novelaction Chapter 1380 Shura Field
Chapter 1380 Shura Field
He stood up, hands behind his back, and an invisible pressure emanated from him.
"Our primary objective on this trip has never been that fortified stronghold, nor those garrison troops."
Xiao Dingshan stated firmly, "It's the Hidden Dragon Armory! Those people have never been my enemies..."
As he spoke, a hint of disdain lingered in his voice: "Frankly, those without armory equipment are simply not worthy to be my enemies... They don't deserve it..."
Upon hearing Xiao Dingshan's words, Shashahar was not disappointed; instead, he wore an expression of "I knew it."
“Xiao Ce was able to use the power of the armory to destroy my ‘divine messenger,’ but he clearly only got the tip of the iceberg, or… he simply couldn’t fully control the true power behind that door.”
A cold, confident smile curled at the corner of Xiao Dingshan's lips, and a greedy glint flashed in his eyes as he said, "Only I, who possess the core 'key,' can unlock the treasure deepest within the armory and unleash its true power!"
Upon hearing Xiao Dingshan's words, Shahar was utterly astonished: "What? Master, were those divine envoys killed by Xiao Ce using weapons from the Hidden Dragon Arsenal? That's not right... The Tsarist Ruins are all under my control... never..."
Seeing Shahar's state, Xiao Dingshan occasionally revealed a disdainful expression: "You think you can stop him?"
Shahar was embarrassed and didn't know what to say.
At this moment, Xiao Dingshan said, "Once the core of the armory is at my disposal, the weapons, technology, and power within will completely rewrite the landscape of this continent! At that time, let alone one Han Da, even ten Xiao Ce, or a hundred fortresses, will be nothing but clay chickens and earthenware dogs before me, which I can destroy with a wave of my hand! Taking them will be as easy as taking something out of a bag, and killing enemies will be as easy as cutting melons and vegetables!"
"I was the one who discovered that armory earlier; Xiao Ce merely stole it..."
"Chopping melons and chopping vegetables..."
Shahar murmured those four words repeatedly, an indescribable excitement rushing to his head, making him tremble all over!
What an invincible power that would be!
He seemed to already see himself following his master, wielding the divine weapons of the armory, sweeping across the world, and trampling Xiao Ce underfoot in a glorious scene!
"so..."
Xiao Dingshan said with a serious expression, "Prepare immediately! Target... Tsarist Ruins, Hidden Dragon Armory! Night Owl, your men are responsible for perimeter security, eliminating any possible interference. Shahar, you select the most familiar and loyal guides. My legion will clear all obstacles leading to the ruins. I also need enough trustworthy personnel to help us transport all the weapons out!"
His words carried an absolute confidence that he was in complete control.
"Now, take me to reclaim the power that rightfully belongs to me!"
"Let those hiding in their fortresses prolong their lives a little longer. Once I obtain the Hidden Dragon, their eternal nightmare will begin! That Xiao Ce, just you wait..."
"Yes, sir! Great master!"
Shahar was so excited that his voice changed, and he knelt down deeply!
"Your subordinates, act immediately! Kornev! Igor! Quickly! Summon the most elite guides! Open the passage to the ruins! Clear the way for our master to retrieve the artifact! Hurry!"
The night owl, seemingly maintaining some composure, asked Xiao Dingshan, "Master, didn't you say before that you couldn't open it without the key...? Now that Xiao Ce isn't here..."
Xiao Dingshan said coldly, "It's alright. This time, I've already brought a 1:1 scale model of Xiao Ce... If that doesn't work, we can still use a brute force approach..."
"If all else fails, we can dig around somewhere else; there's always a way... I refuse to believe it..."
After hearing Xiao Dingshan's words, Night Owl nodded and said nothing more...
They then stood guard nearby, waiting to depart...
...
Meanwhile, in the capital of the Slavic Empire, Xiao Ce was looking at some user manuals.
The Dragon Armory has a vast array of weapons, including many mechs with numerous functions that can be developed.
Furthermore, all these weapons and mechs have blueprints.
Moreover, Lingxu has already been translated. Simply put, if their technology catches up, they should be able to produce it in theory.
However, it is clear that the manufacturing process is completely inadequate, and the lack of supporting infrastructure in all aspects cannot be remedied in a short period of time.
If it were possible, Xiao Ce felt that Xiao Dingshan would have done it long ago...
Although he felt a deep sense of powerlessness, he couldn't give up just because he couldn't catch up...
He still believes that anything is possible with human effort...
"Your Highness!" Wei Wuji entered, lifting the curtain, still carrying the chill unique to the North. His expression was grave as he reported, "Our reconnaissance airships, accompanying the reconnaissance mechs you gave me, have spotted a large number of robots landing near the coastline of the Ice Sea!"
"After they logged in, they went straight to Shahar, where they heard the latest intelligence that they seemed to be setting off again..."
"The target shouldn't be this way..."
Xiao Ce raised his head, his face showing no surprise; all of this was within his expectations...
He asked casually, "Have all the gifts we arranged in advance arrived? Especially around the ruins."
Wei Wuji immediately replied, "Your Highness, as per your orders, the engineering battalion has been working day and night to plant all the captured stockpiled explosives, along with our homemade explosives and landmines!"
“Within a five-mile radius of the ruins, all passages, gentle slopes, and even the seemingly impassable snowdrifts have been transformed into a series of minefields! Real and fake mines are mixed together, with tripwires, pressure-activated detonators, and remote-controlled detonation devices nested in layers.”
"Of course, our rear areas, such as Don Fortress and Ust-Ust, are also riddled with traps. But..."
He paused, his tone tinged with doubt: "Your Highness, if I may be so bold, these old-fashioned gunpowder weapons and traps may be effective against the flesh-and-blood Slavs, but against those steel lumps from beyond the borders... I'm afraid their effectiveness will be limited, at most slowing them down a bit."
Upon hearing this, Xiao Ce's lips curled into a meaningful sneer, and his eyes gleamed with a cat-and-mouse-like playfulness as he slowly said, "It doesn't matter. The number of casualties is not important."
"What I want is to delay and annoy them."
"Let them live in constant fear, every explosion a terrifying experience. Let that person who thinks he's in control know that setting foot on this land comes at a price of blood and time!"
"Aren't they in a hurry to open that armory?"
"I'll make sure they drive in a mess, stumbling and utterly pathetic!"
"Wei Wuji, order all units to continue reinforcing their defenses and conserve their strength. The final battlefield is not here, nor in the ruins, but when they... are forced to crash into our impregnable walls!"
After hearing Xiao Ce's words, Wei Wuji nodded.
...
Meanwhile, on the icefield path leading from Everwinter Fortress to the Tsar's ruins.
In order to curry favor with his new master, Xiao Dingshan, and to witness the opening of the divine artifact, Shahar personally selected more than 10,000 people, including the most elite guards under Kornev, to serve as guides and laborers.
They surrounded Xiao Dingshan and his silent, menacing legion of black robots, and marched in a mighty force toward the Tsar's ruins.
Shahar, mounted on his horse, stood ramrod straight, trying to demonstrate the "bravery" of a Slavic emperor and his familiarity with the terrain to Xiao Dingshan.
After an unknown amount of time, as they sped along, almost without sleep, they finally arrived.
They're almost there, but they're exhausted.
They were all mortals, but Xiao Dingshan and his group were tireless robots...
However, in order to demonstrate his own value, he forced himself to endure his exhaustion.
Pointing to the faint outline of ruins visible through the snowstorm ahead, he fawned over Xiao Dingshan, who was riding beside him, and said obsequiously, "Master, look! That's the Tsar's ruins! The Hidden Dragon Armory is at its core! I've traveled this road countless times; it's absolutely safe! We'll be there soon..."
Before he could finish speaking, something unexpected happened!
boom! boom! boom! boom!
A series of dull yet devastating explosions, like thunder from hell, suddenly erupted without warning in the snow beneath and on either side of the vanguard!
The dozens of elite Shahar cavalrymen at the forefront and several black robots acting as scouts were instantly engulfed by the raging flames and shockwaves!
Broken limbs, twisted metal parts, and crimson flesh mixed with frozen soil and snow splattered everywhere like a fountain!
Screams, the sound of metal tearing apart, and the mournful neighing of warhorses instantly shattered the silence of the icy plain!
Huge explosion craters appeared one after another in front of and on the flanks of the column, turning the snow a glaring red.
Caught off guard and unable to stop in time, more soldiers and robots rushed into the seemingly safe snowfield in the chaos, triggering an even more intense explosion! The chain of minefields was fully activated!
Boom boom boom boom boom...!
Explosions echoed one after another, incessantly.
The firelight flickered in the wind and snow, and thick smoke rose...
The carefully designed traps not only detonated the landmines, but some also triggered a chain reaction that detonated pre-buried explosive charges and booby traps connected to artillery shells, multiplying their power!
The icy plains seemed to have turned into a boiling cauldron of death.
The elite Slavic soldiers were utterly vulnerable to the carefully designed explosive traps by Wei Wuji and his men, falling in droves and suffering heavy casualties.
To ensure these mines would be effective, they mixed in many special mines from the Heavenly Mystery Academy, along with triggers...
Even those sturdy black robots were overturned by the dense explosions and shockwaves, with several of them falling to the ground, their armor shattered, joints twisted, and emitting black smoke as they lost their ability to move.
The entire team descended into chaos and panic, with men and horses falling and cries of agony filling the air.
In fact, this is also one of the drawbacks of these robots; many combat robots lack the ability to scan for danger...
They only have the ability to fight!
These robots do have an advantage when fighting against humans, but in this situation, they're completely helpless...
At that moment, Shahar's warhorse, startled, neighed loudly, nearly throwing him off...
His face turned deathly pale; his previous high spirits had vanished, leaving only extreme terror and bewilderment.
Kornev was also dumbfounded, his scarred face twitching, completely bewildered by what had happened.
"This...how is this possible?!"
Shahar screamed, his voice distorted, and then began cursing, "Who?! Who planted the mines on this road?! When were they planted?! I sent people to patrol this road last week!"
He looked at Kornev, who was also shaking his head frantically in horror, indicating that he knew nothing about it.
Xiao Dingshan reined in his horse, his face beneath the hood as gloomy as the sky before a blizzard.
His cold gaze swept over the chaotic scene and the mess everywhere!
No matter how many of their Slavic soldiers die, it's not a pity.
However, the fact that his robots were destroyed was something he couldn't accept...
His face showed a hint of anger, which finally settled on the still-shaken Shahar, and he questioned him, "Your Majesty Shahar, is this what you call absolute security?"
"Isn't this your territory? Isn't this the land you control? Tell me, when and by whom did this?"
His tone was filled with suppressed anger and intense doubt.
Shahar trembled with fear, almost collapsing off his horse, and cried out, "Master! Master, please understand! I...I really didn't know!"
"It was absolutely not my men who did it! Kornev! Tell me! Do you know that?!"
Kornev quickly swore an oath, claiming he knew absolutely nothing about it.
The people on Shahar's side were terrified, fearing they would be implicated, and they all tried to distance themselves from the situation...
"waste..."
Xiao Dingshan coldly uttered two words and stopped looking at them.
He raised his hand to signal, and a robot captain behind him, who resembled a night owl but was slightly larger, flashed a red light in his eyes and understood Xiao Dingshan's meaning. He immediately dispatched more than a dozen engineering robots specifically used for detection and bomb disposal.
The robots quickly deployed, their electronic eyes flashing scanning beams, cautiously approaching the blast area and the snow-covered ground ahead.
"Beep...beep..." The sharp detection alarm sounded continuously.
What followed made Shahar and the others even more desperate.
The detection robot carefully cleared a patch of snow, revealing not just a few scattered landmines, but a dense array of mine craters and detonators!
Various types of old-fashioned pressure mines, tripwire mines, and booby traps modified from old mines from the Tianji Academy are buried together in a jagged pattern, some even buried deep under the frozen soil, covered with thin ice and camouflaged snow.
Even more frightening is that the detection revealed that these minefields were not independent, but were connected to each other by concealed wires or pressure sensing devices, forming a huge chain of minefields!
Once a single point is triggered, it could potentially cause a chain reaction of explosions across an entire area!
Moreover, the entire area is densely packed with them; it's practically turned this place into a battlefield...