Chapter 288: Beam Clash

“Move quickly! We don’t have time!”

Beside ‘Gungnir’, a gray-haired Magitech Technician Chief was screaming himself hoarse at his assistants.

Beads of sweat covered his forehead, but his hands were as steady as a rock.

They were performing the final deployment and calibration for ‘Gungnir’.

This was an extremely precise and complex process.

Driven by hydraulic devices, the massive gun body slowly extended from inside the carriage. The muzzle was no longer raised high as in the first mode.

Instead, at a low angle of elevation, it pointed remotely at one of the four support legs of the distant Eiffel Tower.

“Support arms deploy! Anchor to the ground!” the Technician Chief shouted.

“Clank—Clank—”

The hydraulic support arms on both sides of the carriage, like giant spider legs, unfolded violently and stabbed deep into the crushed stones laid on both sides of the tracks.

But this was clearly not strong enough.

So burly engineers quickly carried some counterweight devices and pressed them onto the support arms to increase stability.

“Connect magic conduits!”

Other Magitech Engineers, under the Chief’s direction, also completed the connection of several cable-like objects to the breech of ‘Gungnir’.

“Energy circuit connected! Begin pre-charging!”

With the Chief’s command, the twelve acceleration rune coils inside the gun body began to light up in sequence.

A strange and low “buzzing” sound began to resonate across the battlefield.

The surrounding air became somewhat viscous due to the rapid rise in mana concentration.

Everyone, including Morin, felt an inexplicable sense of oppression, as if an invisible mountain was pressing on their hearts.

“Magic bombardment device operating normally!”

Two Magitech Engineers sitting in the control room looked at the indicators on the complex Magitech instruments before them, reporting verbally while signaling “ready” to the outside.

And less than ten meters around them, the battle had reached its most tragic point.

“Ah—!”

A soldier from the Instruction Assault Battalion let out a scream as he was tackled by a wight sneaking up from the side, its sharp claws instantly piercing his chest.

“Damn monster…” Spitting blood, he pulled the pin on his grenade.

His comrade nearby immediately turned his gun, but it was too late.

“Boom!”

The explosion of the grenade engulfed the wight, but more undead creatures were still approaching.

A team of flamethrower troops rushed over, and soon a white fire dragon swept across the front of the position again, swallowing swaths of undead.

But further away, the number of undead creatures showed no sign of decreasing.

“Your Excellency Archbishop! The right flank can’t hold much longer!”

A priest covered in blood ran to Maurice. His shield was shattered, and his left arm was twisted at an unnatural angle.

Maurice glanced at the right flank, where the defense line had been compressed to the side of the train. Two armed priests, with their backs against the carriage, were engaging in a final struggle against ghouls several times their number.

“Ramos!” Maurice roared.

“Here! Your Excellency Archbishop!” An armed priest responded immediately.

“Take two men and support the right flank! No matter what, protect the Magitech Engineers and the Armored Train!”

“Yes!”

Without any hesitation, the armed priest shouted a war cry and charged over with two battle-brothers.

Morin looked at the hellish scene before him, a waver appearing in his heart for the first time.

They were fighting with the full fire support of the Armored Train, yet it was still so difficult.

The unique combination of the Eiffel Tower and the Catacombs had elevated the intensity of Necromancy spells to a qualitative change.

Could they really hold on until the moment ‘Gungnir’ fired?

Just then, from the command train behind Morin, Colonel Lucas’s voice suddenly came, carrying a trace of trembling and ecstasy.

“Ready! ‘Gungnir’ is ready!”

Hearing this, Morin felt a shiver run through him instantly.

He looked up abruptly at the fully deployed giant cannon.

At the breech of that giant cannon, the square, metal-block-like “shell” had been loaded into a special launching device.

He could feel even more acutely that the ocean-like mana from several Magic Cores on the Armored Train was surging madly through the Magic Circuits towards the rear of ‘Gungnir’!

“Hum—!!!”

The humming sound emitted by ‘Gungnir’ rose abruptly countless times at this moment!

And at the top of the distant Eiffel Tower, Master Eiffel also sensed this terrifying power sufficient to threaten his foundation.

He immediately controlled the tower to release [Chain Lightning]. A massive amount of lightning struck the ground, then swept towards the steel bridge where the Armored Train was located.

But Armored Airship No. L29, which had been accelerating, was now close at hand, looking as if it intended to crash directly into it.

“I want to see if you Gaulish Mages feel fear!”

Schneider on the bridge of L29 was red-eyed, and everyone else on the bridge had entered a state of madness.

“Charge! Even if we ram it, make the tower change its target!”

At this moment, a sense of fear arose in Master Eiffel’s heart.

This emotion shouldn’t have appeared in him right now, but due to the contamination of the Necromancer, this emotion, which shouldn’t exist, was born at this moment.

The [Chain Lightning] finally changed its path, striking towards Armored Airship No. L29.

This attack, more powerful than yesterday’s, directly penetrated the airship’s Magic Shield and destroyed almost all power equipment. The Magic Core also overloaded in a short time. The entire airship emitted bursts of black smoke, multiple gashes appeared on the airbag, and it could no longer maintain altitude.

But Schneider and the other crew members laughed, for they had bought the final time for ‘Gungnir’.

Master Eiffel at the top of the tower also realized the situation was bad; he had just made an extremely wrong choice.

He desperately mobilized the mana within the tower that could be used in a short time. An unprecedentedly huge lightning bolt, thick as a dragon, struck down fiercely from the spire, heading straight for the ‘Odin’!

“Fire!!!”

Colonel Lucas used all his strength to roar these word.

The next moment, his roar was completely drowned out by the hum of ‘Gungnir’.

The core part at the rear of ‘Gungnir’s’ barrel, the alloy block weighing about 1200g surrounded by a large number of runes, was suddenly bombarded by pure mana of a terrifying energy level, instantly melting into a mass of high-temperature liquid metal flow.

This metal flow did not explode but was compressed and shaped under electromagnetic confinement, finally turning into a metal jet like a spear!

Immediately after, the twelve acceleration rune coils inside the barrel lit up in succession in an instant!

The metal jet confined by the electromagnetic field inside the barrel did not touch the inner wall but was accelerated to a terrifying speed of 25 kilometers per second at this instant.

There was no loud boom of a shell leaving the chamber, nor was there fire and smoke.

There was only a roar sharp to the extreme!

A “blue-white beam” sprayed from the muzzle of ‘Gungnir’!

Its speed was too fast, so fast that the naked eye couldn’t track it at all!

The moment it left the barrel, the whole world seemed to have pressed the slow-motion button.

The air was torn apart, forming visible ripples around the metal jet.

Like a storm, it blew away all undead creatures in front of the muzzle.

And the huge lightning bolt, thick as a dragon, striking down from the Eiffel Tower, did not even stir a ripple upon contact with this metal jet before being instantly penetrated and annihilated!

Beam clash failed!

The speed of the metal jet did not diminish in the slightest. It traced a straight trajectory in the air, seemingly splitting the sky in two.

At the same time the gun fired, it had already crossed the distance of over a kilometer, then slammed into the shield of the Eiffel Tower woven from countless electric currents.

“Zzzzt—!”

That powerful electric shield, capable of deflecting heavy artillery shells and intercepting Radiant Crystal Reaction Shells, was as if non-existent before this metal jet.

It merely flickered slightly before a huge gap was torn open.

The metal jet drove straight in. Although it expanded rapidly under air resistance as the electromagnetic confinement effect weakened, it still accurately hit one of the four support structures at the base of the Eiffel Tower!

The entire process was unbelievably fast.

From firing to hitting, and then to penetrating, it happened at the same time.

Everyone just felt a beam of light flash before their eyes, leaving a faint imprint on their retinas, as if the beam still existed.

Then they saw a huge circular hole with a diameter close to 10 meters and smooth, flat edges appear prominently on the support structure of the Eiffel Tower.

All obstacles behind the hole and along the trajectory behind it had vanished completely.

Immediately after, sounds of metal twisting and crushing followed. The giant tower, having lost its balance due to the destruction of the support structure, slowly fell like a collapsing pillar of heaven.