What did you do with the dice?

After about another week, the noble coalition army that was supposed to serve as the flank had fallen behind Rusalka's army by a full day and a half of marching. They were now automatically transformed from the flank into the rear guard. It felt as shameful as being overtaken in a 1,000-meter race. Rusalka really didn't understand how their army could sleep at night?

We have to praise our good brother's foresight. If we really follow the traditional rules of the Kingdom of Snidi, we have to take care of their logistics and incorporate them into our own organization, then our marching speed will be dragged down by this group of trash. It's almost like playing the Uma Musume game and finding out that the first and last place can't be more than 20 horse lengths apart, so the escape is dragged down.

Leaving behind this group of useless guys, Rusalka and his loyal and powerful Shaddoll troops have reached a high slope where they can see the outline of Alice City.

It was a magical city with a large blue-purple transparent wide-area shield deployed. The top of the wizard tower that reached the clouds was firing laser beams at the dark army outside the city. Every shot meant taking the lives of a large number of soldiers. The shield still looked motionless after withstanding the bombardment of magic cannons, the attacks of those war machines, and the baptism of the combined spells of the wizard corps. It was like a magnificent and invulnerable large-scale magical city.

This is the royal city that is said to never fall, and it is also the place of decisive battle that will determine the future of the Kingdom of Sinidi. The four city walls, the four major forces in the open, and the four wizard towers have stood firm under four weeks of continuous saturation-intensity attacks.

What an unlucky number! Mida was furious.

So now Rusalka is here, with power +1, and his goal is to reduce the city wall and the wizard tower by -1.

As for the defense time, he had no choice but to let it stay at 4 weeks, the historical peak result, with no way to make any progress. He could only sincerely hope that Alice City would have a chance to find a chance to play a resurrection match in the future after his brothers and himself, holding the cat, returned to Earth to prove the value of his "Never Fall" strategy.

Just as they stopped, a dazzling light gathered from a magic circle and shot straight into the sky. The next moment, a small piece of dark cloud condensed in the sky above the army outside the city. Several thick lightning bolts fell with furious roars. Wherever the lightning passed, the army was instantly evaporated and burned, leaving behind a charred land.

Rusalka was stunned by this war magic, which was even more artistic than the one cast by the thunder dragon: (It's on fire! With the glory of the old war gods and knights, we will launch a final charge into the artillery fire of the new era. All knights, mount! Prepare to sprint!)

Sani Iron Tower: (Damn you! Hurry and order the troops to camp out of range. Send out scouts to scout the way. Clearly see which side is Great Duke Gode, which is the Golden Blade, which is the Dray family, and which is the Oaks family. Don't let your team go the wrong way. That won't be something you can just laugh off when you made mistakes before. We've already reached Alice City. Can we not be serious and try to take it down without making any mistakes?)

Rusalka reluctantly agreed.

Alas, brother, I really don’t understand the sentiment of the knight’s end, and the tragic atmosphere of the former overlord being crushed and eliminated by the wheels of history as generations change, and launching his last unwilling roar before death. This is also Rusalka’s favorite "epic feeling" part of the novel plot.

But novels are novels, and reality is reality. The real Rusalka will definitely break this tragic situation with her own hands. Just because I like it doesn’t mean I have to practice it myself, right? Whether it is a group game or reality, compared to the epic feeling of the plot, Rusalka still prefers the joy of using a strong build to bully the weak - I have ended up on the field myself, so I am really happy.

Moreover, there is no technology in this world, so he firmly believes that knights are more powerful than mages. Unless the opponent can take out a magic-driven Titan that is more than seven meters high, then he will stubbornly say that the "Emperor's Knights" are also a kind of "Knights", and they are ultimately the same in different ways.

----

Crossbows were raised, mud splashed as horses' hooves fell, and the two scout cavalry teams met in the middle of the road.

"Who are you from? If you don't tell me, I will treat you as an enemy!"

"We are the army of Lord Pearl Tear, what about you?"

"We are the army guarding the Grand Duke of Knights. Shouldn't your Pearl Tear Army be stationed at Calbes Slope? Why are you here? Do you have any identification?"

"Yes, here, let us see your proof too!"

The two sides threw the family emblems in their hands towards each other from a distance. After a friendly party dismounted and picked up the emblem to check, they confirmed each other's identities. Then they slowly put down the crossbows in their hands and threw the badge back.

But they still did not close the distance. After all, it was not impossible for other armies to pick up badges.

"Where is Lord Pearltear's army now? What are you doing here?"

"Are you kidding me? Do you think I'll tell you? Then tell me which gate your family's army is stationed at?"

After hearing this, the other party laughed and raised the crossbow in his hand again.

"So what now? Will you tell me or not?"

Not wanting to be outdone, the man here took out his crossbow again and aimed it at the opponent's head.

"You want to fight us? Do you really think that my brothers grew up eating vegetarian food? If you dare, just shoot an arrow at us!"

After both sides had been shouting for a long time, no one shot the first arrow. After everyone cursed at each other for a while, they left a few swear words and middle fingers, reined in their horses and turned away.

After they estimated that they had created a safe distance, the two sides tacitly walked around each other, one on the left and one on the right, and then continued to scout forward.

Who says you can't move forward until you kill all the enemy scouts? The lord's wife isn't here, so why risk your life just to explore the route? You explore yours, I explore mine, and we each complete our mission and report back. We all have a bright future together. Isn't that great?

Half a day later, Sani Iron Tower received a report from the returning sentinels: the army of Grand Duke Gode was at the west city wall, the east city wall, which had just been struck by lightning, was the army of Grand Duke Delai's family, and the north city wall was the Golden Blade Legion. As for the number of people, professional sentinels would need to be stationed there to observe for a few days before an approximate number could be estimated.

By the way, they encountered some spies from the army of Duke Gaode on the way. Considering that they were probably here to spy on military intelligence, they took the initiative to try to intercept them, but they were alert and ran very fast. In order to ensure the timeliness of the intelligence and prevent ambushes, they did not dare to pursue them further, so the position of the army may have been exposed to the other side.

The army's spies are like cockroaches. If one is discovered, it means there are more on the way. However, it doesn't matter if the location and power are exposed. Since they have brought 3+1 troops, they are not afraid of showing off.

Not only that, this group of scout cavalry also brought back a piece of good news that was enough to boost the morale of the army: in the area of ​​the north city wall that the Golden Blade was responsible for, the mage tower on the northeast side had exploded and completely ceased to exist.

It is said that the great saint Theresa came to the scene in person and summoned "Wright's Forgiveness", which was the purifying beam that directly razed the small village in the past. The beam directly penetrated the barrier that seemed to be defenseless against magic and blew up the wizard tower with the surging power of holy light. The power generated by the magic explosion even blew off a section of the fine iron wall next to it.

If it weren't for the outer magic barrier preventing the army from entering, Esdi's Golden Blade Legion would have rushed into the city by now.

However, this attack, which was comparable to a small tactical nuclear bomb, seemed to have exhausted the strength of her and the Golden Blade. Moreover, the barrier in the northern city wall area showed no signs of being weakened due to the loss of a wizard tower. Alice's tenacity was beyond Theresa's expectations.

They lost a large number of Paladin troops in attacking the city and attracting firepower to ensure that Theresa could successfully use her magic. When they retreated later, they were hit by a round of retaliatory magic and finally withdrew to a range of several kilometers away to rest and regroup. It seemed that they could not organize another siege in the short term, which also allowed the garrison of the enemy's northern wall to support other positions.

As for the other two sides of the city walls, they can only be described as a pile of mud. After fighting for so long, there is no visible result. It all depends on the magicians in the army to cast spells to penetrate the barrier and kill the defenders, but the effect is very poor. In the end, they can only resort to cutting off the opponent's supply line. They don't know how much supplies the defenders have. They can only attack to consume the opponent's physical strength and magic power, and use human lives to waste time.

It's really useless. It seems that the golden blade of Esdi and Theresa next door are really powerful. They destroyed a strategic point with one move.

But this was not good news for Sanita. He did not think Theresa was the kind of person who would spare no effort. If she could launch another attack of this scale with divine power, it would be really bad news for his army.

Moreover, Theresa's personal presence at the front line itself is huge bad news. It means that Hydra's prophecy is accurate, and Theresa may have no reason to leave the cathedral at all. Everything is just her misunderstanding. In fact, she can freely travel around the world to carry out her final plan and reap faith in person.

"Hey, Theresa has always been very kind to me. She gave me free benefits, allowing me to see the warmth of a heart in this world without the internet. She also sent me troops early on to help stabilize my territory, and traded me so much good equipment. Even though they all exploded, their residual warmth turned into experience points, allowing me to continuously grow stronger."

Rusalka sighed, "It's a pity she stole my spoils and summoned the Lord of Hell to kill my sister-in-law and you. Is this the love-hate relationship between Naruto and Sass? The most important thing is that our boss Sass is ruthless and cruel, destroying flowers with his bare hands. Flowers...flowers bloom and prosper, and the key is persistence, the unwavering desire to achieve the ultimate goal by any means necessary. So, Ai Li, Ai Li, you may never see your childhood best friend again in this life, Ai Men~"

Sanita raised his eyebrows: "What do you want to say?"

Rusalka opened the private chat channel. She couldn't let Maomao hear what she was about to say: (I'm going to buy Theresa a personal accident insurance policy now. Can I be the beneficiary? Alice City hasn't been conquered yet, just like our marriage. We haven't even considered a divorce yet. Isn't war a cooling-off period?)

Sanitieta was amused by him: (You potential shrimp offender! Get ready to go on Xiaohongshu!)

Never mind, no matter what, Rusalka's words still have some twisted logic. At least for now, Theresa is indeed not going to turn against us, and judging from the results, she has done good things for the besiegers. Let's send someone to contact her. Since her army is defeated, let's see if we can get some benefits to let our own army continue from the south.

"Let the army rest for a day today. Before we officially launch a tentative attack on the South Gate tomorrow, I will arrange your respective tasks. Tomorrow morning, you will perform your duties according to this plan."

Sanita called everyone to a meeting and assigned tasks to each person one by one.

"Charens, lead the heavy infantry to hold this high ground. Take over the nobles' troops behind you. Keep your sights on this point and wait for my signal before moving up."

If they had just met, Challens might have asked why Sanita didn't let him enter the royal city first. Even if he wanted to protect him, why didn't he let himself lead the heavy infantry to hold the line first.

Now, he found that what he read in military books could not be compared with the actual command level of Sanita Iron Tower. He was too lazy to use his brain and just listened to Commander Sanita.

"I'll send an envoy to ask the neighboring Great Duke of God for some siege equipment. Caster, you will lead the light infantry and the borrowed equipment, along with the armies of the nobles, to this position and coordinate with the Great Duke of God's family to the west to launch a feint attack. Our primary goal is to preserve our forces as much as possible."

"understood."

"Sarot, you should still command the Knights of the Star. Wait until the barrier is gone and the gate is open before charging. If it's convenient for you, you can send an envoy to inform the Golden Blade troops in the north. It would be best if you could also ask them to borrow some equipment for the siege."

Alice's door will open by itself? Well, although he thought it sounded a bit outrageous, the person in front of him was a great wizard, and it was possible that he could do things that were impossible with common sense.

"Normally, with just a few of us, it's unlikely we'd be able to break through Alice City's outer barrier. The remaining three wizard towers and their powerful magical firepower aren't just for show. Since this barrier isn't immune to magic, it's almost certain the 'magic core' inside is the same one I have in my hand. It's a relic treasure that automatically absorbs the magic power escaping from the outside world as energy. This energy is then emitted or used to strengthen the barrier through the wizard's self-regulatory rituals at the top of the towers, effectively creating a self-circulating system.

And since it's been going on for over a hundred years, it means the system is quite mature, and the conversion costs are minimal. Even the Shit Mountain code has been optimized, so the day when the energy consumption rate exceeds the charging rate, leading to energy depletion, is almost impossible. I also strongly suspect that there are many absorption magic items buried underground in the large barrier outside. If that's the case, I dare not imagine the conversion rate. Maybe we will lose more than it can recover."

Sanita pointed to the Alice City defense map Gao Hong had provided him. "Each corner Mage Tower has at least two magic cannons on its upper floors. That's a total of about ten magic cannons as controllable fire support. Since they're connected to the Mage Tower's magic power supply, they don't require the mages' magic power to recharge. These magic cannons alone are enough to inflict terrible damage to the army. That ancient invention of the Time Master is truly ruthless."

"Four Mage Towers, working in pairs to protect one side of the city wall, won't deprive the entire wall of its firepower even if one fails. Furthermore, the shielding provided by the Mage Towers should be connected in a square pattern via ley lines. Therefore, until at least two Mage Towers on a particular side are extinguished, the shield strength on that side should remain guaranteed."

"To sum up, if we want to capture the outer city, we must first extinguish the mage towers on both sides."

"The others will join me later. From now on, put the army on martial law to protect me while I cast my ultimate spell to extinguish one of the enemy's mage towers."

"OK?"

This is the value of the archmages in the kingdom, of which there are no more than a handful. Even the elf Alice next door, who currently cannot even cast a fireball, would raise her chest proudly when she talks about her teacher being the archmages of Snidi, who can cast top-level magic.

Everyone's gaze instantly grew heated: Is it coming? Sanita's ultimate move as the Grand Mage, his second world-class magic performance!

Rusalka: (We will win!)

Sanita: (Go away, you crow's mouth!)

Chapter 262: Fierce Battle Outside the Kingdom's Capital Castle (2)

When Sanita said he was going to use top-level magic, except for the two elves who had not arrived yet, a thrilling scene seemed to appear before everyone's eyes: a dozens-meter-tall earth elemental Titan rose from the ground with the effect of magic, took earth-shaking steps, and walked towards the city wall under the surging magical firepower.

The stones that made up its body gleamed with magical light, and its outer shell was constantly shattered by the stubborn resistance of the Mage Tower and the soldiers on the city wall. The beams of the magic cannon left pits and scars on its body, but it stood stubbornly on the ground like the dark form of Pirri with five materials (full resistance not affected by any other cards).

Unstoppable, indestructible! He reached the shield and swung his fist, which was as big as a house, to pound the barrier. Each blow was as terrifying as a heavy blow to the defenders' hearts.

This is the clash between the world's most advanced magic and the world's most powerful magical castle! It's on fire!

This scene is so epic, much more shocking than that of the slime demon lord. Being able to fight side by side with such a great wizard, even if you can only be an insignificant ant-sized background in this picture, is enough to be a pride worth bragging about for a lifetime.

Compared to the other officers eagerly awaiting their orders, Rusalka was already impatient. Although she couldn't fire the magic cannon, she could finally fulfill her wish of pretending to pilot a mecha: (If you're going to use that giant Titan to smash the wall, can you let me ride on it?)

Sanitta thought about it. If Rusalka rode on the Titan he summoned and gave some random commands in the private chat channel, it would be more like a combination of a snowman and Nunu rather than experiencing driving a mecha, or a cosplay to restore the history - after the Tang Dynasty, it was the Song Dynasty.

Of course, he had no intention of summoning that thing. Wouldn't that be a waste of mana and precious materials? :(Obviously, it's not necessarily possible to break the barrier purely by physical means, and the enemy's wall is made of cast iron, which the Rock Titan can't absorb. Therefore, I don't intend to summon such a bulky and useless thing that only looks good.)

What? I can’t drive a mecha.

Rushaka immediately lost interest in this "top magic". His brother was having fun with magic, and he could only watch with envy. He simply turned a blind eye and prepared to take a long rest early.

Sani Tieta never drags his feet when doing things. He takes action immediately if he can. After arranging the guards and sentries around him, he began to disperse the "irrelevant people" around who still wanted to watch the fun, and started to arrange the spellcasting ceremony and environment for himself.

He has now basically achieved the freedom to cast high-level magic spells, and he started working immediately. He set up a large number of blessing spells and protective arrays around himself, and also asked Esdi's priest and paladin to beat an egg and a sausage into the perfect instant noodles he gave him - and cast some mental enhancement spells.

He was fighting for wealth and was burning money, because he had accumulated a large amount of precious materials corresponding to magic, and he didn't even need to use magic hands to transform them.

You ask him where he got so many materials that are just perfect for magic?

There is no other reason, just a bug.

This is mainly due to the two minor talents [Frugal Household] and [Magic Hands+], the exclusive ability [You Do This!], and the enthusiastic combination of a good brother who can automatically restore his health to full after sleeping for 8 hours.

Release the corresponding high-level magic into the air every day, and use [Magic Hand +] to transform the garbage materials in your hand into the high-level materials needed for casting spells.

High-level magic often requires a certain amount of preparation time. At this time, forcibly interrupt the spell and use [You Do This!] on Rusalka to transfer the cost of the spell's backlash to him and deduct his health. This way, [Frugality] will prevent the converted material from being consumed due to spell failure.

Moreover, this material will not turn back into the original garbage material, but will be preserved in its current form. In this way, it is equivalent to Sanita using magic power and Rusalka using blood volume to forcibly turn the waste into the material required for a corresponding high-level spell.

If a high-level spell fails, the backlash will directly ignore resistance and deduct 150 health points. Rusalka has 224 health points, plus the 280 health points provided by the Holy Healing Pool, so he can create exactly 3 materials during a long rest, and also leave some HP for Phoenix to try. It is very humane.

Normally for a mage, a mid-level spell backlash would almost kill him, and a high-level spell backlash would kill him directly. Even if he managed to survive, his magic circuits would be severely damaged. At the very least, it would take one or two years to recover, and at worst, he would suffer from a lifelong illness.

The same goes for magic power. Once the magic power is emptied, a normal wizard needs to meditate for a whole day, or 24 hours, to replenish it. Even if there is a secret technique that speeds up meditation, it can only shorten the meditation time by a few hours at most.

But what does this have to do with Rusalka, who automatically recovers full HP after an eight-hour long rest, and Sanita, who automatically recovers full MP after a four-hour long rest?

The only thing to note is that some spell materials cannot be obtained in this way, such as the high-level magic [Word of Intimidation]: say a sentence with a [Stun] effect to the designated target within 100 meters. The target needs to make a [Perception] immunity. If it fails, it will fall into the [Stun] state for 1 second, directly interrupting the spell concentration and causing backlash.

The material required for this spell is [Evil Ink]. When casting the spell, you need to guide the ink material to burn to draw the spell pattern to perform the casting action. For spells like this that require consuming materials before casting, you cannot use [Magic Hand +] to convert the materials first, then interrupt the casting and then return the materials. Because you don't have this [Evil Ink], you can't meet the prerequisites for casting the spell. From a judgment point of view, you will not be allowed to use [Magic Hand +] to convert in advance.

Similar to [Fireball], after drawing the magic rune, you can carve it on a bat dung ball, and then input magic power to turn it into a fireball and shoot it out. In this case, after drawing the rune, you can turn the material on your hand into a bat dung ball and carve it on it. During the magic input stage, you can directly interrupt the spell casting, and the spell will be judged as a failure, and a [brand new bat dung ball without the rune engraved] will be returned.

So along the way, Sani Tieta has collected nearly 30 corresponding spell materials by brushing material bugs. Putting aside the basic elements of time and magic that spellcasting still requires, it is not an exaggeration to say that this [thriftiness] is [alchemy] - after all, these materials can even be sold for money, although Sani Tieta will not sell them.

However, this phenomenon of increasing entropy aroused his curiosity as a seeker of knowledge. If everything in this world is "equal substitution", magic power will only switch between forms. The so-called magic is just to construct runes to make magic power do some incredible things through different aggregation and combination methods, and it cannot generate non-existent things out of thin air.

It seems that only his and Rusalka's "skills" can break this common sense of balance of all things. Why is that?

If "gods" exist outside the bounds of "rules," and if, let's say, the sky beyond the Eternal Plane is also the universe, and they can truly draw energy from the universe into the Eternal Plane, allowing it to circulate within this world and "add magic or other physical energy out of thin air," then who gave Sanitita and Rusalka, the nonbelievers, this ability to conjure objects from thin air? The DM who cast them into this world, a person they'd never met before?

If he is the DM, which of the twelve gods does he play? Or is he the final king of the Rusalka Pact?

Sunny Iron Tower rubbed a piece of stone in his hand, which was cold enough to frostbite an ordinary person's fingers, but there was no chill around the stone. This was a piece of chaotic metal that would give people who touched it an "illusion", making people think that what they were holding in their hands was something "very hot", "very cold", "very prickly", etc. It could even affect the brain's feedback, making the body produce too realistic feedback, which could cause harm, such as burns or frostbite.

This "drop of a high-level spiritual element" that originally only existed in an obscure elemental plane was usually an extremely rare material that could only be obtained by summoning and killing the opponent. However, it was now created by the "synthetic alchemy" of the Sani Iron Tower.

Forget it. Why bother thinking about such complicated things? What does it have to do with me after I return to Earth?

Top magic, start!

Sani Tieta spread the materials on the ground, and the fluctuations of magic power gathered around him. He held a staff in one hand and wrote runes in the air with the other. With the blessing of his skills, the speed of his chanting seemed to be fastened 8 times, turning into a series of continuous sounds with almost indistinguishable independent syllables, and the speed of his hands was as fast as a typewriter, printing magic runes at high speed in the air.

Taking into account those scattered bonuses, this is the value of the key attribute of spellcasting +22. According to the expected value of 11 on the d20 dice roll, Sanita is now as fast as a wizard with three times the strength.

He sent out his magical pet eagle from the sky as his second pair of eyes, responsible for clearly locating the position of the target, and his spell was aimed directly at the wizard tower in the front right!

Rusalka, who was having a snack outside the tent, saw that everyone around him was pointing at his head in amazement. He raised his head and looked back in the direction of their fingers. Wow, he saw thick clouds suddenly gathered in the sky, as if a huge white curtain covered the sky, and the sun's rays became dim behind the clouds.

There was a suffocating feeling of oppression in the air. As the good brother cast the spell, the clouds in the sky gradually formed the shape of a tornado, spiraling downward layer by layer, and finally converging behind him, just above the tent where the good brother cast the spell.

Even a wizard apprentice whose perception of magic was still vague could find that the clouds were not formed spontaneously, but were torn and pulled down from the sky by an extremely large attributeless magic vortex, which added such a magnificent visible coat to the originally invisible and transparent attributeless magic vortex.

This is the pre-casting of top-level magic. Each top-level magic will trigger a large-scale phenomenon in the heaven and earth. Even a layman who knows nothing about magic can feel the oppression and terror of the impending storm and the destruction of the mountains.

Rusalka was envious. The scene of casting a spell that was comparable to the regional broadcast was really cool: "Oh my god! Fellow Daoist He Fang is here to overcome the tribulation!"

In the army of the Great Duke Gaode, an old mage who had been sitting in meditation opened his eyes. He quickly stood up, brushed aside the guards around him, and walked out the door. Leaning against the balcony railing, he looked in the direction of the Sani Tower. "Such a powerful fluctuation of non-attribute magic! There's actually a great mage in this world who has mastered non-attribute spells. The magic guidance line has reached that mage tower. Is he planning to launch a spell attack from such a long distance? I've never seen such a confident mage before. Who could it be?"

"Sir, I heard that Lord Pearl Tear has a great wizard named Sanitieta under his command. Could it be him?"

The old wizard shook his head. "Impossible, absolutely impossible. I've inquired. He's a master wizard specializing in the earth element. You don't understand magic, so how could you possibly know how difficult it is to master the elements? Casting top-level magic with a single attribute is the limit of human talent, unless you're favored by the Supreme Arcane Master like Anthony. That's why he's a dual-attribute master of fire and space."

"I just don't know which new master will appear. The world is really going to change~"

He looked at the vortex and sighed softly.