The Mysterious World Under Steampunk

Chapter 1899 Expeditionary Army Experience

Matilos, the commander of the First Legion of the Salvation Army, sat in the Gray Beetle Type 7 chariot, listening to the information sent by the road-finding convoy ahead, while directing the convoy to adjust its direction and avoid some dangerous areas.

Although his command was fast and methodical, his thoughts were already on Satoran, the city of knowledge that was the target of this expedition.

As a member of the Redemption Expeditionary Army that went to Satoran that year, he was one of the few intact survivors in the Redemption Order, and one of the few people who are still alive today.

The expedition that year was still something that happened when he was young, and that experience is also his deepest memory. To this day, he can still clearly remember everything he experienced back then.

He remembered that the expeditionary army was on the way to Satoran, clearing the abyss vines in each city, and recovering the lost cities. He remembered how high the morale of the expeditionary army was at that time. Everyone thought that Satoran could be defeated. Lan recovered, took out the spark of civilization stored there, and then restored the world civilization to its pre-disaster appearance.

However, when they arrived outside Satoran and saw the completely different abyss vines, they realized that things might be different from before.

After that, the accompanying priests of the order tried any method of clearing the abyss vines, but none of them worked, and some priests even died because of it.

If the abyss vines cannot be cleared, they will not be able to get close to Satoran, and their fire expedition plan will fail. The commander of the expeditionary force and other high-level officials at the time were unwilling to see this mighty expedition plan end in this form, so They formulated a very risky plan.

They decided to select the most elite personnel from the expeditionary force to wear complete isolation suits and oxygen cylinders, try to pass through the barrier of the abyss vines, enter the encirclement of vines, go to Satoran, and inform the refugees of Satoran that the people outside situation and the Gospel of the Redemption Order, and then brought out part of the spark of civilization from Satoran. In this way, even if the goal of recovering Satoran was not achieved, part of the task of retrieving the spark of civilization has been completed, and the expedition plan can be regarded as Part of it is completed, at least face is passable.

Matilos was a member of the expeditionary force selected that year. They were wearing the best isolation equipment of the Order of Redemption. In addition to the oxygen cylinders they carried with them, there were also several oxygen vehicles that could be used when the oxygen cylinders were exhausted. In the future, make up immediately.

Afterwards, their selected troops entered the bottom of the abyss vines, while using chainsaws to cut small vines to open the way, while guarding against the attacks of vines.

At the beginning, the situation was good. Although the spores released by the vines were extremely corrosive, the isolation protective clothing worn by everyone could resist this corrosiveness, but when the team was marching in the middle, an accident happened .

Everyone's ears heard some murmurs that felt like sleepwalking, and at the same time they saw countless phantoms, and their emotions became complicated and extreme at the same time, sometimes shouting, sometimes laughing wildly, a virus called madness began to spread It spread in everyone's hearts and minds.

Most people took off their isolation suits in this state of madness, and became the fertilizer of the abyss vines. Only a few people survived this kind of raving through firm belief, and Matilos is one of them .

Matilos never thought of himself as a strong-willed person, but he was absolutely sure that he was a devout person, because it was in the madness created by the abyss vines outside the city of Satoran that he felt the Lord of Redemption In response to his prayer, a mysterious force that cools the body and mind and cleans madness from the mind is transmitted from the holy emblem of the Lord of Redemption, protecting him from dying in the abyss vine like other companions Under the bewitchment of the abyss, he successfully passed through the huge wall formed by the vines of the abyss. From that day on, he has firmly believed in the Lord of Redemption.

However, passing through the giant wall does not mean that they have completed the task. They still need to contact the residents of Satoran and take part of the fire from Satoran. However, these seemingly simple and harmless tasks are finally It failed, because when the surviving people just saw Satoran, the city of knowledge, what greeted them was not the cheers from the residents of Satoran, but the powerful weapons before the disaster.

After a round of attacks, more than a hundred elite expeditionary troops who passed through the abyss vines died, leaving only three people, and the reason why the three of Matilos survived was only because they found several extinct plants on the road. plants, so stop and store the plants in storage pots, ready to take them back for transplanting.

Feeling the deadly hostility, the three of Matilos had to give up the mission and returned to the expeditionary army camp through the abyss vines from the original road, but what they saw when they returned to the camp was that the camp was in a mess and there was no one there.

When they caught up with the expeditionary army along the obvious retreat marks on the snow, they found that there were less than a thousand people left in the tens of thousands of expeditionary troops. The bewitching power that directly acts on the spirit also spread to the camp of the expeditionary army, and the unsuspecting expeditionary army was immediately attacked, and only a few expeditionary troops regained their sanity during Melina's loud prayers.

And these sober people can't help their companions who have lost their minds at all. The only thing they can do is to give up the camp and retreat to a more peripheral safe place while praying to keep their spirits in a normal state under the leadership of Melina.

The expeditionary army plan ended in failure, which was an extremely serious blow to the Redemption Order at that time, and the survivors of the expeditionary army such as Matilos naturally did not have the treatment of heroes, and they were directly brought to the trial court after returning to the holy city , accepted the harshest interrogation, many survivors could not bear the invisible pressure brought by the interrogation and committed suicide, but some of them mutated, proving that the concerns of the trial court were correct, and Matilos relied on his understanding of the Lord of Redemption Pious faith survived all interrogation projects.

Although he survived the interrogation project, those cruel interrogation techniques also brought a lot of pain to his body and spirit. These pains still linger on his body to this day. Did they come out to stimulate him? Let him involuntarily recall the past of the expeditionary army.

What's interesting is that although the murderer who caused the failure of the plan to recover Satoran was the abyss vine, Matilos didn't have much hatred for the abyss vine. On the contrary, it was Satoran who made him hate it, because in his opinion, the It wasn't that Satoran attacked the surviving expeditionary army elite and rejected contact with the expeditionary army. They might be able to get back part of the fire from Satoran, then they would be able to receive hero treatment after returning to the Holy City, and they would not There were those painful interrogations, so he believed that the death of his comrades was all because of Satoran.

It is because of this kind of hatred that has been engraved in his bones that for so many years, he has been fantasizing about destroying the city of Satoran all the time, so that when he got the news, the Holy City recruited an expeditionary force again and prepared to completely recover it. When he was in Satoran, he did not hesitate to volunteer to be the vanguard of this expeditionary force.

The current Redemption Order is very different from that of the past. This difference is not only in the size of the personnel, but also in the weapons and equipment. The melting weapon jointly developed with the Weapons and Equipment Department is specially used to deal with the abyss vines. It has been tested in several lost cities before, and the effect is very good. The only disadvantage is that it is too destructive and there is no difference After a round of attacks, most of the abyss vines were destroyed, and the city was destroyed to the point of worthlessness.

The reason why it will be used this time is mainly based on the information obtained last time. The giant wall of abyss vines is still some distance away from Satoran City, and the use of melta weapons will not cause damage to Satoran.

Matilos' task this time is to use the pyrolysis weapon to destroy the ground part of the abyss vines to the greatest extent, and the underground part will be taken care of by the purification monks of the Redemption Order, and the cleaning of the abyss vines will be handed over to the purification monks. The First Legion was instead responsible for building camps for the follow-up expeditionary force, and was no longer responsible for the subsequent recovery attack on Satoran.

After Matilos received his mission order, he immediately understood that this arrangement was to prevent him from launching a destructive attack on the City of Knowledge because of his hatred for Satoran, and causing irreparable damage to the fire of civilization stored in the city. destroy.

In this regard, he felt that the concerns of the Pope and other high-level officials were not unreasonable, because when he got the reorganization of the expeditionary force, the idea that came to his mind was to use the artillery regiment of his First Legion to bombard Satoran indefinitely. Lan razed to the ground.

Now that he has received a clear order, he has no intention of disobeying the order, but he decided to slightly modify the order without affecting the plan. Bringing his own personal guards and carrying light weapons that are not strong enough to destroy buildings, he launched an attack on Satoran first.

Although Matilos will definitely be punished after doing this, and he will even be sent to the Martial Court of the Order, but he doesn't care, because he already feels that his body is dying, and it will be difficult to survive this year. This opportunity to fulfill his wish for revenge for many years, then he will die with regrets, which he is absolutely unwilling to accept.

In this way, while commanding the army to march quickly in the snow, he repeatedly deduced the way the guards attacked Satoran in the command vehicle. A set of tactical plans were constantly generated in his mind, integrating, integrating, In the end, he formed a set of tactical offensive plan that he felt was the most perfect.

When Satoran's defensive force was eliminated by his tactical attack plan for the forty-fifth time, the convoy stopped suddenly, and Matilos also opened his glasses, and looked at the satellite hanging on the chariot Scan the azimuth map and make sure that you have come to the periphery of Satoran.

At this time, there was a huge noise coming from outside the chariot. Although Matilos couldn't hear the specific content because the sound was too noisy, he could imagine that the soldiers of the legion should be shocked by the giant wall of abyss vines It's here, because when they, the expeditionary army, saw the huge wall made of abyss vines, they had the same reaction.

He did not pick up the microphone on the chariot to stop the actions of the soldiers outside the chariot, but stood up from the chair unhurriedly, changed into the combat uniform with the help of the attendants, and then picked up the enshrined in the redemption The necklace of the Holy Emblem of Redemption in front of the statue was worn around the neck by himself, and he kissed the Holy Emblem devoutly. While putting the Holy Emblem into his clothes, he recited the Lord's Prayer of Redemption in his mouth.

As the attendant opened the door of the chariot, a strong gust of cold air penetrated into the chariot, dissipating the warmth in the chariot, and at the same time freezing the moisture in the chariot, turning into snowflakes and falling to the ground.

After Matilos took off his military cap and put it on, he stepped out of the chariot, and the noise outside the car did not stop, which made him a little unhappy, but when he turned his head to look in the direction of Satoran, he looked at When the huge wall of abyssal vines appeared repeatedly in his memory countless times, he was stunned, as if the surrounding low temperature had instantly frozen him into a block of ice, because the huge wall of abyssal vines with a hideous appearance and soaring into the sky unexpectedly gone.

Soon Matilos recovered from the shock. He turned around and pushed away the attendant who wanted to come forward to help him, walked quickly to the ladder of the chariot, supported his old body to climb to the top of the chariot, and pulled away The lookout on the top of the chariot put his head in front of the lookout mirror of the chariot, and looked at the root of the abyss vine.

I saw that there was only a huge pit like a canyon in the abyss that was supposed to grow on the land where the roots of the abyss vines should have grown. It is roughly estimated that the distance between the two sides is about three or four hundred meters. The depth cannot be estimated, but according to the depth of the roots of the abyss vines Calculated, it should be hundreds of meters deep. There is no doubt that the huge wall of abyss vines that he has been thinking about for many years has indeed disappeared.

After moving his head away from the observation glass, the shocked expression on Matilos' face did not weaken much, but the expression of doubt had spread.

Although the recovery plan failed and the expeditionary army suffered heavy losses, the importance attached to Satoran by the Order of Redemption has not weakened too much. Since decades ago, the Order has built an observation station near Satoran. Detailed observation reports will be sent to the Holy City every month, and these observation reports are also must-read documents for Matilos every month.

He remembered that the latest observation report was more than a month ago. The content of the report at that time was no different from the previous reports, that is, the growth of the abyss vines, the spread of the dark sky, etc., but in just over a month, the report All the observation items mentioned disappeared, not only the abyss vines disappeared, but even the dark sky turned into a normal color. This made him extremely confused, but he couldn't help but think of a rumor.

That rumor was about the mysterious savior. It was rumored that the savior left the holy city for Satoran to help the order regain Satoran.

At that time, he didn't care about this rumor, and he didn't think the Savior had any power. After all, the Savior was only reading books when he was in the Holy City, and he didn't do anything useful to the church, so he didn't think the Savior could. Recovering Satoran, he even thought that the Savior was just a trick of some people in the congregation, but now he found that he was wrong, and everything in front of him was evidence, making him realize that the Savior might really exist.

The turmoil in his heart made Matilos unable to help but took out the Holy Emblem of Salvation worn around his neck again, placed it on his forehead and prayed in a low voice.