Xyrin Empire-Chapter 176 - : Advantages and Disadvantages

Chapter 176: Chapter 176: Advantages and Disadvantages

Although the news that the Burning Legion had mastered biochemical transformation technology added quite a bit of pressure, it wasn’t all bad news.

Specifically, something that was supposed to be bad news turned into good news because of the appearance of a certain key item—confused yet?

This was told to me by Pandora on the way back, while resting on the transport ship.

After Sicaro had his soldiers carry out live fire exercises and analyzed the collected data, he came to a conclusion that made everyone overjoyed, and Pandora immediately told me.

We have a special weapon that can inflict at least double damage on variant demons!

Ao Tie Ammunition!

When I first heard this term, I was a bit stunned. Ao Tie? What’s that? It sounded vaguely familiar; where had I heard it before?

Seeing the puzzled expression suddenly on my face, even Lian Shandora couldn’t help but facepalm and sighed, lamenting why she had to deal with such a thick-headed person: “Listen, Ah Jun, could you occasionally pay some attention to these important pieces of information? Ao Tie, isn’t that the metal we accidentally found last time we went to the Otherworld that could counteract Abyss Power? We even had Bubbles leave a Mother Nest to help those Otherworldly People cultivate Superpower Soldiers, in exchange for a stable supply of Ao Tie resources. Now, you… Oh my god, how can you still not remember…”

Seeing Sandora, who had already started to disregard her own image by launching headbutt attacks while grabbing her blonde hair, I felt a bit embarrassed to tease her further. So, I pulled the frantic girl into my arms and said with a smile, “Alright, alright, I was just messing with you. I remembered it earlier, including that Central Superpower Bureau, but I really didn’t think of it just now…”

Seeing Sandora resting happily in my arms, Pandora also couldn’t help but sneak glances our way, her typically expressionless small face and empty gray pupils subtly showing a hint of envy.

If it had been Little Baobao, she would have been waving her little hands and rushing over asking for a hug by now, but it was something Pandora wouldn’t do. This little girl, despite her forever-young Loli appearance, always insisted on maintaining a very serious demeanor. She could occasionally act spoiled in her own way when just the few of us were together. However, when others were present, she would definitely keep a straight face and remain serious. Now… I looked at the two guards at the door, their faces severely lacking in expression and tension in every fibre of their being. Then, looking at the little Loli beside me, who clearly wanted to act spoiled but was stubbornly maintaining the facade of a mature adult, I suddenly found her too amusing…

Thinking this, I couldn’t help but pat Pandora on the head. If I were to treat her like a child and hug her in front of her subordinates now, this girl would certainly act coyly, so instead, I opted to simply muss her hair a bit. The two guards at the door, though rigorously uptight in their expressions, still immediately turned their gazes away, adopting a pose of vigilantly surveying the surroundings for any enemies—a pretty decent act.

Pandora, though she usually disliked being treated as a child, clearly made an exception for me. Hence, even though patting her on the head was a way to show affection to children, Pandora immediately showed an expression of enjoyment. She also quickly glanced around to see if anyone was watching us. When she noticed that both guards were not looking in our direction, she visibly relaxed.

“Is the Ao Tie warhead really that effective?”

“Surprisingly so,” Sandora said, reaching into her personal space and pulling out a dull, oversized bullet. “Although we haven’t yet pinpointed the element in Ao Tie that specifically suppresses Abyss power, simply utilizing purified Ao Tie to manufacture bullets is quite easy. These bullets are coated with a thin layer of Ao Tie. Originally, the Burning Legion and our corrupted kin using Abyss energy for demonic biochemical transformations were definitely bad news for us. However, they would never have expected that there existed something in the world that could counter Abyss energy. Demons, enhanced to resist armor-piercing bullets with their toughened skins, had no resistance against this low-tech solid warhead. The Ao Tie bullets, even fired at minimal initial velocity, could penetrate those demons who thought themselves invulnerable…”

“So, does that mean the threat of the enhanced demons has been negated?” I couldn’t help but be overjoyed upon hearing this. Although we eliminated fifty enhanced demons today, it didn’t mean we had gained an advantage over the Burning Legion. There were three reasons: First, the demons we eliminated were clearly just first-generation test subjects. According to the description by the demon squad leader, their modifications were still quite crude and primitive. These guys’ strength couldn’t compare to truly perfected variant demons. Sandora’s analysis suggested that, if these modifications were successful, an ordinary soldier of the Burning Legion might potentially match a Xyrin Soldier in combat ability. That meant our absolute advantage was lost, leaving only our technological advantage in long-range weapons. Second, the demons we encountered clearly lacked tactical finesse. This might have been tied to their unfamiliarity with their new power, as evidenced by their reliance solely on brute physical resistance to incoming attacks rather than cleverly repositioning to defend and counterattack. If today we had faced fifty well-trained demons equipped for both ranged and melee combat, complete with tanks and healers like a standard raid group…ahem, please disregard that small slip of the tongue. My point is, even if the fifty demons we encountered today had slightly better military training and more diverse combat capabilities, relying on their physique to withstand concentrated machinegun fire, it wouldn’t have been so easy for us to win. The third and most important point is our military force, which is at an absolute disadvantage.

Indeed, the Xyrin Mainframe Technology is revolutionary, and Super Space-Time Garrison Technology gives us a considerable base of forces, but there is a limit to how many Super Space-Time Garrisons we can deploy, and even the revolutionary Xyrin Host requires time to build and develop. The twelve Bubbles working around the clock won’t allow us to catch up to the Burning Legion’s military power in a short time. Although for some uncertain reasons, the Burning Legion has not shown signs of a large-scale descent yet, I have a premonition that the arrival of the demons is not far off. We definitely don’t have enough time to develop so many troops.

In conclusion, despite easily eliminating fifty variant demons today, in reality, compared to the Burning Legion, our overall strength is still at a disadvantage…

However, the successful development of Ao Tie weapons has brought me unexpected good news. It appears that our greatest crisis—variant demons—is not as terrifying as expected.

But, as if specifically meant to dampen my spirits, Sandora violently praised the Ao Tie warheads before delivering a quite disheartening fact, “The situation isn’t as optimistic as you think…”

“The Ao Tie warheads can indeed counter the Abyss energy in variant demons, but their suppression ability is limited solely to that aspect. In other parameters, like the warhead’s kinetic energy, hardness, and penetration power, Ao Tie bullets aren’t particularly impressive. Furthermore, due to conflicts between Ao Tie and several alloys, these warheads are even less durable than conventional solid bullets. Meaning, if the enemy were originally powerful demons, these bullets might be even less effective than a titanium alloy sabot bullet. And even if a variant demon’s entire strength was based on Abyss energy, Ao Tie isn’t omnipotent. It has limits to its suppression ability. I roughly calculated that a bullet coated with Ao Tie could suppress this magnitude of Abyss energy…”

Sandora said, extending her right hand and flicking out a small black spark—barely larger than Little Baobao’s small tiger teeth.

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“That’s equivalent to the Abyss energy throughout the bodies of the half-complete variant demons we encountered today. As the Abyss energy strengthens, the suppressive power of the Ao Tie bullets will weaken, gradually becoming ineffective… By the way, don’t think about making the entire bullet out of Ao Tie to enhance its power. Not to mention we don’t have that much Ao Tie, even if we did, it would be pointless since the interaction between the bullet and Abyss energy is limited purely to its surface layer… Eh, Ah Jun, what’s wrong?”

…Nothing important, just that someone was about to ask why not make bullets entirely out of Ao Tie when our Queen had already anticipated her lover’s foolish question and proactively negated it, leaving someone feeling significantly intellectually inferior…