Arcane: The Gods Want Me to Pick a Route-Chapter 136: This Is What High-Tech vs. Cold Steel Looks Like

Chapter 136: Chapter 136: This Is What High-Tech vs. Cold Steel Looks Like

Over the next few days, thanks to the intel Camille had brought back, the people of both cities sped up weapon production—and at Mel’s suggestion, Piltover and Zaun also started a weapons symposium.

Because of that, during this stretch, Logan had been taking a whole group up into the hills behind Piltover again and again to test the weapons the two cities currently had.

But... things weren’t looking great.

First problem: there just weren’t enough Hextech rifles. If you added Piltover and Zaun together, the total number of rifles still didn’t even break a thousand.

Normally they were stored carefully at Enforcer headquarters. Only when an Enforcer went out on a mission or patrol would they be taken from the armory—and every single one had to be signed out by serial number. Not a single gun could go missing.

As for other weapons... like the ones Jinx had been tinkering with over the past year, Viktor said they still weren’t refined enough to be formally fielded and tested.

And the reason they couldn’t be tested wasn’t complicated.

They were simply too dangerous.

Just like right now.

On a spring afternoon, in an empty, uninhabited clearing in the Piltover hills, the councilors from both cities had gathered together, staring toward the slope below, where Jayce was testing a weapon.

Blue arcs of electricity danced—followed by a deafening boom. Jayce gripped a hammer, and with a single shot, he shattered a massive boulder dozens of meters away, easily two meters tall.

The councilors’ faces lit up at the sheer power... but then their eyes drifted to the enormous steel hammer in Jayce’s hands, and a few of them started rubbing their chins, thinking.

"Jayce, the hammer you’re holding really is impressive," Councilor Hoskel said, looking at the weapon. "But the problem is the production cycle is far too long, the cost is staggering, and most importantly—only you and Viktor can actually develop and build it. There’s no way to mass-produce this. That’s a huge issue."

Logan was staring at the hammer too, eyes practically shining.

Because—this was Jayce’s weapon.

The weapon of the Defender of Tomorrow, Jayce Talis.

Back when he’d watched Arcane and saw Jayce swinging that hammer into chemtech tin men, Logan had practically lost his mind. And now, seeing it with his own eyes, he had this surreal feeling like he’d just personally witnessed history.

Jayce’s hammer was terrifyingly strong. In fact, its cannon mode was far more lethal than its hammer mode. Because in hammer mode—even someone built like Jayce, strong as he was, would still have to work to swing it properly.

Jayce might not be a great fighter, but he was the son of a craftsman family. He’d been pounding metal and handling hammers since he was a kid—his strength was absolutely beyond normal people, not to mention his height, well over two meters.

So this weapon wasn’t something an ordinary person could use in the first place. And then there was everything Councilor Hoskel had just said.

Sure, Zaun and Piltover had plenty of strong people. But the cost and the time and effort needed to build that hammer were just too much. A weapon that couldn’t be mass-produced, no matter how good it was, simply wasn’t good enough for Zaun right now—or for Piltover.

In short: the weapon was incredible—truly incredible—but it wasn’t suitable for the current needs of Zaun and Piltover.

Jayce scratched the back of his head. "But if we make a simplified version, there’s no guarantee it’ll perform better than a gun."

Off to the side, Ekko stood there looking a little awkward. Most of what he built leaned toward functionality—things that helped people live better.

To be honest, Ekko didn’t like building weapons meant to kill. That was exactly why the Firelights hadn’t had overwhelmingly lethal firepower back then—what they’d had were things like hoverboards, and crystal spheres that could trap someone without hurting them.

But now, what the two cities needed were weapons with real killing power.

"Jinx," Jayce said, turning to her with curiosity. "Where are your weapons?"

The best weapon-maker in the two cities wasn’t Jayce. Not Viktor. Not the dangerous Singed, either.

It was Jinx.

As Jayce spoke, the councilors all looked toward Jinx—only to find her standing beside Logan with empty hands.

With everyone staring, Jinx lifted her chin, raised both hands, and rolled her eyes so hard it looked like she might see her own brain. She said, impatient as hell, "Seriously, what is wrong with you people? Weapons are everywhere."

"What?" The Kiramman councilor blinked, looking at Jinx like she’d just started speaking in riddles.

Jinx sighed—long and dramatic—her expression sour. She hitched up her shoulders, bent down, picked up a rock from the ground, and held it up. Then she looked at the Kiramman councilor and said, "This is a weapon."

Before the still-confused councilors could even ask what she meant, Jinx gripped the rock and made a smashing motion—smooth, practiced, vicious, full of intent—then shouted:

"A weapon isn’t some fancy, high-and-mighty thing like you keep talking about! Anything that can hurt someone you hate—anything that can kill them—is a weapon. Got it?"

She tossed the rock. It thudded into a tree. Then she dusted off her hands and said, "That’s a weapon too. Throw it at someone’s head—weapon."

Logan rubbed his chin. He felt like he was starting to get what she meant.

After all... they’d been sharing a bed for a while. Back in the beginning, when their brainwaves didn’t match, that was just because Jinx was Jinx—wild, unpredictable, and almost nobody could keep up with her. But after sleeping together day after day, kissing plenty, Logan had gradually started to understand the way her mind worked.

So he lowered his head and started thinking.

Jayce and Viktor exchanged a look. They still didn’t get it.

Seeing that, Jinx looked utterly done with them. "You still don’t understand? Seriously?"

"What I’m saying is—you’re so obsessed with making fancy, high-end stuff that you’re ignoring what’s right in front of your face. That’s really, really stupid."

She muttered under her breath, then said out loud, "If a ship at sea can carry cannons, then why can’t a Hextech airship mount cannons too?"

"Attacking from the sky is convenient—and you don’t have to worry about the enemy hitting you. All you need is to extend the range of the rifles we already have and prepare some cannon barrels. Or better yet—just drop bombs straight down."

"Even if you want to be extra dumb about it," Jinx added, arms crossed, "ride an airship and drop rocks. Rocks can still kill people."

Logan lifted his head and looked at Jayce—just in time to see Jayce take a sharp breath.

"Yes! How did we forget this?!"

"They can throw their war spears as high as they want, but no matter how high they throw them—can a spear thrown into the sky pierce a steel airship?!"

"We can fight in the air!" Jayce got excited.

And he had every reason to.

Because of trade, Piltover’s Hextech airships were everywhere. Every day, nearly a hundred airships departed from the Hexgates. And to prepare for emergencies, there were plenty more sitting in storage.

So if they mounted cannons onto Hextech airships—chem-bombs, Hextech heavy cannons—

A collective, sharp inhale went through the crowd.

Councilor Hoskel clapped hard. "That’s a great idea!"

"How did none of us think of this?!" someone blurted.

Even Silco looked excited.

Just imagining that scene made Silco feel like the two cities had no business losing.

Noxus prided itself on its infantry legions—so what would those legions do against air combat? Would they still be useful?

Picture it: people from the two cities sitting in airships, dropping bombs from hundreds of meters up. One bomb could blow apart, maim, or kill dozens—maybe hundreds.

Silco sucked in a cold breath.

Logan looked at Jinx—excited because of her own idea, and also looking at all of them like they were even dumber than she’d expected—and he didn’t know what to say.

Because there were way too many people in Zaun smarter than him. Aside from fighting, Logan usually didn’t bother thinking too hard about strategy. He’d never really tried to come up with plans.

But now, looking at it...

Shouldn’t this be the kind of idea he, of all people, should’ve had first?

He was from a modern world. He hadn’t fought in a war, but he’d watched enough movies and TV to know what modern warfare looked like.

Damn.

I’m a genius.

Just imagining that kind of battlefield made Logan’s blood heat up too.

If they really fought like that, magic wouldn’t mean a damn thing.

On Runeterra, aside from a handful of freakishly powerful mages—Lux, Syndra, Lissandra, Ryze—what mage was going to land hits from hundreds of meters away?

And in Noxus, mages were precious resources.

Noxus’s mage corps was terrifying on the battlefield. The only times they’d really taken big losses were to Galio... but now?

Now they might be about to take a brand-new kind of loss.

A loss to technology.

Yeah.

This is what high-tech fighting cold steel is supposed to look like.

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