The ear-splitting brakes of the Radiant Crystal Vehicle screeched in the temporary camp, its wheels carving two deep ruts into the muddy ground.
Before the truck had fully stopped, Morin shoved the door open and jumped out of the still-swaying vehicle.
He stumbled slightly but quickly regained his footing and hurried toward the ‘Odin’ train, which lay on the tracks like a steel behemoth taking a nap.
The camp was illuminated by the lights of the Armored Train and nurous oil lamps; sappers and nervous soldiers ran back and forth everywhere.
The air was thick with the sll of Magic Crystal processing, engine oil, and sweat, along with a faint, intermittent scent of rot wafting from the distant city of Paris.
Colonel Lucas was standing at the entrance of the command carriage smoking tobacco. Seeing Morin run over, a different expression finally appeared on his tired face.
“You’re here?”
Lucas’s voice was hoarse, like sandpaper rubbing, strongly reminiscent of the friends Morin used to stay up late playing gas with in high school.
“I’m here.”
Morin nodded, asking breathlessly, “How is the ‘Odin’? Is it ready?”
“The conversion is complete.”
Colonel Lucas stepped aside, revealing the passage behind him.
“We just need to wait for dawn, find a good ti, and hit that giant tower and those piles of skeletons hard.”
Morin followed him into the special carriage dedicated to housing the ‘Gungnir’. The Second Mode of the ‘Gungnir’ was clearly displayed before Morin’s eyes for the first ti.
He examined the behemoth before him, pondering.
In terms of overall size, it didn’t seem much different from before; the barrel was still that thick, long barrel, and the entire weapon system fit snugly inside this reinforced carriage.
However, everything else besides the barrel had undergone a complete transformation.
The chanical structure behind the barrel, which had previously looked sowhat like the breech of a traditional artillery piece, had vanished entirely.
In its place was a huge, complex Magic Device that Morin couldn’t understand at all.
The thing looked like a precision instrunt stripped of its casing; several magical pipelines thicker than his arm were exposed, with faintly glowing liquid slowly flowing inside.
Nurous runes were etched onto the casing of the entire device, making it look like many of the designs were temporary solutions.
“This thing has changed too much,” Morin muttered to himself.
His gaze fell upon the objects that several Magitech Engineers nearby were carefully inspecting.
Those must be the “shells” for the Second Mode.
But this thing was completely different from the Radiant Crystal Reaction Shell of the First Mode, which at least looked like a shell.
It couldn’t even be called a “shell.”
It was a square, tallic-looking alloy block, appearing more like so kind of precisely machined industrial semi-finished product.
Morin stared at the block, question marks popping up in his mind one after another.
How could this thing possibly fly?
He wasn’t a relevant expert, but even if he hadn’t eaten pork, he had seen the pig run.
He still had a concept of basic aerodynamics; if this square object with absolutely no aerodynamic shape were launched, it would surely tumble into a ss in the air.
“The Colonel said before that this Second Mode had sothing to do with …”
Morin turned his head to look at Lucas, still pondering.
“But this… iron block, how does it relate to at all?”
Morin initially speculated that the so-called Second Mode might be a high-velocity railgun firing solid armor-piercing shells.
After all, the accelerating rune coils inside the barrel sounded exactly like that.
But the problem was, what kind of armor-piercing shell looked like this?
Just as Morin was completely puzzled, an extrely bold, even outlandish idea suddenly popped into his head.
Wait… if this thing really had so connection to him…
Could it be… that this alloy mass would be lted on the spot, and then the tal jet would be accelerated out?
As soon as the thought erged, Morin himself was startled.
Wasn’t this too sci-fi… no, too magical.
He instinctively wanted to approach the core device, hoping his system could “reference” it to understand its principle.
“Captain Morin, halt!”
A nearby Magitech Technician imdiately extended an arm to stop him, saying with a serious yet apologetic tone, “Apologies, no one is allowed near the core component area except for the designated chief technician.”
Morin reluctantly stopped.
He knew this was the rule; for a device like this “super weapon,” the security clearance definitely wouldn’t be low.
“Stop looking.”
Colonel Lucas walked over and patted his shoulder, wearing an expression that said, “There’s nothing I can do.”
“Even I don’t know the exact principle of this thing. I asked those Master Mages from the research institute, and they rattled off nonsense about ‘mass-energy conversion’ and ‘directional energy projection.’ I didn’t understand a single word.”
Morin shrugged helplessly in understanding.
Colonel Lucas ignored Morin’s confusion and pointed to the map spread out on a nearby makeshift field table, beginning to explain the upcoming action plan.
“The assault route has been chosen. We’ll circle around using the city’s western ring railway, then find an opening to enter the city from the northwest of Paris, following this railway line all the way to the Bir-Hakeim Bridge you ntioned earlier.”
His finger heavily tapped a bridge over the Seine River on the map.
“It’s only about one kiloter from the Eiffel Tower, the river surface is open and unobstructed—it’s the best firing position.”
“However…”
Lucas withdrew his hand, his expression turning solemn again.
“All of this must preferably wait until dawn.”
Morin nodded; he had no objections to this.
As they spoke, continuous gunfire and the faint, intermittent roars of undead creatures could still be heard coming from the direction of the eastern Paris urban area.
The troops of the Saxon First Army Group had retreated to the city outskirts, but the awakened undead clearly had no intention of stopping there.
They were like a black tide, having completely subrged the entire city and now attempting to expand outward, devouring all living things.
Fortunately, the First Army Group’s Fortification Troops and reserve units reacted quickly, having seized the ti to construct relatively complete defensive positions on the city outskirts while the main forces were entering the city during the day.
The Saxon soldiers who had withdrawn from the urban area were currently relying on these positions, desperately blocking the tide of the undead inside the city with the support of rear artillery and airships.
Dragons of fla spewed forth from flathrowers, lighting up sections of the defensive lines in the dark night and turning swathes of undead into charcoal.
However, none of this tragic spectacle seed to draw the slightest attention from the mastermind behind it all.
Inside the Eiffel Tower, the Necromancer Chardonnet was completely imrsed in his “artistic creation,” unable to extricate himself.
Feeling the unprecedented, ocean-vast negative energy within him, an expression of obsession and rapture appeared on his face.
He had never imagined that wielding such imnse power could feel so wonderful.
He even felt that throughout the entirety of magic history, no Necromancer had ever reached the height he had achieved today, capable of creating such a vast and magnificent Undead Army.
This unprecedented sense of accomplishnt caused Chardonnet’s ambition to grow wildly, like burning weeds.
Since the Paris Catacombs, the sanctuary of death and bones he had coveted for so long, were completely under his control… his gaze inevitably turned toward the even greater marvel beneath his feet: the Eiffel Tower.
He dared not imagine how terrifyingly his power would be amplified if he could fully control this mighty Mage Tower.
Necromantic Domain!
That forbidden path, which only existed in legends and could completely transform an area into a Kingdom of the Dead, might no longer be an unattainable dream.
If Chardonnet had harbored even a slight thought of “defending Paris” before, that thought was now completely swallowed by his desire, which had swelled to its limit.
Chardonnet’s consciousness wandered and probed within the magic network inside the tower.
He first focused his attention on the tower’s core, the man who had rged with the entire structure—Master Eiffel.
He could feel Master Eiffel’s powerful spirit, which was as unbreakable as bedrock.
At the core of that spirit remained only one pure and stubborn thought: destroy all Saxon people and defend Paris at all costs.
This tenacious will made Chardonnet feel montarily helpless about where to begin.
“Hmph, what a stubborn fellow…”
Chardonnet snorted coldly and quickly abandoned the idea of directly corrupting Eiffel.
But he was not discouraged, because he knew that the tower held another, far larger and yet more “fragile” treasure.
His attention quickly shifted to the countless Mage souls that were also integrated into the tower, existing as energy nodes.
Since the Eiffel Tower was completed, it had beco the final resting place for the Mages of the Gallic Republic.
Over seventy percent of the mbers of the Eye of the Loire Mage Corps chose to dedicate their souls to this wonder when their lives ca to an end, becoming a part of its protection.
These countless souls were themselves an incredibly powerful force.
However, within the entire Eye of the Loire Mage Corps, there was no other mage more skilled than Chardonnet at studying life, death, and souls.
And due to the forbidden nature of his research field, he himself had always been strictly restricted and monitored by the Mage Corps high command.
After all, this was Paris, the capital of Gaul.
If it were any less important city, the Mages of Gaul might have turned a blind eye and allowed him to conduct so “academic research.”
But now, everything was different… The arrival of war and the Saxon invasion had shattered every restraint placed upon him.
A strange smile appeared on Chardonnet’s pale face. He whispered in the empty main control room with a voice almost like a sleepwalker’s: “Master Eiffel… perhaps I can’t do anything about your stubborn stone head…”
“But these ‘old friends’ inside the tower… that’s another matter entirely.”
“Hehehehehe.”
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