Chapter 346: Power Discharge

Kael dismissed the contribution window and immediately opened the defensive upgrade interface. He had no intention of allowing the Leonard’s turrets to continue obstructing him.

The remaining ballistae along his section began changing one after another. Their foundations thickened first, reinforced beams spreading across the ramparts to support the additional weight. The original firing platforms rose above the cheap structures the Leonard had placed in front of them, while secondary and tertiary bows unfolded around tall central columns.

Within minutes, every one of Kael’s ballistae had become a towering weapon capable of firing over the defenses intended to block them. Multiple firing arms rotated independently along each structure, feeding belts carried bolts upward from the crews below, and the highest bows possessed a clear view of the entire battlefield.

The Leonard’s turrets remained underneath them, small, obstructive, and now almost entirely irrelevant.

Kael glanced toward the golden-haired climber. The Leonard was staring at the newly elevated ballistae with barely concealed fury.

Kael raised one hand and gave him a lazy wave before moving toward the ordinary fortress cannon. It was not the one Kael had constructed from the Rusted Reclaimer, but the Tower-provided weapon.

Its first two available upgrades had been unremarkable. One reduced the time required for the barrel to cool between shots, while the second improved the loading mechanism, allowing the soldiers to prepare the next cannonball while the weapon recovered. Both were useful, but hardly exciting.

The third stage was different.

Kael selected it, and the cannon began transforming. Its thick barrel lengthened, stretching beyond the edge of the battlement. The outer metal split into sections that rearranged themselves around a reinforced central chamber. Its wheels sank into a broader foundation that locked directly into the stone, preventing the weapon from moving under the force it was now designed to release.

Two massive metallic extensions unfolded from either side of the barrel. They ran parallel to one another, reaching farther than the original cannon’s mouth. Rings and conducting plates formed along their interior surfaces while insulated cables spread through the base of the weapon.

Electricity began dancing between the two rails.

Blue-white arcs jumped from one side to the other, filling the air with sharp crackling sounds. The soldiers operating the weapon stepped away instinctively as their hair rose beneath their helmets.

The ammunition changed as well. The round iron cannonballs inside the nearby storage rack elongated, their bodies narrowing into pointed metallic projectiles several times larger than ordinary bullets, each fitted with reinforced bands around the rear.

The resulting weapon barely resembled a cannon anymore. It looked like an oversized railgun built using the principles of a medieval siege engine.

Kael checked his remaining points. He had a little over six thousand, and he left them untouched.

They had agreed to preserve a third of their currency, and after watching two waves overlap with a third arriving before the second had ended, Kael was not about to abandon that plan merely because more upgrades looked tempting.

The battlefield before his wall had changed completely. A massive crater occupied the area where the orc formation had once marched. The ground surrounding it had melted into black glass, and smoke rose from the scorched remains scattered across the plain. The few surviving orcs stumbled through the ruins with missing limbs and burned flesh, no longer capable of leading a proper assault.

The goblins around them had panicked. Some continued toward the fortress, driven forward by those behind them, but many had scattered from the path of destruction. The formation pressing Kael’s wall lost much of its organization, allowing the elevated ballistae and fortress archers to tear through them with far less resistance.

The pressure against the northern gate weakened. The third wave’s elites had been neutralized before their attack truly began.

The Leonard looked across the devastation and cursed. "Damn it!"

Kael turned toward him.

"You’re not a team player!" the Leonard shouted.

Kael stared at him for several seconds. "Team player?"

"Yes! You could have used the orcs to stall the battle!"

Kael laughed. "Because I didn’t let you waste time? Please go play somewhere else."

"You’re going to regret this. You have no idea what you’re doing."

"Sure, sure."

A rising whine interrupted him.

The railgun to Kael’s left had finished charging. Electricity gathered between the metallic extensions, the arcs becoming denser as they wrapped around the elongated projectile resting within the firing chamber. Blue light spread along the weapon until every soldier nearby shielded his eyes.

Then the railgun fired.

The projectile did not appear to move. One moment, it rested between the rails. The next, the air in front of the weapon exploded.

A deafening crack rolled across the fortress as the projectile broke through sound and everything unfortunate enough to stand in its path. A straight tunnel appeared through the goblin army.

The shot did not need to strike them directly. The pressure surrounding its passage tore bodies apart.

Goblins several feet from the projectile were ripped from the ground, limbs separating from torsos under the force of the displaced air and the heat it generated. Armor crumpled, weapons shattered, flesh burnt and melted, while entire rows of creatures burst open without ever being touched by the projectile itself.

The devastation continued far beyond the range of the ordinary cannon. The elongated shell crossed the battlefield, passed through the distant goblin formations, and struck a hill near the horizon.

The hill ceased being a hill.

Stone erupted upward in a vast cloud. The upper half of the formation collapsed, while fractures raced through what remained and sent enormous sections sliding into the valleys below.

Kael stared.

The blast was less visually dramatic than the fireball released from his golem cannon. There was no expanding inferno or dome of flame swallowing an entire section of the army.

The railgun possessed something else: range, penetration, and a narrow line of absolute destruction capable of reaching anything Kael could point it toward.

The weapon entered cooldown. Its rails remained bright as electricity slowly began gathering between them again. The charging process was not fast, but the damage from a single shot justified the delay.

"That’s impressive."

Since Kael could not spend currency upgrading his own cannon through the system, he decided to do the next best thing. He opened the railgun’s information and expanded the diagram showing its upgraded structure.

His head began aching almost immediately.

The blueprint contained far more than the visible changes. Conductive rails, magnetic channels, insulated sections, energy-storage components, force distribution, heat dispersal, and dozens of mechanisms Kael could only partially understand had been fitted inside the weapon.

He could reproduce the exterior structure. The complete mechanism was another matter.

The Tower had not merely stretched a cannon and attached two metal rails. It had transformed the entire weapon into a device capable of converting electrical energy into acceleration.

Kael did not have the proper components. He also lacked the most important part: electricity.

There was no Lightning Rune among his collection.

He studied the rails again. That did not necessarily make the project impossible.

Kael looked from the upgraded weapon to the golem cannon. "There’s only one way."

He pulled out Brokk’s Hammer. "Thank God for all those mechanical engineering lessons."

Kael began reshaping his cannon. The first strike landed against the barrel, and the self-repairing golem metal responded immediately, stretching beneath Brokk’s Hammer instead of returning to its former shape. Kael lengthened the cannon and split the front portion into two parallel extensions resembling the rails of the upgraded fortress weapon.

He could not reproduce what he did not understand, so he focused on the parts he could: structure, alignment, reinforcement, and projectile guidance.

The distance between the rails had to remain precise. Any imbalance would send the projectile sideways, destroy the weapon, or launch the shot directly into the fortress wall.

Possibly all three.

Kael continued working while keeping one eye on the battle.

The Leonard jumped beyond the walls again. He landed among the goblins gathered below Kael’s section, his battle-axe already swinging before his feet fully touched the ground. Several creatures were cleaved apart, and the survivors immediately crowded around him.

The Leonard probably believed he was stealing contribution from Kael. Kael did not care.

One man with a battle-axe could only kill so much. More importantly, every goblin surrounding the Leonard was one less creature climbing the northern wall. His attempt to hinder Kael was reducing the pressure on the defenders and allowing Kael to continue working without being interrupted every few seconds.

"Keep up the good work," Kael muttered.

The Leonard could not hear him over the battle.

Kael struck the cannon again, and the second rail extended several inches. He paused periodically to compare its shape against the Tower’s railgun. He could not copy the internal electrical system, but the alignment and firing chamber had to be close enough to guide the projectile once he found another source of power.

The situation on the other walls however, was much worse.