When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

#411 - Fireball Crossbow and Astrology

Under the hurried movements of messengers and the child soldiers, Mormont's ballista team began to move slowly.

Seven fire ballistae emerged from the gaps in the legion's battle formation, the Protectorate soldiers gritting their teeth as they pushed the heavy fire ballistae forward.

The Holy Light cavalry guarded them on the left and right, closely watching the enemy formation opposite.

They were about 400-600 meters away, and they had to ensure they drove off enemy knights, preventing them from destroying the fire ballistae.

Strangely, the enemy's main force of knights remained still, with only the squire knights attempting to harass them, only to be driven away by the Ibe Knights.

With men pushing and donkeys pulling, the ballistae slowly moved forward, reaching a raised slope about 2 meters high.

The wheels rolled over the ground, leaving deep ruts.

Under the heavy pressure of the ballistae, the Protectorate soldiers' feet sank into the mud, the muscles on their faces and arms bulging as they roared in unison to push the heavy ballistae onto the earthen platform.

"Ha!"

With the groaning of the wheels, the seven fire ballistae in front were officially in position.

After confirming this via flag signals, Mormont turned around and took out three egg-sized red crystals from a box.

These were the magical alchemical creations that all fire ball wizards dreamed of—Red Dragon's Breath.

It had to be said that when Mormont learned that Little Pool City actually had Red Dragon's Breath, he felt as if fate was helping them.

The reason Red Dragon's Breath appeared in Little Pool City was simple.

In terms of territory division, the southwestern part of Kasha County bordered Blackwater Bay.

Due to the blockade of Red Copper Fortress, although Red Dragon's Breath and the wizards were closer to traveling north from the Ibe River, they still had to go to Red Leaf Hill in the Kingdom of Fran first.

From Red Leaf Hill, they would transfer to Little Pool City, and then transport the supplies upstream along the Warm Wind River, a tributary of the Nauan River, to Rapidstream City.

The previous batches of wizards and Red Dragon's Breath had taken this route to support Catherine.

Therefore, the advance supplies from the second batch of Blackwater Bay support and the participating supplies from the first batch of Blackwater Bay support fell into Horne's hands.

This included a full forty Red Dragon's Breath crystals.

Thank goodness there were no fire ball wizards in Little Pool City, so Horne hoarded them until now.

This alchemical specialty of Blackwater Bay's Sky-Woman City, according to Sky-Woman City, was made from the blood of an ancient red dragon that had been raised under the city for a thousand years, and each piece made was one less.

That's how the upper echelons of the Secret Party claimed to the outside world, and whether others believed it or not, they believed it anyway.

Therefore, the Secret Party of Sky-Woman City, in order to ensure sustainability, overfished, producing less than twenty pieces each year.

Some of them had to be stored in warehouses to defend Sky-Woman City, and the rest could be sold externally.

Speaking of external sales, most of the time they were external sales with stipulated uses, such as blowing up a bishop's bedroom, attacking a duke's carriage, or besieging a demon hunter's stronghold.

Anyway, the rule set by the archmages and witches of Sky-Woman City was that Red Dragon's Breath could only be used for external battles and not for internal battles.

Anyone who dared to use it for internal battles would be exposed on the spot by the astrologers of Sky-Woman City, and the shaping witches would ride griffins to their doorsteps immediately.

And this time, the Thousand Valley uprising was clearly supporting an external war.

It had to be said that this time, for the Thousand Valley uprising, Blackwater Bay had used every ounce of strength in its buttocks, transporting a full four hundred Red Dragon's Breath crystals.

The Salvation Army studied the Red Dragon's Breath all the way and discovered that it mainly had two effects.

The first effect was cohesion; before Red Dragon's Breath touched a hard object, no matter how strong the wind pressure was, it would not be scattered like an ordinary fire ball.

The second effect was enhancement; Red Dragon's Breath itself could also be ignited or even explode, and Horne even suspected that it contained white phosphorus.

Because Mormont remembered that the description of the Red Dragon's Breath flame included "scattered and flying, like a bone-attached maggot, able to burn through bones and flesh, and divine magic can effectively extinguish it."

This meant that with the blessing of Red Dragon's Breath, the fire ball could fly an unimaginable distance.

Installing the staff on the ballista, embedding the Red Dragon's Breath in the front, and having the mage cast a spell to launch the staff could achieve an astonishing range of 900 meters.

In comparison, even a fire ballista improved with clockwork gears, using the same technology, only had a range of just 300 meters, and the fire ball was often blown out.

The only problem was that it was a bit consuming on the staff, but this was not a problem for the Salvation Army; there were thousands of alchemists in the army, and they could make as many basic staffs as needed.

Mormont embedded the rhomboid Red Dragon's Breath crystal at the top of the staff and inserted it into the groove of the ballista.

The war monk next to him began to crank the handle, and he could clearly hear the clicking sound of the gears meshing in the handle, and the air was filled with the unique smell of metal and wood rubbing together.

The winch turned slowly, and the thick bowstring made a low "creaking" sound until the bowstring finally snapped into the buckle.

Several vanguard soldiers who knew how to operate the ballista stepped forward and began to adjust the angle of the ballista, roughly aiming at the center of the Church army.

The astrologer stood beside the ballista, aiming at the enemy's formation with his thumb, opening and closing his left and right eyes repeatedly.

At the same time, the crystal pendant in his hand kept swinging on the astrolabe on the side of the ballista.

As the approximate calculation was completed, the crystal pendant gradually stopped, and blood flowed out of the astrologers' nostrils and ears to varying degrees.

"Turn a little bit to the right, don't turn too much."

"Loosen the string a little, don't make it so tight."

"Move it back a little... how much exactly? I don't know, but it has to be moved back a little, and you stop when I say stop."

After the astrologers' fine-tuning, the ballistae were all placed in a suitable position.

"Are you ready?" After communicating with the people in front with flag language, Mormont turned around and asked the fire ball wizards beside him.

"Ready," the wizards swallowed.

Taking a long breath to relieve the tension in his heart, Mormont led the fire ball wizards forward together.

The fire ballista positions were divided into 7 ordinary fire ballistae in front of the formation and 3 Red Dragon's Breath ballistae in the rear of the formation due to the different ranges.

"Let's start, get ready, pay attention to your positions, don't interfere with each other!"

"Got it."

Opening their arms, the fire ball wizards raised their chins and rolled their eyes back.

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Each of them chanted completely different spells, their bodies swaying, and countless flames began to condense at the front of the staffs, with tiny fiery threads weaving together.

The surrounding air was slightly distorted by the high temperature, and the fire ball gradually took shape, with a scorching light revealing an orange-red color, making a soft "hissing" sound.

A fire ball the size of a human head finally condensed at the front of the staff.

Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Mormont first looked left and right to make sure that everyone around him had successfully cast the spell, and then looked far away at the fire ballistae in front of the formation.

The flags in front of the formation were waving, but Mormont could understand what they meant, which was to say, it was time to go.

"Aim! Don't let your hands shake!" Mormont roared and waved the flag in his hand, and the three fire mages retreated one step together, "Fire!"

"Dong!"

The soldiers next to the ballista raised the hammer high and slammed it down hard.

Seven fire balls and three Red Dragon's Breath fire balls rose from the battle formation, dragging out tails of flame, like comets streaking across the sky.

They chased after each other, burning, and flames fell like snowflakes on the ground, swooping down towards the Church army's position.

Unlike the absolute silence required in the Salvation Army, Alman's Church army was a noisy whisper.

They didn't pay attention to the mages' actions, after all, what spells could be cast from such a distance?

They were busy talking, complaining, or even arguing, until a few people inadvertently looked up and noticed that dazzling red light in the sky.

"That's... look, everyone!"

Their expressions froze instantly, their eyes widening.

As more people noticed the abnormality, the number of people looking up began to increase, and the chaotic sounds gradually disappeared, replaced by a suffocating silence.

All the guards' eyes widened, their mouths slightly open, but they couldn't make any sound.

You must know that their Dunjar phalanx was a dense large phalanx, and often the distance between people was only an elbow or even shoulder to shoulder.

The despair in the guards' eyes was almost overflowing, and they didn't even have anywhere to run!

"It's fire ball!" Finally, a knight broke the seemingly long silence with a scream, "Dodge!"

"Boom—Boom—Boom—"

However, perhaps only the knights had the opportunity to dodge; ten fire balls landed accurately in the three large phalanxes in the center of the army.

Half a second later, a series of muffled sounds came from the position, accompanied by desperate screams.

The majestic fire wave instantly spread around, engulfing the bodies of the guards and knights.

The leaping flames danced wantonly on their shoulders, hems, and sleeves, the flames swept over, the skin was contracting, as if countless invisible needles pierced the flesh.

The guards rolled on the ground, frantically beating, and even tried to squeeze out of the phalanx to fetch water from the stream next to them.

But this behavior transmitted more flames to other people.

"Red Dragon's Breath! How is it Red Dragon's Breath again?!"

"What's that smell... I'm burning, save me, I'm burning!"

"Don't come over, don't push, don't push, someone help me up."

"Scatter, scatter, don't gather together."

"Don't scatter, don't scatter, don't turn your head to look, I'm talking to you!"

Almost visibly, the Church army's formation began to become chaotic.