"Not only because of the geographical distance, but also because if everything goes well, I will be very busy with domestic affairs... very busy - not to mention, we also need to develop technology to deal with the next demonic disaster."
So by then we will be very busy, very busy... so busy that we may not even be able to get together with our friends occasionally.
Yang Hao's explanation left Elena silent for a long time.
Before they knew it, they could already see the girls happily playing or relaxing in the small pavilion where the tea party was being held.
Elena realized that no matter how distant those women were, as long as they lived in the Purple Palace, they would have the right to meet, get close to, drink tea, and even walk around with Yang Hao at any time in the future.
Yang Hao would neither refuse nor could he refuse - in this case, even if she was Yang Hao's friend, it didn't mean that their relationship would be very close.
Unconsciously, she began to feel jealous. But soon, the little synthetic doll calmed down and said, "If that's the case, we can just find time to get together again later."
"I understand: After all, it's just a work matter... I can understand... But Mr. Yang Hao? What do you think of Eden now?"
"You have great potential. As long as you develop again, it won't be difficult for you to become a world power with your unique technology. By then, your status will surely rise day by day, Elena."
"Um."
Elena nodded and sighed in her heart; in fact, she didn't care about her rising status... She cared about the only friend who could understand her. That's all.
But now it seems...
Maybe I need to start from other places so that I can have the right to come over and chat at any time
The little synthetic doll muttered.
After they walked into the venue of the tea party together, she became more determined in her idea and decided to put it into action within this year.
…
Late at night on April 16, after the airship was modified and the cargo hold was filled with ammunition and food, Yang Hao and others boarded the airship and moved towards the direction of Skool Territory with the sleepy Black Dragonia.
They received news from the rangers in the afternoon - the army of believers who were inspired by God were moving all night. They were expected to arrive in Skool Territory on the morning of the 17th, and reach the surrounding area of the Sanctuary Church where Theresa lived before noon.
In order to prevent the believers' army from causing damage to the church faster than they could, Yang Hao and his companions had a brief discussion and decided to lead the team to the Territory of Skull in advance. This time they only brought limited manpower and an airship as their main force.
"About 200 elite soldiers... Then as for the magician force, in addition to Finn and the archmages who are strong in magic attainments, I am an important force in divine arts, Naruga can create some golems for us on the spot, and the sleepy black dragon lady over there can provide us with air cover while using her deterrent power to deal a blow to the morale of the peasant army below...
In addition, on the hastily modified airship, there are two large-scale destructive weapons produced by the Kingdom of Eden, which you call "fuel-air bombs".
No matter how you look at it, we should be able to easily withstand the attacks of those fanatics - it's easy to defeat them, but it's still very difficult to annihilate them, right?"
This time, in order to reopen the sanctuary church, Theresa is an indispensable personnel, so she will also follow the airship and naturally can use divine magic to provide support to the troops on the ground.
With such a luxurious troop configuration, let alone using two hundred people to resist the attack of tens of thousands of low-morale peasant soldiers, even if there were only twenty people, Yang Hao and others would be able to defeat the morale of the peasant soldiers.
But there is a saying that goes, it is very easy to defeat the enemy, but very difficult to annihilate them.
Because they had to act in advance, Yang Hao and his companions could only bring two fuel-air bombs as key props on this hasty trip.
According to Yang Hao's calculations, if the two fuel-air bombs were used well, they should be able to cause permanent disability to nearly 10,000 people, and directly lead to their death from burns and wound infections after a period of time.
But the number of peasant soldiers was tens of thousands - even if 10,000 died, there would still be tens of thousands of intact peasant soldiers who would become roaming bandits...
Yang Hao meant that he didn't mind if Roman became more chaotic, but at least in Kagad Territory and Skull Territory, in the new mines of the future United Nations, they still hoped to maintain local order as much as possible...
At least they have to make sure that no one will rob them every day when minerals are transported in the future.
After all, too many mosquitoes would be annoying, not to mention that these future bandits are not just mosquitoes, but worse "cockroaches".
On Earth, the U.S. military couldn't clear the Viet Cong in the woods without using defoliants, let alone in today's alien world where there are no defoliants
Even if the elves were familiar with the activities in the woods, how many people could they kill in a day? How far could those peasant soldiers run in a day
If the believers were allowed to flee into the surrounding woods, the area would be plunged into disgusting chaos caused by banditry for at least the next five years...
In order to avoid the disgusting situation mentioned above, Yang Hao hopes to wipe out as many believers as possible in the mountainous area where the church is located.
But the question is how to do it specifically
Yang Hao thought about it, and finally snapped his fingers and said: After entering the mountainous area where the Schul County Church is located in the early morning, immediately use the power of magic to clear the woods around the church, and then lay them on the gentle slope in the direction of the enemy's attack. The wider the better.
Afterwards, Yang Hao woke up the drowsy Black Dragon lying on the sofa and asked Nia how much range of combustibles her "Dragon Breath" could ignite. He got a satisfying answer:
"As long as it's flammable, I can... haah... ignite it - but you can't expect me to ignite everything at once, so you have to be prepared to intercept their escape..."
"Then the fuel-air bomb will explode behind them."
"A fuel-air bomb? What is that?"
Black Dragon tilted his head in a daze, and Yang Hao smiled and said, "This is a consumable weapon that can cause devastating damage to enemies in a large area." Then he left under the resentful gaze of Black Dragon, who suddenly perked up.
After returning to Theresa and Finn, he stroked the hair of Naluga, who was taking a nap on the table, and said that the problem of how to kill the enemy on a large scale had been solved.
By using magic to "cut down" the trees around the mountain area and then spreading them on the ground to form a flammable area, the ground soldiers pretended to resist "weakly" to attract the enemy to advance, and finally let the black dragon breathe a breath to ignite the wood on the ground, and then let the airship throw the fuel-air bomb in the direction of the enemy's retreat, most of the enemies were trapped in the fire and suffocating space, unable to move forward or backward.
By then, whether the airships were used for target practice or the soldiers on the ground were used for harvesting food with machine guns, the number of believers would be greatly reduced.
Although some soldiers who were not in the fire area would definitely flee, if only a few thousand people fled into the forest, then it was still within Yang Hao's acceptable range...
Although this plan made the elves who loved the forest look uncomfortable, no one wanted to play hide-and-seek with tens of thousands of cockroaches in the forest in the future, so all the elves, including Finn, chose to accept this plan.
But coming back to the point - now that the enemy has been dealt with, should they talk about the purpose of this trip next
Yang Hao did not forget that the focus of their trip was not to defeat the enemy, but to save Theresa's "light" -
Now that they have confirmed that "Light" is in the sanctuary church, as long as they can rescue "Light", their fundamental goal will have been achieved.
"Should we choose to open the church while resisting the enemy's attack... or should we open the church after completely eliminating the enemy? Theresa, what do you think?"
"I personally prefer the latter." Theresa shrugged. "If there are enemies, it may cause accidents. I hate accidents, especially those related to "light"... And Finn also thinks that it would be more appropriate to kill the enemy first, right?"
Finn nodded in agreement, but she also said that if the situation was too dangerous, it would be okay to rescue Light first.
“After all, we can’t guarantee that the ‘God of Light’ won’t do something suddenly… He used ‘divine revelation’ to make the believers in the border areas move towards the direction of the Skull Territory spontaneously, and even pointed out a safe path for them that would not be blocked by the living dead or other forces.
If nothing unexpected happens, the "God of Light" must have a backup plan. In order to ensure that the "Light" can be killed or captured, he might even create something similar to the "Corpse Angel" in St. Petersburg on the spot, right? "
Fen's reminder made Yang Hao feel somewhat helpless. After all, this was their first time to fight against a god.
Although this was not a direct confrontation, the fact that the opponent was a "god" was enough to make everyone nervous.
But in the final analysis, Yang Hao still has confidence in winning - after all, if the God of Light can really interfere directly with the Territory of Skull, why can't he do so directly
If the God of Light really has that power, why can't he come here in person
Clearly, that was the "light" that was enough to threaten his own belief and rule, but he just called tens of thousands of insignificant border peasant believers to join in the fun and that was it
On Earth, this is like the last bank vault being moved away, and the bank's only action being to send a few negligent security guards to walk around the possible locations of the vault - besides proving that those security guards are useless, doesn't this also prove the weakness of the bank itself
So in a sense, Yang Hao believed that the "God of Light" would most likely not cause trouble in the Territory of Skull.
Even if they decide to do so, the power of the "God of Light" is likely to be greatly weakened due to the appearance of "Light"... In other words, he is now a mortal body that can be killed by mortals, right
"If the God of Light is really a traitor who cares about his own life and will do anything to climb higher as we inferred before, then he is most likely unwilling to risk his life to confront us head-on... just like Gasson in the Roman Empire today. He has the desire to sit on the throne, but he does not have the courage to sit on the throne.
In other words, we only need to focus on dealing with the believer army - but during this period, we need to allocate some forces to deal with possible variables..."
"For example, those angels?" Finn curled his lips. "The only things in the parish that can threaten the airship are either angels or griffins, or the lethal magic of high-level priests.
But the believers who attacked the Skool Territory only had a few low-level priests at most, and there was no possibility of griffins... In this case, the only threat would be their angels, right?"
"But the angels of the God of Light are actually puppets made from corpses... Apart from being able to fly in the sky to scare people, they don't have much power in essence, right? After all, the birdmen in St. Petersburg have almost all of their rotten flesh shed off."
"Theresa, we can despise the enemy's character, but we must never despise the enemy's strength in terms of variables. So for the time being, let's just keep the airship hovering at a low altitude.
This way we can maintain our advantage of attacking from high and low, and ensure that when an "Angel" appears on the scene, we can defeat it immediately... Is that it?"
Faced with the angels that the "God of Light" might summon, Yang Hao and others actually had no good strategies.
After all, the advantage of "Angels" is their ability to fly -
They can hover at high altitudes, and once they fly high into the sky, it will be difficult for the infantry stationed on the surface by Yang Hao and others to pose a threat to them.
In this case, the heavy machine guns on the airship became the most important source of firepower against the angels...
But on the other hand, why should we wait until the angels fly into the sky before considering dealing with them, instead of killing them before they fly
Yang Hao calculated how much damage the shells fired by the ten machine guns on the airship could cause to enemies within a certain range after the explosion.
After concluding that an angel's wings could not possibly survive a round of explosions, he felt that the "angel" of the God of Light might just be like that.
(But for the time being, we still have to be prepared for air defense... And in future wars, we may have to face frequent attacks from the enemy in the air - in this case, researching air defense weapons has become a subject that we must pass.)
Seeing everyone gradually relax due to his confidence, Yang Hao sighed softly and decided to take a short nap before arriving at the hypothetical position of Skull Territory.
Not far away, Nia was wandering around the airship in a daze, seduced by the "fuel bomb" mentioned by Yang Hao. She also noticed that there seemed to be something strange on the airship.
She didn't know if it was her illusion, but she always felt that the "eye"-like statues on the airship seemed to be swaying gently with His Majesty Yang Hao's every move.
"Isn't this a 'monitor' like the 'Eye in the Sky' that is permanently fixed to the statue?"
The black dragon stood under a shaking eye statue and muttered.
As she muttered to herself, the eyes suddenly looked towards Nia, which frightened her. At the same time, she suddenly realized that the only person who could do such a thing was Miss Irina from the Kingdom of Eden...
Chapter 2: Angel of the God of Light - 8K
In the early morning of April 17, after the airship arrived above the dilapidated church in Scuol County that was very familiar to Yang Hao and Theresa, it released the 200 elite soldiers and some Gappa 1405 heavy machine guns in the cabin.
All ground units are commanded by an elite non-commissioned officer to ensure the smooth implementation of the plan and avoid confusion in the command chain.
After landing, the soldiers began to clear the trees around the church with the help of the elven wizard.
The elven wizards used magic to uproot the trees, and after consuming some of their magic power to evenly distribute them at the foot of the mountain, the entire mountaintop changed from a lush green mountain to a bare desert. The culprits who caused all this only said that if they wanted the trees to burn faster, they could use magic to further dry out the "water" in the trees.
"Although this is not our intention, to put it bluntly, the trees are willing to sacrifice themselves to obtain better living conditions... for their descendants."
On the ground, Fen was murmuring in pain beside Yang Hao. In her palm was a soft green ball. According to her, this seemed to be the "need" left by the felled trees - seeds representing the continuation of life in the surrounding woods.
"When the time comes, we will place it in the Forest of Elves... Perhaps this will be enough to make up for the mistakes we made."
The elves really love trees. They will only permanently destroy a forest when they have no other choice.
But this also indirectly proves that Yang Hao's current status in the elves' minds may be higher than their favorite tree.
In response, Yang Hao could only nod gratefully and say that he would also find a way to make up for the mistakes he made to the trees here.
But compared to this, the next most critical issue is the layout of the "fire scene"... He personally thinks it would be better not to dry out the moisture in the trees.
"After all, smoke is also a lethal weapon... For people deep in the fire, it would be even harder for them to find a way to evacuate when there is smoke everywhere.
Moreover, if the fire can spread more slowly towards the center, it will also allow us to conduct some tests of the aerial gunships..."
"Are you going to use those believers to test the power of our new weapons?"
"That's natural - after all, if weapons are sent into combat without being tested, we are wasting lives and supplies while putting our soldiers and operators at risk...
Now that we have a suitable target, why can't we use it
Besides, if nothing unexpected happens, our enemies for a long time will also be the Romans. It is not a bad thing to improve our army's understanding of the Romans."
"Well... you always convince us on these matters. So you decide - but Yang Hao, are you sure that the "light" is really here?"
Fen turned around and looked with Yang Hao at Miss Theresa, who seemed a little uneasy as she walked in and out of the church door.
Theresa seemed to be communicating and praying with someone underground. And judging from the faint silver-white light emanating from her body, perhaps she had indeed contacted someone underground.
But Finn always felt something was strange...
After all, "Light" is a conceptual god. How could a conceptual god be bound underground
This is like confining all the concepts of "words" in the world onto a piece of paper by writing them, which is simply a fantasy - so, is the "light" now underground really the "light" in their perception
Was it really not something in disguise? And was Theresa really not deceived
Finn knew that it was really bad for her to be so suspicious... But, it's okay for everyone to be more cautious, right
After all, this time, the three important top members of the United Nations are here...
If they were really deceived, the United Nations would lose three of its pillars in one day - such a loss is really unbearable for the United Nations...
So, can't we be more cautious
Finn looked worriedly at Theresa who was kneeling on one knee on the ground praying, while Yang Hao thought for a while and then reached out to rub the little elf's head.
"Ugh?! Stop messing up my hair out there!"
The elf puffed up its face angrily, and after slapping Yang Hao's claws away, he pinched its cheek:
"As for Theresa, don't worry. After all, she was raised by the Light. How can a child not be able to tell the difference between her parents?"
Yang Hao's words left Fen silent.
Yes, Finn almost forgot that for "Light" and Theresa, who were in the most embarrassing situation at the time, they had already established an extremely solid relationship with each other.