Chapter 1916: Chapter 1909: Quality and Quantity

But the reality is that the total population of the Otherworld is rapidly increasing, yet the growth rate of mages cannot keep up with the population growth.

The direct reason for this is the mage system dominated by the Church Court, which limits the opportunities for ordinary people to become mages, making it difficult for the growth rate of mages to keep up with the expansion of the population.

This reflects in the military, where the Church Court’s magical advantage over various countries is becoming increasingly weak.

The Church Court does indeed have mages capable of casting forbidden curses akin to nuclear bombs in the Otherworld, but what then?

In an ideal situation, a mage casting a forbidden curse can kill tens of thousands, but will die due to magic depletion themselves, and are irreplaceable.

War is fought on attrition, and Odelanqi currently has a military force exceeding one million and a population of over a hundred million.

So long as the deployment is proper, even if the Church Court exhausts its forbidden curse mages, it can barely eliminate a quarter of the scale, leaving the Aud Army capable of maintaining its strength.

This is the conflict between productivity versus the quantity and quality of magic, where the scale effect of population means the previous scenario where quality outweighed quantity is gone forever.

So long as Gudelv has the capability and willingness, he can fully utilize a massive amount of manpower to exhaust the Church Court’s magical advantage and ultimately achieve victory.

The Church Court seems to have realized this long ago, hence they established the Purification Legion a few years ago to explore the possibility of full modernization of the Church Court’s army.

The Pope is well aware that the former magical advantage is gone forever, and the scale of mages cannot be expanded at will. In such a scenario, equipping large quantities of Earth’s thermal weapons to form modernized legions becomes their most ideal choice.

Thus, a strange scene unfolds in the Otherworld.

A fully Earth-like Otherworld national army is using thermal weapons from Earth, while the Church Court relying on magic is actively forming its own modernized legions.

This is an era of great transformation, with technological advances from Earth weapons technology weakening the unique magic status of the Otherworld to some extent, gradually achieving a subtle balance between the two.

Carter’s visit brought additional requests from the Church Court; they need weapons and equipment for an additional five standard legions, including guns, artillery ammunition, and bicycles.

Odelanqi’s territory is primarily plains, and in the absence of internal combustion engines, aside from horseback riding, bicycles seem to become the best means of transportation, equipped by Otherworld’s army on a large scale.

Of course, given the Church Court’s century-long accumulation of wealth, that is needless to say. So in addition to bicycles, they also procured 300 steam locomotives from Lipei, hoping for prompt delivery.

These steam locomotives primarily serve as transport vehicles, mainly used for transporting personnel and equipment and for redeployment of artillery.

To achieve an orderly integration of these equipments, the Church Court, via Carter’s voice, requested Lipei send some military technicians to guide the modernization upgrade of the Church Court’s army.

Such as the urgency of the Church Court’s request, it seems the fire is truly burning their eyebrows. The military pressure from Odelanqi finally made these stubborn old individuals feel the crisis. Originally delayed projects have begun to accelerate and even hope to achieve goals in one fell swoop.

The railway from Lipei to the Temple also quickly received approval internally from the Church Court, but what’s the use of that? In the context of impending warfare, neither the Church Court nor Lipei can bear the pressure of commencing construction.

But regardless, once the Church Court falls, Lipei will also be affected. While making sarcastic remarks, Lipei, or rather its headquarters, is still very attentive to supporting the Church Court.

Despite most of Lipei’s sovereignty having been transferred to the Supreme Command led by Luo’er, the headquarters can still make recommendations to prevent deviations in principle issues.

The weapons and equipment Lipei assisted for the Church Court are primarily Soviet-style, as Soviet-style equipment was originally developed for large-scale warfare, welcomed naturally by these Otherworld countries.

As the main force escorting weapons and equipment, the Purification Legion that came to Lipei with Carter really opened Luo’er’s eyes.

This army, after years of development, is no longer the rookie army that could only fight insects back then. Especially after receiving attention from the Church Court, its degree of equipment has drastically upgraded.

In terms of protective equipment, as the Church Court army, the Purification Legion has neither equipped like Earthlings with bulletproof vests nor completely abandoned protective equipment like the Aud Army but stubbornly chose metal armor.

The armor includes large area chest armor, skirt armor, and neck armor, weighing as much as Earth’s standard bulletproof vests.

The armor is mainly light armor, with a thickness of around 3mm. But don’t underestimate this 3mm, Earth’s military equipment experts praise it as an insurmountable 3mm.

The Church Court is known for magic, and this is especially true for armor. The back of the armor is engraved with complex physical protection runes, mainly powered by atmospheric magic, supplemented by magic crystal power.

Under normal conditions, this armor can withstand direct shooting from guns with a caliber below 12.7mm within ten meters distance, its protective ability visible at a glance.

The upgrade of armor stems from the need for protective strength; since Earth’s thermal weapons cannot penetrate such armor, naturally, there is no need for an upgrade.

Additionally, thanks to the cooperative relationship between the Church Court and headquarters, they can procure this standardized metal armor from Earth at a relatively low price and transport it back to the Temple for rune engraving and equipment.

As for other Otherworld nations’ armies, taking the Aud Army as an example, its active military size exceeds a million, naturally, not everyone can be equipped with armor, hence they can only abandon full coverage.

After all, buying bulletproof vests from Earth, the cost and freight are not much cheaper than rune-engraved armor, so it’s preferable to spend money on offensive measures.

Upon the outbreak of conflict, Earth’s major media rushed to report, and military experts forecast the scale and form of this war.

But due to an insufficient deep understanding of the Otherworld, many inevitably fell into inertia thinking, regarding the military conflict in the Otherworld as a hot war conflict equivalent to Earth during the sixties and seventies.

Actually, if that were indeed true, the multinational coalition back on Earth wouldn’t have been so embarrassed during that era. The existence of magic makes Otherworld’s warfare different from any period of Earth’s warfare and must be treated distinctly.

It is precisely because of the innate advantage of magic that headquarters holds confidence in the Church Court.

Despite constantly emphasizing the clash of technological thermal weapons against magic, the advantage of magic continues to exist and will persist long-term.

Therefore, the advantage of the Church Court will consistently be retained and should not be underestimated; otherwise, the Aud Army wouldn’t focus their main attention on the Church Court.

Following military aid to the Church Court, relations between Odelanqi and Lipei deteriorated sharply. Gudelv publicly accused Lipei of exporting violence to the Aels Continent and immediately summoned Kali to denounce Lipei’s military aid actions.

He seems to forget that the weapons and equipment of Odelanqi’s army were also aided from Yazhi City.

Regarding this, Kali didn’t shrink from confrontation, instead, she countered, accusing Gudelv of expanding his army and creating regional instability, stating that Lipei’s aid to the Church Court aims to maintain regional military balance.

Gudelv was so infuriated he almost ordered her arrest on the spot, fortunately restrained by ministers present.

However, Kali noticed that aside from Gudelv and ministers in the palace, there was that man suspected to be a Maniken envoy present.

Kali has reason to believe, in such a context, if that guy were to fan the flames with Gudelv, Odelanqi’s army might truly dispatch troops to attack Lipei.

Even though there were tumultuous waves internally, she still maneuvered calmly without revealing any flaw.

The event triggered by military aid immediately created a series of chain reactions. The Church Court, seemingly to reassure Lipei, issued a public statement unexpectedly, indicating that if the Aud Army takes military action against Lipei, it will be considered aggression against the Church Court.

This plan, seemingly for Lipei’s benefit, instead had an adverse effect, enraging Gudelv on the spot, with immediate demands to expel Lipei’s envoys and seriously contemplate the possibility of advancing against Lipei.