After a night of sound sleep, the trio set off again the next day. After half a day of flight, Logia finally saw the silhouette of the "Abandoned City".
She couldn't help but hold her breath.
This city was just too big!
Looking down from the sky, the land beneath her feet was a vast expanse of green, almost boundless, with gray-brown walls and ruins interspersed among the green fields. According to Lightning, the city had been abandoned four hundred years ago, but even now, its incomplete city wall outlines could still be discerned.
If estimated by the scope of the ruins, this city was five or six times the size of Iron Sand City, and could probably accommodate over a hundred thousand people. Even now, as a pile of fragmented remains, she could still feel the grandeur the city must have originally possessed. If she extrapolated the population of the surrounding towns and villages that supported the city at a ratio of one to ten, wouldn't that mean this wilderness had once housed nearly a million people?
This was too incredible!
How could a kingdom that built such a large city have lost to the devils?
Logia couldn't help but recall what His Majesty had said—"The War of Divine Will is not a small skirmish between two tribes, but a full-scale war to determine which civilization can continue." She had been quite indignant at the time, but now she suddenly understood somewhat. And the phrase "I don't want you to go to your death" no longer had the meaning of deliberate intimidation she had initially perceived.
For some reason, the wolf girl felt much more comfortable.
Lightning gestured, and the three descended, eventually landing on a section of the city wall that was still relatively intact.
The mottled top of the wall was about twenty steps wide, enough to accommodate two four-wheeled carriages side by side. On the moss-covered and vine-entwined wall, she could still vaguely see several circular holes, wondering how much force it would take to leave such damage on the huge stones.
"You should already know," the little girl said as she walked over, "this originally belonged to the last line of defense of the Witch Empire, but unfortunately they failed to resist the devil's offensive."
Was that to say that the witches who Grey Ashes had mentioned, who could live for over four hundred years and never die, were actually surviving members of the Witch Empire? And that their destruction led to the current Four Kingdoms and the Church, which regarded witches as heretics?
The wolf girl didn't voice her thoughts. Since even traveling merchants had never told this history, and even the residents of Neverwinter City were unaware of it, it was likely that those who knew it didn't want the news to spread. She always remembered that she was not a member of the Witch Union, and that there was no need to know too much about some things.
She took out the map Lightning had given her yesterday from her bosom and spread it out in front of her. "Taqila is the border area you usually scout? If the devils were to attack Neverwinter City, which direction would they generally come from?"
"Anywhere west of the ruins is possible, but trying to go deeper into the barren lands would become very dangerous, even staying in the sky isn't necessarily safe."
"Why?" she asked.
"Because of the fog," Maggie chirped. "Sometimes the sky turns red, goo!"
"That is...what?" Logia frowned.
"The necessities for the devils to survive, like the air we breathe." Lightning looked northwest. "Today the weather is good, so the sky looks very blue, but sometimes in rainy weather, especially when it's overcast, flying high can reveal a red fog spreading along the horizon. This stuff is highly toxic to witches, even if they don't inhale it, just touching it can cause serious damage. Because we don't know how far it can drift, we rarely cross the Taqila line."
Then the little girl described the devil's weaknesses in general terms.
"I see," the wolf girl twitched her ears. "As long as we pull out the tubes behind them, the devils will be at our mercy."
"But that's not easy to do, and like I said last night about the high-ranking devils, they have almost no weaknesses at all." Lightning cautioned, "If you really encounter enemies, it's best to retreat immediately and tell Roland His Majesty the news."
"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing."
Logia patted her chest and said with full of fighting spirit.
Indeed, the opponent was terrible, but precisely because of that, it was worthy of being challenged, and the strength of the group did not mean that individuals could not be defeated. She believed that as long as she found the opportunity, she could always hunt down isolated targets. Even if the devils didn't appear for the time being, she could use hybrid evil beasts as a substitute—she had already seen several large evil beasts in the jungle while riding on Maggie's back earlier.
Looking at this uninhabited wilderness, Logia felt that she had found the feeling of moving forward again.
The green replaced the yellow sand, but the road became clearer and began to extend further.
She would be here for a long time, she thought.
……
Since the expedition order was issued, Roland had been holding one or two meetings almost every day, and he needed to nod his head to approve both the battle strategy and the logistical allocation. At first, he enjoyed this feeling of having great power in his hands, but as the content became deeper and more complex, he felt that he couldn't handle it.
Neverwinter City had developed to the point where its control range was no longer just a single city. The plans and reports that one person could complete before had become the responsibility of a huge team. Facing these trivial matters, Roland gradually had a bit of understanding and sympathy for the "昏君" (corrupt rulers) in history who didn't like to deal with government affairs—think about it, having to listen to people babbling for half a day about reports that you can barely remember and don't understand, over time, you will naturally develop resistance. If it weren't for Scroll integrating and screening solutions for him, he would probably be thinking about being a hands-off shopkeeper and leaving all of this to his subordinates to handle.
After all, he was just a mechanical engineer before he traveled through time.
Compared to the complicated logistics matters, Roland paid more attention to the battle strategy formulated by the Defense Department.
The main attack direction of the First Army was undoubtedly the tall and heavily fortified Hermes Holy City. Not only were cannons and ammunition sufficient, but the model was also based on the experience accumulated from the Snow Mountain Expedition, with unified actions by the army, witches, and Taqila descendants.
It must be said that the Pearl of the North had shown her outstanding talent. In this strategy, she mentioned the concept of coordinated operations. For example, by using the abilities of witches and Taqila descendants, they could launch unexpected surprise attacks from various directions, making the enemy unable to take care of both ends, and including the sky and underground in the scope of the attack—although many ideas were not yet mature, but for this era, having such vision was already remarkable.
It seemed that putting her in the Defense Department was indeed the right choice.
Of course, the key to ensuring the smooth implementation of these plans was to ensure that the Taqila God's Punishment Witches were willing to follow orders, instead of still doing their own thing when they received them.
In the days when everyone was busy preparing for war, the first thing Roland had to solve was this problem.
And the method was particularly simple and clear.
For example, let all the descendants participating in the battle enter a dream world once.