Chapter 276: We Need a Better Firing Position

The light was so intense that it momentarily outshone the sun.

Immediately after, they saw the shield of electricity surrounding the Eiffel Tower contract violently inward, then instantly expand outward, its brightness increasing significantly!

A full twenty seconds later, a sharp crack that seemed to pierce the eardrums, followed by a dull, thunderous explosion, reached their ears in succession.

“It’s ‘Gungnir’!” Seeckt reacted immediately.

“It fired!” General Mackensen also perked up.

However, their excitement did not last long.

Because they clearly saw the explosion occur in the air, some distance away from the Eiffel Tower.

Although the shockwave from the explosion seemed to shake the giant tower slightly, it was clear that the shot had not hit its target.

“B-blocked?” a staff officer stammered.

Mackensen and Seeckt exchanged glances, seeing the gravity in each other’s eyes.

Even the ‘Gungnir’s’ Radiant Crystal Reaction Shell couldn’t penetrate the tower’s defenses?

At Gare de l’Est, beside the Armored Train ‘Odin’.

Morin and Lucas’s hearts sank to the bottom as the report came back from the artillery observation team.

“Colonel, the Radiant Crystal Reaction Shell was detonated prematurely by lightning about two hundred meters from the target!”

“Detonated by lightning?” Lucas was stunned. “What do you mean?”

“Just as the shell was about to hit, the currents around the Eiffel Tower clearly strengthened significantly. A massive amount of lightning formed something like an ‘electric wall,’ causing the Radiant Crystal Reaction Shell to be triggered early.”

Hearing this explanation, everyone fell silent.

They can do that?

“However…”

The artillery observer added:

“Although the shell was detonated early, the violent explosion still seemed to have some effect on the tower. We saw the electric shield around the tower become very unstable for a moment, and on the side facing the strongest blast impact, there seem to be some scorched marks left on the tower’s steel structure.”

“It had an effect?” Lucas’s eyes lit up, the hope that had just been extinguished rekindling.

“That means as long as we can hit it, or get closer, we can cause substantial damage!”

He immediately turned and roared at the Magitech Engineers and engineers behind him: “Did you hear that! One more round! Reload immediately! I don’t believe it can keep blocking like this forever!”

“Yes, sir!”

Under Colonel Lucas’s command, everyone sprang into tense action once again.

Cooling, checking, loading…

The preparation for ‘Gungnir’s’ next shot proceeded methodically.

Meanwhile, inside the Eiffel Tower, in the second-level main control area.

The Seventh-Circle Necromancer Chardonnet was the second person in all of Paris, besides Master Eiffel at the top of the tower, to feel the power of ‘Gungnir’ up close.

When the Radiant Crystal Reaction Shell detonated two hundred meters away, he could clearly feel the entire giant tower tremble violently under the terrifying shockwave.

The flowing bands of light on the walls flickered in momentary chaos.

His face turned somewhat grim for the first time.

The Saxons actually possessed a weapon capable of threatening this ‘Wonder’!

He immediately contacted Master Eiffel from the control room—Eiffel, having essentially become part of the tower, could hear Chardonnet’s voice directly.

“Eiffel! Did you feel that? The Saxons’ attack can hurt us! Expand your lightning defense range! Otherwise, if they land a few more hits like that, who knows what will happen!”

His voice clearly carried a trace of urgency.

A moment later, Master Eiffel’s calm, emotionless voice sounded in his mind.

“Understood.”

Just a simple word, followed by silence.

But Chardonnet could feel the violent currents lingering around the tower expanding outward at a faster rate.

Over ten minutes later.

When the second shell from ‘Gungnir’, carrying the hopes of everyone on the Armored Train, roared in again, it encountered even fiercer interception than the last.

This time, it didn’t even make it within three hundred meters before being precisely detonated in mid-air by several intersecting lightning bolts.

The violent explosion formed an even larger fireball in the sky, but by the time its shockwave reached the Eiffel Tower, it had weakened significantly, only causing the tower to sway slightly.

Seeing this, Chardonnet finally breathed a sigh of relief.

A smile returned to his pale face.

Since the Saxons’ long-range attacks posed no immediate threat, it was time for him to begin his ‘real work.’

Just as Master Eiffel had suspected, the reason this Seventh-Circle Necromancy Archmage risked so much to return to Paris, the so-called ‘defending Paris’… actually accounted for only a small part of his motivation.

More of it was his coveting of the massive treasure beneath Paris.

The Paris Catacombs.

That holy land where six million skeletons were buried, accumulating a century of aura of death and negative energy.

For Chardonnet, that was the ultimate hall of art he had pursued all his life.

Chardonnet could be described as a born Necromancer.

This talent was not only reflected in his awakening of spellcasting abilities at a young age but stemmed from a bone-deep, almost insane obsession with the powers of life and death, and an obsession with using this power to change the world.

No one knew how Chardonnet obtained the inheritance of the School of Necromancy— they only knew that this ‘genius’ had embarked on the path of a Necromancer from the moment of his awakening.

And his ‘talent’ in Necromancy was displayed vividly when Chardonnet was seventeen.

That year, to give his grandmother a ‘surprise’ at her birthday dinner, he secretly infiltrated the family cemetery…

Then, using the newly learned [Animate Dead], he ‘resurrected’ his grandfather, who had been dead for many years, and brought this ‘elder’ before his grandmother during dinner.

Of course, in the form of a complete skeleton.

He still remembered the expression on his grandmother’s face when he cheerfully helped his creaking grandfather into the dining room.

It was a complex expression mixed with extreme shock, terror, and bewilderment.

Then, unsurprisingly, the old lady rolled her eyes back and fainted directly from fright.

That night, the household was in chaos.

His parents sent his unconscious grandmother to the hospital overnight and never came back for Chardonnet.

That was also the last time Chardonnet saw his family.

This shocking act by the Necromancer naturally soon alerted the ‘Eye of the Loire’ Mage Corps.

Ultimately, the Mage Corps dispatched the then highly respected Master Pasteur, who took this wild mage under his wing as an apprentice and brought him back to the Mage Corps for supervision and education.

After being ‘taken in’ by the Mage Corps, the astounding talent Chardonnet displayed in Necromancy made the high command realize that this kid was indeed a once-in-a-century prodigy.

But at the same time, the impression most Mages in the corps had of him was surprisingly consistent—serious, dull, cold, arrogant, and solitary.

A freak who would rather keep company with corpses and skeletons than speak a word to the living.

He enjoyed solitude more than friendship.

But when Chardonnet turned his gaze to the massive labyrinth of bones beneath Paris, attempting to draw upon the vast negative energy within, the high command of the Mage Corps could finally sit still no longer.

They united to impose the strictest restrictions on him.

After all, this was Paris, the capital of the Gallic Republic, the center of the civilized world of Europa.

They would never allow anyone to turn this city into a massive Necromancy experiment ground.

Since then, Chardonnet had been waiting, waiting for an opportunity.

An opportunity where no one could restrict him anymore.

Today, he finally had it.

After confirming that the Saxons’ long-range attacks could not threaten the Eiffel Tower for the time being, Chardonnet extended his spiritual power into the core of the giant tower.

As he had expected, initially, the existence representing Master Eiffel’s will was filled with resistance and rejection toward him.

But after Chardonnet expressed that he only wanted to ‘borrow’ a portion of the power to ‘defend Paris,’ the other party, after a long silence, finally opened access to him.

When Chardonnet’s spirit connected with the tower’s surging, ocean-like mana, he felt as if he had become a god.

Endless power surged under his will.

He didn’t even need [Eagle Eye] to ‘see’ most of the urban area of Paris (the range of the Mage Tower’s spell amplification).

Chardonnet’s gaze penetrated the thick rock layers, casting toward the kingdom of the dead slumbering beneath the ground for a century.

In his ‘vision’, the vast area beneath Paris was filled with negative energy so dense it had almost materialized, flowing quietly like a black ocean among countless skeletons.

Waiting only for a voice to awaken them.

[Create Undead]… This is a powerful Sixth-Circle Spell capable of transforming remains into skeletons, ghouls, or wights depending on their condition…

But this spell also had significant limitations; it could only be cast at night, when negative energy was most active.

It was still daytime.

However, Chardonnet was not in a hurry; he had another option.

The Third-Circle Necromancy spell with which he had ‘made his name’ and entered the view of the Mage Corps—[Animate Dead].

Although this spell was not as powerful as [Create Undead], only able to create a skeleton or zombie at a time…

Such low-circle spells would receive even more obvious enhancement under the terrifying spell amplification of the Eiffel Tower.

The area of the Paris Catacombs was vast. Although the main entrance in the 14th Arrondissement was some distance away, its underground extensions had long entered the range of the Eiffel Tower’s spell amplification.

A nearly manic smile appeared on Chardonnet’s pale face.

He mobilized the power of the giant tower, pouring his will into the spell model engraved in his mind.

“Rise…”

“My loyal servants…”

“Offer your final loyalty to your city!”

His voice echoed in the main control hall.

The next second, the black ocean that had been silent for a century in the Paris Catacombs suddenly boiled!

Endless negative energy was activated by an invisible force, then flooded madly into the mountains of skeletons piled around.

Points of scarlet light began to shine in pairs of hollow eye sockets.

“Click… crack…”

The tooth-aching sound of bone friction rang out in the dark and deathly silent passages.

Skeleton after skeleton, piled within the walls, seemed pulled by invisible threads, beginning to slowly piece together, assemble, and then tremblingly stand up from the ground.

Scarlet soul fire burned in their hollow eye sockets as they looked blankly and emptily at this world they had long forgotten.

At first, only one or two awakened.

But soon, like a kindled wildfire, the wave of awakening began to spread at an astonishing speed toward the depths of the entire catacombs.

Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands…

Countless skeletons climbed out of the bone piles, converging into gray-black torrents surging through the narrow passages.

They had only one goal—the ground, filled with the aura of the living.

“Blocked again!”

At Gare de l’Est, Colonel Lucas watched the fireball detonating prematurely in the distant sky again, so angry he almost smashed the binoculars in his hand.

“Colonel, we can’t go on like this!”

Morin walked to his side, his face equally grim. He had realized that this giant tower had extremely strong targeted defenses against solid projectile weapons.

“The tower’s lightning interception range has expanded; we can’t hit it at all!”

“I know that!”

Lucas scratched his head irritably:

“But if we don’t attack like this, what else can we do? We can’t just watch!”

They were now stuck in a vicious cycle.

The airships’ conventional shelling couldn’t penetrate the bizarre electric shield.

‘Gungnir’s’ Radiant Crystal Reaction Shell was powerful enough, but it would be detonated early by the opponent’s lightning.

And because of the strong electromagnetic interference, they couldn’t contact the headquarters outside the city or the airships in the sky for effective coordinated operations.

“Colonel! Are you shell-shocked and forgot something…”

Morin looked speechlessly at the Train Commander before him. His look was like seeing a newbie get on a supporting war behemoth in a ‘final offensive’.

“You said yourself that ‘Gungnir’s’ Siege Barrage is the first mode. Does it have a second mode?”

Colonel Lucas slapped his forehead, as if suddenly enlightened:

“Right, right, there is indeed a second mode. I also just received this train not long ago…”

Morin shook his head speechlessly: “Then what is the second mode? Can it deal with that tower?”

“Uh, the second mode…”

A complex expression appeared on Lucas’s face. He glanced at the high-raised barrel of the ‘Gungnir’ and shook his head.

“Theoretically yes, but in our current position, we can’t use it.”

“Can’t use it? Why?” Morin was puzzled.

“Because the attack method of the second mode is completely different from now.”

Lucas explained:

“It’s not this kind of curved-trajectory shelling, but a ‘Direct Fire’ mode where the power is more concentrated, firing in a completely straight line.”

“Direct Fire Mode?”