Chapter 307 - 280: Catapult
In the yard at the far end of the Urban Village, a massive, translucent black anchor lay horizontally, like a colossus emerging from the deep sea.
In front of the anchor was a door.
’So this is the Anchor Point. By the way, if we travel to the next map, will this Anchor Point still exist? How long does it last?’
Qin Ziwen circled the Anchor Point. He discovered that, at least within the same map, the Anchor Point seemed to have no time limit, just like a Node.
Once a target was locked by the Anchor Point, the point would fix itself in place, transforming into a giant anchor.
Then, through the Anchor Point, a door would be generated.
The people from the Alliance Association had come in through this very door.
As for the other side of the Anchor Point, it was located inside his Home.
By now, most of his translocation abilities had finished their cooldowns.
If anyone dared to force their way into his Home, as long as their authority wasn’t higher than his, his translocation abilities would teach them a lesson.
Qin Ziwen circled the Anchor Point again and reached out to touch it. When his palm made contact with the massive black anchor, it passed right through its surface.
The anchor was an illusion, not a solid object.
Through the massive door in the middle, he could see the scene on the other side: the landscape inside his very own Home. It was different from the blue, elliptical tunnel of a Node. The Anchor Point was more like a hole punched through a sheet of paper, allowing a direct, clear view of the other side.
Footsteps approached from outside the door. "Chairman."
"What was Yang Long’s reaction?"
"His attitude was quite good. No particular reaction."
"Mm," Qin Ziwen nodded. "Let’s deal with the Blood Words first."
Three straight days passed.
The wooden stockade surrounding Hongding Mansion had begun to take shape.
At the same time, tools like cheval de frise, wooden spikes, and trailers were continuously delivered via the Military Equipment Supervisor.
The trees on the island were felled one after another, dragged away in batches.
There was still no movement from Hongding Mansion. The people inside seemed determined to defend to the last.
Qin Ziwu gave a thumbs-up. "A bunch of damn patient bastards."
"It doesn’t matter. We just need to do our part," Qin Ziwen said. He returned to his Home through the Anchor Point and went to the Yanwu Military Equipment Supervisor.
Because after working overtime through the night, Li Yue and his team had successfully completed a prototype for a new type of catapult they had been tackling.
"Chairman, this is a heavy, man-powered catapult we designed based on modern mechanics."
Qin Ziwen gazed at the large machine before him. Its arm spanned over eight meters, and it weighed three tons.
Just looking at it gave it the aesthetic beauty of heavy machinery.
"How heavy of a stone can it launch?"
Li Yue said proudly, "At maximum, it can launch a hundred-pound stone to a range of about two hundred meters. If we load it with many small pebbles, it can also deliver a scattered strike."
A craftsman beside him added, "Chairman, if we optimize it further, the catapult’s performance can be enhanced. But for now, this is pretty much its limit."
"Mm, it’s fine. This is good enough for now," Qin Ziwen nodded.
He hadn’t expected to be able to collapse the entire high-rise with this catapult in a short amount of time anyway.
It might be possible against the small, single-story houses in the Urban Village, but against the high-rise, its main function was intimidation.
This thing was different from the Car-Mounted Crossbows.
Crossbow Arrows were too delicate. The manpower and time required to make a single Crossbow Arrow were greater than that for digging up a stone.
Stones could be gathered nearby, and you didn’t feel bad about wasting them. Using Crossbow Arrows to shoot at a cold, inanimate building just felt a bit extravagant.
Two days later, three catapults were transported to the Urban Village through the Anchor Point.
Yang Long, having received the news, rushed over to see.
Looking at the three enormous catapults, he was stunned.
’You guys can build this stuff too?’
"Chairman Qin, this is..."
Yang Long asked cautiously.
"A catapult," Qin Ziwen said, finding it strange. ’Is this thing so hard to recognize?’
Watching the massive machine being slowly pushed past him, Yang Long subconsciously reached out and lightly touched it.
Feeling the cold machinery, he suddenly felt a bit of relief.
’Good thing I surrendered early. Otherwise, this thing would have been used to bombard us.’
When the people on the upper floors of Hongding Mansion saw the catapults being moved into position below, they were dumbfounded.
’Are they planning on treating us like we’re the Japanese?!’
"Get back inside!" Li Zecheng’s expression changed drastically.
He scrambled to the other side of the building.
The other side hadn’t fired their Crossbow Cannons for the past few days. ’So they were holding back for something big!’
The three catapults were lined up a hundred meters from Hongding Mansion, their thick wooden frames digging into the mud.
The operators beside them pulled hard on the iron chains, cranking them back.
The wooden frames let out a dull GROAN as they scraped against the ground.
With a command,
The leftmost catapult released its catch. The taut wooden arm snapped forward with a BANG, and the large stone shot out like a whistling meteor, carving an arc through the sky.
"BOOM!"
A deafening crash exploded outwards.
The few remaining sections of the top floor’s curtain wall instantly shattered, and countless glass shards rained down like a torrential storm.
After smashing through the curtain wall, the massive stone slammed deep into the floor’s interior. The dull thud of the impact was clearly audible even from hundreds of meters away.
Immediately after, the other two catapults fired in succession.
A section of the twentieth floor’s outer wall, the external concrete, suddenly cracked and exploded.
Large chunks of rubble, shrouded in dust, broke off, leaving a wide, though not particularly deep, crater in the wall’s surface.
The third catapult launched a cluster of small, sharp stones gathered from the seashore.
Like a goddess scattering blossoms, a dense, unending patter of shattering sounds filled the air.
With the launch of the catapults, the once-quiet Hongding Mansion became a scene of utter chaos.
The three catapults were like tireless Giant Beasts, launching their projectiles over and over again.
Large stones and small ones, one after another, they soared into the sky.
Soon, the surface of Hongding Mansion’s walls was pockmarked with craters, and hardly a single pane of glass remained intact.
Smoke and dust billowed out from the holes, giving the building a "Syrian" look.
Although the internal load-bearing walls were structurally sound, the exterior walls were severely damaged. Both its shelter from the elements and its overall security were drastically reduced.
Under the relentless bombardment, the people inside the building finally couldn’t take it anymore.
A tide of people surged out of the first-floor lobby—a dense, dark mass of countless heads.
These people held various weapons, and some even carried homemade shields.
With battle cries, they swarmed towards the catapults.
"Burn their catapults!"
"Kill them!"
The catapults’ winches slowly came to a stop.
At almost the same moment, a large force emerged from the direction of the Urban Village.
Like a tidal wave.
A quick glance revealed no fewer than a thousand people. They spread out to the sides like a tide, protecting the flanks.
At the very center was an elite force of three hundred.
At the front, a hundred men holding Long Spears and clad in Armor formed two iron walls behind the wooden stockade, their sharp spears jutting out from the gaps between the stakes.
Behind the spear formation was a two-hundred-man corps of bowmen and crossbowmen.
Thirty One-Handed Crossbows were held level at the front. Behind them, shortbows were arranged in four rows, while fifty Longbows at the rear were drawn taut, ready to fire.
"Fire!"
Du Yu gave the order.
In an instant, a curtain of arrows rose into the air, raining down on the enemy.
Like reaping wheat, the front ranks of the charging force from Hongding Mansion fell in waves.
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