At this moment, a dragon from the Solun Continent was hovering in the sky over the Cape Border. Its wings had a large hole, and although dragons do not rely on their wings to fly, wings still play a relatively important role when landing, at least making the group of dragons more comfortable.
Because of the large hole in its wing, this dragon, which sadly did not grow well, appeared more “approachable.”
As for why the wing had a large hole… this dragon was staring intently at the fortress at the Cape Border.
The dragons had circled the Cape Border several times but had not found any significant weaknesses. Information transmission in this country seemed to be very fast; once a dragon appeared wanting to enter Cape, the allied dragons would be ready immediately, along with what seemed to be weapons specifically designed to deal with dragons, causing the dragons to become more vigilant.
At this time, there were no other dragons around, but this dragon was still engaged in a game of cat and mouse with the fortress below.
On the ground of Cape, the observers were continuously reporting the altitude of this dragon.
“The height difference is 725 meters, still within effective firing range!”
At this moment, Darsi, who was next to the observer, was also looking up at the sky, but unlike the observer’s telescope, Darsi preferred to estimate distances and aim with his naked eye.
He had become accustomed to it, just like how the firearms in the Northern Border only had iron sights at the beginning.
“The enemy’s altitude is decreasing; it seems to be preparing to attack. Lord, should we activate the protective barrier?”
The observer appeared extremely nervous; the higher the dragon flew, the less damage it could inflict on the ground, but this limitation only applied to the protective barrier.
The dragon circled high above, its scales reflecting faint light, its massive body resembling a shadow pressing down on the earth. This was the legendary dragon, and even the seasoned soldiers of the First Army Group could hardly imagine that they were now fighting against a dragon.
However, Darsi said firmly, “No, wait a bit longer.”
Thanks to the assistance of Cape’s dragon allies and the Northern Border Academy’s help, the military had already calculated the relationship between altitude and the decay of dragon breath power. Although the destructive power of dragons could vary, the decay coefficient remained constant.
At this height, dragon breath could not deliver a one-hit kill to soldiers under permanent enchanted defense on the ground.
At this moment, Darsi began to understand the so-called charm of mathematics.
Enemies can deceive you, battle reports can mislead you, and even battle lines cannot be completely trusted, but mathematics will not lie to you; it is what it is.
Just as the dragon with a large hole in its wing descended to a certain height, Darsi shouted decisively, “Launch!”
The surface-to-air missiles on the ground seemed to tear through the sky, dozens of fiery trails cutting through the heavens, screaming straight towards the dragon.
When facing a dragon, even the Northern Border Army, even the elite of the First Army Group, even with the existence of magical guided missiles in their hands, still felt immense pressure.
As previously stated, during the First Continental War, humanity already had means to counter aerial threats, but initiative had always been in the hands of the dragons. If they did not actively engage with the air defense range, humanity could only fire blank shots.
Thus, humanity’s air defense methods could only serve as a deterrent, preventing dragons from recklessly causing destruction at low altitudes.
Because of this, facing the initiative-grasping dragons, the pressure on the First Army Group was considerable.
Although these missiles were smaller than the missiles known in Lind’s previous life, dragons were extremely agile in the air, hence the design of missiles in this world focused on rapid deployment and saturation strike.
Of course, the dragons weren’t at ease either. From the archaic air defense means humans had during the First Continental War, to An Zhu’s resonant magic, to the so-called surface-to-air missiles of Cape, humanity’s air strike capability had been steadily increasing.
Moreover, the so-called surface-to-air missiles had yet to be tested by dragons to determine their effective attack altitude, leading to the fact that while dragons wreaked havoc in other parts of the continent, they did not dare to act recklessly here in the Elf Alliance of Cape.
The dragon let out a deafening roar, accompanied by rolling smoke and scorching airflow counteracting the missiles.
These missiles, although claiming to be magical guided missiles, had very little actual magic-driven components. This was to minimize the impact of high-altitude magical interference on the missiles.
The missiles were not made magical simply because they bore the title; rather, they were more about pure physical impact. Their powerful propulsion and explosive damage were the true means of this missile’s lethality, and aside from magical propulsion, there was little relation to magic itself.
Originally, Lind and Lena wanted to design a segmented propulsion system, using magical propulsion at low altitudes and switching to physical methods in the high-altitude chaotic environment, but the difficulty of doing that was simply too high.
The first few missiles were dodged by the dragon, and one was even shot down by dragon breath. However, following that, more missiles arrived in succession, forming an increasingly dense net.
Immediately, flames erupted in the sky, and the dragon scales shattered and scattered like falling stardust due to the explosive shockwave.
On the ground, Darsi let out a long sigh, finally managing to repel these probing actions of the dragons once again.
Cape’s border could rely on those dragon allies for patrolling, key areas could be covered with missile defenses, yet the initiative still resided with the attacking dragons.
Moreover, besides the dragons, other areas also eyed Cape covetously.
After all, with the technology that Cape possessed and the wealth accumulated through it, any small kingdom could rise to prominence with just a fragment.
And those high-level professions kept harassing Cape’s borders.
If not for Cape’s convenient and interconnected internal transportation, it could hardly withstand the long border’s incursions.
Darsi arrived in the command room, silently awaiting the next message. Several high-ranking officials within the Northern Border army were already extremely busy, constantly patrolling the entire border. Darsi too had not visited Graythorn Territory to see his older sister for a long time; he had even passed near it a few times but didn’t have time to stop by.
“Lord, we observed that the dragon disappeared after falling. Should we send someone to investigate?”
Seeing a soldier come to report, Darsi shook his head, saying, “No need. Even an injured dragon is not something we can deal with; it’s already quite good that we managed to repel it.”
Darsi sighed; the cost of these missiles is not low. Even though Darsi didn’t understand the saying “when the cannon fires, gold flows,” watching those missiles whizzing away made Darsi feel like he was watching money flying in the sky.
Even though Cape’s Northern Border was currently economically developed, it couldn’t withstand such daily saturation coverage; there was no way around it, saturation coverage was needed to hit the dragons.
However, the Lord Governor didn’t seem very satisfied with these missiles. He even said that these couldn’t even be called missiles; they were merely large blocks that could fly a certain distance and explode, lacking precision guidance. Rather than calling them missiles, it would be more fitting to call them flying projectiles; relying on such brute-force blocks to solve problems daily simply wasn’t feasible.
Darsi couldn’t understand this, feeling that large blocks weren’t a problem at all; at least they could take down those flying lizards.
