Chapter 148

“Napalm, thermobaric bombs?” The king repeated these unfamiliar terms with some difficulty.

Although the other party’s Common Tongue was not standard and carried a strange accent, the words were still barely distinguishable. What perplexed him was how these seemingly incompatible words formed such a bizarre lexicon.

It sounded exceedingly weird, yet carried an inexplicable aura of profundity.

“That’s right. Simply put, these are our Xuanlv version of fireball spells, and they both go boom.” The soldier pointed at the napalm canisters.

Inside the one-meter-long wooden crate were three bombs, each about the size of a human head and weighing at least ten kilograms.

“These are firecrackers we specially prepared for transcendents, also known as toss-and-explode weapons, or throwable projectiles. You can have the knights hurl them into crowds of enemies, and they’ll inflict massive damage.”

Throwing them by hand, causing an explosion—weren’t these just firecrackers? They simply had a much greater destructive power.

The soldier then pointed at another crate, also a meter long, which instead contained a silvery-white rocket. A long steel pin extended from its tail, and by its shape, it was essentially an oversized skyrocket.

This was a specially exported model of an individual-portable thermobaric weapon, with a one-ton TNT equivalent, a length of one meter, a solid silver-white body, unguided, detonating upon impact, and a flight range of one kilometer.

The method of attack was just like setting off fireworks: find an elevated spot, place it horizontally, aim at the enemy, and press a button to launch. Of course, it could also be propped up at a semi-slant in the ground facing the opposing army for an arc-shaped strike.

This was likewise a newly developed weapon from the Academy’s Armament Department—to be precise, a giant skyrocket made using rockets and thermobaric warheads. From a military standpoint, this was a profoundly failed and eccentric weapon, even more bizarre than the manure-scooping launchers from the world wars.

First of all, it lacked any guidance system, relying purely on manual aiming, resulting in an abysmal hit rate. Even in large-scale battles, there was no guarantee it would actually strike a person. Warfare had long evolved past the early colonial era of lines of troops trading volleys, having shifted instead to trench warfare, three-person squad tactics, tactical infiltration, firepower saturation, and integrated sea-land-air strikes.

Even if this contraption managed to fly out, its extremely simple ballistic arc meant it would be immediately shot down by anti-air defenses. Moreover, with a flight range of only one thousand meters, the effective range of a large-caliber sniper rifle far exceeded it.

This could no longer be described as just a tasteless chicken rib; it was practically an explosive toy. Yet this was precisely the effect Xuanlv desired. It had to be weak, otherwise how could it be called a specially exported weapon?

How could it lack specialness? They certainly couldn’t sell off strategic weapons like "Twin-Kick" ballistic missiles or "Log" guided missiles, could they? Doing so would not only expose their own blue-and-white underwear—their bottom line—but also easily bring unnecessary trouble upon themselves.

For the people of the New World, firecrackers and fireworks were more than enough. A single firecracker cost only ten gold coins, and fireworks were twenty. They were cheap, effective, and came in generous quantities, with the sole drawback being that they were somewhat hazardous to human life. A single lapse in attention could launch one straight into the heavens.

Seeing the lingering doubt in the king’s gaze, the soldier paused for a moment to think before offering an alternative explanation: “It’s the kind of weapon we used back in the royal capital, though this is a simplified version.”

“Hiss~” The king instantly drew a sharp breath. The memory of that weapon in the capital was still vivid in his mind.

Its destructive power was immense, its attack range extraordinarily long, and every strike carried the majesty of high-tier magic. The overwhelming barrage had even managed to beat the terrifying corpse-locust trees to death, showing the king what true brute-force miracles looked like.

The king hurried toward the rows of heavy-duty trucks as the soldiers opened the rear cargo doors, revealing a dense and crowded stack of green crates.

“Are all of these…?”

“All of these are. A total of three hundred firecrackers and two hundred identical fireworks,” the soldier introduced with a smile. “After the enemy forms their battle lines, you can have your strong knights fling these firecrackers out to warm up the atmosphere.”

“Also, I suggest throwing them toward the enemy’s rear as much as possible, because the true power of these weapons isn’t just the fire, but rather things you cannot see or touch. While the effect against transcendents might not be entirely obvious, it is absolute carnage when used against ordinary people.”

The spectacular explosion scenes of modern weaponry tend to draw everyone's attention to the dazzling sparks, leading them to believe that fire is the primary source of damage. Much like a bullet, the true harm is often not the physical perforation of the body, but the lingering secondary effects left behind within the flesh.

The same logic applied to napalm and thermobaric bombs. While the primary mechanism of the former was indeed burning, the actual kills came from the frantic, desperate struggles of the victims spreading the flames, alongside subsequent secondary burns and infections.

Napalm also contained numerous chemical combustion accelerators; to maximize lethality, Xuanlv even added white phosphorus. Once the flames generated by a petrol bomb burned against human skin, they left behind massive amounts of highly toxic chemical compounds. These entered the bloodstream through the open wounds of the burn areas, causing systemic blood poisoning in the wounded.

In a world with such abysmal medical conditions, once someone was tainted even slightly, death was practically their only destination. After all, precious medicines would never be squandered on ordinary people.

Weapons like napalm had already been relegated to the *Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons* by the late colonial wars, right before the global conflict. Yet in reality, once a war broke out, everyone used them, each competitor employing them more fiercely than the last.

This birthed a very strange yet authentic phenomenon: the more a weapon was designated as prohibited, the more frequently nations threw it onto the battlefield.

The lethality of thermobaric weapons, however, was terrifying—arguably the most formidable offensive capability Xuanlv currently possessed. Their primary vectors of damage were high temperature, asphyxiation, extreme overpressure, shockwaves, blast waves, and a trace amount of electromagnetic pulse.

When applied to human targets, the entire essence of their devastation lay in the waves.

Merely having a shockwave sweep past was enough to shatter an ordinary person’s internal organs. Most might not die on the spot, but the consequences without subsequent medical treatment could be readily imagined.

Afterward, the king ordered the army to make camp while leading a small contingent of kingdom knights to an open area to conduct a test.

A mushroom cloud slowly ascended. Gazing at the raging inferno, the king’s face flushed with excitement.

“Good! Good! Good!”

Following a brief discussion, the army resumed its march, the dozen heavy trucks trailing closely behind, escorted by over a hundred kingdom knights.

Along the way, due to road conditions, the trucks sank into mud several times and temporarily fell behind the column. Fortunately, the army’s pace was not fast, and the trucks easily caught up whenever they managed to break free.

Positioned in the center within the king’s ornate sedan carriage, the shadow-guard captain wearing an iron mask knelt on one knee. Her left arm was entirely gone, and the light armor on her body was tattered.

The king inquired, “How did you get injured so severely? Could the enemy possess an upper-third-tier covert professional?”

Major factions all maintained their own intelligence agencies, tasked with gathering information during wartime and intercepting enemy operatives. Akin to modern military reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance, these duties fell primarily to high-mobility, stealthy professions like assassins and thieves.

Enemy troop deployments, the number of transcendents, exact headcounts, and supply routes—all of these fell under the purview of intelligence networks.

Long before the main armies clashed in armed combat, the war had already begun in silence—a war waged among those who walked in the shadows.

The king remained deeply confident in the strength of his own shadow operatives. Although he himself had fallen short, the kingdom’s transcendents of the past few decades had not disappointed him; instead, powerhouses had continued to emerge in a steady stream.

Mark, Dana, and the shadow-guard captain—all three held the potential to ascend to the upper three tiers. Within the kingdom’s knighthood and the shadow-guard corps, those touching the threshold of Grand Professionals (Third Tier) numbered over a hundred.

This was a sign of resurgence. Unfortunately, many could not tolerate these omens of revival, forcing the king to keep them concealed.

“No, they do not. Although the enemy covert operative also reached the level of a Grand Professional, they were clearly unaccustomed to the desert terrain, and their strength was inferior to mine,” the shadow-guard captain replied.

The king’s eyes flickered as he guessed, “That old rat, Darcymond?”

“My Lord, just as you predicted earlier, the leader of the Kexian army this time is indeed Darcymond,” the shadow-guard captain nodded.

Only Darcymond, alongside the royal artifact in his possession, could have inflicted such grievous wounds and forced her to escape at the cost of a severed arm.

“Very well, very well. Darcymond, you were ultimately consumed by greed, actually daring to leave the desert.” Cold light flashed in the king’s turbid eyes.

Among the three surrounding nations, Hairt nation bordered the sea, where mercantile culture flourished and external expansion was a low priority—the very place his daughter, Ginny, had traveled to for her studies. Mianfu had guarded its own small territory since ancient times, perpetually obsessed with poisons due to the influence of archaic traditions.

The true threat was Kexian. This barbarian nation constantly harbored ambitions to annex the Dawn Kingdom, periodically launching plundering raids every few years. This time, however, it was evident their ambitions went far beyond mere looting.

With the king personally leading his troops, they intended to devour the entire north.

Why had Kexian only ever dared to raid for over a century without daring to seize territory, yet suddenly found the courage today?

Because Dawn was too weak, and he himself was too weak. The enemy had seized upon this exact timing, yet he, too, had been waiting for this very moment.

“Mark.”

“Your Majesty, this subject is here.” Mark stepped into the sedan carriage and knelt on one knee.

“Once the war begins, the kingdom’s knighthood need not act as the vanguard; preserve your strength as much as possible. The new king will need your assistance in the future, and you must not suffer heavy casualties,” the king instructed softly.

“Just hurl the weapons sent by the Grand Duke from the rear lines. It doesn’t matter even if you miss and hit our own people; one way or another, all two hundred thousand of these individuals are going to die here.”

Among those two hundred thousand were commoners, but an even greater number consisted of noble knights and servants. The king could not rest easy leaving them behind. This was also why, facing the Kexian Kingdom and the northern nobility, the king had only deployed two hundred thousand men, of whom fewer than fifty thousand were actual combat soldiers.

If Irene were to learn of this, she would undoubtedly mock him once more for knowing only how to scheme and plot. Yet he had no other choice; this was the only hand he knew how to play, and play it he must.

“Even the cowardly have a coward’s way of survival.”

When Mark raised his head, what he met was a pair of clear eyes, while the majestic Sword of Dawn rang out in a continuous hum.

*Swish!*

An indistinct white light swept across the king’s cheek, splitting the skin and exposing flesh and blood beneath, yet strangely, not a single drop of blood emerged.

“You are…” Mark’s pupils constricted slightly.

The king’s twilight spirit suddenly stirred to life, his aura faintly beginning to climb upward.

“Mark, have you ever heard of slaying the self?”

His fingertips brushed against the Sword of Dawn. The red crystal at the center of the hilt glowed faintly as the blade resonated with the king for the very first time.

“Truly, everything is dictated by fate, and not an ounce of it is up to mortal hands.”

…

Heath City, the most prosperous city in the north.

At the center of the city stood a peculiar circular structure, three stories tall, each tier ringed by a dense array of pillars. Atop the summit rested a vulture, its massive statue rendered with startling realism, sending a chill down the spine of anyone who looked upon it.

Upon closer inspection, the entire building was constructed from compacted sand.

Inside, the structure revealed itself to be a circular arena, surrounded by tier upon tier of spectator stands.

Opulently dressed nobles sat in the stands, attended to by female slaves wearing iron collars, draped in mere scraps of cloth, and clad in exceptionally revealing attire.

To avoid disrupting the visual aesthetic, these female slaves did not bear the character for "slave" upon their faces; instead, the brand was scorched onto their backs.

Sitting in the highest seat of honor was Darcymond, his body emaciated, wearing a golden mask and draped in various golden ornaments. Surrounding him were the various earls of the north—four in total.

“My lords, you shall all be loyal ministers of Kexian in the future. As the saying goes, every country has its own customs; today, I shall take you all on a tour to experience Kexian’s most grand celebration.” Darcymond’s voice was somewhat shrill, resembling the squeaking of a rat, grating harshly on the ears.

The high nobles felt a knot of anxiety in their hearts, but allowed none of it to show on their faces, instead offering smiling compliance to Darcymond.

“We have yearned for Kexian culture for many years.”

“Indeed. It is simply a pity that we belonged to different realms; today, we finally have the chance to witness it firsthand alongside Your Majesty.”

“We have long heard that Kexian warriors are peerless in valor, capable of tearing tigers and leopards apart bare-handed.”

“Hahahaha!” Darcymond let out a shrill laugh, clearly delighted by the flattery of the crowd.

Whether everyone was speaking the truth was something every single person understood intimately. Darcymond simply relished watching these people fawn over him, fear him, and tremble before him.

“Let the ceremony begin!”
Four gates opened in the walls of the arena below, formed of compacted sand, and figures clutching various weapons stepped inside.

The nobles had initially assumed this was a thoroughly ordinary gladiatorial match. Though bloody, watching the wretches below slaughter one another for survival still held a certain sadistic thrill.

However, upon seeing the reality of the scene below, the expressions of everyone present froze in disbelief.

The people in the arena were not muscular gladiators, but rather a group of shivering commoners clutching crude weapons. Among them were not only men and women, but also the elderly and children; judging by their clustered postures and body language, they were clearly families.

Grouped by family units, there were ten small clusters in total.

Darcymond rose from his throne, raised his golden goblet of wine, and declared, “Vile slaves, if you wish to survive, slaughter the others. The survivors shall be granted freedom, alongside honor and wealth.”

With those words, the walls of the arena below suddenly began to writhe. Dense clusters of sharp spikes thrust outward from the masonry, slowly closing inward toward the center.

The commoners began to scream in terror, the cries of children echoing throughout the amphitheater, while the surrounding Kexian soldiers erupted into fanatical roars.