EFB Chapter 47 Beating a Dog When It's Drowning
Chapter 47 Beating a Dog When It's Drowning
It wasn't just the light shield that shattered.
Due to the instantaneous reverse flow of energy, the dozen or so connected robots simultaneously emitted a devastating explosion.
Their reactors were unable to withstand the internal shock, and they all emitted black smoke, their movements instantly becoming sluggish and halted.
Just a moment ago, it was an impregnable mechanical formation.
They have now become a flock of lambs to the slaughter.
"It's...broken?"
Victor stared wide-eyed at the longsword still poised in its thrusting position, his face blank with disbelief.
He didn't feel like he had used much force at all.
It was as if... he had just given it a gentle push, and the shield collapsed on its own.
"What are you spacing out for!"
Lorraine's voice rang out again, tinged with impatience, "Do I have to teach you how to kick a dog when it's down?"
Victor suddenly came to his senses.
An unprecedented ecstasy welled up inside me.
Without that damned combined shield, these Tier 2 iron lumps are nothing!
"kill!!!"
He roared, and the Winter Barrier on his body burst forth with dazzling light, charging into the enemy ranks like a heavy tank.
The longsword was brandished, sparks flying everywhere.
Without their shields, the robots were as fragile as paper, and Victor easily sliced off their heads with a single sword strike.
Anna's lava beam followed closely behind, exploding into dazzling flowers of death among the enemy ranks.
What was originally a suffocating crisis.
In just two minutes, it turned into a one-sided massacre.
When Victor stomped on the head of the last robot and its flashing red electronic eye went out, the entire square finally returned to silence.
All that remained were heavy breathing sounds.
"Oh My God……"
Olivia slumped to the ground, staring at Lorraine standing not far away, her eyes filled with a look of utter disbelief.
"How...how did you do that? What did you just see? Was that a weakness? But how could they have such a strange weakness?"
Lorraine put away his gun and calmly dusted off his sleeves.
"It's nothing."
He said calmly, "I just fixed a bug for them."
Even the most advanced system in the Witch's Codex is riddled with flaws.
If you can find the right rhythm and create a concurrent conflict, this combined shield will collapse on its own.
"Clean up the battlefield." Lorraine turned and walked towards the nearest wreckage. "Don't waste it, these are all good materials..."
He suddenly stopped talking.
Because he saw that there was no oil leaking or parts scattered around the robot's body that had been cut in two.
Instead, a white orb emitting a faint glow floated quietly.
That was... something that fell?
Lorraine's pupils contracted slightly as he bent down to pick up the ball of light.
As the light faded, an exquisite mechanical core appeared in his hand.
【Miniature Magic Battery (High-Quality)】
Applications: Energy/Materials
[Note: The untamed power of the elements is forcibly compressed into a standardized industrial can, like sardines.]
This is a blasphemy against the mysticism, and a miracle of engineering. Its cold, hard feel is a reminder that magic is now just another form of fuel.
Lorraine frowned.
This isn't right.
Something is very wrong.
Common sense dictates that only monsters created by the "Moment of Twist" will drop items after being killed due to the power of the rules.
Machines made by humans, once broken, are simply broken, leaving behind only a pile of scrap metal.
But now...
These ancient robots, which are clearly man-made products, have started to "drop equipment" like monsters?
Lorraine looked up, gazing at the massive, lifeless dome of the steel city.
That chill crept up my spine again.
This city...
It has indeed been eroded by time.
Or has it already "come alive" and transformed into something even more terrifying?
"Young master! Look at this!"
Anna's startled cry came from afar.
Lorraine walked over quickly.
Anna was holding a tattered diary, which had fallen out of the wreckage of what looked like a "Commander" model robot.
The diary had long since weathered away, but the line of red text on the cover was still clearly legible.
That was a sentence written in blood.
—Even if we become monsters, we will still wait for humanity to return.
Lorraine stared at the words and remained silent for a long time.
Then, he gently closed the diary and looked up at the dark dome above his head.
"It seems this city won't be easy to retake."
……
The wind and snow were like knives, scraping away bone and flesh.
The blizzards of the North show no mercy to the weak, especially the defeated who are bleeding.
"Huff... huff..."
Karl, the Silverwing Snow Demon, clutched his left side tightly.
The scales there were broken, and a deep, bone-revealing sword wound was oozing dark green blood.
The blood froze into ice crystals in the air before it even hit the ground.
He staggered and dragged himself through the snow, leaving a horrifying trail of blood behind him, but it was quickly buried by the howling wind and snow.
pain.
Excruciating pain.
But what's more terrifying than the pain is that roar echoing in my mind.
That human knight in tattered armor...
That madman with the burning sword in his hand...
Karl shivered, not from the cold, but from fear.
As an elite scout under Lord Haji, the "Winter of Blades," he had seen countless human warriors in his life.
But I've never seen that look in my eyes before.
That wasn't the look of a prey clinging to life in this desperate apocalypse.
That's a hunter.
That was a vicious wolf that wanted to tear all its enemies apart and devour them.
"It must be reported...it must be reported..."
Karl gritted his teeth, forcing his eyelids, which were almost frozen, to look at the black ice peak that was faintly visible in the wind and snow ahead.
That was the outpost of the Winter Legion.
That was also his way of making a living.
As long as we bring the intelligence back... as long as we tell Lord Haji the truth about that territory...
He still has value.
If you have value, you won't be executed.
……
The camp where Blade of Winter was located was as silent as a tomb.
There is no campfire here, only ice totems emitting a faint blue light.
Hundreds of headless horsemen stood like statues in the snowstorm, their bodies covered in thick frost, their heavy swords hanging at their sides, and not a sound could be heard.
This suffocating discipline is the foundation of the Winter Legion's sweeping conquest of the North.
Karl stumbled into the main tent, his knees buckled, and he knelt heavily before the enormous ice throne.
"Sir...sir..."
His voice was hoarse, as if he had swallowed a handful of sand, "Scout squad... Karl... returns with this crippled body to report back."
The temperature inside the large tent was lower than outside.
The air seemed to freeze.
On the ice throne, a towering ice giant, composed of a frozen body, broken blades, and a shield, is casually wiping a transparent ice crystal longsword.
He wasn't wearing a helmet, revealing a pale, almost transparent face. His long silver hair was casually draped over his shoulders, and his pale blue eyes had no pupils, only two slowly swirling blizzards.
Haji, the "Winter of Blades," is a general of the Winter Legion and a fourth-tier powerhouse.
"Oh?"
Haji didn't stop what he was doing, not even glancing up at Karl kneeling on the ground. "Are you the only one who came back?"
A seemingly casual remark caused Karl to bury his head even lower, his forehead pressed firmly against the cold ground.
"Yes...yes..."
Karl said, trembling, "We were ambushed... Except for my men who fought their way out and brought back crucial intelligence, the other headless knights... were all wiped out."
The sound of wiping the sword's edge stopped.
Haji finally raised his head, his snow-covered eyes calmly gazing at Karl.
"intelligence?"
He said calmly, "Tell me. If the value of this information isn't even worth the cost of that team of headless horsemen, you should know the consequences."
Karl shuddered, quickly raised his head, and said in a rapid-fire voice:
"I see it clearly! I see through their true nature!"
"That's a newly established small territory! It's in a very remote location, right on the site of the old White Wolf outpost!"
"Their defenses are extremely rudimentary, with only a dozen or so level 2 towers! Although they have witch-specific buildings, they're not high-level, so we can definitely win."
To make his point more convincing, Karl gestured wildly, indicating the famous:
"Those towers have a slow rate of fire and mediocre power; they can't stop our army at all!"
"Moreover, that lord is an ignorant fool who has never seen the world. He doesn't have many regular troops, and that most lethal knight only managed to unleash third-tier combat power by overdrawing his life force!"
At this point, Karl swallowed hard, a glint of ruthlessness and hope flashing in his eyes:
"Sir! That's a piece of fatty meat!"
"They may be weak, but they have plenty of resources! I saw that lord... he seems to have some kind of special ancient artifact! He can even see through my invisibility!"
"If you send a few more Tier 3 commanders with a full-strength Nightmare Knights unit, you can crush that White Wolf Territory like an ant!"
After Karl finished speaking, he looked at the ruler on the ice throne with anticipation.
He felt that his words were flawless.
It both belittled the enemy and highlighted its own achievements, while also pointing out a path to wealth for the adults.
Silence fell inside the tent.
The only sound was the howling of the wind and snow outside.
Haji looked at him quietly, his face revealing neither joy nor anger.
A long time passed.
Haji suddenly laughed.
The smile was faint, yet it sent a chill down Karl's spine from his tailbone to the top of his head.
"Karl".
Haji's voice was gentle. "How many years have you been with me?"
"Three...three years, sir," Karl stammered.
"It's been three years."
Haji sighed and slowly rose from his ice seat.
He was extremely tall, over three meters, and his ice-blue heavy armor made a crisp scraping sound with his movements, as if a moving iceberg was collapsing.
He walked down the steps one by one, and with each step he took, the air pressure inside the tent dropped a little.
Until he stood before Karl, looking down at the trembling scout.
"Since you've been with me for three years, you should know that there are two things I hate the most."
Haji extended a finger and gently touched Karl's bleeding wound.
"First, it's betrayal."
"Secondly, they're treating me like a fool."
"what!"
Karl let out a scream.
Haji's fingers instantly became as hot as a branding iron—it was the burning sensation produced by extreme cold reaching its limit.
The flesh around the wound on Karl's chest instantly became necrotic and turned black.
"My lord! My lord, spare my life! I'm telling the truth! It's all the real story!" Karl kowtowed frantically, tears streaming down his face.
"truth?"
Haji sneered, and with a slight tightening of his fingers, he gripped one of Karl's ribs.
"That squad of headless knights is a standard assault formation. They could even tear a breach in a human regular army."
"You're saying that lord only has a level 2 tower?"
"You're saying that knight is at his last gasp?"
"If the opponent is really that weak, then what you're saying is just a pile of scrap metal..."
Haji suddenly bent over, his pale face almost touching Karl's nose, and the blizzard in his eyes suddenly became violent:
"Then why did that entire group of headless horsemen die, while you, a scout who's only good at running away and hiding, managed to come back alive?"
Karl froze.
The pupils contracted violently.
"This...this..." He opened his mouth, but couldn't utter a complete sound.
"That doesn't make sense, little Karl."
Haji straightened up, took a piece of white silk, and slowly wiped the blood from his fingers:
There are only two possibilities.
"First, you deserted your post and betrayed your teammates."
"Secondly, the other side deliberately let you come back, hoping you would bring me false information and make me underestimate them."
Haji threw the blood-stained silk at Karl's face, his tone suddenly turning cold:
"But whichever it is, it all proves one thing—that lord is not as weak as you say."
"That group of headless horsemen were eaten alive."
"They died out before they could even make a ripple."
Haji turned around, his back to Karl, and looked at the huge map of the North hanging behind the tent.
"Those who can do this are definitely not weaklings with only a few level 2 towers."
"That lord is hiding his true abilities."
"He's feigning weakness to lure the enemy in; he's fishing for prey."
Haji's voice trembled with excitement.
That's the tremor a hunter feels when he spots his prime prey.
"It's been such a long time... such a long time since I've met such an interesting human."
"They know how to conceal their strength, how to eliminate threats completely, and even how to use my scouts for counter-espionage."
"interesting."
Haji turned around abruptly, his eyes blazing with a palpable fighting spirit.
"Karl!"
"Yes...yes!" Karl was so scared he almost wet himself, and his body went limp on the ground.
"Your intelligence may be rubbish, but it at least proves one thing—there is indeed a worthy opponent there."
Haji strode back to the ice seat, grabbed the command flag beside him, and threw it violently to the ground.
"Pass on my orders!"
"Assemble the Third Nightmare Legion, the Fourth, and the Fifth Headless Knights!"
"Awaken the 'Glacier' behemoth!"
"Notify the logistics troops to bring all siege equipment!"
Carl stared wide-eyed at the scene in disbelief.
crazy?
Have they all gone mad?
"Sir...sir?"
Karl asked tremblingly, "Even if he's hiding some of his strength... it still... doesn't warrant deploying three legions, does it? That's the kind of force we use to attack large fortresses! And to summon a behemoth? Isn't this... isn't this giving that little lord too much credit?"
"You think highly of me?"
Haji gave him a cold look.
"The Lord once taught me a saying."
"When a lion hunts a rabbit, it uses its full strength."
"Since that lord wants to play the fool and lure me into underestimating him, hoping to send me to my death one by one..."
Haji's lips curled into a cruel smile, the confidence of an all-knowing controller:
"Then I'll make sure he doesn't get his way."
"He wants to fish? I'll blow up the entire ocean for him!"
"Whether he is truly weak or feigning strength, no matter how many trump cards he has hidden."
"Before absolute power, all schemes and tricks are a joke!"
"I will personally lead the team, using the overwhelming power of a fourth-tier expert, and the despair of an overwhelming army, to tear apart his trump cards one by one!"
boom!
A terrifying shockwave erupted from Haji, ripping the roof of the tent off.
The blizzard swept in from all directions.
Haji stood in the eye of the storm, his long hair dancing wildly, like an ice and snow demon god descending to earth.
I want him to know.
"What is...despair?"
He lowered his head and looked at the tiny scout on the ground.
"Now, I'm giving you one last chance."
Haji tossed down a sheepskin map, his voice as cold as ice that had never melted:
"The monarch only showed me a rough location before, but now I need you to mark the exact location of the White Wolf Territory for me."
"The mark was one meter off."
"I'll stuff you into the belly of an ice giant and let you experience what it means to be digested forever."
Carl was terrified and scrambled toward the map.
His hands were shaking like a sieve, but he dared not stop.
He picked up a quill pen and, with trembling hands, drew a circle on the map of the vast, white snowfield.
That was the location of the White Wolf Territory in his memory—a place that was "weak," "remote," and "had only a few level-two towers."
He thought it was an easy target.
Look at that red circle.
Haji nodded in satisfaction.
"very good."
He drew his icy longsword, its tip pointing directly at the red circle, his voice echoing throughout the entire camp:
"The entire army is to break camp!"
"Target—White Wolf Territory!"
"Before nightfall, I'm going to use that lord's skull to hold my victory celebration!"
Ugh—!
The deep, desolate sound of the horn instantly tore through the wind and snow.
The sleeping war machine has awakened.
The earthquake trembled.
Thousands of headless horsemen turned around in unison, the sound of their armor clashing like thunder.
And further back, in the snow and fog.
Several enormous, mountain-like black shadows slowly rose to their feet, letting out a deafening roar.
That's an ice age behemoth.
That was a monster powerful enough to flatten a fortress.
Haji watched this scene, his smile growing wider.
He felt he was sure to win.
No lord on this snowy plain could withstand a charge of this scale.
nobody.