Chapter 81 - 77 Alchemical Cannon

Chapter 81: Chapter 77 Alchemical Cannon

"Stay calm, stay calm..."

Scott opened his mouth, trying to breathe deeply in an effort to calm himself down, but with each breath, the thick scent of blood reached him.

He could faintly make out several bodies sprawled on the ground at the base of the tower, their half-coagulated blood spilling and covering the floor.

Indeed, the Elite Hunters initially scheduled to attack this tower were intercepted, but after completing their tasks on other towers, they realized their comrade was missing. They came to this place to investigate and planned to take down this accidentally untouched target in passing.

Because too much time had passed, the Natives’ stamina had been excessively drained, and their actions were hindered by windproof ponchos nearing failure, Scott and his comrades took advantage of the enemy’s carelessness and managed to turn the tables, killing the Elite Hunters.

The cost, however, was that in the team of four, only Scott remained alive.

"The cannon must be fired successfully... The cannon must be fired successfully..."

Smelling the blood of his comrades and the Natives, and hearing the enraged roars of the Crocodragons in the distance, Scott’s hands trembled so much that he could barely hold onto the canvas used for daily cleaning of the Alchemical Cannon’s barrel and interior, repeating the sentence that was most obsessive in his mind.

But he wasn’t a cannoneer, and while he had seen it often, he only knew how to aim and fire the cannon, nothing more.

— How to repair the cannon if it was broken? He had no idea!

Sincerely praying for the disgruntled machine spirit to return to calmness? That was a good idea, but the Machine Spirit Sect was a minority in The Empire...

His thoughts, already chaotic, began to drift far away, leaving Scott with very little time.

As the earth suddenly trembled, the tower began to sway slightly, and even scattered chunks of lime debris started to fall from above.

The roars of the Crocodragons and the screeches of the Aether Armament tearing through the air grew closer, as the battle between Viscount Grant and the Great Shaman could cross half the city in minutes.

Perhaps by coincidence, or perhaps deliberately, the battleground of both parties moved visibly towards the tumultuous sea, nearly boiling.

This tower was on the perimeter of their path!

"...No good, got to get out of here."

Hit on the head by a falling brick, Scott reached out to touch his head in a daze, only to find a handful of fresh blood mixed with dust; it was at this moment he finally realized his current predicament.

— He indeed had no knowledge about the Alchemical Cannon, and was merely tinkering with the Inscription Apparatus that he couldn’t understand, all because he didn’t want his comrades’ sacrifices to be in vain.

But the current situation wouldn’t change even if he died, since Inscriptions, like mathematics, are impossible to understand if you simply don’t get them.

If he didn’t want to join his comrades and the Natives in death, he had to leave.

Although he thought this, by the time Scott stumbled to the bottom of the tower and tried to open the door to leave, he was shocked to find that due to the earlier tremors, the structure of the tower had undergone minor deformation. The solid wooden door was now jammed in the frame, and no matter how hard he pushed or slammed against it, it wouldn’t budge.

"Looks like I’m really going to die, shame I didn’t say goodbye to mom this morning..."

Exhausted, Scott finally realized he had been declared dead; he sat down in the pool of blood with a mix of tears and laughter. He didn’t care if the corpses beside him were his comrades or the Natives. After all, when the tower collapses, everyone will be mashed together, indistinguishable from each other.

Only now could one see that this soldier in the city guard’s light armor was just a young lad, his facial hair not even fully grown out, at most fourteen or fifteen years old.

However, shortly after Scott had completely given up struggling,

The howling wind outside the tower seemed to pause for a moment.

Then, resigned, the young city guard suddenly looked up in astonishment towards the tower door.

Because, just now, he thought he heard someone pushing that door!

"...So it’s really locked..."

Straining his ears, Scott could barely make out a slightly childish, yet unusually calm mutter amid the tumultuous sound of the wind from outside, "Looks like I’ll have to kick it open."

...Kick it open?

Due to exhaustion, blood loss, and the numbness of despair, Scott didn’t immediately grasp what this so-called ’kick it open’ meant.

But the next moment, he understood.

Boom! Accompanied by a forceful kick, the entire door burst open ’bang’ and fell backwards.

The rain-soaked air carrying a strange warmth brushed past the stunned Scott, and then slammed into the inner wall of the tower.

The sound of the rain suddenly became much clearer.

Dumbly turning his head, he looked at the door panel, then the young guard turned back, bewildered, to look at the doorway.

Pouring rain, flashes of lightning, and the figure of a person clad in native rainwear stood in the doorway.

Even, the figure had just retracted their leg—there was no sign that such a slender and well-proportioned body could possess such tremendous strength.

Before Scott could react, he had already recognized the face of the boy beneath the rainwear, and then he was taken aback once more.

"...Ian?"

Although this news hadn’t been spread intentionally, the emergence of a young Spirit Energy User from Harrison Port was still one of the year’s big stories.

Scott wasn’t one of the White Folks and wasn’t familiar with the Spirit Energy User boy’s appearance, but he still recognized him upon seeing him face to face.

"You know me? Then that makes things easier."

Glancing over his shoulder, Ian saw a guard soaked in blood and covered in dust, he merely glanced at the nearby corpses, and it was quite clear to him what had happened, "Impressive, you’ve held off the natives’ attack, but there’s a problem with the Alchemical Cannon, I guess?"

"Can you take me to see it?"

Theoretically, at this point, Scott should have sounded the alarm, telling the newcomer that the tower’s structure was unstable and could fall apart at any moment—forget the cannon, you should run for your life!

"The cannon is upstairs, not damaged by the natives, but it just won’t fire..."

But for some reason, as Ian issued his orders as a matter of course, he inexplicably nodded, struggled to stand up from the pool of blood, and began leading the other up to the gun deck, while also giving a concise explanation of the situation, "The barrel and crystal sand are intact, the gunpowder is dry, I suspect the igniter has a problem..."

"Damn, why am I saying all this?"

Scott didn’t understand his own actions. He had brought Ian to the Alchemical Cannon and intended to run away immediately... The roar of the behemoths outside was getting louder and the tower’s shaking was becoming more violent. He was already at his limit by leading the way, so why stay and waste time explaining these superficially ludicrous comments?

However, in a moment of reverie, the faces of his fallen comrades surfaced in his mind.

Those who, just because he was young, had protected him, letting him survive even though he was good for nothing, and couldn’t do anything right... their faces.

—I don’t want to.

I don’t want to betray their blood.

"Thank you, that’s very helpful."

Shedding his rainwear, Ian immediately focused his attention on the immense alchemical creation before him, the boy’s gaze hot and pure, "I’ve never had the chance to really work with one, now I can properly analyze the structure..."