Ermu
Chapter 1155: The Battle of Taqila (Part 1)
"Quick, quick! Drop the tools in your hands and find the nearest shelter entrance!" The soldiers responsible for evacuation guided the engineering team to evacuate the construction site. "Don't push, don't look around! Remember, no matter what happens outside, you must not leave the shelter without permission!"
"Shelter No. 6 is full!"
"No. 7 can't fit any more people either!"
"Move backward, go to the next shelter, don't block the passage, move!"
Such things had happened more than once. Although the soldiers' shouts rose and fell one after another, and the atmosphere at the scene seemed quite tense, it did not lose order.
Nearly two thousand workers dispersed like a tide, entering one underground bunker after another along the pre-set evacuation routes—these temporary shelters opened by Lian were located behind the defense line, with steel plates on top, which not only allowed passage but also effectively resisted spear attacks and jiqiang fire. As long as the outer ring was not lost, hiding in them meant safety.
After the crowd retreated, the brightly lit construction site was soon shrouded in darkness.
"The engineering team's evacuation is basically complete, the blackout is normal, and the First Army is entering the position." Sylvie quickly looked around and conveyed the latest situation to various units. At this moment, the observation room set up above the war zone command post could be said to be the busiest place on the front line. More than a dozen telephones on the long table rang in turn, making it impossible to handle them all. The staff members responsible for answering sat around the table, and only after determining the importance of the message would they notify Sylvie.
On the other side, many staff officers were summarizing the information and feeding it back to the sand table or map to provide key basis for the command post's decision-making.
If Sylvie was the "eye" of the army before, now the observation room built around her as the center was the information hub of the entire army. As long as she was in charge, the First Army's operating efficiency could reach several times that of normal times.
"Yes...yes, I understand. Sylvie xiaojie, Varna of the artillery battalion is calling, hoping you can provide the enemy's location and trial firing coordinates."
"Black River No. 1 and No. 2 have also sent the same request!"
"Let them wait a little longer," Sylvie glanced at the front line. The "shadows" were not advancing fast, probably slower than walking. They had only just entered the ten-kilometer firing range. According to this speed, it would probably take five or six hours to approach the front line of the position. Therefore, the top priority was to find out the devil's intentions—what kind of trick were they trying to use the blind spot of the God's Stone to perform?
When magic detection was ineffective, the eyes were undoubtedly the most reliable method.
She picked up the listening sigil. "Lightning, Maisie, can you hear me? Where are you now?"
"Just took off, Maisie is above my head." After a while, the other sigil transmitted the other party's answer, along with a high-pitched alarm sound, "What happened? Are the devils launching a general attack on us?"
"It looks very much like it, but the enemy interfered with the observation of the magic eye, and the range is very large. I guess like last time, it's probably a large God's Stone."
"Understood, I'll go take a look."
"Leave it to us, goo!"
Compared with the tense and busy atmosphere in the observation room, the battlefield was a different scene in Lightning's eyes at this time.
The firelight under her feet was shrinking little by little, as if swallowed by the night. And the distant earth was even more dark, appearing deep and silent.
The Fertile Plains seemed to be still asleep, with no sign of a great battle approaching.
If it weren't for Sylvie's warning, it would be hard to imagine that the enemy was already pouncing towards them.
"Maisie, turn on night vision mode!"
"Goo goo goo!"
The white pigeon's feathers quickly swelled, wrapping its body into a ball, and then a huge head drilled out of the feathers, its round eyeballs almost occupying the entire eye socket.
"Owl transformation complete, goo!"
"Then let's go--"
Lightning held the top of the
"Giant Owl" with both hands, and jumped towards the northeast.
However, before she could get close to Taqila, Sylvie's urgent call suddenly rang in the listening sigil, "Cancel the reconnaissance, you two come back quickly! The Demon Slayer has acted!"
Lightning shuddered suddenly, and even her limbs seemed to stiffen a lot. After trying her best to suppress the fear in her heart, she bit her lip and replied, "Even so, it shouldn't be so easy for it to find me. And... if I return now, I won't be able to know what the devil is trying to hide with the God's Stone, right?"
"But--"
"Don't worry, it can't catch up with me with just the flying magic stone, as long as I avoid its large-scale magic-banishing range."
Lightning clenched her fists—although her palms were already sweating, she didn't want to keep escaping like this. More than half a year of battlefield experience had made her understand that she was not a brave person. Not only the God's Punishment Witches, but even ordinary old men like the Train Captain were much braver than her.
But she was not alone in facing all this. Behind her, there were Maisie, Logar, Joan... and many partners supporting her, which could make her have the courage to start again after facing herself directly.
From gradually recovering her abilities to re-investigating the devils, she crossed one barrier after another, and finally came to the place where she fell half a year ago.
Only two difficult barriers remained to be overcome.
Flying past the Demon Slayer's eyes, and...
Give it a heavy blow—as a reward for it hurting her!
"Maisie, leave the other party's movements to you." Lightning unbuttoned her collar and forcibly stuffed the owl into the flight suit, leaving only a head exposed, and then directly entered the speed of sound—she could completely maintain high-speed flight at a distance of only ten kilometers!
"Zzz... Be careful, the enemy... zzz... has noticed you..." Probably affected by the magic power synchronization, Sylvie's voice suddenly became intermittent.
Even without this reminder, Lightning knew that she had been exposed—as long as the devil wasn't deaf, it would undoubtedly be able to hear the sonic boom.
But her movements were faster than the sound, which also meant that when the enemy heard the bàozhà sound, she had already swept over their heads.
After a few breaths, Maisie's eagle eyes captured the target.
"That monster is on your right front, goo!"
With the help of the hazy moonlight, Lightning hadn't found the Demon Slayer yet, but she had already seen a circle of black light suddenly spreading out!
There was no doubt that the high-level devil's shimmer vision was still above Maisie's—the other party not only saw her, but also approached her flight path as much as possible, and directly launched the magic-banishing field when it was too late to intercept.
In an instant, she increased her speed to the limit, and changed from level flight to dive!
For a moment, Lightning even felt that the eerie and cold black light had grabbed her ankle. But the illusion quickly dissipated, and in one breath, she had left the black light far behind. After breaking through the Demon Slayer's interception, there was nothing threatening in front of her. She pulled up again and crossed the entire devil's position in a straight arc, taking in all the abnormal movements below.
In the dim moonlight, Lightning saw two large God's Stones, which had been cut into cylindrical shapes, being pushed forward like rolling stones. The stone pillars were of amazing size, at least twenty meters long and nearly three meters high, looking like an overturned bell tower at first glance. Behind each pillar were neatly arranged seven Spider Demons, crawling slowly together, pushing the God's Stone little by little towards the First Army.
And more Fiends followed closely behind, seemingly using the stone pillars as mobile bunkers.