There are many wizards like Ivana who are terrified by the power of nuclear explosion magic.

If it weren't for the news of the Vatican's disastrous defeat, they would have thought that there must have been a natural disaster such as a meteorite crash or lava eruption to cause such a horrific scene.

"By the way, I must remind you, don't get close to this area!" Del said solemnly. "Some time ago, a few elemental wizards ignored the advice and wanted to study the elemental composition of the air in this area. As a result, they entered the core area and their exposed skin began to fester within a few days. They were sent directly to emergency treatment. I don't know how they are doing now."

So terrifying? Lucas was shocked. After so much time, the residual aftermath of the magic was enough to severely injure several formal wizards. He couldn't imagine how terrifying such magic would be when it erupted.

In the crowd, a tall and thin middle-aged wizard looked at Ivana, and both saw the solemnity in each other's eyes. Then the wizard suddenly asked.

"Since Master Lin En possesses such powerful magic, why doesn't he simply continue to conquer the empire and completely wipe out the hostile wizard's church?"

The wizard who asked the question was named Monroe. Like Ivina, he was a spy sent by the Vatican to among the wizards.

The two of them successfully infiltrated the Wizard Mutual Aid Association through the operation of the local church, and took advantage of the chaotic situation to gain the initial trust of Lucas and others by using the name of a completely destroyed school.

One of the purposes of the investigation is to find out the details of the wizards.

After capturing the Fire Oil City and defeating the expeditionary army, according to the idea of ​​the church's top leaders, these wizards should continue to launch large-scale attacks. The empire even began to gather its troops for preparations for war. Even the God's Punishment Army that was sent to the North to investigate the evil god incident was urgently recalled.

The Pope was also prepared to defend the holy city and fight against the terrible doomsday magic. He directly organized a prayer ceremony of more than 100,000 people and was ready to perform the divine descent at any time.

But the wizards had no intention of launching a large-scale attack, so all the preparations of the church were in vain. The other party's abnormal behavior left all the church leaders confused.

Lucas and others were also very interested in Monroe's question and looked at Del with curiosity.

"Well..." Del also paused.

In fact, he was also very confused about this. The congressmen had many speculations about the reasons for stopping the war. However, Del was not stupid enough to reveal these situations in front of these wizards who didn't know the details. Instead, he explained it to everyone from a different angle.

According to Master Lin En, one cannot become fat in one bite. It took only about a year from the time they captured the kingdom's capital.

Previously, they had relied on the royal power and worked closely with local nobles to indirectly govern the country, which saved them a lot of trouble. But now, the wizards had to directly manage the entire eastern territory of the kingdom. Thirty thousand musketeers and a few thousand wizards were far from enough, so the believers in remote areas had caused a lot of trouble, making them extremely anxious.

In other words, their management scope has reached its limit in a short period of time, and they need to digest the situation for a while. It will not be too late to launch another attack after they have stabilized the internal situation.

Del's words dispelled the doubts in the minds of most wizards, but Monroe was still skeptical.

This explanation sounds reasonable to a certain extent, but if you think about it carefully, there are still many things that don't make sense.

When the wizards defeated the expeditionary army, the empire was at its weakest. Most of the elite forces were destroyed, Saint Lucia died in the battle, and the Chief Inquisitor was captured alive. For a while, the Pope had no time to mobilize the troops scattered throughout the empire.

The straight-line distance between the Kerosene City and the Holy City is only 300 kilometers. With the help of the wizards' alchemical creations, it can be reached in just a few hours. The other party is fully capable of using this powerful magic to inflict heavy damage on the Holy See, rather than maintaining the current stalemate.

A guess emerged in Monroe's mind that these wizards might just be pretending and actually had no ability to cast that magic again!

In other words, it was not magic that could cause such powerful destruction, but a natural disaster, and the wizards had predicted and utilized this in advance through some means.

The more Monroe thought about it, the more this seemed possible.

He absolutely did not believe that a wizard could use such horrific witchcraft - this was completely beyond his understanding of magic.

That is the power that only the Supreme Lord possesses! Monroe fantasized in his mind, but speculation alone was obviously not enough to convince the Pope, he needed to collect more evidence.

The two patrolling new fighter planes returned soon, and the electromagnetic wave receiver placed on the airship immediately began to tick.

"Lord Del, everything is safe. The Empire has not sent Griffin Knights to track or intercept." A pilot in charge of translation reported.

"Intercept? They need to have the courage to do so!" Del said disdainfully.

The Empire's Griffin Knights are targets in front of the new fighter planes. Unless they can conjure up a fire dragon, no matter how many come, it will be a credit to them.

Del's disdainful tone made Monroe very unhappy, but he suppressed his emotions and focused his attention on the flashing receiver on the airship, hinting at its function.

Del had no intention of explaining. The electromagnetic wave communication magic was still a secret that could not be revealed.

The wilderness where everyone fled was only a hundred kilometers away from the kerosene city. With the airship traveling at full speed, they arrived at the newly built airport in the city in just one hour.

It is called an airport, but it is actually a very large square. The ground has been repaired by magic to be very flat, and can accommodate more than two hundred airships. There is also a long runway in the center for new fighter planes to take off and land.

Ivana's expression was extremely tense, because this meant that they had officially entered the city ruled by wizards.

Before this, she had imagined what this occupied western city would become like in the hands of wizards.

Corpses hanging from the city walls, streets stained with blood, people hiding in fear in their houses, wizards in long robes moving in strange ways, and perhaps even the smell of strange potions in the air...

However, when she actually stepped into the city, everything she saw made her feel extremely surprised.

The streets of the Kerosene City looked very wide, with countless pedestrians coming and going. Camels pulling boxes of goods were driven by coachmen with heavy steps, but in a flash they were overtaken by a square iron box full of stones and left far behind.

The outer shell was made of steel, and the bows and swords in the hands of the soldiers had no way of breaking through it. It was also much faster than a warhorse, and when it charged on the battlefield, it could easily crush cavalry that was dozens of times its number...

Now it seems that in addition to war, this thing can also be used to transport goods.

Along the way, Ivana did not see the bloody, cruel, and dark scenes she had expected. Instead, it looked like a very prosperous city. Everyone she saw was working, whether they were wizards or the poor. It was impossible to tell that this was a place that had just been captured twenty days ago.

There are even slogans posted on the streets saying "No urination or defecation on city streets, violators will be whipped ten times."

In order to make the propaganda slogans understandable to the illiterate poor, a pattern was thoughtfully drawn and a big cross was marked!

"What are they doing?" Ivana pointed ahead, where several workers in plain clothes were struggling to erect a slender pillar at the intersection.

There is a transparent spherical object hanging on the top of the pillar, which looks very delicate.

Is this a decoration? Or is it a node for performing some kind of witchcraft...

Ivana was guessing in her heart, but the next second she heard Del explain, "This is a street lamp, used to provide light at night, so the night in the City of Fire Oil is as bright as the day!"

Lucas and the others were all amazed. They had never heard of an alchemy formula that could continuously illuminate the entire city. How much magic power would it take? Monroe, who was standing by, silently made a note in his mind - the wizards had set up lighting magic in the city to deal with nighttime battles...

Immediately afterwards, Monroe looked around the city, recording every change.

Although the entire Kerosene City seemed to be thriving, he firmly believed that this was all superficial. The wizards must have some ulterior motive in maintaining the superficial prosperity.

Fortunately, Monroe soon saw what he wanted to see.

Several wizards were casting magic to demolish a dilapidated house, and then loudly commanding the poor to move the rubble on the ground onto trucks.

Seeing this, Monroe sighed and shook his head, and made another note in his mind - the wizards cruelly destroyed the houses of the poor and enslaved the Lord's believers, forcing them to build luxurious mansions and various war facilities for the top leaders of the parliament.

Unlike Monroe, who had a built-in filter, although Ivana was also wary of wizards, she was still keenly aware of these working poor people. There was no fear or uneasiness on their faces, but on the contrary... a smile? While thinking, Del started to complain. When they conquered this kerosene city, the whole slum was stinking and unbearable to look at.

In addition, many houses were destroyed during the raid, which seriously affected the appearance of the city, so Master Lin En proposed to carry out a major transformation of the city, and at the same time widen and repair the roads so that the alchemy vehicles can pass smoothly on the streets.

"Where should these poor people who have lost their homes live?" Ivana asked with a frown.

"Isn't it over there?" Del said, pointing to the neat and imposing resettlement houses that had just been built in a cleared area.

Under Ivina's watchful eyes, cartloads of stone were transported here by alchemy carts, and elemental wizards cast spells to assist the workers in building the frame of the house.

The walls are simply made of concrete and stone. Due to the shortage of steel and the inconvenience of casting spells, there is no steel structure inside. However, it is much better than the poor people's original dilapidated wooden houses and thatched houses.

When entering the slum, Ivina noticed the houses under construction, but she didn't expect that such beautiful houses would be prepared for the poor.

However, construction was ultimately slower than demolition, and those residents who had lost their houses and had nowhere to live were temporarily arranged to live in the mansions and estates of the nobles.

It is very spacious, with many rooms, and can easily accommodate hundreds of people.

After hearing Del's explanation, Monroe almost doubted whether he had heard it wrongly. These wizards actually let these lowly poor people live in the noble manor...

But soon, Monroe stopped worrying about this little thing. A surge of anger suddenly rose from his feet to his heart, because he found that the church in the City of Kerosene had been demolished by wizards, and the statue of God had been cut into pieces and loaded onto a truck and taken away.

According to these wizards, this statue will be thrown directly into a high-temperature boiler to melt into molten copper, and then the copper will be used in more important places, such as making street lamps...

Such blasphemous behavior almost made Monroe faint on the spot.

Del continued with a smile. "I heard that this statue was built by the Lord of Fire Oil City to show his devout faith. It was made entirely of gold, which made the alchemists very happy for a long time. But when they broke it open, they found that it was only coated with gold on the outside, and was made entirely of copper on the inside!"

"But this church has a good location. We are planning to tear it down and build a new train platform here!"

Del pointed at the station whose walls had not yet been built and the huge square iron box that had been transported here by several airships, and proudly told everyone about the alchemical creations that had recently been developed by this magic research institute.

"What you see is the front of the train, which is used to provide transportation, and the carriages at the back can be used to carry people and goods!"

"A train has a total of fifteen standard carriages. One carriage can carry a hundred people or transport about sixty tons of cargo!"

Railways are now being built within the kingdom, and it won’t be long before this train can run throughout the entire kingdom.

"What about its speed? How does it compare to an airship?" Ivana asked with a serious expression.

"Of course it's not as fast as an airship when it's fully loaded with cargo, but it can still reach a speed of about 90 kilometers per hour," Del said casually.

Hearing this, Monroe's forehead was already covered with cold sweat. He did a simple calculation and figured that if Del was not lying, this thing called a train could carry 900 tons of cargo, or a legion of 1,500 people from the City of Kerosene to the Royal Capital in one day.

Although Monroe felt that these wizards were exaggerating, even if this train thing was only one-third as effective as they said, it was still a terrifying threat. He had to spread the news as soon as possible! (End of this chapter)