Wild Crimson Rose: Beloved Handyman Princes Courtesan Wife - Chapter 417

Just when Shen Tianyu thought he had run out of room, he stood up and dusted his robes, the bloodstains were already soaked into the cloth so there was no way to get it out in the Monument, though. He tucked the slightly glowing pencil into his robes and announced to the others that he was done.

The golden letters started to dim but the words stayed on the gate. When the light had dissipated, a loud groan echoed through the cave. The heavy metal gates in front of them slowly creaked open.

“Wait. What about the demonic beats? Are they going to follow us through?” Someone suddenly thought about the demonic beasts hovering outside the Shield.

“Well, if they are then we can only annihilate them.” An older member replied nonchalantly.

The answer to their situation was promptly answered as the gates opened wider and Shen Tianyu could hear the clunking of cogs and metal scraping against metal.

“Everyone, duck!” Shen Tianyu commanded as soon as the unusual noises entered her ears. Rong Jian shrunk the Shield even smaller to cover everyone and leave as little empty space as possible.

Swish, swish

Puchi! screech!

Bang!

Shen Tianyu couldn’t see from her curled up position on the bloody ground and being dr.a.p.ed over by a certain other body but she could hear the sounds around them. With a chorus of screeching, the demonic beasts were hit with something and fell to the floor with a thump. At the same time, some kind of flying thing, most likely the weapons that downed the demonic beasts, hit Rong Jian’s Shield with heavy thuds. Just when Shen Tianyu was worried whether the Shield would be able to last through the attack, the sound of something flying from tubes stopped.

She waited for a moment before she cautiously lifted her head, hands still covering it. Rong Jian also took a look around them to ascertain it was safe again before he detached from Shen Tianyu’s back. With differing levels of grumbling and complaining, the others also straightened up and untangled themselves from each other.

The remaining Parasitic Bees and Face-Devouring Mosquitos that had been hovering around the Shield were now all laying dead or twitching on the dirt floor. Long, thin, shiny grey poles that looked more like giant needles were impaled in each of them. There was a pile of them laid haphazardly in front of the Shield, probably the ones that had hit it and didn’t break through. The cultivators that were possessed seemed to have been forced by the Parasitic Bees to move forward for whatever reason, maybe to held their kind since the species wasn’t very intelligent in general. They died impaled by the same tools with faces of horror and unwillingness. Some of these Parasitic Bees were already trying to abandon their hosts now that they were useless. The ones that detached earlier were also killed by whatever device were shooting the needles. As presented by them still having feelers attached to their hosts, being coated in blood, or being near a body that had a large hole where the Bees were attached to.

Thankfully, Rong Jian’s Shield was still intact so no one had been injured. Shen Tianyu looked around and above the now open gates to find where the needles had come from. She could faintly make out something at the top of the frame, behind the gates. She took out a few Light talismans and threw them up to give herself a better view.

What she saw was an entire row of black tubes lined atop the frame of the gate. The tubes themselves were relatively large but the holes that ejected the projectiles could only fit a fist, the same size as the needles at a glance. And attached to these tubes was a long rope that went behind the currently slanted gates.

“It looks like the mechanism was activated when the gate opened. Thank god we had a Shield up.” Shen Tianyu told the others.

Though these mechanisms seem impressive, especially to these people that grew up in, what was essentially, ancient China, they were not so to Shen Tianyu. There exists intricate mechanisms from imperial times that are hard to replicate or solve with modern technology so rather than an advancement, it could be said that imperial and modern technology were related fields rather than the same. The scale of them was certainly worth a gaze of awe but to Shen Tianyu who had seen more complex modern security mechanisms, the size was the only thing of note. She didn’t believe that they had motion sensors so as long as they didn’t touch the gates, the shooting mechanism probably won’t activate.

Modern technology was based on the Industrial Revolution, where efficiency and amount were the priority which then led into an era of convenience optimization. Quality came at the cost of quantity and after a few decades, the intricate workings that could only be achieved by human hands were almost completely lost. This was what the imperial times specialized in, since craftsmen had to master different aspects of their craft to stand out among their competitors and be chosen by high-ranking officials or royalty. Machines lacked the creativity that humans hold.

Rong Jian took down the Shield and Shen Tianyu shot a few bursts of spiritual energy at the tubes to make sure it wouldn’t attack. The others killed off the remaining Parasitic Bees that had detached themselves from their dead hosts. Seeing that the mechanism won’t activate even when it was attacked, Shen Tianyu and Rong Jian relaxed a fraction. Seeing that their surroundings had been cleaned up, the two decided to proceed inward.

The leftover cultivators that were unaffiliated with them tentatively dropped their own Shields and looked around warily. Some had tears welling up in their eyes at seeing the mutilated bodies of their brothers or sisters but they dared not say anything. Due to being caught off guard, a number of the other organizations lost a significant amount of manpower. Though it was not enough to cripple them and make them unable to proceed, they were aware they couldn’t win against the combination of Shen Tianyu and Rong Jian’s group.