Revive Rome: Wait! Why not make the empress fall in love with me first?
Chapter 83 - 64 Long-Distance Sniping_2

Chapter 83: Chapter 64 Long-Distance Sniping_2

Initially, a popular theory on the forum was that the reason the sisters fell out was because Zoe wanted to abandon the Imperial City and flee to Sirius Province to cling to life, then think further.

Theodora firmly opposed this, advocating to defend Constantinople and wait for Western aid.

In the end, the expected Western aid never arrived, but instead, a wave of Frank Knights invaded, which greatly diminished Theodora’s prestige in both the Senate and the Church. Zoe seized the opportunity to stage a coup, overthrow her, and incorporated the Imperial Guard, who had been loyal to her.

Ah, one should indeed keep Constantinople holding out a little longer, otherwise, if both emperors had really been frightened and fled to Sirius Province, his idea of recruiting Theodora into his group would have been doomed.

Turning around, Aske saw Miel running to the rooftop, just about to turn around and run the stairs again.

"Miel, come here," Aske called. "The special training designed for you has arrived."

Miel: ???

She obediently walked over, a puzzled look on her tender, young face.

After mixing well with everyone, her originally indifferent and numb expression finally began to relax somewhat, showing a more humanized color—after all, she was still a twelve or thirteen-year-old girl, it was impossible for her to keep such a bitter expression forever.

Aske summoned her to lie down on the rooftop, then asked her to take out the Slaughterer III rifle, switch to sniper mode, and aim at the Galata Bridge across.

"Measure the distance?" Aske said.

"From here to the bridge, about 1000 meters," Miel replied. "To be more accurate, about 980 meters."

"This distance is considered quite suitable for snipers," Aske held up his palm to his ear, indicating, "Do you hear anything?"

Miel listened intently, relying on the keen hearing of a half-elf. She discovered that amidst the bursts of intense gunfire around them, there occasionally came a loud boom, seemingly from a larger firearm.

"Sniper?"

"Correct." Aske said, "In the street fighting environment of Constantinople, it’s exactly where snipers can utilize their combat advantage."

"The military must have transferred all the snipers here. Their range is generally between 600-800 meters; firing exposes their position, so they can only fire when there’s surrounding gunfire and they must move after each shot."

"But you don’t need to do that. With the self-aiming component of the Slaughterer III, its range far exceeds that of a normal sniper rifle, so you can directly snipe the Galata Bridge, or even the opposite side of the Galata Peninsula; the people there, even if hit, couldn’t possibly detect your position from two thousand meters away."

Aske took the Slaughterer III and, demonstrating, set it up at the edge of the rooftop, aiming across at Golden Horn Bay.

Outside a factory across from Golden Horn Bay, the blind Governor Enrique sat quietly on a chair, awaiting Venetian sailors to move piles of production materials and documents out.

The governor’s assistant was beside him, directing and reporting the plundering situation to him.

Regardless of whether the siege of Constantinople was successful or not, as long as they could plunder the industrial production materials of the East Solomon Empire, Venice would have achieved its ultimate strategic goal.

Of course, local technical workers and production experts were also indispensable; those who could be taken were to be taken, those who could not... were to be killed on the spot, lest they stay and help competitors.

As the commercial capital, Venice City State originally made its fortune by aiding the Church Court through offshore finance and foreign trade transshipment. The reason for launching this war was to plunder the production materials of the East Solomon Empire, thereby skipping the foundational accumulation stage in industry and manufacturing.

Currently, the low-end outsourced production of the Church Court was mainly undertaken by factories in the noble estates of the Holy Solomon Empire. However, the animosity between Emperor Otto and Holy See Innocent was widely known. Once Otto officially launched the war against Italy, the Church Court would inevitably stop supplying technology to the Divine Luo Empire and urgently need to find a new outsourced factory.

Venice was perfectly positioned to take over this wave of industrial transfer, transforming from a purely financial and trading city-state into a powerful nation with concurrent financial and industrial production capabilities.

A nation, without a minimum industrial production capacity, was absolutely unable to protect itself in this world.

When Governor Enrique was in deep contemplation, he suddenly heard his assistant yell out beside him, knocking him to the ground:

"Sniper!"

A bullet traveled 1,800 meters straight towards Governor Enrique’s head. The assistant quickly knocked him down and activated his own domain.

Shadow!

Within a five to six meter radius around him, darkness so intense it was completely impenetrable took hold.

The high-speed bullet entered the Shadow Domain and bizarrely disappeared— the entire Shadow Domain was a black hole with infinite curvature, twisting the surrounding space and time, and directly disintegrated the bullet.

This assistant beside Governor Enrique was unexpectedly a Demigod of the Shadow Domain!

Opposite, the sniper kept firing, forcing the Shadow Demigod to maintain his domain. He had to rapidly expand the black hole, withstand the barrage of bullets, and envelop Governor Enrique into the Shadow Realm.

Then his spirituality extended, creating a white hole inside the nearby factory that expelled Governor Enrique out of the Shadow Realm.

Only when Governor Enrique was taken to an indoors location, shielded from sniping, did the Demigod assistant viciously look towards the direction of the gunfire, attempting to lock onto the despicable sniper’s position using the shadow of the high-speed bullets.

However, the gunfire abruptly ceased, and no more bullets came.

The Shadow Demigod immediately turned pale—he realized he had maintained the domain too long, causing excessive spiritual energy depletion which inflicted irreversible damage to his spiritual body.

After quickly dissolving the domain, he clutched his head, trying to stabilize the violent fluctuations of his spirituality.

Yet, the fluctuations were so severe that he had to invoke his Extraordinary Power to forcibly suppress the impending loss of control.

Once he invoked his Extraordinary Power, in the current low tide of the Magic Tide, it inevitably intensified the consumption and fluctuation of his spirituality.

Thus, he fell into an unsolvable vicious cycle.

On the rooftop of a residential building on Third Hill, Aske nonchalantly put away his rifle, handing it over to Miel beside him, and said, "Here, take it and shoot at the enemies on the Galata Bridge, don’t spare the bullets—it’s practice for real combat."

"How many people did you just shoot?" Miel curiously asked.

She watched Aske rapidly pulling the trigger, shooting six or seven bullets in the blink of an eye, and began to speculate on the outcome.

"I didn’t directly kill anyone," Aske said, "But I probably killed a Demigod."

"A Demigod?" Miel widened her eyes in confusion, thinking to herself, had he not always said that "below a Demigod, all are mere mortals"? Could a Demigod be killed with a sniper rifle?

Then she saw the boundless shadows explode in the distance on the Galata Peninsula.

For a moment, it seemed as if the entire Galata Peninsula was engulfed in night, impenetrable to any light.

After a while, the phenomenon vanished, and the town below basked in sunlight again, as if nothing had happened.

"What was that?" Miel asked in astonishment.

"A mutation from a Demigod’s fall," Aske replied.