The time, place, and manner of the attack were impeccablely chosen.

With only a day's journey to its destination, theoretically within friendly control, and having previously successfully repelled a large attacking force, the entire train was in a relatively lax state, except for the team of vehicles on standby with their seatbelts on. First, there was a violent tremor like an earthquake, and then the huge inertia impact caused by the sudden stop of the train almost knocked everyone to the ground. The interior lights switched to emergency red, and the windows on both sides of the car bounced off the armor plates.

"What happened, report the situation immediately!"

In the midst of a wail and complaining, Roland immediately pressed the communication button and asked loudly into the special line connecting the front of the car, but only the "rustle" murmur came back from the loudspeaker.

（...... What's going on?)

The uneasy mass rapidly expanded in his chest, and a strange sensation that he had experienced rushed into his brain along the sensory nerves.

"Lord Roland, Mana—"

The flower mantis turned sideways and screamed, and on the dashboard across from him, the hand displaying the Mana concentration index overlapped almost zero.

"It's the 'Spinning Wheel'! Everyone is ready for battle!"

Recalling the number of things he had encountered during the entrance test, Roland gasped, and before he had time to explain more, he immediately issued instructions to the Marines, and they were the most important force at the moment when the important foundation of magic disappeared.

However, the situation deteriorated again before his orders were carried out.

"Radio contact is cut off, switch to a backup frequency! There is a strong disturbance around, and it is impossible to recover!"

"The temperature inside and outside the car is rising, and the humidity is rising, which is—"

"'The fog'. ”

Clenched his teeth and squeezed out the name of the technique, looking at the milky white vapor outside from the observation gap of the armor plate, Roland furrowed his eyebrows.

The attackers had apparently observed the previous battle, and after blockading Mana, they had blocked the radio and horizons, leaving the rear unaware of the situation and unable to dispatch reinforcements in time. In the dense fog with visibility of less than 1 meter, it was difficult for the troops to line up in the whole line after getting off the vehicle. Not to mention aiming at unseen enemies.

The advantage of the musket over magic is the range and rate of fire. But now in this situation, the flintlock pistol simply does not work properly.

"Copy guy!"

Within a second, the "Eagle of the Guard" high-powered pistol, oval grenade, 12-gauge semi-automatic shotgun, 40mm revolver grenade launcher, 9mm submachine gun, and general-purpose machine gun with 75 rounds of drums all rolled out from behind the fresco of the table and chair. The insect killers have their own special skills, but that doesn't mean they don't like automatic weapons: Scorpion is loading a 32-round drum into his imitation AA-12 shotgun, which is mixed with high-explosive rounds. There's no way anyone who intrudes into the carriage is going to get out of front of this thing, and the giant needle ant has oval grenades hanging from under its skirt. The massive "Eagle of the Guard" pistol reflects a chilling light, and the Flower Mantis loads grenades and smoke grenades into its grenade launcher. The bug was holding 2 general-purpose machine guns, with bullet belts hanging diagonally over his shoulders and a red headband tied to his forehead.

This bunch of guys. It's not a problem to hit 10 with this firepower configuration......

Roland complained to the side, Valrhona was fiddling with a .45 caliber imitation Magnum 29 revolver, and the dragon princess seemed to have found a nice toy, rummaging around with the gun that was supposedly used to "fight dinosaurs", and completely dismissing the 88mm "Panzerschreck" rocket launcher and "Panzerfaust" on the side. Most of them don't look down on the stupid and thick appearance, so it's okay, it's really unbearable to use this kind of weapon in the train.

The personnel and equipment are in good condition, the food, drinking water, ammunition are sufficient, and there are no problems with the armor plates, so it should not be a problem to hold the train until the reinforcements arrive. The other party will not be unaware of this kind of thing, and should have formulated countermeasures, related to the inexplicable explosion in the front of the car just now, as well as the start of the "spinning wheel", the only thing that can ignore the armor protection and instantly destroy the "special two-type internal fireboat" is just magic. But the speed and density of Mana gathered at that moment should not be able to achieve that effect, so what can instantly destroy the front of the car at a very small cost-

The white fog outside the window flowed through the corners of the field of vision, and Roland's face instantly turned pale.

Snort –

A long screech of white steam erupted from the cracks in the carriage, and as visibility slowly increased, the scene of death became clearer and clearer.

There were no more than half living people standing in the second carriage, and all the marines who had been going to "surprise" the intruders were lying on the ground, their swollen bodies glowing with a strange layer of red, their necks were blurred with blood, some of them were clenching their throats desperately, and the air was filled with a smell similar to boiled meat.

Several spider silk columns of water hang from the edge of the door, ignoring the laws of physics, and the water column wraps around the door handle like a biological tentacle and pulls it upwards with force.

With a click, the car door opened, and the man shrouded in a black robe walked in with a smile.

"It's better than expected, well, the flavor is a little stronger. ”

"The water ...... before Water ......"

"It's a vapor explosion, remember it for me. ”

"Why not use that, but in such a troublesome way?"

If someone were to hear this conversation on the spot, they would have thought it was incredible, and they would call the hospital, the kind that houses the mentally ill.

The man in black was talking to himself, and he was talking as if the two of them were discussing a problem, no matter how you look at it, they are all severe schizophrenia patients who need to be admitted and treated.

"Please, can you please get past your brain and ask this kind of question?"

A flirtatious voice sounded, as if he couldn't stand it, and said:

"The so-called 'water vapor explosion' is also a type of explosion, don't think that steam is a form of water, so it will not affect flammable substances. I used the fog to increase the humidity of the air and make some of the muskets useless. However, the powder keg has strict moisture-proof measures, and the instantaneous burst of high temperature and high pressure water vapor can completely cause a chain explosion of the powder keg. And then send the fool who sang 'Fly.me.to.the.moon' to the moon - something that wasn't romantic at all, and I didn't want to try it. ”

"It's not a romantic question!"

"Yes, it's a matter of efficiency. ”

In response to Yan's rhetorical question, he responded cheerfully, and his satisfied gaze swept across the carriage floor.

As expected, filling a room with 100°C steam would not detonate the gunpowder, but the accumulation of large amounts of steam in a confined space would be as dangerous as turning the room into a gas chamber, squeezing oxygen out of the room, burning the skin and respiratory tract, and within a minute, the victim would die of painful suffocation.

It's not just magic. and traditional manipulation of water. Turn water into a blade to slice through your opponent, drown them, or create misty illusions to confuse them. This is a new way of using water with the main purpose of improving efficiency after fully understanding the characteristics of water in different forms.

"Efficiency, efficiency...... You've really learned the word from those guys. ”

"Well. This is one of the core principles. But. What I learned the most from Alfheim was 'create the best environment for yourself,' like this—"

With a wave of the hand. The white mist that permeated the carriage quickly gathered towards the ceiling of the carriage, and the cooled water droplets dripped down, and they were about to splash on the floor, but the water droplets in mid-air quickly fused with each other into a water ball that was 50 centimeters large, and after dividing several tentacles to fix the water balloon body in front of the man, the water balloon split into several tentacles again, as if it was alive and writhing.

"Automatically seek the enemy. ”

The man in black gave an order, and 8 tentacles moved along the edge of the carriage, and the narrow spaces such as the door crack and the armor observation gap were useless to these randomly deformed water tentacles, and soon, eight images appeared on the sphere, completely synchronized with the movements of the tentacle tips, and several of them were not intuitive optical images, but red, blue, and green clusters of human shapes.

"Alright, let's see where the little mice are hiding. ”

Staring at the image on the surface of the water balloon, the man licked his lips excitedly.

＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃＃

"Water vapor explosion?"

Ruminating unfamiliar words, Valrhona asked puzzledly:

"It's just evaporating boiling water, how can you destroy a locomotive protected by heavy armor?"

"It's better to say that because of that layer of armor, the destructive effect is strengthened. ”

Opening the pistol safe, Roland explained worriedly.

"When water turns into water vapor, the volume is 1,700 times that of the original, and a large amount of water in a confined space turns into water vapor in a short period of time, resulting in a huge pressure from the inside out. I'm afraid that the enemy has prepared a passive technique on the rails, and when the front of the locomotive enters the upper part of the array, the operation is immediately activated, quickly heating the water in the front tank and boiler, and in the heavily armored and sealed nose, the steam has nowhere to go, so——"

"Bang-"

Valrhona mimicked the sound of the explosion, and then asked:

"There should be at least two prisoners, one to maintain the 'spinning wheel' and create a mana vacuum, and the other to annihilate the guards in the cart and take hostages. ”

"That's how it should be. ”

Roland nodded, the option of "killing all the train passengers" was ruled out at the beginning, if the enemy really wanted to do that, there was no need to deliberately blast the front of the locomotive, just detonate the ammunition car directly. It was precisely because of the need to capture the hostages alive that the priority was given to stopping the train and then blocking the convoy's movement with the "fog".

The crisp and neat way of action is obviously more clever than the previous attackers, and this use of magic is also of interest to Roland, but now is not the time to dwell on these details.

"The train has a total of 55 cars, 12 cars at the beginning and 12 cars at the end full of Marines, excluding the command car, ammunition car, dining car, entertainment car and special car at the end, and the 18 cars carrying important passengers in the middle should be the target of the other side. Next, will the enemy take a surprise attack, check each carriage or use some other means to reconnoitre......"

"It's good to bring the spider with you at this time. ”

The flower mantis on the side interjected, and a sharp gaze immediately shot from the side, making him shrink his neck.

"Sorry, I forgot that the scorpion is also here......"

"Anyway, I'm an Obasang who likes to split corpses, and I can't compare with a beautiful girl who shakes S. ”

Lowering his eyelids, the corners of the scorpion's mouth curved into a dangerous arc, and looking at the extremely dangerous smile, cold sweat broke out on the forehead of the flower mantis.

Ignoring the gaze around him, the scorpion reached out and pressed against the wall.

Exoskeleton organisms have their own unique sensory systems, such as the compound eyes of dragonflies and praying mantises, the hormone pheromones of ants and bees, and the flagella of cockroaches, but there are very few that can achieve wide-area perception like spiders, and scorpions are just one of them.

Few people know that spiders and scorpions are actually close relatives of the same arachnid, although they are very different in appearance. There are many similarities between the two in their habits, such as being very good at setting traps and waiting for their prey to come to their door, or for example, they are both good at sensing changes in their surroundings.

The scorpion has no ears, no compound eyes and no antennae for insects, and instead has a special sensory organ called the Peclin, which grows at the base of the fourth pair of feet on the inside of the abdomen and is dedicated to sensing vibrations.

Spiders and scorpions are the same in this sense, but scorpions do not have silk and can sense vibrations around them with their bodies alone. The killer named "Scorpion" has also been transplanted with this ability, which allows him to feel subtle vibrations and recognize sounds just by his skin. Pressing his hand against the wall of the carriage, the sound of talking, the footsteps of movement, and the sound of the operation of the ventilation duct were transmitted through the palm of the hand, and among the many sounds, a few subtle sounds attracted attention.

"The sound of water?"

The sound of a stream of water moving against the walls of the carriage was incredibly clear, and it was incredibly that at least four of the eight vibrations came from the ceiling, and the progress was not coherent, but it stopped from time to time, or dived into the compartment room, and after a while continued on its way.

"It's like a search. ”

The scorpion snorted softly, and she was not too surprised by the gravity-defiant, creature-like behavior of the current, after all, the other party was an experienced magician, and it was not worth making a fuss about any unreasonable behavior. However, this method of exploration is a bit tricky.

"Young Master, do you know what can be used for reconnaissance in the operation system water attribute technique?"

"Water Detection...... Several of the known procedures are used underwater, and are measured by guò sensing changes in water pressure. ...... used on land Wait, are you sure the other party is using the water attribute technique to scout the carriage?"

"Although there was no sound, the friction and vibration could not hide from me, and there were 8 finger-thick columns of water constantly penetrating the carriage, and we were still 11 carriages away as we went. ”

"I see, we can manipulate the curvature of water and transmit images, and we may have added vibration detection and thermal sensing techniques......

You can't be wrong, this is the technique "Water Demon" that is still in the theoretical stage, and it is somewhat interesting to appear here, but this is not the time to dwell on this kind of problem.

The enemy's magic operation skills are quite clever, and the strategy is also very steady, and rash counterattacks will only be led by the nose of the opponent, and waiting will only be slowly ravaged by the opponent.

That being the case—

The boy looked up, a confident smile on his face.

"Just play hide and seek with him. (To be continued......)