Historically, the “Heartless Cannon” had the advantage of being easy to manufacture and transport—just bury an oil barrel in the ground and it would do. But its downside was low reliability—first, it couldn’t be accurately aid, and could only roughly point in a direction; second, it was prone to barrel explosions.
Although there were partitions between the gunpowder and the explosive charge, accidents were still frequent in practice. Overall, it was barely usable at best.
The version created by the Moths Chasing Fire had improved reliability, range, and accuracy significantly—even incorporating rifling. However, its weight and size basically ruled out any battlefield deploynt.
A single bout of muddy terrain had already rendered artillery transport impossible at the Battle of Waterloo—such a massive cannon couldn’t even be hauled to the battlefield by ten horses.
Hmm, perhaps the Banshees could attempt to carry it, but the Holy Guard absolutely couldn’t.
After thinking it through, Hughes concluded the only viable scenario for its use would be as a naval cannon. Once battleships were built, they could be equipped with a batch for testing.
It might also prove useful in permanent fortifications, but at present, it seed no factions were interested in invading Castel.
All in all, the application scope of this thing was too narrow. Its practicality was essentially negligible. It would be better to just use gasoline barrels to build a few fundantalist “Heartless Cannons” instead—at least those could actually be brought into battle.
“This direction seems to have low feasibility. We still need to find a way to pursue our original path of research.” Hughes, noticing Richard’s slightly troubled expression, sighed. “We could try seeing if there’s a way to integrate the supernatural—like summoning a Machine Soul into the cannon.”
Summoning a Machine Soul into the cannon—now that was a promising direction. Unfortunately, Monica was still unconscious.
But word was that her condition was optimistic—she was expected to wake up soon. Thinking of this, Hughes looked up at Richard. “If I recall, Monica was your patient. How is she doing?”
Now that was Richard’s area of expertise—he had been a doctor even when he was still a mortal, and after joining the Moths Chasing Fire, he had continued working in the dical field.
Richard’s expression finally brightened a bit. Ever since he had taken over the research, he had run into setbacks at every turn. Only then did he truly realize how capable the previous chief, Chloe, had been. Even when she encountered technological bottlenecks in her projects, she always managed to find creative ways around them.
“Yes, Lord Hughes. Monica is recovering quickly—her soul was damaged after igniting the Furnace, which caused her coma. But due to certain mysterious connections, the damage is healing rapidly.”
Her soul had been damaged?
That must have been caused by the Sea God’s soul fragnt separating from her. Hughes still rembered, at the mont of Furnace ignition, sothing inside Monica had fused with it.
And it was precisely due to that separation that she had returned to her petite form.
As for the “mysterious connections” Richard spoke of, that must have referred to the Symbiotic Contract.
With that contract in place, Monica, although injured, was recovering quickly—perhaps her soul would take a bit longer to nd?
“When can she wake up?”
“She can actually be awakened now. But I suggest we let her remain in her current state a while longer. She’s been through a lot—this is also a form of rest.”
Hughes nodded. Monica was the central figure in this whole incident. She truly deserved a break.
“As for the Machine Soul you ntioned, I do believe it’s feasible—however…”
“However what?”
“However, it seems that only you and Monica are capable of communicating with Machine Souls.”
Hughes could communicate with Machine Souls—those souls within steel felt a natural affinity toward him. Even if he did nothing to appeal to them, they would still obey his commands.
Monica, on the other hand, didn’t seem particularly liked by Machine Souls. Hughes had sensed this clearly before.
But even dislike was a kind of response. Other than the two of them, nobody else received even a hint of reaction.
Thinking this through, even if cannons were successfully constructed, only Hughes might be able to use them. Monica might manage as well if she figured out a way to please the Machine Souls. But as for everyone else, without a response from the Machine Souls, they’d be unable to use them.
That was indeed a huge problem.
Wait a minute!
Suddenly, Hughes rembered—Monica’s ability to summon Machine Souls seed to have begun after she obtained the Sea God’s soul fragnt.
Only Monica could summon Machine Souls, and Machine Souls only responded to him and Monica.
Hughes knew he was a special case—that much he was aware of. But Monica was also special, and that must have had sothing to do with the Sea God’s soul fragnt.
And there was another detail he recalled clearly: the first ti Monica saw the worker-Hughes shell, she had seen threads.
She had explained at the ti that those threads were part of the Sea God’s divine powers. Thinking back now—could summoning Machine Souls also be a manifestation of those divine powers?
It wasn’t Monica summoning the Machine Souls—it was the Sea God’s soul awakening the will within the steel. That thought suddenly made the entire situation chillingly eerie.
After all, whenever the Sea God was ntioned, the Church of the Sea God naturally ca to mind—along with the believers who had been transford into murlocs. Could it be that these Machine Souls were sohow connected to the countless Sea God worshippers who had sacrificed themselves over the centuries?
Once the issue of ships was resolved, he absolutely had to thoroughly investigate Gem Bay—and also study how to begin construction there.
Gem Bay was even larger than the Duke’s domain. The Pirate King had used it to rival the Empire itself. Once Castel fully controlled the area, their strength would surely rise to a new level.
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With Monica’s safety confird, Hughes was finally able to relax. Aside from the cannon and Monica, there was actually sothing else he wanted to ask—about the blue-haired girl.
From the mont he first laid eyes on her, Hughes had a suspicion: could that girl also be a “shell”?
Co to think of it, what exactly was a shell? He referred to the physical vessels he descended into as “shells”, but he didn’t know whether the Moths Chasing Fire thought of them the sa way.
“That blue-haired girl—you’ve all seen her, haven’t you?”
Richard nodded knowingly. “Of course. Miss Ash brought her over right away—said she was found along with the pirate treasure. And she’s definitely precious.”
“Oh? Judging by your tone, you’ve already figured out what she is?”
Richard nodded again and gestured to the side, leading Hughes to the other end of the testing area.
“How much do you know about *shells*?”
There it was—Hughes’s eyes lit up. This was exactly the kind of information he had co here for. Richard had once told him that for Chloe to be resurrected, a vacant *shell* would be absolutely necessary.
When the blue-haired girl was brought in, Hughes had imdiately reached out and touched her. The feedback from the Symbiotic Contract had indeed identified her as a “shell”.
He still wasn’t sure whether this term aligned with how the Moths Chasing Fire defined it. But if it did, did that an there was hope for Chloe’s resurrection?
“I don’t know much. Please start from the beginning.”
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