101: Chapter 101 Don't Talk About Human Lives with Technological Assets

The messenger's figure vanished at the end of the spiral staircase leading to the lower levels of the castle, carrying away Levi's cold command that lacked even a hint of humanity.

Evelyn opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but in the end, she remained silent.

She looked at Levi's profile, flickering in and out of the firelight; a chill rose from her spine, more piercing than the night wind on the arrow tower.

The output of the next ten years... that was wealth enough to feed tens of thousands of people, yet in his mouth, it was worth less than a pile of data.

This had already exceeded her understanding of noble lords, or even any normal human being.

Deep within the castle, in the underground Dwarven Workshop, the scorching air mixed with the smell of metal and sulfur, making one's head swim.

Chief Engineer Borin Ironbeard, his muscular upper body bare and covered in black tattoos, was pressing his ear to a massive bronze speaking tube. The other end of the tube led directly to the arrow tower at the top of the castle.

His thick beard was stained with black oil. When he heard the messenger repeat that final sentence, his small eyes, deep-set in their sockets, suddenly lit up, flickering with a fanatical light—the near-madness of a technician.

"Did you hear that, boys!" Borin straightened up abruptly, grabbed a massive copper wrench from a nearby workbench, and let out a deafening roar at the several dwarf apprentices who were also covered in oil and waiting nervously. "The Lord said it! Our baby is more important than digging rocks for ten years! Start the work! Everyone, move!"

His roar hit the behemoth in the center of the workshop like a heavy hammer.

It was a lever system converted from a giant elevator of an abandoned mine. Thick iron chains were coiled around gears like giant pythons, with the other end connected to a granite counterweight the size of a millstone.

Several dwarf apprentices immediately lunged at the massive hand-cranked winch nearby, turning it frantically with all their strength.

"Creeeeaaaak—"

The tooth-aching sound of metal friction echoed in the underground space, as if a sleeping steel beast was being awakened.

Under a series of mechanical transmissions, the massive counterweight stone was hoisted inch by inch off the ground with a heavy and ominous thud.

As the stone rose, another set of gears at the top of the workshop began to rotate in reverse, driving a massive drive shaft that pierced through the entire rock wall of the castle.

On one side of the castle's outer wall, an odd device disguised as a water tower emitted a dull roar.

Its outer shell was made of thick oak planks pieced together, covered in moss and water stains for camouflage. But amidst that roar, the gaps between the planks began to tremble slightly, leaking the terrifying power of the internal steel structure.

On the battlefield below the hillside, Rayton, the vanguard commander of the Northern Army, was enjoying the pleasure of imminent victory.

The defensive line formed by those miners was already teetering. Although they resisted with unusual ferocity, they were ultimately a disorganized rabble lacking training.

He could see that his cavalry had already torn several gaps, and the enemy's casualties were expanding at a rate visible to the naked eye.

"The time has come." A cruel smile appeared on Rayton's face. He drew his longsword from his waist, preparing to order his reserves—whom he had kept held back—into the battle to give this group of dying, struggling trash the final blow.

At the very moment his command was about to escape his lips—

"Whoosh—!"

A strange, unprecedented whistling sound suddenly came from the direction of Blackstone Castle.

The sound was sharp yet muffled, like a giant forcefully tearing a massive piece of canvas.

Rayton instinctively looked up, his pupils shrinking violently.

Dozens of inconspicuous black dots, like pebbles thrown from the castle by a giant, whistled out from that strange building disguised as a water tower.

They were catapulted nearly a hundred meters into the air by a massive force. Under the blood-colored moonlight, they traced precise and lethal parabolas, lightly overshooting the chaotic, flesh-and-blood battlefield in front and heading straight for the rear wing of the central army where he was located.

"Defense! It's catapults! Archers, take cover!" the adjutant beside Rayton roared in terror.

The soldiers in the rear were in a commotion. They were used to facing stone attacks and instinctively looked for cover or raised their shields.

However, the sound of those black dots hitting the ground was completely outside their expectations.

Pop! Crash!

There was no heavy thud of giant stones landing. Instead, there was a series of crisp shattering sounds, as if dozens of clay pots had smashed onto the ground at once.

Immediately after, the most bizarre scene occurred.

The moment the clay pots shattered, there was no fire, no explosion, and certainly no flying shrapnel.

In its place was a vast amount of thick, grayish-white dust, gushing out from every impact point like a dam breaking, quickly spreading through the air.

In just a few breaths, a massive and heavy smoke screen enveloped the entire rear position of the Northern Army.

That was no ordinary smoke.

A pungent odor, a mix of sulfur, lime, and some unknown mineral, instantly pierced the nostrils of every soldier.

"Cough... cough! What the hell is this!"

"My eyes! Ah! I can't open them!"

"Water! Give me water! Cough cough cough..."

Violent coughing and panicked shouts rose and fell one after another.

This dust not only obscured their vision, turning the once orderly archer positions and supply units into headless flies, but its intense irritation also caused the soldiers' eyes and noses to run uncontrollably. They struggled to breathe, as if their lungs had been filled with sand.

The warhorses were spooked, neighing uneasily and rearing up, throwing their riders to the ground. The entire rear army position fell into a state of complete paralysis and chaos.

On the arrow tower, the biting night wind whipped the hem of Levi's clothes.

He completely ignored the screams and wails of the prisoner army down the hillside. In his eyes, they were merely consumables used to draw enemy fire—necessary background noise for this test.

His monocular was locked tightly onto that churning white smoke screen, like the most demanding product manager scrutinizing a newly released version of his work.

Evelyn watched this surreal scene in shock. She was completely unable to link this kind of attack to any magic or war machine she knew of.

This was more like... a malicious form of alchemy.

"Record," Levi's voice rang out again, calm, objective, and devoid of any emotion.

He moved the telescope away from his eyes. His pitch-black pupils reflected the chaotic white mist in the distance, flickering with the unique light of a data analyst.

"'Blackstone One,' Formula A-3, field test. Effective coverage radius is approximately one hundred and thirty meters. Initial estimate for dust suspension time is one minute and twenty seconds. Observation results: against unarmored or light-armored units in the enemy's rear, it caused over an eighty percent drop in organization, rendering them temporarily combat-ineffective."

The clerk's quill danced frantically across the parchment, recording these cold phrases.

Levi turned his gaze toward the messenger responsible for communicating with the underground workshop, his tone not fluctuating in the slightest: "Inform Borin that the irritation of Formula A-3 is still insufficient, and the suffocation effect is lower than expected. For the next batch, have him triple the dosage of that yellow powder excavated from Mine No. 3. I want to see an effect that can make even horses drop dead on the spot."

"Ye... Yes, My Lord!" The messenger's voice carried a hint of trembling as he hurriedly took the order and left.

Evelyn felt a pang of heart palpitations.

She finally understood that Levi wasn't fighting a war at all. He was using a real war to debug and optimize his war machine named 'Blackstone Territory.'

The prisoners on the hillside who were buying him time with their lives, and the soldiers struggling in pain in the enemy's rear—in Levi's eyes, they were perhaps all just negligible variables in the process of optimizing an algorithm.

In the center of the battlefield, Rayton, the vanguard commander of the Northern Army, was completely infuriated by this sudden turn of events.

He coughed violently, wiping away the tears choked out of him with the back of his hand, staring with bloodshot eyes at the eerie white mist that had completely paralyzed his rear army.

He had spent half his life in the saddle, seen dragons breathing fire, and mages summoning meteors, but he had never seen such a despicable, such a low-down method of attack!

This was not a duel between warriors; this was a coward's trick!

This was a desecration of the sacred art of war!

He whipped his head around, looking at the prisoner army still stubbornly resisting in front of him.

His rage allowed him to connect all the dots in an instant.

So that's it!

The reason this group of miners could hold out until now wasn't because of how brave they were, but because that damned bastard on the castle was supporting them with this bizarre long-range weapon!

A fatal misjudgment quickly formed in his mind, which was clouded by anger—as long as he destroyed the device launching those things, the morale of this rabble would immediately collapse!

"Coward!" Rayton let out an angry roar. He suddenly drew the fine steel longsword that symbolized his status, the blade reflecting a cold, grim light under the firelight.

He pointed the tip of his sword toward the highest arrow tower of Blackstone Castle. That was the place with the best view; that despicable lord must be hiding there!

"Reserves! All heavy cavalry! Assemble!" His voice was hoarse with rage, yet filled with an unquestionable authority.

Three hundred elite heavy cavalrymen, who had remained stationary and were fully armored, quickly assembled into a thick steel phalanx behind him.

They were the sharpest spear in Rayton's hand, a decisive force capable of piercing through any defensive line.

"Target! The castle arrow tower!" Rayton's sword swung forward fiercely as he gave the final command. "Bypass those mine scraps and trash in front! At any cost! Trample that arrow tower for me! I will personally twist off that coward lord's head and hang him from his own winch!"

"Wooooooo—!!!"

A charge horn, higher and more urgent than any before, resounded through the night sky.

The steel torrent composed of three hundred heavy cavalrymen no longer paid any mind to the prisoner army still locked in combat on the main battlefield. Instead, like a red-hot iron, they bypassed the jagged mining area and launched a death-defying charge from the battlefield's flank toward the seemingly fragile main wall of Blackstone Castle.

The sound of hooves was like thunder, and the dust obscured the moon.

On the arrow tower, Evelyn's face instantly turned deathly pale.

She watched the steel torrent that had bypassed the main battlefield, striking like a dagger straight for the heart. Feeling the slight tremors in the stone beneath her feet caused by that thunderous sound of hooves, the hand gripping her sword hilt involuntarily broke into a cold sweat.