Love letters are not allowed in the exorcism notebook!-Chapter 134 Various Equipment’s Practical Use in Combat

Youtiao struck a match beside him and tossed it onto the ground.

He had also heard the noise behind him, exchanged a glance with Wang Yunxiao, and discreetly poured the kerosene from his lamp onto the road.

Now, the match thrown down ignited a line of fire that shot out from beneath his feet, extending toward the darkness ahead, illuminating nearly twenty meters of space in an instant.

At the end of the firelight, one could vaguely see a few creatures resembling dogs, clearly startled by the blaze, they quickly retreated back into the darkness.

Eryang squinted his eyes and pulled the trigger, releasing a crossbow arrow, and an injured whine immediately came from ahead.

"Steady the shield, hold firm!"

Wang Yunxiao pressed down on Matuan’s shoulders and said in a deep voice.

The lad’s advantage is that he’s obedient, but his drawback is that he likes to shout and scream, getting startled at every little thing.

Training him into a qualified sword and shield soldier might be difficult, but if it’s just about holding a shield, he might still be barely up to the task.

Matuan’s rattan shield was square and properly shaped, only slightly smaller than a normal tower shield, capable of completely covering a person’s figure.

This type of shield was double-layered rattan with paper armor and cowhide filling in between, capable of blocking small caliber bullets from old-fashioned gunpowder guns. Though it appeared bulky, it actually wasn’t as heavy as it seemed, weighing only about twelve to twenty pounds.

This artifact was also an antique with many years behind it, its earliest history tracing back to over four hundred years ago during battles against the Wokou pirates, when its foe had been gunpowder matchlocks.

As anyone who has read Romance of the Three Kingdoms would know, the weakness of rattan armor is its vulnerability to fire attacks by the enemy.

However, in reality, the true weakness of this type of rattan shield was just one word—expensive!

How expensive, exactly? It’s difficult to say without understanding the pricing standards of that time, but it can only be said that the cost of manufacturing a firelock was much lower than this artifact.

As is widely known, in military procurement, only the cost is considered, not whether the front-line soldiers are at the receiving end of a bullet has nothing to do with the Ministry of Works officials.

However, Brocade-Clothed Guards didn’t need to worry about these issues, as the name suggests, they were not short of money. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

In such a narrow passage, two such shields could cover the entire squad impermeably.

Although there was only Matuan for now, if everyone squeezed in and lined up, they wouldn’t have to worry about being ambushed by the enemy’s cold arrows.

Bang—! Bang—!

As the kerosene on the ground gradually burned out, the creatures hidden in the darkness seemed to regain their confidence; two spiked projectiles whizzed through, embedding heavily into Matuan’s rattan shield.

Eryang quickly retaliated, but without the illumination from the fire, his repeating crossbow lost accuracy, and he fired two arrows in succession, with no response from the other side.

Wang Yunxiao slapped Youtiao lightly, signaling him with a gesture, and Youtiao understood immediately and turned to leave.

As they retreated, the enemy pursued, with the darkness being their home ground, the distance between the two sides quickly closed.

Eryang emptied the arrow magazine of his repeating crossbow, slotted it back onto his back, and drew two Ox Ear Sharp Knives.

He still felt more comfortable using knives, but Wang Yunxiao couldn’t just let him charge forward to engage in close combat with the enemy.

For a monthly salary of twenty yuan, why risk your life?

Besides, it’s not like they didn’t have other options.

Wang Yunxiao gently picked up the Copper Gong hanging at his waist.

The beastly howls across seemed as though they were right beside him, and as the creatures hidden in the dark prepared to pounce, Wang Yunxiao suddenly shouted, "Strike!"

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang—!

Several brothers behind simultaneously struck the copper gong, the deafening gong sound echoed in the enclosed, narrow air raid shelter, creating an astonishing reverberation effect.

In the darkness, something howled in dismay, got frightened, and jumped up on the spot, tucking its tail as it turned to flee.

Sound, the resonance of sound, was humanity’s most basic weapon against demons and evil spirits.

This was the first lesson Nurse Liu taught them when Wang Yunxiao had just crossed over.

Not just humans, many creatures in nature use sound to instill fear.

Humans, in particular, have an exceptional talent in this area, not only able to learn and imitate the sounds of various animals, but even capable of creating extremely terrifying noises.

If you want a metaphysical explanation, it could be understood as everyone standing together, shouting in unison to form a formation, making the demons and evil spirits dare not approach.

If you want a scientific explanation, that’s even simpler, the resonance of sound waves itself has great destructive power, there have even been examples in history of neatly arranged armies marching over bridges, whose synchronized steps collapsed the bridge.

The explanation forms a consensus; that is what’s most important.

True power lies in thought; the consensus of everyone’s thoughts comes together to form sentiments.

Collective sentiments can, in turn, impact the Real World.

The Brocade-Clothed Guard too equipped themselves with high-end versions of equipment—handing out a palm-sized copper gong to each person.

Although it was small, the sound it made was anything but insignificant.

It instantly resolved the opponent’s intention of a sneak attack completely.

But this was not a long-term solution.

Wang Yunxiao glanced at his watch.

A thousand meters was neither far nor close.

Everyone was wearing such heavy equipment, moving was quite laborious.

The most important thing was still to guard against the various accidents that might occur along the way.

In movies, isn’t it always depicted like this? A group of elite soldiers carrying advanced weapons storming into tunnels with great momentum, then getting effortlessly picked off by the seemingly omnipresent protagonist or antagonist like mowing the lawn.

The roaring gong was also a burden on the eardrums of normal people, so Wang Yunxiao only struck it for a dozen seconds before raising his hand to stop everyone.

The other side clearly didn’t understand the ways of the world, already stunned by the gong sound into confusion, hesitant to move forward. But once they saw the gong sound here stop, they continued to retreat, and immediately felt confident again, calling out loudly as they chased after.

This time they no longer hid their presence, replying with terrifying beastly roars as well and constantly shooting out spikes.

A spike flew over the top of the shield, heading down toward the front of the team.

Wang Yunxiao reflexively raised his hand to catch the spike, but unexpectedly the spike was covered in rows of sharp barbs, which immediately pierced through his glove.

It was fortunate he was wearing leather gloves, otherwise the spike might have pierced through his palm.

Hissing—Wang Yunxiao quickly threw away the spike, took off his glove to look at his palm, only to see rows of blood holes spurting out blood. In just a few seconds, his entire arm had gone numb, without any feeling.

The thing was even poisoned!

However, it was fortunate that they had the Advisor on their side for emergency treatment.

Little Gourd, who was hiding in the middle of the team, quickly wrote down a line of text; the wound on Wang Yunxiao’s palm healed rapidly, visible to the naked eye, and the numbness in his arm also quickly subsided.