bookbashuk Page 85
Page 85
After listening, Ma En couldn't help but sigh. In the past few days, their situation had been really unfavorable, and they had been completely on the defensive.
Although we were in a passive position when he was around, at least we had the intelligence he provided. Even when we were forced to react passively, we were able to take preventative measures and avoid getting into a disadvantageous situation.
"Let's go, let me meet everyone."
Knowing that their morale was being dampened by repeated defeats, Marx and Engels understood that now was the time for him to step forward and encourage everyone.
With Nero and Gilgamesh by their side, they left the relatively remote city tower and headed towards the main battlefield.
Along the way, we saw dilapidated facilities, damaged artillery, piles of discarded shell casings and weapons, neatly arranged corpses covered with white sheets, and wounded soldiers with tired faces and bruises all over their bodies.
Marx and Engels remained unmoved by all of this, only sadly lamenting the cruelty of war.
As he said before, his act of saving Fuyuki and standing here to fight was purely out of personal desire, and not out of any sense of righteousness.
Therefore, he might feel saddened by the deaths and injuries of these people, but he would not sympathize with them because of it.
Therefore, they were different from him; he stepped forward voluntarily, while they mostly did not, but were ordered to do so.
But whatever their intentions, they are fighting here with their lives on the line.
They are brave! Selfless!
Sympathy and pity are only a way of belittling them.
Marx and Engels saw them, and they naturally saw Marx and Engels as well.
"Isn't that the person? The one who conjured up weapons and ammunition for us before?"
"Yes, I remember him, but I haven't seen him before."
"I heard he was seriously injured and fell into a coma during a raid, which happened on our first day here."
"No? Wasn't he in charge of logistics and supplies? Why is he on the front lines? What's the person in charge here thinking?"
"What a load of crap! He was the person in charge back then, one of the strongest magicians here, and the scholar who did the most research on this anomaly. That raid was arranged by him when he went to investigate."
"Hey magician buddy, if you know us, just say more, we love to hear it."
"I, being from a lower level, don't know much about it. I only know that the city was cursed at the time, and the dead would turn into enemies. When he went to investigate, he found the source and hurriedly led people to deal with it. Although they succeeded, he was also injured in the process."
"Yes, I know that too. I was in the city preventing the dead from turning into enemies. To be honest, if the curse hadn't been removed, the enemy would have wiped us out in one fell swoop, given how disgusting the curse was."
“That’s right. Just imagine, the friendly soldiers who have fallen next to you will become enemies in a moment, get up and attack you. How troublesome is that?”
"Naruhodo, this lord was injured while saving everyone."
"More than that, he also provided us with intelligence on the enemy. When the incident occurred, he was the first to raise the troops. He also solved your problems with weapons and ammunition, as well as food in the city."
"Ah... what an amazing person this is!"
"Yes, now that he's back, I believe victory is not far off."
Such discussions spread among the surviving soldiers, who all turned their attention to Marx and his group.
As if they had taken a reassuring pill, the fatigue on the soldiers' faces vanished, and their morale soared.
It has the feel of a king's return, a miraculous escape from a desperate situation.
Of course, all of this was actually orchestrated by Marx and Engels in secret.
Otherwise, why would a magician, who adheres to the principle of maintaining mystery, tell the warriors so much?
In fact, it was Marx and Engels who secretly instructed them to do so, with the aim of restoring morale.
In battle between these two armies, morale is truly crucial. Low morale will cause soldiers to become timid, thus affecting their combat effectiveness.
Knowing that tomorrow would be the decisive battle, but seeing the soldiers' low morale, Maren had no choice but to take some action to avoid affecting the outcome of tomorrow's battle.
We arrived at the conference room, which also served as the command center for the Fuyuki front.
Coincidentally, they had been in a meeting earlier, so everyone was there, discussing plans for tomorrow's decisive battle.
Upon seeing someone enter, everyone turned to look.
When they saw that the person who came was Marx and Engels, they were all greatly shocked.
"Marx and Engels!" "Mr. Marx and Engels!" "Your Excellency Marx and Engels!" "Mr. Marx and Engels!"
In an instant, everyone stood up, excitedly shouting Marx and Engels' names, some even rushing over.
For example... Aozaki Touko.
She rushed over and hugged Ma En tightly, saying, "It's so great to see you again."
As she spoke, tears of emotion welled up in the eyes of this cold and strong woman.
Chapter 119 Uncovering the Truth, Anxiety About the Future
"Sorry for making you worry."
Ma En patted Aozaki Touko on the back with a wry smile, trying to soothe her emotions.
For Aozaki Touko, this was the only person Ma En didn't know how to comfort.
From the very beginning, she warned him of the dangers he might encounter and provided him with every possible means of survival she could offer.
However, he still got into trouble because he wasn't careful enough, which is what makes Marx and Engels most ashamed.
Upon hearing this, Aozaki Touko looked up and glared at Ma En, her eyes seeming to say, "You still know I'm worried about you?!"
"I'll talk to you later. Don't think I'll let you off so easily, hmph!"
However, she was still sensible enough not to continue the entanglement and let go of Ma En.
Because she knew that Ma En had come here as soon as he woke up, not just to see them, but because he had important business to attend to.
Maren scratched his nose awkwardly, said nothing more, and walked to the conference table, sitting in the familiar head seat.
Upon seeing this, everyone else burst into laughter.
I don't mean anything by it, I just think that Marx and Engels are very suitable for this position.
The moment he sat down, it felt like he had found a pillar of support, and people felt very at ease.
“Ma Enjun, it’s so good that you’re alright. We were really worried when we heard about your accident.”
Tokiomi Tohsaka, who was sitting next to him, also sat down and said with a smile.
He started talking, and everyone else chimed in.
"Yes, Your Excellency Marx and Engels, you have no idea how difficult it has been for us without you. We walk on thin ice every day, afraid of doing something wrong."
"Yes, without Ma Ensang, we feel completely lost when we encounter anything, it's really too difficult."
"The battle situation has also become passive, and the losses have been severe."
"It's so good to see you back."
The crowd chatted amongst themselves, expressing their welcome while also seemingly venting their frustrations.
Maren listened silently, and only spoke after everyone had finished: "Alright, enough of the reminiscing. Let's talk about the current situation. The decisive battle is tomorrow, right? How is our fighting strength?"
When the topic turned to business, everyone became serious. Tokiomi Tohsaka, still playing the role of assistant, began to report: "Currently, we have 416 people remaining, including 157 magicians, of whom only 111 are capable of participating in the battle."
Of the remaining 259 soldiers, 128 were wounded, leaving only 131 able to continue fighting.
"Regarding equipment and supplies..."
As Tokiomi Tohsaka spoke in great detail, Maren's brows slowly furrowed.
There's no other reason than that our current situation can truly be described as miserable: we have few troops, incomplete equipment, and even our supply of daily necessities is running out.
The original plan was to replenish supplies on the return trip after evacuating the civilians, but as soon as the civilians were evacuated, they lost contact with the outside world. Fuyuki was also shrouded in a sudden black fog, which completely trapped them and left them in a helpless situation.
"I'll replenish supplies and equipment later. As for personnel, I can only say I'll try and see if I can heal the wounded. I'm not sure. Finally, I'll go check on that black mist while I'm at it."
"There are some big issues here, related to my previous conjecture, but I can't draw any conclusions right now. We'll talk about the rest after I've dealt with these things and come back. That's all for now."
After giving a brief explanation, Mar and Eng got to work.
First, they went to the warehouse and built a large amount of living supplies. They instructed the personnel in charge not to be stingy and to let the soldiers eat the best they could.
Although this might seem like a half-hearted celebration, the soldiers are exhausted. The earlier encouragement had somewhat restored their spirits, but the fatigue from days of continuous fighting wouldn't be easily relieved. They needed to relax properly.
Then they returned to the city wall, replenished the previously damaged cannons, added two hundred more as spares, and replenished 100,000 cannonballs to ensure that the supply would not be interrupted even if they fired hard tomorrow.
Finally, his mother, Shan Shan, carried him to the edge of the black mist to begin their investigation.
"As expected, there was no magical reaction. It was just like ordinary fog of a different color, but it was thick and did not disperse, and the wind had no effect on it."
Ma En frowned as he looked at the black mist ahead.
"Try spatial scanning."
As he spoke, Ma En activated the full map cheat.
Subtle magical fluctuations emanated from him, scanning everything around him and drawing a three-dimensional map in his mind. However, his usually unfailing spatial scanning failed this time.
"Huh? What's this? The magic wave has been blocked? No, it's not blocked, this feeling... is it a spatial rift? Has the entire Fuyuki been isolated from space?"
···
Upon receiving the scan results, Ma En's heart sank slightly.
Sure enough, he had already guessed it when Iskandar admitted that he possessed the Holy Grail.
This mutation is very likely a singularity.
Now, the discovery of this spatial fault, in which Fuyuki is isolated, is a key characteristic of singularities.
The goal is to isolate singularities from the world, distort and alter their history or original destiny, and deny their subsequent fate and history, in order to dismantle human reason, that is, human history, and ultimately destroy humanity.
The first step in this process is to extract the part that is to be twisted, because only in this way can the subsequent steps be carried out more effectively.
.. ..
Otherwise, let alone whether the restraining force will intervene, just wanting to destroy the world is to be at odds with all of humanity. Do you think humanity will unite and beat you until you doubt your existence?
This is why singularities are limited to a certain area, rather than taking place on a global scale.
Besides precisely burning away this crucial part of humanity, reducing enemy resistance is also a very important factor.
But I digress. Let's get back to the present.
After confirming that this was a singularity, Mar and Eng immediately thought of many things.