I Created Scientific Magic

At midnight, a blazing bonfire brightened the dark square.

Countless poor people lined up in rows under the night sky.

Guard Captain Loren clutch a spiked whip in his hand and spoke harshly, "Hand over the money you received, and if anyone dares to hide it, they'll have to answer to my whip first!"

"I remember it being twelve silver coins!" Loren scoffed.

The poor present exchanged glances, and after a while, a raggedly dressed individual cautiously spoke up. "Lord Loren, could you have remembered wrong? It was supposed to be ten silver coins..."

The Wizards had occupied this town before and conducted a purge, hanging a large number of aristocrats and bullies who had committed many evils, distributing most of the confiscated wealth.

Every poor person had received ten silver coins as compensation for being exploited and enslaved by the aristocrats...

Despite the church painting the Wizards as synonymous with evil, faced with the tangible temptation of money, most of these poor people still accepted it.

"Are you trying to fool me?" A grim smile curled on Loren's lips; he suddenly raised his whip and lashed out violently at the poor man.

A crisp "snap" echoed, and the unfortunate poor man immediately cried out in pain, his cheek swelling up.

"If I say it's twelve, then it's twelve!" Loren snorted coldly and lashed out with the whip again, causing the unfortunate man to fall to the ground in pain, trembling all over.

Loren gazed at the rest of the poor people with fear in their eyes, feeling extremely satisfied inside. Those damn Wizards had plundered every noble's manor, including that of the Loren family.

What baffled him even more was that the Wizards had actually distributed massive amounts of treasures to these lowlifes!

Loren suspected that certain poor people had secretly colluded with the Wizards, reporting information in exchange for these rewards—otherwise, who would complain about having too much money?

Considering this, Loren reported the matter of the poor colluding with the Wizards to the bishop, gaining the right to punish these poor people and reclaim the looted wealth. He was even prepared to teach these traitors a lesson; the extra two silver coins were meant as a penalty!

Under Loren's intimidation, the outraged yet speechless poor had no choice but to hand over their meager possessions.

Those who did not pay enough faced a brutal beating!

Two extra silver coins might not seem much, but most of the poor were already destitute, and this surely spelled doom for them...

One of the poor couldn't pay even a single silver coin. As the most devout Believer, he firmly believed that the Wizards were up to no good, surely applying some evil witchcraft to the money. Therefore, he didn't even go to collect the compensation...

However, Loren couldn't care less. He didn't believe anyone would refuse money right in their hands. He whipped out his lash, venting all his anger towards the Wizards onto these poor people!

He utterly forgot that, just half an hour earlier, he too had been kneeling on the ground, begging for forgiveness from the Judgement Chief and the Holy Maiden...

In just a minute, Loren had beaten this devout Believer to a breath's distance from death, just as he was about to whip him to death to deter the other poor people from lying, a burst of intense gunfire suddenly erupted from outside the city!

This sound... was it cannon fire?

Loren suddenly shivered, a wave of fear rising from within because a few days ago, the Wizards had also used such intense gunfire to blast open the sturdy city gates.

But, how could this be possible?

Weren't those Wizards taking airships to attack the Fire Oil site?

They should be on the run, being chased by the Holy See's punitive forces by now.

Could the punitive forces have been defeated?

Loren was unwilling to believe this possibility, but soon saw hundreds of city guards discarding their helmets and armors, scrambling towards him in retreat.

"Run, it's the Wizards, those Wizards are coming back!"

A few city guards screamed at the top of their lungs before being knocked to the ground by a round of musket fire.

Under the moonlight and bonfire glow, thousands of musketeers, fierce like wolves, were charging towards them. Loren was terrified and immediately ordered the guards beside him to intercept them, while he himself grabbed a warhorse and planned to flee.

The furious poor people weren't prepared to just watch Loren leave, they rushed at him, dragging him off the warhorse, followed by a flurry of punches and kicks, even biting and scratching with their nails...

"Get away from me! You lowlifes, when the Judgement Chief arrives, all of you will be thrown into hell!" Loren shouted in panic, but his guards had already fled without a trace, leaving him unable to resist the mob's ruthless beating. Under the righteous Iron Fist, he soon lost consciousness.

In that moment, the musketeer squad also reached the crowded square, and the poor people, both panicking and fearing, awaited the Wizards' judgement.

However, once Ryder understood the situation, he had people collect the silver coins taken by Loren, and redistributed them back, and the Believer who had been lashed until near death also received treatment.

Although the physical injuries were healed by magic, this devout Believer seemed dispirited, as if he had lost his soul.

The poor people, regaining their coins, wore faces of disbelief, and a vague idea formed in their hearts.

Under the Wizards' rule, perhaps things weren't so bad.

At least no one would try to take away their meager savings.

After a quick assault, in just over ten minutes, the musketeers had regained control of the city.

As the punitive forces were busy pursuing, the forces left behind to guard were very weak, so they suffered hardly any casualties.

"Dean Lynn truly knows how to plan..." Ryder couldn't help but marvel internally.

That noon, they had lost many cannons and armored vehicles and were encumbered with nearly three thousand wounded. Directly engaging the Holy See's punitive forces wasn't a wise move.

With so many wounded, retreating was difficult too; they only had over a hundred airships, which couldn't possibly carry everyone.

So Lynn proposed hiding the main force just outside the city, while pretentiously using the airships to go for the Fire Oil, drawing the punitive forces away.

Once the punitive forces were gone and the enemy had lowered their guard, they planned to strike back, even capturing the poorly defended Fire Oil City in one fell swoop!

According to Dean Lynn, they had used strategies of Empty Fort, besieging Wei to rescue Zhao, secretly crossing the Wei River, and luring the tiger away from the mountain!

That left many Wizards very curious what the Star of Magic had been before arriving in the Wizard Land.

Could he have been a great lord in the empire, otherwise how would he know so much about tactics?