes out right now. It's practically equivalent to burning down an entire Saudi Arabia. The only consolation might be that the natural gas well might not be very pure, containing a lot of hydrogen sulfide and impurities, otherwise it wouldn't have such a strong smell of rotten eggs and burning sulfur.

[Great Achievement: The Temple of Art - You created an explosion worthy of being recorded in art history, resulting in a continuous barrage lasting at least a month, destroying the GDP of a small country, causing gods to take notice and kings to weep. You will be etched in the annals of art history; your achievement puts any artist to shame.]

A magnificent, colorful spectacle leaped out before Roach, complete with fireworks effects.

[Legendary Talent: Artist: You can freely combine and customize any explosive to increase its blast radius, effects, and power, and alter its characteristics.]

[Skill: Targeted Detonation: You did not harm any teammates in a massive explosion, meaning your explosive weapons will not harm friendly forces—unless you do so intentionally.]

"..." Roach fell silent, feeling as if he was being forced down the path of making explosions art.

Chapter Sixty-Eight: Using Explosions to Combat Explosions

Flames erupted and black smoke billowed. The angel corpses near the steps were also gradually ignited by the high temperature. Those dry feathers were excellent flammable material. In order to prevent everyone from being baked dry, the adventurer wizard had to put up a simple elemental defense shield.

"Master Roach, how do we get out or in now?" Sophie asked anxiously. The entire lower level had been ignited and exploded, and smaller explosions were still occurring.

"This..." Roach looked embarrassed. Of course, there was a solution. All they had to do was blast down the cracked areas to seal the fissures where natural gas and light oil were leaking, and the fire would stop.

Even if it's still burning, it's just smoldering underground; at least they can escape through this sea of ​​fire. But this "fight fire with fire" plan is really...

However, Roach glanced at the stunned Livia and the others, and sighed, "The only option is to fight fire with fire. We need to carry out a precise explosion to seal up these burning fissures one by one, or..." Roach looked up at the top of the fortress, "to blast open the top of this fortress, creating a larger, high-pressure outlet for the accumulated gas."

In this way, most of the accumulated flammable gas will be ejected and burned out through a more convenient channel, thus reducing the pressure in the cracks at the bottom of the abyss.

“If we consider the entire underground gas structure as a pipe…” Roach found a piece of charred wood and drew a rudimentary diagram on the ground, “it’s now covered with small holes. The gas, under internal pressure, is ejected outwards and ignited, thus forming this wall of fire that obstructs our advance.”

“And now…” Roach drew an upward pipe on the pipeline, “we’re blasting a path here. The bigger and more numerous the cracks in the pipeline, the lower the overall pipeline pressure, and the shorter the distance the gas will travel upwards. This means that although we can’t extinguish the fire, we can reduce its intensity or confine it to deeper layers.”

If the pressure below were too great, this explosive action could cause the gas to be ejected even faster and more terrifyingly. However, Roach knew that the amount of oxidizer was limited, and such a violent gas ejection would force the remaining oxidizer outward, thus extinguishing the flame in the lower part of the flame.

However, the price is that the people of Deathwhisper Fortress will have to watch a mushroom cloud, because these massive amounts of stagnant gas will be ejected into the outside world under high pressure through this channel. As the structure of the confined gas weakens, it will naturally spread in all directions, mixing with the air above the abyss to form a huge explosive cloud. What will happen next is self-evident.

"Livia, can you cast fireproof and breathing spells on everyone?"

"Hmm!" The little witch seemed to have finally found her pillar of support. As her little hand slid, everyone felt the surrounding heat gradually dissipate, and even felt a strange coolness. Ice and fire spells both belong to the fire element, so the price was that a circle of fire, heated to the point of distortion, formed around them.

"So what's the first step?"

"Go inside, climb to the top floor, tear off the roof, then break through each floor, use bombs to blast the floor at the bottom, and turn the entire mountain into a giant chimney."

"Then... is it really possible, Master Roach?"

"I don't know," Luo Qi shrugged. He was an archaeologist, not an engineering blasting specialist. He really didn't know anything about professional engineering like oil well fire extinguishing and pressure relief. He could only say that the principle was there, but he had no idea how to do it. He could only hope that the directional blasting skill given by the system was really effective.

Next, Roach, Vivi, and the alchemist among the adventurers began to rush to make alchemical bombs. To be precise, the two of them were responsible for refining and processing the materials, while Roach was responsible for the final manufacturing. While making the bombs, Roach discovered the effect of his legendary talent, which was that two images appeared in his vision.

One is an alchemical bomb being manufactured in hand, and the other is a three-dimensional holographic model floating above the bomb. According to Roach's idea, the demonstrator shows the bomb's detonation in slow motion with high-speed photography, using luminous areas to mark the bomb's blast radius and different colors to distinguish the intensity of the explosion.

This allows him to precisely control the range, target, and explosive concentration point of the alchemical bomb he creates. I estimate there will be similar markings when the bomb is planted later. Is this what it means that directional detonation won't harm teammates?

After all, if you know from the beginning how your bomb will explode and accurately show the affected area, you can naturally avoid all your teammates and only kill the enemy, unless you intentionally blow up your teammates as well.

"Master Roach, why don't we use Frost Bombs to put out the fire?"

The principle behind the "unextinguishable" Frost Bomb is to directly consume most of the fire element's vitality, thereby allowing the fire element to automatically absorb the ambient temperature to create low temperatures. This is also the principle behind all cold and frost-related spells. However, the consumed fire element power needs to be transferred to other places.

This is why fire mages often use a fighting style that alternates between casting fireballs and ice arrows. The heat energy drawn from the ice arrows is transferred to the fire element of the fireballs, thus increasing their power through alternating actions.

"In an environment where the surroundings are so abundant with gas and fire elements that it's suffocating, the low temperature caused by the frost bomb won't have time to extinguish the fire before it's reignited by the surrounding high temperature. Therefore, it's not recommended to use cold spells to extinguish fires in enclosed environments," the arcane mage explained. This is because using cold spells in enclosed spaces not only fails to extinguish the fire but may also ignite other things that wouldn't normally ignite.

Roach created force field bombs and plasma bombs. The latter was developed by the Mystic Mage and was a high-precision bomb that could only be used by the user. From this, Roach also learned why firearms had not appeared in this world.