Castle of Black Iron

Even though incendiary torpedoes were combustible in water, their destructive power was much weaker than that on land.

As for the 100,000 iron-armored demons that jumped into Weishui River, besides the first batch which suffered a loss and some were killed by centrifugal ballista on the warships of Taixia Country, most of the iron-armored demons directly dove deep in water when encountering dangers. Although this method was nothing ingenious, it reduced the loss of iron-armored demons greatly.

Almost 90,000 iron-armored demons finally arrived at the east bank of Weishui River. Taixia troop only reduced a bit more than 10% of the total amount of iron-armored demons in the river, which figure was much smaller than the loss of iron-armored demons on the west bank of Weishui River.

Of course, it owed to iron-armored demon’s good swimming skill. If it was ox-head demons or spider demons that tided over Weishui River, those incendiary torpedoes would definitely have killed more demons. Given this point, it was indeed a smart decision for Sagus the Monarch Abyss to assign iron-armored demons to be the vanguard.

The air fight finally affected the ground troops.

Some wing demons wanted to attack the warships of Taixia Country over the river; however, the warships gathered up in an air-defense formation and shot at those wing demons in a dense manner the moment those wing demons approached. As a result, some wing demons were hit down without causing any damage to the warships.

Besides shotting traditional bolts, the steam ballista on warships could also shoot more powerful incendiary bolts. The incendiary bolts being matched for these warships were different than those on air cavalry I airplanes in specifications as the former were longer, thicker with the evidently bigger caliber and more powerful. The moment these bolts exploded in the sky, they would cause a fireball whose diameter was over 10 m. Additionally, their land-to-air range could reach higher than 400 m. No wing demon could gain any advantage facing such a powerful air-defense strike.

Additionally, before those iron-armored demons which had reached the opposite bank gathered up, two wuthering and smoking air cavalry I airplanes had precisely hit the region on the east bank where there were most iron-armored demons. The moment the airplanes crashed onto the ground, they had exploded while their flames and flying metal parts devoured some more iron-armored demons.

After receiving the order, the iron-armored demons continued to march on.

To respond to this order, iron-armored demons which had embarked on immediately roared and rushed towards the east.

There was once a wood in the east bank of Weishui River. However, at this moment, the entire wood had been weeded out by Taixia troops. As a result, it was bald and full of undulating yellow ground and hills within hundreds of miles. Besides some short weeds, shrubs and some patches of stumps, no plant higher than 1.7 m could be seen. In that case, even a troop of over 1,000 people could barely hide there, not to mention large-scale troops.

In the last year, the troops of hundreds of millions fighters and the engineering corps of tens of millions of engineers had already well renovated the entire east bank of Weishui River. As a result, demons embarking on the east bank could barely take advantage of resources and topographical strengths.

The east riverside was absolutely a battlefield preset by Taixia troops.

However, not a single human could be seen over the east bank, except for undulating hills. The warships’ shells reached the east bank; even though, the iron-armored demons embarking on the east bank continued to surge forward.

At this moment, flames rose from the ground, devouring those surging iron-armored demons one after another. The flames were caused by incendiary mines. Compared to that on the west bank, more incendiary mines were buried in the undulating hills, hillsides, gullies, shrubs and plain, open area. As a result, each step forward would mean the loss of many lives.

The entire east bank was covered with mines, where iron-armored demons couldn’t see those human fighters but flames rising from the ground and those of their same kind whining and turning into charcoals in flames…

Iron-armored demons roared as they became hopeless. All the iron-armored demons above LV 10 started to launch battle qi strikes towards the ground in front while running.

However, iron-armored demons above LV 10 were not like Zhang Tie who was cultivating an emperor-level secret method and had constant battle qi in his qi sea. As for most of the iron-armored demons above LV 10, off-hand battle qi strike was an advanced battle skill, which required them to convert their battle qi into aggressive energy. This battle skill was powerful; however, it consumed a lot of battle qi.

An ordinary LV 10 iron-armored demon could release its off-hand battle qi strike 6-10 times within one day. Some elites could make it over 10 times. As long as an iron-armored demon ran out of its battle qi in a short period, its battle strength would decline rapidly. Before the battle qi in his qi sea recovered, it would not launch a battle qi strike anymore.

This law suited to LV 10 iron-armored demons and those above LV 10. However, more advanced iron-armored demons could release off-hand battle qi strike a few more times within one day. Ordinary LV 11 iron-armored demons could release off-hand battle qi strike 12 to 20 times; LV 12 iron-armored demons could make 18 to 40 times; LV 13 iron-armored demons could make 35-60 times… The higher level the iron-armored demon was, the more off-hand battle qi strikes would it exercise. However, it was not limitless. Additionally, as for high-level fighters, as long as they ran out of their battle qi in their qi sea, they might not even able to release their protective battle qi.

The east bank was filled with battle qi booms, brilliant and surging flames which looked pretty boisterous. Advanced demon fighters’ off-hand battle qi strikes indeed worked as incendiary mines were constantly detonated. However, if someone made calculations cautiously, they would find that an advanced demon fighter could strike the ground 7-10 times for detonating one incendiary mine on average.

As incendiary mines were buried under the ground, iron-armored demons above the ground couldn’t see them. As a result, they couldn’t make tentative strikes. Therefore, it was a matter of probability to detonate incendiary mines using off-hand battle qi strikes.

This probability had been counted before these incendiary mines were buried. The probability was determined by the density of mines per square km, which was closely related to war cost.

Over 60 miles away from the east bank of Weishui River, Liu Xing and some officers of Fiery-Dragon Corps were standing on a hillside and observing the flickering battle qis and flames that rose among those iron-armored demons rushing towards Taixia corps from time to time by telescope.

The vanguard of iron-armored demons was almost 1.2 miles in width. Only a bit more than 1,000 of over 90,000 iron-armored demons were above LV 10. Although over 1,000 iron-armored demons exerted their full efforts to detonate some incendiary mines using their battle qi, more incendiary mines were detonated by the foot of their kind. Meanwhile, as they constantly released their battle qi strikes, an increasing number of iron-armored demons above LV 10 gradually ran out of their battle qi and couldn’t release off-hand battle qi strike any longer. Therefore, although they were surging forward, the quantity of battle qi lusters among demon corps gradually decreased…

“The cost of an incendiary mine is less than one silver coin. One silver coin for the life of one LV 9 demon. On average, we could paralyze a LV 10 iron-armored demon at the cost of 10 silver coins by having it lose its long-distance striking ability or consuming the greater part of battle qi of a battle master-level or a great battle master-level demon. That was to say, a gold coin could afford 100 mines on the battlefield. It would take them hundreds or 1,000 times’ off-hand battle qi strikes to weed out these mines. A battle spirit-level demon could never clean up 100 mines by off-hand battle qi strikes even if it ran out of its battle qi. That’s really economical…” Zhao Bing said while shaking his head after putting his telescope.

“That illustrates the strength of gold coins as was mentioned by our master. If we just keep going like this, we will not fear about demons regardless of their population. Money could really kill demons…” Wu Yinhui nodded.

“Besides our master, who else among humans could kill demons using gold coins?”

“Guess whether these demons could reach us or not…”

“If the airship troop didn’t set off, it’s possible; however…” Liu Xing replied as he put down his telescope. At this moment, a huge shadow covered the hillside. Needless to look up, they had known that airships had been dispatched.

The iron-armored demons surging forward among the flames of incendiary mines finally became dismayed. After moving over 20 miles forward, over 90,000 iron-armored demons didn’t even see a single human fighter; instead, they saw endless wires in front of them which looked like a cage and a huge formation composed of wires.

Although wires couldn’t block iron-armored demons, they could slow down iron-armored demons’ speed. Additionally, many incendiary mines were buried between wires too.

When the iron-armored demons slowed down, a row of airships of Taixia Country appeared above them while a string of black points fell off the airships. When they were over 20 m high above the ground, those black points exploded and turned into a fierce fire sea before falling onto the heads of iron-armored demons…