Chapter 162: Exterminators

In a flash, it had been four days since the survivors arrived in the underground alchemy factory.

This unusual magician tower was very big. The survivors hadn’t traveled far during those four days. Each byway needed a divine spell to determine the correct path. Every passage needed to be investigated for traps, machines, or other hazards.

Everything depended on Jia Sha alone.

It was a considerable burden on Jia Sha. Every time his situation deteriorated, he could only rest.

Without his protective shields, blessings, and other divine spells, no one’s fleshy body could vie with a transportation golem.

The closer they got to the alchemy factory control hub, the bigger the problems.

Loss of personnel was unavoidable.

Tripleblade’s mercenary corps suffered the most losses.

This seemed normal to Jia Sha. Half-breeds were treated like this, so much so that when he healed with divine spells, he preferred treating Zhen Jin and those of pure human blood.

Of course, it was a fact that Jia Sha’s divine spells and divine power were limited.

But Tripleblade and Zong Ge were naturally unsatisfied.

Seeing his commands defied, Jia Sha’s smile vanished. He then quietly looked at Tripleblade and Zong Ge and released an incorporeal pressure.

But Zong Ge and Tripleblade had no fear, they looked at Jia Sha square in the face without wavering.

The templar guardian knights grimly stepped forward, some grasping their weapons.

The small ballistaemodels in the alchemy workshop were something they had never seen. Nothing was known about how fast they fired or the might of the alchemy arrows they shot.

In addition, there might be some functional golems hidden in the wreckage.

These things needed to be probed out.

This was the work of cannon fodder, and something that had always fallen to Zong Ge’s and Tripleblade’s people.

This was normal.

When many feudal lords went to war, they would hire mercenary corps to serve as cannon fodder.

But as the implicated party, Tripleblade and Zong Ge undoubtedly didn’t want to do that.

In the deadlocked situation and subtle atmosphere, Jia Sha’s gaze shifted towards Zhen Jin.

Zhen Jin smiled: “You had better use heavenly messenger.”

Jia Sha’s face went blank, while some of the templar guardian knights pushed their brows.

Heavenly messenger looked like a bird, but it wasn’t created from magic, rather it was a bird that lived in the heavens.

Jia Sha’s summoning spell was strictly defined as an otherworldly summoning spell——where an otherworldly object comes to its master’s world.

Since entering the alchemy factory, most of the investigating work was done by heavenly messenger.

However, sacrificing heavenly messenger too many times was disadvantageous to Jia Sa.

The next moment, Priest Jia Sha deeply gazed at Zhen Jin with worry, then sighed: “Heavenly messenger has been sacrificed too many times, if I summon it again, it will be more difficult to get a response, while simultaneously using up a lot of divine power. Currently, using heavenly messenger uses almost as much divine power as the extreme eye spell. It isn’t cost effective, if I use up too much divine power, I will need to rest more frequently, slowing us all down.”

“It has already been four days.”

“Perhaps War Merchant is in the middle of recuperation, and all of the obstructions we met are to buy him time.”

“Naturally, we need to make the attack faster.”

But Zhen Jin shook his head, he was very firm, even when confronting a priest that shared his beliefs: “We embarked together and were shipwrecked together, we are all comrades. Every life is valuable, and we should save as many as possible. If in the future, we fight War Merchant in hand to hand combat, every military strength is very important.”

Zong Ge, Tripleblade, and some others gazed at him. The fact that Zhen Jin was still on their side was somewhat beyond their expectations.

Jia Sha stared blankly, but soon after his expression alleviated into a smile: “Your words are reasonable, maybe my heart was too pressured and caused some misunderstandings among everyone. Since this is the case, heavenly messenger shall continue to be used to probe out the situation.”

“Wait a moment, everyone.” This time, Zi Di suddenly opened her mouth, she pointed at the workshop’s ceiling, “Look there, do you have an investigation magic spell you can use?”

With rapt attention, everyone gazed up. The ceiling had been destroyed, not deliberately, but from the fighting. In the shattered ceiling, all kinds of magical formation lines were visible.

Jia Sha shook his head: “I don’t have a great understanding of magical formations.”

He was a priest, to gain strength, he only needed to pray and prove his piousness while contributing to his sect and god.

Comparatively, although Zi Di was only at the iron level, her understanding of magical formations was above Jia Sha’s.

Zi Di continued: “I have seen this magical formation before, if it was undamaged and activated, it would show a true field of view. It would eliminate all invisibility, disguises, and other methods of that nature.

After this was said, Zhen Jin, Jia Sha, Cang Xu, Zong Ge, and the others couldn’t help but show their pondering.

Zi Di: “Since this magical formation was created and concealed by War Merchant, if it were not destroyed, no outsiders could find it. In that case, it proves this workshop needed it. I think, no matter whether it is the small ballistae or golems, both of them need a true field of view, if not, they will be unable to discover camouflaged enemies.”

“Good discovery Miss Zi Di, it seems I can try the invisibility spell.” Jia Sha nodded.

Divine spell: heavenly messenger.

Divine spell: invisibility.

A silver level invisibility spell not only made something invisible to sight, the thing was also invisible to the senses of smell and touch.

Sure enough, the invisible heavenly messenger flew around the workshop and returned safely.

“Now, we need a brave warrior to enter the workshop, approach the ballistae while invisible, and destroy them.” Said Jia Sha.

A brief spell of silence.

If the invisibility spell was used, the body couldn’t be shielded. If the ballistae hit the person in question, they would almost certainly die!

Tripleblade and the others didn’t budge, it was clear they didn’t want to do this task.

“Xi Suo, come here.” Jia Sha suddenly said.

Xi Suo blankly stared and looked embarrassed. But with Jia Sha’s eyes on him, he still nodded and agreed.

Jia Sha smiled, with deep intent, he looked around him until finally stopping on Xi Suo: “Mr. Xi Suo, your contribution shall not be overlooked, I believe you need this.”

Xi Suo nodded repeatedly: “I understand, Lord Priest.”

“Altogether there will be four people, three are still needed. We will fill two of them with Xiong Dun and Chai Zha.”

Jia Sha spoke, causing two guardian templar knights to step out.

Xiong Dun had a large stature and was taller than Zong Ge. In his hand, he held a shield that was half the height of a human.

Chai Zha was a middle aged man, he had an aquiline nose and a sword in each hand.

“We still need one more warrior!” Jia Sha shouted.

“May I? Lord Priest. Bai Ya volunteered at his own accord.

Jia Sha looked at Bai Ya and gently nodded his head: “Of course you can, courageous youngster. It is clear you possess some of the knightly spirit.”

After the four individuals were selected, Jia Sha used the invisibility spell on them.

The rest stayed outside the door temporarily and tensely gazed at the production workshop. They could not see the four people, but not long after, they witnessed the four ballistaebeing destroyed.

Perhaps the ballistaeoriginally had rigorous defensive measures that might have killed the four while they were destroying the ballistae.

The four retreated smoothly, Bai Ya and Xi Suo had excitement on their faces. The two templar guardian knights followed standard tranquility.

“Nice job!” Everyone admired them.

Jia Sha canceled the invisibility spell on heavenly messenger and had it fly around the workshop.

Nothing happened.

“It seems safe.” Jia Sha canceled his summon spell, sending heavenly messenger back to its original plane of existence.

Everyone walked in a line.

They began to plunder the workshop. There were golem fragments everywhere, some melted into glass, some were covered in frost, and some were pulverized. From them, some of the three saints’ methods could be distinguished.

“Warning! Warning!”

“Intruders discovered in production workshop 8, intruders discovered in production workshop 8.”

As the people searched, the tower spirit’s voice suddenly came through.

Everyone was ready to face a great enemy.

One after the other, everyone exited back through the door, Jia Sha then used a series of shields to protect the guardian templar knights, Zhen Jin, Zong Ge, and some others.

“Destroyed ballista system detected, no guardian golems detected, initializing the release of the cleaner.

Soon after, everyone saw mechanisms raise the walls of the production workshop, exposing a few passages.

The passages were very narrow, they were as big as a small pile of books.

Everyone tensely waited for a spell.

But after ten breaths, nothing appeared from the passages.

“Dammit! I jumped in fear.”

“Ha ha, it seems these exterminators have been destroyed too.”

But at that moment, an enormous warning suddenly rose in Zhen Jin’s heart, he jumped back at once as a strand of hair was cut from his head.

“Ah!” Meanwhile, the heartily laughing comrade's entire head was cut into two.

Because of the splashing blood, his murderer’s silhouette appeared a little before disappearing from everyone’s field of view.

“What is that thing?”

“It looked like a frisbee!”

“Be careful, these exterminators are invisible!!”

Many people shouted with panic and subconsciously curled into balls.

They had just used invisibility to destroy the ballistae, now they were suffering the attacks of invisible enemies.

Not knowing their foes’ positions, many people began to shoot recklessly.

Jia Sha promptly used a divine spell repeatedly, finally sniffing out the invisible exterminators.

Under everyone’s counterattack, the four exterminators were destroyed, their smashed fragments falling to the ground.

This attack killed three people and seriously injured Que Shan.

The attackers resembled a three bladed fan, the fan blades were very sharp and could easily remove a man’s head.

Scared and on edge, everyone entered the workshop again, fearing the tower spirit’s voice would appear again.

But during their entire rest, nothing had happened.

“These fans, even if I transformed the scorpion carapace, it would be difficult to resist. If I didn’t transform and these exterminators successfully ambushed me, I would have died.” Taking advantage of others not paying attention to him, Zhen Jin tested the fans, the result was not optimistic.

“It seems I must tell Jia Sha of my transformations.” Zhen Jin sighed. 

Notes

Looks like the factory has invisible flying doomwheels, oh the horror. I wonder why ultrasound wasn’t used during this time? Is he that paranoid of Jia Sha’s divine powers detecting even the slightest change in his body? That seems kinda invasive on Jia Sha’s part. I wonder what Jia Sha thinks of the stories the others have told pertaining to his golden armor and such.