Witch Special

The demon army retreated for the second time.

The Xiaxiu Sect suffered heavy losses, forcing them to retreat and regroup. Without the Xiaxiu Sect's involvement, the fragile magicians of the Tarakuta Ancient Library and the Second Covenant were unable to break through the Silent City's mechanical army's defenses, so they had no choice but to retreat, setting up camp outside of Silent City and waiting for the Xiaxiu Sect to recover.

The Xiaxiu Sect had its struggles, too. While the majority of its members were roughnecks, one might even say they were all villains, who said villains lacked loyalty? Quite the contrary, the Xiaxiu Sect's cohesion rested on the camaraderie forged while doing evil together. Now, with so many of their "brothers" dead, the morale of the Xiaxiu Sect's fighters was visibly low. Even Richard, the Heartbreaker who led the charge, fell silent for a rare moment. Counting the losses, he realized that many of his closest associates had also been killed. Recalling the happy days of drinking, eating, and boxing together, Richard felt a pang of grief.

The demonic army retreated, temporarily alleviating the crisis in Silent City. They began to count the losses and recover the damaged parts. Meanwhile, the Sanctuary of Annihilation and the Sanctuary of Birth opened fire, striving to replenish the lost robots.

At this point, Lin Zhenxi no longer dismissed the mass-produced robots as useless, as facts had proven that, once deployed in large numbers, they were quite formidable, even capable of crushing the demon army. If it weren't for Tarakuta's legion magic's overwhelming suppression of the densely packed mechanical army, Buffon's mechanical army alone would have been able to crush the demon army in the square at the entrance to the Silent City tower, forcing them to fight to the death without even a single step forward.

The advantage of quantity, quantitative change leads to qualitative change, no matter how you say it, that's how it is.

While Silent City won the battle, it wasn't without cost. First, Nemegate suffered a severe blow, something Lin Zhenxi witnessed firsthand. A black sphere appeared directly in front of Nemegate's chest, instantly devouring most of his reactor, effectively crippling the most crucial part of his body.

Having lost its ability to move, Nemegate fell from the sky, then was subjected to indiscriminate artillery bombardment and legion magic from both the Silent City and Tarakuta. Luckily, its sturdy construction saved it from damage. However, by the time Silent City's engineering robots dug Nemegate out of the pit, its state was utterly deplorable, practically shattered. If not for the intact core of its sealed mind, it would have likely been scrapped and rebuilt.

But even so, Nemegt had already lost the opportunity to participate in the next battle. Its body was too severely damaged, so it could only be re-arranged with a new body. The reactor on its chest was very difficult to manufacture, and it would take several days to build it.

In a few days, guess how many rounds of attacks the demon army can launch.

Besides Nemegate, who withdrew from the battle, another officer in Silent City had also died: Algos, who was in charge of the condensing mirror. Lin Zhenxi only learned from Buffon that Silent City's protective shield was connected to the condensing mirror. However, a green-robed female mage from the demonic army breached the shield, damaging the condensing mirror and killing Algos, whose life depended on it.

The problem with the concentrator is easy to deal with. We can ask the Iron-Fisted Princess Kabali or the Idol of Light Horus to go and repair it and it will probably be usable again. However, the problem with Argos is difficult to solve because Argos also has a small concentrator on his body, which is connected to its core. When the concentrator was smashed, the concentrator on Argos was also broken, and the core of Argos was directly taken in with it. As a result, the core of Argos is now full of cracks and can no longer operate normally.

This injury was even more serious than Nemegate's. It could be said that apart from the Apostle Luke himself, no one in the entire Silent City could cure Argos.

But Apostle Luke is now at a critical moment and has no time to repair Argos, so Argos can only enter a dormant state and wait until everything is over before seeing if there is any other way.

However, without Algos's guidance, the operation of the concentrator would become very rigid, and it could only barely maintain the basic functions of its original design, that is, collecting "light" and then transmitting it to the Dance of Light through the Eternal Corridor. As for the protective shield covering the giant tower of the Silent City, forget it.

In the initial encounter between the Demon Realm army and Silent City, it's hard to say who gained the upper hand. While the Demon Realm army suffered numerous casualties, they didn't lose much in the way of high-end combat power; those killed were cannon fodder and members of the Kashou sect. Meanwhile, Silent City, while losing only free robots and the energy-hungry Asura Rhinoceros Beetles, did suffer the loss of two Tarot Card officers.

There are only twenty-two "Tarot Cards" in the Silent City. Each of them has his or her own mission and is very valuable.

Anyway, now that Nemegate and Argos have withdrawn from the battle sequence, the concentrator is actually not a big deal. After all, Apostle Luke has collected enough "light", and the importance of the concentrator has dropped significantly. But the energy furnace is completely unguarded.

The Energy Furnace is a core component of Silent City's energy system and the source of all its energy. If the Energy Furnace is lost, Silent City will have to rely on its energy reserves and the backup Energy Furnace located in the core area to maintain operations. The backup Energy Furnace's energy output is much lower than that of the Energy Furnace. If the Energy Furnace is truly lost, Silent City will be forced into a low-power operation state, rendering many of its defenses ineffective and making it impossible to maintain the size of its mechanical army.

So, why should such a critical infrastructure be placed on the outskirts of Silent City?

There was no other way around it, as Silent City's boundless energy source actually came from the Dimensional Sea. A section of the city's outer layer was filled with probes that pulled in dimensional energy. The energy was gathered and processed in the Energy Furnace. Therefore, the Energy Furnace could only be located on the outskirts of Silent City, in the middle and upper reaches of the city, a very high position.

The Silent City itself is a giant dimensional weapon. Ordinary energy is too low-end. The dimensional sea is filled with a large amount of chaotic energy. It is reasonable to capture these dimensional energies and utilize them, isn't it?

It was also the first time that Lin Zhenxi heard that the energy source of Silent City was actually dimensional energy. She had actually always thought that the energy of Silent City was geothermal. After all, one had to cross a bridge to get from the outer city of Silent City to the inner city. If one looked down from the bridge, one could see a bright red liquid similar to magma flowing deep below.

But that was actually the Silent City's concentrated energy liquid, a processed, high-energy liquid similar to Lin Zhenxi's magic essence, but without the need for excessive external pressure, it was directly in liquid form. However, this energy liquid was extremely viscous, lacking fluidity, and possessed an extremely high temperature. Compared to the directly absorbed magic essence, it had many disadvantages.

Anyway, Buffon told Lin Zhenxi that the bottom of the Silent City was actually Mistel's territory, and one of her important daily jobs was to promote the smooth flow of energy liquids in the energy pipelines to ensure that they were transported to where they needed to go.

So the biggest problem of Silent City now is that there is a gap in the defense of the energy furnace. This is a big problem. The safety of that place is related to the normal operation of a series of facilities in Silent City, and someone must guard it.

But now that Nemegt has been destroyed, he will certainly be unable to continue to perform his duties.

Buffon was also responsible for this. After all, if Buffon hadn't moved Nemegate to the lower level to serve as a fixed turret, and Nemegate hadn't impulsively run down and engaged the Kashuians in close combat, it wouldn't have been damaged. From a causal perspective, Buffon couldn't escape responsibility for this incident.

Each of the Tarot officers in Silent City had their own responsibilities, practically one person per job, with no one idle. So Buffon had no choice but to turn his attention to Lin Zhenxi and Norni, the only newcomers to Silent City in recent years. Currently, they were merely secondary members of the Tarot, not yet full-fledged officers. Their duties in Silent City were limited to assisting Rossello and guarding the antechamber of the Sanctuary of Birth.

Honestly, with Lin Zhenxi and Norni's abilities, a job like gatekeeping was a gross overkill. Previously, each position had its own assigned person, so even if they wanted to move elsewhere, they couldn't. But now that the Energy Furnace guard position was vacant, Buffon planned to transfer Lin Zhenxi or Norni over to handle the situation.

Buffon actually didn't think the Energy Furnace would be invaded. Her calculations put the probability of an invasion at several decimal places. After all, the Energy Furnace was located in the upper-middle floors of the Silent City Tower, beyond the reach of the Demon Realm. To attack the Energy Furnace, one would either have to enter from the top of Silent City or launch a surprise attack from the Dimensional Sea. The former corresponded to the Celestial Realm, while the latter involved cosmic demons. Both possibilities were extremely low.

But this is not a reason to leave the energy furnace unguarded. The energy furnace must be guarded by someone, and the most suitable people to go there now are Lin Zhenxi or Noelni.