Chapter 1991: Divine Protection, Compensating for Flaws

As for the idea that "one force overcomes ten techniques," how could the power of an individual creature compare to a machine piled high with resources!

Xia Duo also possesses Elf War Magic Artifacts, and not long ago, he even tried out war spells under the Netheril Magic System, so he has a relatively good understanding of the pros and cons of both.

The strength of Elf War Magic Artifacts lies in their flexibility; even spells that the War Magic Artifacts themselves do not possess can still be cast with the help of the War Magic Artifacts, provided they are coordinated in advance.

In other words, Elf War Magic Artifacts are more like collaborative devices for war spells.

However, the war spells loaded onto the Floating City of Xia Duo have all their functions fixed from the day they are manufactured and installed; it is impossible to have a sudden whim and come up with something new on the spot.

Therefore, in order to cope with various possible situations, the magic artifacts that serve as carriers for war spells must take a sufficient number of scenarios into account.

Taking the war spell 【Wide-Area Detection】 as an example, there are a total of 25 carrier magic artifacts, each of which is a fine Magic Item, and even more complex than ordinary fine Magic Items.

This is in terms of flexibility, where Xia Duo's are clearly inferior, but if one looks at usage frequency, maximum power, and even stability, Xia Duo's war spells are far superior to those of the Elves.

Elf War Magic Artifacts, in the final analysis, are operated by individual Spellcasters, with the Spellcaster being the primary subject, but Xia Duo's war spells are not; although a full configuration does indeed require the participation of multiple High Mages, once connected to the Mythallar, Xia Duo can control it alone.

As long as the carrier magic artifact itself is not damaged, it can be released at will; releasing it for a day or a year is no problem at all.

But Elf War Magic Artifacts cannot do this, unless another batch of operators is replaced, but how can that compare to the automatic operation of Xia Duo's cold, unfeeling machines!

With the overwhelming power of 【Annihilation Light】, even with just one Floating City, one could completely manage to "burn glass" all over the world—no, it should be "burn Gemstones" instead!

It is just that if the Floating City's power is too great, it is inevitable that the Elves might engage in some off-field operations, such as begging the Elf main god to take action.

Regarding such existences as gods, Xia Duo currently has no way to deal with them; the only feasible path is Ascension to Godhood, and only by standing at the same level as the other party is it possible to know their weaknesses.

As for asking the Princess, that is also unrealistic; if one asks a god about a god's weakness, will the god tell the truth? Furthermore, the Princess is only a new god, and she might even have to look up to predecessors like the Elf main god!

However, Xia Duo did think that he could gift a Floating City to the Lord of Radiance; although the other party might not necessarily want it, wouldn't building an unprecedented Temple of Radiance on the Floating City be equivalent to the other party accepting it!

Wouldn't it be a matter of course for the Floating City to obtain divine protection in this way!

Borrowing a banner to serve as a tiger skin is the way of survival for the weak and the way of management for the wise. As long as everything is done according to the rules, Xia Duo believes that with the broad-mindedness of the Lord of Radiance, the other party certainly would not mind.

If this is still not enough, perhaps he could find an open opportunity to summon the Divine Envoy Taide on the Floating City; with the endorsement of a Divine Envoy from the Kingdom of Radiance, the halo of a divine city would be firmly established.

With such a halo of blessing, even the Elf main god would not dare to intervene at will.

Of course, all these calculations cannot be made explicit; if they come true, then everything is a coincidence. Regardless of whether the Elves believe it or not, Xia Duo thinks so anyway.

"Observer Xia Duo, do not continue forward; it is too dangerous ahead—"

Before Naris could finish the words of dissuasion, the city ahead, which had been resisting stubbornly just a moment ago, suddenly collapsed—literally—the entire city and countless buildings crumbled with a boom.

The situation was like a castle built of sand on a beach; once washed by the seawater, it left no trace, and the "seawater" that had just washed over the city "sandcastle" was the curtain of light that had suddenly descended from the sky.

Like seawater sweeping across, apart from the city ahead collapsing and turning into mud and sand, a large number of scattered settlements around it, along with the forests connecting them, all turned into mud and sand.

And those mud and sand, as the light curtain rolled back, went up into the sky along the direction of the light curtain's "flow," turning into the same flowing light.

Seeing this scene, Xia Duo finally felt a trace of crisis; he knew that besides the limitation of human labor, Elf War Magic Artifacts had an upper limit on the speed of acquiring Magic Net energy.

Generally speaking, the speed at which a Magic Item acquires Magic Net energy is positively correlated with the number of Spell Elements it possesses and its energy level.

And how many Spell Elements are contained in a set of Elf War Magic Artifacts?

Xia Duo blindly guesses it should not exceed ten thousand; even if it does, it definitely cannot cross the threshold of one hundred thousand, while a 【Mythallar】 device contains at least millions of Spell Elements.

In other words, there is at least an order of magnitude difference in energy acquisition speed between Elf war spells and Floating City war spells.

However, what did Xia Duo just see—

The flowing light curtain in the sky assimilated the matter on the ground into energy; in other words, the biggest shortcoming limiting the energy cap and endurance of Elf war spells was solved just like that!

The speed at which Elf war spells directly acquire energy from the Magic Net is indeed not fast, not comparable to a 【Mythallar】, but if the spell itself contains the function of creating and assimilating energy, then this problem seems to be easily solved.

It is just that the Magic Net naturally possesses the function of guiding free energy; in the current situation, Xia Duo speculates that either the Magic Net's function has been artificially restricted, or Yierlan is racing the speed of energy increase against the speed of Magic Net guidance reduction.

If it is the former, it means that Yierlan has already made significant progress in the field of war spells.

And if it is the latter, as the range of the war spell's influence increases, the speed of Magic Net energy guidance will also increase, which means Yierlan must adopt an offensive strategy similar to a blitzkrieg.

A little slower, and this kind of war spell might collapse.

But combined with the situation observed earlier in the Yierlan camp outside Adofeier Fortress, Xia Duo judges that the fact might be precisely the former.

That Node might be related to restricting the Magic Net's energy guidance; after all, stripping away the Magic Net structure, besides restricting Spellcasting, can indeed play a role in interfering with the Magic Net's energy guidance.

Of course, a blitzkrieg is also almost a fact; from the time the Yierlan side issued the war notice to the time they advanced to the vicinity of Adofeier Fortress, it only took a little over a day.

Then—

"It is time for me to act too!"

Subsequently, Xia Duo did not hesitate to take down the "little tail" that had been following him; with intent against no intent, he had even caught High Mages before, although that was with the help of the geographical advantage of the Evereska Mythallar.

But Naris is not a High Mage; without any accidents, Naris was subdued by Xia Duo.

Almost the moment Xia Duo succeeded, he noticed an abnormal vibration of the Magic Net in the surroundings; clearly, the 【Eclix Contract】 organization was still paying attention to the situation here at the critical moment when Yierlan was about to achieve a key victory.

But since Xia Duo had decided to act, he had naturally already taken these situations into account.

He immediately interfered with the other party's spell, then used Avoidance of Detection, wiped away the Magic Mark left when entering the territory, and took Naris into the Ether Plane, disappearing from sight.