TOMWDET Chapter 193.1

Ashes (part 1)

At this moment, Clemens brought only the purest fear to the monster beasts who were also of the Beast Tribe.

The monster beasts’ vision could hardly detect it, let alone humans. The only one who discovered that the elemental bands around Clemens had changed was Clemens himself.

The power boost brought by this fear was shattered in an instant—

A cyan light pillar that almost illuminated the entire night sky struck toward Clemens’ direction from afar.

Previously appearing disheveled but with only minor fur changes that couldn’t be called wounds, Clemens naturally noticed that this attack was considerably stronger than before, but he didn’t believe that a second Su Li could appear in this world.

Even a lion hunting a rabbit must use its full strength.

The [Tiger] who had once again underestimated “humans” faced this time not hair severed by wind elements, but what felt like a thousand cuts, carving several bloody wounds on the upper half of his front right paw.

Clemens looked down at the wound for a long time.

The giant rhinoceros, who had been watching the [Tiger] with constant trepidation, suddenly heard abnormal laughter reaching his ears.

That voice was filled with bloodthirsty aura.

“King, Your Majesty… are you alright?” The giant rhinoceros trembled uncontrollably with fear.

But his voice didn’t reach Clemens’ ears at all.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t hear it, but that he had completely ignored it.

Clemens looked toward the humans’ direction.

There were still countless elemental cannonballs flying toward him from that direction.

His excellent vision even allowed the [Tiger] to see the smiles on the faces of those humans who had discovered he was bleeding.

They indeed had reason to be pleased.

Using external objects that weren’t their own power, they could launch such powerful attacks…

On the humans’ side.

Whether it was Clemens’ figure displayed on the projection screen beside them, or what everyone could see with their own eyes looking toward the Queen’s Palace from afar, the humans had all discovered the monster that was targeting them.

“He’s coming!” Euphia stared sharply at the [Tiger] who was clearly visible despite the great distance.

“God knows I haven’t had time to be happy that with my level of strength, I could make the Beast King bleed,” Adison muttered with his mouth agape.

Mark, hearing his words, patted his shoulder while comforting him, “No one wants to interrupt your happiness, just saying you could choose to be even happier.”

Shortly after, Adison reluctantly “volunteered” to take charge of a mobile elemental cannon.

The butterfly spirit began continuously outputting wind elements with a completely dejected expression.

The [Tiger] who had already targeted the humans couldn’t possibly continue standing in place, enduring passive attacks to demonstrate his power.

He chose to act.

The power of fear didn’t care who it came from.

Human fear would have the same effect.

This thought drove Clemens to attack the humans.

But even he couldn’t achieve something comparable to divine punishment—attacking another location from over ten kilometers away.

He needed to advance.

Both humans and monster beasts saw the [Tiger]’s movement.

The monster took a step toward the humans’ direction.

Though it was just the simplest possible action, with that tremendously shocking physique, it had already caused enormous psychological pressure on the humans.

Julius smiled bitterly, closed his eyes briefly, then quickly opened them again.

“Fighting against such a monster really maximizes human competitiveness.”

As soon as he finished speaking, the [Tiger], who appeared massive and shouldn’t move particularly fast in the humans’ view, had already left his original position by several hundred meters in the blink of an eye.

The humans’ heartbeats unconsciously began to accelerate.

The efficiency of their existing attacks also increased dramatically.

But this time, Clemens, who had the idea of dodging, was very difficult to hit with the mobile elemental cannons’ attacks.

Several people’s faces were turning a deathly pale white.

It was impossible to say they weren’t afraid; even at this moment, even thinking of Su Li’s figure, they still felt uncontrollable fear.

Their brains questioned why they would provoke such a powerful being.

Their hearts wondered if this battle really had to be initiated.

Before getting answers to these questions, a clear young voice rang out across the distance.

“I personally think ‘sense of achievement’ would be a better description.” Cyril raised his eyes, looking with a smile at Julius, who instantly turned his head in his direction.

“Good news: the Dark Pope and Dean Asa had already discovered our secret operation beforehand.” The dragon-blooded youth seemed to hint at something.

“What’s the bad news?” Julius shifted his focus.

“The bad news is that after this battle ends, we’re strictly forbidden from approaching Su Li alone without other people accompanying us.”

Julius opened his mouth wide.

Just as Cyril thought he wanted to say what kind of punishment this was, Julius’ face showed an unpleasant expression.

“This kind of punishment… I never used ‘old man’ to describe those two old fellows before.”

Cyril’s mouth twitched. “But this kind of address isn’t exactly proper either.”

After glancing at Cyril, Julius snorted coldly and focused his gaze on the direction behind him.

There stood the Dark Pope, wrapped tightly in black robes in the darkness of night.

Dean Asa had also come.

Castor was accompanying him at his side.

The researcher, feeling the gaze, actively turned to look back at Julius and said, “If you want to ask why I came, then I can only say that this kind of activity that’s comparable to skipping Su Li and going straight to the final battle, planning to claim credit from him at the end…”

“It would be impossible for me not to participate, right?”

Though it was a question, when Castor spoke it, it was filled with determination.

“As for another point.” The researcher deliberately shrugged his shoulders. “Of course it’s because the mobile elemental cannons have another way of being used.”

“In my personal view, now is about the right time to activate it.”

“What?” Julius’ face uncontrollably showed confusion, but he then directed his questioning gaze to Cyril.

Cyril was straightforward. “Don’t look at me. I don’t know how to use that other function, and I didn’t even know that other function existed.”

“You can consider this as an additional means that every researcher who produces research needs to have responsibility for their creations.” After Castor finished speaking, he nodded vigorously.

Julius wasn’t concerned with these details.

Looking at Clemens, who had already closed more than half the distance between himself and the humans during just this brief conversation, he spoke faster, “I don’t care about those contingencies. I only hope that as you said, you can really produce a game-changing solution—the so-called additional means.”

Julius emphasized his tone.

Shortly after, Clemens discovered that those elemental cannonballs that had been used to restrain him and reduce his movement speed suddenly stopped firing.

Had they run out of power reserves?

After all, humans were weak; even using tools, they might not be able to maintain such attacks for long periods.

From the great distance, all he could see was those tiny humans suddenly beginning rapid movement within their range.

And those devices that, while appearing much larger relative to the humans, were essentially not much bigger, were being controlled by those small humans to move and converge rapidly, assembling like components to form a massive unknown object.

Crisis.

Clemens didn’t want to admit at all that he felt this kind of information from the humans.

But the fact was exactly that. He had no way to deny it. Watching that gradually converging device that grew larger and larger, Clemens gradually slowed his rapid running toward the humans’ location.

“Why did his speed decrease?” someone asked.

“Running with such a large body should be very energy-consuming too. Maybe he’s tired?”

“Rather than having time to focus on these things, why not think about how much more elemental energy your bodies can provide to this device that I’ve named the ‘Super Mobile Elemental Cannon.'” Castor showed an arrogant smile.

“If you only consider me an ordinary researcher who can only create this kind of compressed elemental device… well, that description isn’t really wrong, but this Super Mobile Elemental Cannon isn’t such a simple thing.”

“Now, hurry up and get moving!” Castor glared at those humans who were still paying attention to Clemens’ movement.

Though paying attention to the [Tiger]’s movement route really wasn’t problematic.

After all, he was the target they would attack next.

Ignoring these details, Castor looked at those humans hidden in darkness behind the Dark Pope, his smile becoming more obvious.

The so-called “super” was essentially just a combination of larger elemental compression devices.

The mobile elemental cannons, at this time, were just components of the Super Mobile Elemental Cannon.

This idea had existed for a long time.

Because humans had no way to provide high-purity elemental power.

Since they all had to extract and compress the weak energy from humans’ bodies anyway, rather than relying on extracting from a small portion—that is, ten people or even a hundred people—why not consider a much larger scope?

One thousand people, ten thousand people, one hundred thousand people, even one million people!

This wasn’t impossible to achieve.

Since researchers were researchers, what they had to do was bring all impossible things that seemed to exist only in fantasy into reality.

Large numbers of humans began gathering. Everyone was an elementalist, and with clear commanding personnel directing them, the output and absorption compression of power appeared extremely rapid.

Ten thousand people per batch—gathering the elemental power of one million people before Clemens arrived had become a definite possibility!

The area around the Super Mobile Elemental Cannon suddenly began trembling.

Large amounts of high-density elemental power, during the input stage, hadn’t undergone any refinement, and the device itself only served to compress elements.

The mutual repulsion between different elements, multiple elements, made this power filled with violent aura.

And the compressed result, even though it hadn’t been officially fired yet, still allowed those watching the Super Mobile Elemental Cannon to feel that aura equivalent to death…

Handsome, dangerous.

Magnificent, deadly.

Could such a thing really become power controlled by humans?

Someone unconsciously spoke this sentence aloud.

Castor, who wasn’t clear about the limits his research could achieve but was clear that his research had an upper limit that humans couldn’t judge in the short term, was holding his head high, standing to one side of the super device, staring at Clemens who had unconsciously slowed his pace.

But even slowing down, he had gotten closer to the humans’ position!

“Who cares whether we can control this thing or not? In the end, using this thing is just trying to achieve victory for Su Li.”

“Think of things more purely, and the world becomes much simpler. Haven’t we always done things this way?”

“Facing enemies, facing enemies we can’t resist, we either choose submission and compromise, or choose to go all out regardless of consequences.”

“And now, we’re just demonstrating this going all out regardless of consequences with a larger scale of humanity!”

It was nothing serious.

Castor told himself this in his heart.

He looked up at the monster getting closer and closer, constantly thinking that now was their best time to defeat this monster!

“Confirmed million-level human elemental power convergence—!”

“Confirmed successful compression of million-level human elemental power—!”

“Wind speed, no significant change. Temperature, humidity, unified, optimal!”

This was a night transitioning from spring to summer, and humanity’s first frontal battle in choosing their future.

This kind of weapon, for all elementalists, would previously only be considered an external object. For them, the most suitable weapons for enhancing themselves were only swords, spears, and halberds.

And now, mobile elemental cannons had opened up a new possibility.

The researcher took a deep breath, and after confirming that his chest cavity had squeezed out all the air completely, feeling the bloody smell that seemed about to burst from his throat, Castor shouted with all his strength, “I, Castor Dale, swear in the name of an ordinary human that the Super Mobile Elemental Cannon will fire successfully!”

“This is humanity’s battle against monster beasts.”

“This is humanity’s battle for the world.”

“This is humanity’s battle to gather faith!”

“Super Mobile Elemental Cannon, fire an attack that will make the entire world take notice!”

At that moment, countless different-colored elements converged and compressed like a galaxy.

What finally formed wasn’t a pure elemental cannonball, but a giant elemental cannonball that flickered with different lights yet couldn’t conceal any elemental colors.

This attack was absolutely impossible for Clemens to dodge!

Because ahead, not only was the hundred-meter-tall [Tiger], but even the Winged Tribe Queen’s Palace behind him that had previously been bombed into ruins was within the attack range.

The “cannon barrel” grew brighter and brighter, with elements within the bore shooting straight into the sky—!

Until that attack was officially fired, the entire world seemed to pause for an instant.

The [Tiger] had nowhere to hide.

The only thing Clemens could do was to drain, drain, and continue draining all the elemental bands surrounding his body and all the elements within his body as much as possible!

Finally, he transformed these elements into a shield, blocking it in front of himself.

That black shield, covering the sky and reaching into the heavens, rose like this.

—Yet in the blink of an eye, it was pierced through.

The Super Mobile Elemental Cannon wasn’t aimed at any individual at all.

There had once been such a conversation among researchers.

Researcher A: “If a weapon with powerful attack capability can’t accurately hit the enemy, then no matter how strong such a weapon’s effect, it will ultimately only become a foil highlighting the enemy’s power.”

Castor: “Of course I know that. I’ve even considered more than once how to control the enemy’s movements, calculate their advance route, and prepare traps in advance for this kind of special attack against powerful enemies…”

“But in the end, these methods can’t guarantee one hundred percent success either.”

“Unlike some things that can be practiced as long as there’s possibility, if we can’t achieve one hundred percent of our desired results, then humans can only face unilateral slaughter by enemies that humans cannot resist.”

“In that case, rather than improving the success rate of those trap controls, it’s better to directly treat everything within sight as enemies.”

Researcher B: “But is such an idea really possible to realize? No matter who it is, no matter what kind of powerful force they possess, I don’t believe such an existence could actively attack everything within sight as enemies.”

“What’s within sight can’t possibly be just humans or monster beasts. Buildings, plants, elements in the air, natural environment, including the enemy itself—all of these must be considered.”

Castor nodded: “Yes, you’re right, all of these need consideration. But needing consideration only proves that the power isn’t strong enough yet.”

“Pure strength doesn’t need to pay attention to any natural changes or environmental factors.”

“And what we need to do is just gather and compress massive power.”

“You should know that this kind of element targeted for attack compression cannot be absorbed into human bodies for use. This is simply pure compressed firing to produce explosive effects.”

“Doesn’t this save us so much trouble?”

Researcher A: “What you say always makes sense.”

Castor: “But always making sense isn’t enough. What I want is to truly realize the concept.”

Until the first mobile elemental cannon was produced.

“What’s its capacity limit?”

“100 people’s worth of elements.”

“Is there a way to increase the limit?”

“As I said, 100 people’s worth of elements is the limit.”

“What if we produce ten thousand of these things?”

“That would just create 10,000 teams of 100 people each. A hundred people’s elemental power, even if it could directly blast out a lake, you also know that when the mermaid and unicorn fought outside Mercenary City, creating that super-large lake landscape, neither of them suffered any obvious damage.”

The obvious damage here referred to obviously severely injured states.

If they couldn’t even restrict the enemy’s ability to continue acting, then this weapon would ultimately only become useless.

“Then let’s first cooperate with the Dark Pope and Qi to initially create ten thousand mobile elemental cannons.”

“We have a new research project next: how to combine these ten thousand mobile elemental cannons into a super device that can withstand one million people’s elemental power.”

“Can it succeed?”

“Remove the ‘can’—we only have one path: success.”

Now was the best verification moment for this path leading to bright daylight.