20 hours later, Hackzord received a report saying a fireball blasted in the Kingdom of Wolfheart, which caused substantial damage to the supply unit. At that time, he was still in a city in the west of the Kingdom of Everwinter, whose lord had just pledged allegiance to him.
To be honest, Hackzord did not really want to deal with such a trifle. However, the report stressed that the explosion was exceptionally powerful. He thus decided to come to take a look in person.
Hackzord dreaded dealing with human beings, but he was the only one capable of this job at the Western Front. Not everyone was as smart as Ursrook who would like to learn various things, even though they appeared to be useless. Most of the Upgraded viewed humans as low lives and certainly would not invest their time in learning their language.
His commanders were very loyal to him and were all outstanding warriors. However, they also despised the mankind. They would have probably ripped men apart had he sent them to negotiate with human beings.
Nevertheless, men were submissive and meek animals. Although they were weak, they were somewhat clever. Hence, they could replace many Inferior Demons at the early stage of the war. It was, therefore, not advisable to exterminate them immediately.
This was actually all Valkries’ fault.
She should have been the perfect Senior Lord to communicate with human beings, but she wasted her time in the Red Mist Pond. Hackzord felt that his patience was running out.
When he arrived at the Tusk City, however, he immediately realized that something had gone terribly wrong.
The Red Mist was extremely thin as though it had been wiped off the sky. The city had been devastated. Remains of houses and blackened wooden frames could be seen everywhere.
As he dropped, Hackzord felt the high temperature and greeted a pungent smell.
He soon discovered where that smell came from.
A group of strange Inferior Demons curled themselves up on the street, their burned skins peeling off. Apparently, they had died in the fire. What puzzled Hackzord was that there were no visible signs of combustible materials around them, apart from some bricks and mud. Hackzord did not know how the fire had started.
He saw more than one burned Inferior Demon.
“Totolock, take ten people with you and search for the human army. Report to me immediately after you find them.”
“Yes, master.”
“Siacis, look into this matter and see if there’s anyone still alive.”
“Yes, sir.”
The two Upgraded soon heeded his order. Hackzord strolled along the street toward the northern area where his army sustained the greatest damage.
According to the report, one supply unit comprised of Inferior Demons was attacked. These poor Inferior Demons, who had never had a chance to upgrade themselves, were pretty much like laborers and slaves in the human society. At that time, they were shipping obsidian and a secondary Red Mist Pond to the Tusk City, for the purpose of building a campsite for the Junior Demons and the Upgraded.
From the remains at the scene and the scattered obsidian, it was obvious that the Inferior Demons suffered the blow while they were working, for some of them still stayed in the last position when they died. The fact that there was no sign of a fight indicated that human beings had not confronted the supply unit directly. The explosion had ended as quickly and unexpectedly as they had occurred.
Hackzord thereby judged that this was a trap of the enemies rather than the work of an organized army under the scrutiny of the Bogle Beasts. Totolock might not find anything during this search.
This fact made Hackzord feel increasingly uneasy. He would rather see the human army swarm toward him than hiding in the dark. He did not really care about those Inferior Demons, but he could not accept any failure at the Western Front. If the main force encountered a trap like this, the result could be disastrous.
Without a doubt, human beings, once again, used “fire” as their weapon. Hackzord was familiar with fire. In the past Battles of Divine Will, they had also used fire to attack the cities occupied by the human race. They rarely used it simply because the Red Mist could easily get burned at a high temperature.
But it was his first time seeing self-combustible fire.
Unless the whole city had become a furnace.
But how could it be possible?
If the mankind had the ability to achieve such an incredible transformation, he must inform the king of the potential danger at the Western Front.
“Hang on… Fire?”
An image suddenly flashed across Hackzord’s mind. It was an image he had captured when he had been searching for Kabradhabi’s memories in the Realm of Mind. A bright fireball blasted in the air like the rising sun.
Was this weapon what Kabradhabi had seen?
Hackzord shuddered involuntarily.
While he was lost in thought, Siacis’ voice came to him suddenly, “Sir, I’ve figured out what happened. There were 350 Inferior Demons in the supply unit and around 10 Primal Demons that guarded them. I haven’t found anyone that survived, but I think I know how those low lives did that.”
“Really? Then tell me.”
“Please follow me.”
Hackzord thus followed Siacis to the northern city wall where some Primal Demons were digging something. Around them lay a few black metal fragments. A little farther on, Hackzord saw some tumbled chariots. After they had developed powerful and flexible symbiotic demons, these old-school war machineries were obsolete and only served as transportation tools.
“Look,” Siacis said as he extended out his tentacle and grasped one fragment that were clearly melted down. “If we put them together, we could roughly see the shape of a vessel. These vessels spread out in a line along the city wall, and there were around hundreds of them. I believe those low lives put snow powder and combustible materials in them, in an attempt to cut the retreat of our supply unit, and then launch the attack.”
Hackzord was now very familiar with humans’ weapons, and he had indeed obtained a lot of them in this battle. Both “fire forks” and “fire bolts” required combustible materials such as snow powder to be effective. They were much more complicated than weapons powered by magic. Because of this, most of these weapons had pretty complex structures, which was something that Hackzord had not seen 400 years ago.
“If this was just an ordinary fire, why did it cause so much damage?”
“Sir, the fire wasn’t ordinary. At least, its temperature was much higher than an ordinary one. However, I don’t think it was self-combustible. The key, in my opinion, may lie in the chariots.”
“What do you mean?” Hackzord pursued. Siacis was a psychic, so he possessed a greater insight than the other Upgraded. That was why Hackzord brought him to the battlefield.
“When the snow powder was ignited, the heat was transmitted to the chariots through the city gates. The chariots are usually used to ship heavy equipment rather than the storage tanks for the Red Mist. The chariots thus exploded and further broke down the Red Mist,” Siacis hissed while waving his nimble tentacle. “You know that everything would burn at a certain temperature, including us.”
Hackzord was a little relieved after hearing Siacis’ explanation. No matter what combustible materials they were, the fragments of the giant iron barrels made him feel settled a lot. It seemed that human beings needed to make a lot of preparations beforehand to make this kind of explosion happen. They could not throw the explosives at their will. Hackzord thus believed that these traps would not pose a threat to the main force of his army as long as he took precautions.
Hackzord certainly did not think it easy to inspect a city occupied by human beings in a short period of time. Suspending the transportation of the Red Mist Pond and the storage tanks would not stop a second explosion either. He could not entrust this matter to the simple-minded Primal Demons and Inferior Demons.
The best way was to have human beings attack each other.
“Sir, what should we do next?”
“Don’t enter the city just yet. Let men inspect the city for us,” Hackzord said quickly. “I can’t get more Inferior Demons from other locations. Let the Snow Reflection Castle make up the loss. I believe Earl Marwayne would love to serve me.”
“Also, shouldn’t we obtain some of the enemies’ weapons?” Hackzord went on. “Many noblesloathe the Graycastle men. Give them an opportunity to avenge themselves.”