The air was shudderingly oppressive.
When night falls and everything becomes quiet. People suddenly realized their loneliness.
Nowadays, nights in small towns in the southern part of the empire are determined to be insulated from words like "loneliness" and "tranquility". There will be crickets chirping in the corner, mice running around and making noise on the roof attic, and insect-eating bats gliding with flapping wings in the night sky on the street outside the window. Farther away, in the wild forests beyond the city walls, nocturnal raptors make sounds from time to time to indicate their presence to other competitors.
Jackals are scurrying between the woods and shrubs, and cold-blooded predators such as dragon lizards have fallen asleep due to the lower temperature at night, so it is the turn of smaller mammal hunters to come out to hunt.
Occasionally, a larger timber wolf somewhere raised its neck and started howling at the moon, announcing that it was the master of this place.
This in turn makes the small predators tremble in fear and run around.
The word tranquility does not belong to this land that is always full of vitality regardless of the changing seasons of day or night.
At least that's how it used to be.
The intuition of animals is more sensitive than that of humans. When the cold wave comes and the witch approaches, all the animals that can escape flee.
There are almost no other animals left in the small town of Scotti except humans, parasites on humans, and the livestock they raise.
The usually disgusting bugs, the irritable mice, and the jackals that occasionally sneak in and steal livestock, causing a lot of panic. When all these animals disappeared, humans finally got the peace they wanted.
Everyone found that they couldn't sleep.
Because this silence is terrifyingly oppressive.
It's like everything is dead, like it's on the frozen earth, like it's like it's in the empty, dark and boundless underworld.
Looking at the vast world, only one person exists, and there is no sign of life other than that.
The restlessness prevented their heartbeats from calming down. Fortunately, they didn't have to worry about sleep, because tonight was bound to be a night where they needed to work hard to strengthen the city's defenses.
Bundles of arrows were carried up the city wall. The shape, structure and production process of the Padrosian-style bow and the West Coast Avenella-style straight-draw longbow are many different, but the full draw length is similar. . This provided convenience for the thirty or so archers led by Ming Na. Arrows of similar lengths allowed them to replenish their already consumed weapons.
And that's not all.
Our Miss Margaret, who sent the letter to Parnilla for help, has seen the strong horny cortex of the ghoul's body to resist edge weapons along the way, and she happens to be a A loyal reader of adventure novels.
Even though many things in it are simplified and even more unrealistic imagination of the author is added, there are still some things in it that are reliable and allow the noble lady to understand the basic elements of measuring the power of bows and arrows.
Drawing force is one of them, the structure of the bow will have an impact on the speed, and the weight of the arrow shot is also very important. But in order to pursue penetration performance, in addition to the above, the arrow is also an extremely important component.
The horny epidermal layer of a ghoul is similar to the cowhide that humans have hardened and used to make armor. Because it is quite thick and tough, even though a sharper and harder steel sword can split its outer layer, it will get stuck in it and cannot be cut. in order to cause enough damage.
Unless the skill is very high, the body is extremely strong, and the weapon has a certain size and mass, it is possible to cut it open.
But ghouls are not dragons after all. Due to limited materials and rapid evolution, even if they are scary things to humans, those horny defense layers are actually just that.
It's okay to defend against cutting and slashing, but not so good against piercing weapons.
The request for help written by Margaret described in detail the enemies she would encounter and requested suitable weapons. In the third batch of supply support, a large number of quenched to a very high hardness appeared and took on a long tapered shape. , armor-piercing arrows and crossbows that can penetrate even plate armor are lost.
Compared with triangular edged arrows, the size of the wound they can cause and the killing effect are worse, but the number is enough to make up for the lack of damage caused by a single hit. Compared with arrows that cannot penetrate the skin at all, they are already much better. Too much.
Boxes upon boxes of arrows and crossbows were piled up, many of which had been left there for several days and had accumulated a thick layer of snow. In addition, there are many specially made spears for city defense, and.
Twelve heavy-duty crossbow machines specially designed to deal with earth dragons.
The crystallization of the engineering technology applied by the Lamanites is now transparent. The base of the heavy-duty crossbow that is wound by a winch also has gears to adjust the angle. Every detail of the attached aiming device is carefully crafted.
The power, accuracy, rate of fire and controllability have all reached a considerable level, and only in this way can the Lamanites put down the technically superior ballista weapon that existed thousands of years ago.
This is the strength of the empire.
The war hasn't really started yet, but it's already enough to silence our Roan Maiden and Blonde Dame from the West Coast for a long time.
No wonder someone once said that if we want to defeat Padrosi, we must first defeat all their ports from the sea. And to defeat all their ports from the sea, you'll need a fleet stronger than the Padrosi Royal Black Flagship.
A fleet that is number one in the world.
This is the reason why they can remain invincible. The Lamanite Empire was originally a country built on waterways. It quickly transported troops and supplies through waterways extending in all directions and ports dotted in the inland sea. They had nothing to fear even if the cities on land were undermanned or had even fallen.
Because as long as the seaport is not breached, the empire's huge supplies and personnel will continue to pour in from the leading big cities.
However, in a short period of time, from the majestic Parnilla Port, various supplies gathered in the northern area of Bao Forest were delivered one by one via merchant ships and ferries. The population of the town, which was originally only a thousand people, instantly increased by more than dozens of times. . The craftsmen were clanging various things, while the porters led donkeys and horses and pushed wheelbarrows to carry weapons, armor, and construction materials one after another.
Spears, shields, breastplates, helmets, arrows, crossbows, ballistae, and crossbows.
All the ordnance and supplies were piled up there in a row as if they were free of charge. This ordnance and supplies could almost make a West Coast Duke and even the King go crazy with jealousy, but it was only the first part of the supplies.
This is how productive a unified empire can be.
Even if we just talk about money, it stands at a height that is unattainable for people on the West Coast.
In all aspects of manpower, material resources, and transportation capabilities, Padrosi far surpassed Avenella.
According to preliminary statistics, the number of mercenaries and various armies has reached more than 10,000, plus various logistics supply troops and engineering troops. After entering the cold wave, Si Kaoti, who was unable to provide for an additional hundred people, naturally could not rely on the functions of the town itself to support this population.
Fortunately, the higher-ups at Parnilla also thought of this, so they not only transported a large amount of supplies, but also strictly limited the participation requirements to everyone bringing their own food and water for a week before they were allowed to enter. Team.
They had made a lot of adequate preparations, calculated the supplies, and when the second batch of troops had just been dispatched, the fourth batch of material transport fleet had already arrived at the southern port city of Pavinzio. It's just that this large-scale material transfer has not happened in the Padrosi Empire for many years. Therefore, although the large-scale commercial fleet has played its role, they have missed another point.
Scotti is not a port itself, transportation must first arrive at the Port of Pavinzio and then be transported by land.
And this is where the vulnerabilities appear.
"The land transportation manpower is insufficient, and the materials are stuck in the Port of Pavinzio." In the report letter that came with the cavalry, a simple sentence made everyone feel extremely heavy.
Those young people from the central region of the empire who want to get ahead, as well as various mercenaries, plus the garrison in the south, have legs and feet that they can walk on. Now, five hundred to one thousand people are still joining the town every day - but this is not the case with supplies.
No matter how abundant the supplies are in Parnilla, no matter how powerful the transport capacity of the merchant ships is. After arriving at the Port of Pavinzio, there was no manpower to move them to the town of Scotti, so they could only be piled up in the freight storage area of the port, forming a hill, waiting for the arrival of sneaky thieves and various snakes, insects, rats, and ants.
Fortunately, due to the cold weather, food is not easy to spoil now - but as if all this is not bad enough, in the late night after all the hardships and exhaustion, a group of people at the command level received a message from Pal Urgent letter from Port Nila.
They were informed that a rebellion had occurred, and that the ships on the Pavinzio side were to stay here to prevent them from being burned by the mob, and not to return.
"Businessmen took the opportunity to drive up prices, causing the prices of firewood, rice, oil and salt to skyrocket. Under such circumstances, are merchant ships still transporting materials from Parnilla to this side?" Margaret, who has not been seen for many days, said: Next to Mira, he whispered this.
The noble lady looked a little haggard as she kept running around and worrying about her relatives and friends. After finally successfully merging and saving the overall situation, she fainted on the ground the moment she saw everyone.
This frightened our Luoan girl, but fortunately it was later discovered that she was just overworked and unable to withstand the cold. She took a short rest and drank some hot soup to regain her energy. As a young person but with important status and knowledge, he joins the discussion.
From this adventure and traveling with the white-haired girl, it can be seen that this once naive and ignorant young lady has been influenced a lot by Mira. Through a brief report and what she knew about the current situation, she was able to see the events behind it, not only based on her own identity, but also how to think about it from the perspective of ordinary civilians. What's it like there?
I didn't feel the sense of urgency when I was on the front line, even though the nobles had repeatedly emphasized that it was a war reserve to face terrible threats. But when your wife and children are hungry and freezing, and you see boxes of supplies being shipped to ships and being shipped away, and there are fewer and fewer things available on the market and the prices are getting more and more expensive, big time Some people still subconsciously want to find someone to blame.
The overly tough approach of the overwhelmed Parnilla officials further aroused the resistance in the hearts of the people. Even those who were hungry and planned to endure it were incited to join the ranks of the mob.
Breaking, smashing, looting, and raising various slogans, in the end, it is just to satisfy one's own food and clothing.
The situation worsened until finally the city lord issued a curfew and sent troops to arrest anyone who gathered in large groups. The atmosphere was tense, and the harmonious, friendly and sunny Parnilla when Henry and the others first arrived was gone.
The Padrosi Empire is proud of the world's top civilization.
In the end, that's all.
But let's get back to our original point. Even though the situation is very serious and urgent, urban defense work still needs to be carried out.
The witch summoned the undead army back. Not seeing these things made most of the engineers, ordinary craftsmen, and workers feel a lot more at ease, but it put more pressure on the general and officer classes.
Enemies in the dark are always more dangerous than those in the open, because you don't know which direction they will come from, so the work of defense becomes extremely difficult.
Just by settling down the troops returning to the city and starting to treat the injured and remove the undead toxin infection, everyone including the magician was busy and exhausted in one night.
And wait until they fall asleep in the early morning hours.
The sky was still as dark as water could be squeezed out of.
"The power of the witch."
"Even the brilliance of the sun is obscured."
"What?" said Camilo, the magic instructor who was sweating profusely and had a pale complexion.
It was a stressful day.
Come to an end.
