Alice in the Land of Steam

Chapter 1101 Is this the only way?

Have you ever seen whaling at sea?

Writer Melvib described it this way: "... several small boats and sampans were first dispatched, cruising back and forth around the whale, attracting its attention and making it anxious. In the process, they had to be careful not to be hit by the waves raised by this big guy. This was no less than teasing its beard under the claws of a tiger. Therefore, only the most courageous and skilled sailors could undertake this dangerous task. After that, the whaler following the whale launched a dozen hooks in succession, and at the end of them were huge and sharp fish hooks, which pierced through the thick skin and deeply penetrated into the flesh. The behemoth suddenly made a creepy sound. Screaming, struggling and rolling constantly, trying to break free or resist. But at this time, the whaler usually does not engage in direct confrontation with it, but maintains a safe distance, walking with it like a hunter training a dog, waiting for the guy to get tired, and then speeding up to close the distance. Then, the bravest fisherman will jump onto the back of the whale along the hook line and cut its flesh with a sharp machete or harpoon... This scene reminds me of how ants deal with their enemies. A primitive and bloody slaughter is carried out alive like this, and it does not stop until the poor big guy dies..."

When Olvera read this passage, she was impressed by the unity, bravery and fearlessness of human beings, and at the same time she lamented the fate of those beautiful and lovely sea creatures. She knew that civilization and nature were always fighting each other, and the conflict between humans and animals was only a conflict of survival, which had nothing to do with other things. But at that time, she never thought that one day she would become a witness to such a plot, especially as a whale.

In this new interpretation of the plot, the fishhook is replaced by a huge steel-gray anchor, because ordinary fishhook obviously cannot trap the Cloud Whale Sky Island under Iyeta's control. The same tactic was actually used once by the enemy commander in the previous breakout battle, but the target of the tactic was the Lancer machine and the gravity anchor device on the machine, and what they had to face was not the ordinary Cloud Whale Sky Island, but the Sky Titan Arus, which was covered with armor under the blessing of Alice's game console. Obviously, the power of these small and medium-sized machines alone is not enough to shake its authority.

However, the anchors that were falling all over the sky at this moment came from the Iron Guardian, a silent and solemn armed fortress that quietly floated in the void. They collectively launched anchors at the critical moment when the Cloud Whale Sky Island was about to escape the encirclement. These anchors were not weapons carried by the warships themselves. Their purpose was the same as their counterparts at sea, which was to stabilize the hull in the turbulent storm or waves and prevent the large ship from losing balance.

In the vast universe, there are disasters that are more terrifying than natural storms and waves, that is, interstellar storms caused by the activities of extraterrestrial disaster beasts. Especially when the fleet of the Witch Society fights against extraterrestrial disaster beasts, the energy generated by the latter driven by pain and anger may increase the scale of interstellar storms by several levels. Therefore, in every battle, the Iron Guardian needs to drop anchors and use these heavy anchors made of magic-conducting metal to maintain its status. Among all the aircrafts of the Interstellar Cruise Force, only it will carry anchoring components. This is determined by the special positioning of the Iron Guardian. This type of warship will not directly participate in the battle, but mainly assumes the role of stabilizing the defense line, replenishing troops, and providing transfer stations and support points for front-line combat units.

But in this battle, Commander Fisher magically changed his mind and fired the anchor parts that were not weapons as weapons, trying to replicate the tactics that failed not long ago. And this time he was obviously successful. Hundreds of steel chains dragging heavy anchors crossed the sky and fell towards the Yunjing Sky Island that was moving at full speed. Many of them fell into the air due to the mistakes of the operators who did not calculate the speed and lead time, but there were still more than a dozen hooks that accurately bit the whale's body.

These anchoring parts were originally made to stabilize the hull in interstellar storms, so they were naturally made extremely heavy. When they landed with a huge impact force, the entire Yunjing Sky Island seemed to be shaking, soil and rocks were splashing, hills were sunken, and a large area of ​​nearby forests collapsed. The earthquake that Olvera felt just now came from this. The anchor, which had been worn and rusted by the storms day after day, tore through the ground in an instant and embedded deeply into the sky island, just like a fishhook piercing the flesh of a whale, and then biting every thick blood vessel and every strong fiber. Clang! The chain was tightened to the limit at once. Each iron ring on the chain was as big as a Lancer body, and at this moment they all let out a trembling whine.

It can be clearly felt that the speed of Yunjing Sky Island has slowed down.

"Yieta?" As the actual commander, Ling Ge was the one who felt it most deeply. Perhaps because he had expected that this battle would not be easy, he was not frightened by the sudden change and was able to remain calm. He asked, "Can't we break free from them?"

"No, no!"

Yieta said in a panic: "If we continue to speed up, these anchors will tear the sky island apart!"

Tear apart?

The young man frowned slightly and soon understood what Yieta meant. If Yunjingkong Island was a living creature, a real whale, then it would not matter if a part of its flesh and blood was torn off, just like a lizard would cut off its tail to survive. But the problem was that Yunjingkong Island was not a living creature. It was an aggregate of rocks and soil, a part that was forcibly separated from the earth. It was completely held together by Yieta's royal power, and the anchors and chains that bit it were all launched from different directions. If you want to break free by speed, it is equivalent to enduring brute force tearing from more than a dozen directions at the same time. A whale with no skeleton but only flesh and blood will eventually be torn into pieces.

Not to mention that the other end of the chain is the heavy fortress ship of the Star Cruise Force, the Iron Guardian. They are using their own weight and engine power as anchors, trying to fix the Cloud Whale Sky Island, which is being pulled by the anchor, in place. At this time, the relationship between the ship and the anchor seems to be reversed. The Iron Guardian has become the anchor point, and the Cloud Whale Sky Island is the object they want to anchor. However, the latter is unwilling to accept this tough bondage and is still trying to break free from the anchor and chain. Every time they struggle, the condensed soil and rocks make a terrifying whine, and cracks quickly spread along the surface of the sky island, like the mouth of a giant beast, swallowing up the soil, grass, and even the plank road that the stone guards have worked so hard to lay.

Yieta could clearly feel that her body was being torn apart by more than a dozen forces from different directions. In order to avoid the worst outcome, she could only try carefully, repeatedly testing the most appropriate speed and strength, and did not dare to break free from the chains directly as Linger expected. However, this was the power of the young girl's royal power after all. Even if it was a cautious test, it was an unimaginable force for the Iron Guard. The operators in the fortress were horrified to find that the warship, which could stand still in the interstellar storm after dropping anchor, was actually pushed away from its original orbit slowly and firmly as the Cloud Whale Sky Island struggled, and fell to the central area involuntarily as if it was attracted by a huge whirlpool.

If this situation is allowed to continue, before the Cloud Whale Sky Island is torn apart, they will self-destruct due to the over-powered operation of their engines!

"Communication, Commander Fisher!" A captain shouted loudly, with beads of cold sweat oozing from his forehead. "We have completed the mission, but the combat troops must capture the enemy's defense line within half an hour, otherwise--"

What else? He didn't say it, but everyone knew it.

Fisher may have understood this principle better than him, so he even issued an order before the Iron Guard dropped anchor, asking the Sky Falcon and the Lancers to shut down all unnecessary auxiliary functions, run the engines at full power, and maximize their speed, just to capture this hard-won opportunity in time. So, when the Cloud Whale Sky Island was restrained by the Iron Guard and its speed inevitably slowed down, the fire support from the combat troops followed closely. One after another, the warships shaped like flying falcons arrived above the sky island. They did not launch an offensive immediately, but dispersed in a column formation, surrounding the sky island from different directions, up, down, left and right. The spire-shaped building at the end of the warship emitted rays like electric currents. They looked unstable, flickering from time to time, as if they would disappear in the next second, but once connected with other rays, they would instantly form a resonant structure. The rays first drew straight lines, then outlined upwards, closing each other. In six different directions, six huge dark blue crystal walls gradually closed together, forming a huge polyhedron.

This is a real cage, and it is also one of the special weapons used by the Star Cruise Force to hunt extraterrestrial disaster beasts. It is a special stand device, the so-called magic blocking stand, which absorbs the high and low energy magic within the stand range and strengthens its own defense. In other words, the more fiercely the enemy resists within the stand range, the more stable the stand itself is, and it is difficult to break from the inside.

At the same time, the Lancers who arrived at the battlefield also began to land on the Sky Island under the command of the commander, just like the whalers in the Middle Ages, they jumped onto the whale's back along the hook, intending to dismember it with the sharp blades in their hands. And just as Saint Shalia and Ling Ge expected, the head and wings of the whale were regarded as a good springboard by them. Landing here not only ensures the superiority of vision, but also effectively curbs the mobility of the Sky Island.

The only problem is that you will encounter enemy resistance.

……

In the sky, the Countess swung her huge blood-red sickle to her heart's content, stirring up one piercing storm after another. The scarlet hurricane covered the entire horizon that the naked eye could see, as if it had turned into a ruthless meat grinder. A team of Lancers tried to land from the side and launch a close-range attack on the enemy, but they were drowned by the oncoming storm the moment they approached. There was no sign of any fight in the bloody rain and wind, only the terrifying screams of steel and machinery could be heard, followed by a rapid and violent roar. The flash of the magic engine explosion flashed away, and the red star turned into countless bright raindrops, which fluttered and scattered.

The shock wave caused by the explosion swept past, causing the Countess's long snow-white hair to flutter in the wind, but she had no mind to take care of it. At this moment, she no longer cared about her aristocratic demeanor. There was only coldness and harshness on her noble and beautiful face.

The bloody sickle in her hand was forty to fifty meters long, and could be said to be a weapon of a giant or a dragon, so she did not swing it with brute force, but with unimaginable magic. Behind her, a pair of black bat wings spread out like the dark night, and a bright silver moon rose in the middle, bringing precious light under the dark sky of the universe - magic that only demigod vampires can master, "Night Mother's Scythe" and "Moon's First Embrace", the former is power, and the latter is endurance. Vampires who can use these two magics at the same time are qualified to call themselves ancestors, and can even be included in the must-kill list of the Night Watch or the Inquisition, although no one would think this is an honor.

After landing on the Cloud Whale Sky Island, if the super-sized existence such as the Young Girl's Royal Power is not counted, the Sequence 4 Demigod Blood Clan is the most powerful frontal combat force, but the Countess has never had the opportunity to fully exert her strength. In the battle of Lenwitting City, she needed to take into account escape, and when she broke through the blockade of the Star Cruise Force for the first time, she was alone and could not intervene in such a cosmic-scale battle. Until this moment, she was finally able to demonstrate her military power, blocking the endless stream of Association Mechas with her thin body, blocking their advance.

If possible, she would rather not have such an opportunity.

There are too many of them, like ants.

No matter whether it was these Lancers or those flying Sky Falcons, no matter how many she destroyed, they would be replenished continuously the next moment. The Witch Society and other wealthy guys would never consider what cost, cost-effectiveness, or personnel redundancy meant. The number of their constructed mechas alone was enough to drown all the aliens in the Void Root Swamp.

But it was impossible for Nevi to destroy them any easier than a human destroying an ant. She needed to consume magic power, and would feel tired and even distracted. For example, just now, in order to deal with a group of enemies coming towards her, she ignored another group of enemies trying to attack her from behind. If Saint Shalia had not used the thread of fate to interfere with the cognition of those guys in time, causing them to collide with each other and destroy themselves, the Countess estimated that she might have paid a heavy price.

She could still bear being injured once or twice, but if she was injured endlessly, even a dragon would fall.

We must, we must cut off those guys' support.

The key is to get rid of the giant anchor so that the Cloud Whale Sky Island can recover its original speed. This is a cruel wrestling game. However, can the Cloud Whale Sky Island made of earth and stone fight against the warship made of steel? Who will win the battle before one side can no longer hold on?
In the left wing area of ​​Sky Island, there was a person thinking about the same question.

"I must," Olvera whispered to herself, "I must break those chains."

This is the only way.

Give me some meow