For several suffocating seconds after the flesh-cutting impact echoed across the battlefield, Vesperine froze.
Her eyes remained tightly shut, fingers trembling against the shattered stone beneath her boots while the tallic stench of blood spread through the cold air. She had seen it clearly. A streak of bright blue light descended from above like a falling star before crashing directly toward Victor’s back.
Everything inside her sank.
Everything was over... until,
CRRNNKKKKK...!!
The violent scream of grinding tal ripped through the battlefield.
Vesperine’s eyes shot open.
Her breath caught violently in her throat the mont she saw it.
Victor still stood.
A towering whitish-black tallic figure had appeared behind him like a phantom forged from steel and frost. Blue energy pulsed across the seams of its armour while steam hissed from rotating vents along its spine. In its hands rested a massive double-edged axe humming with enough force to split armoured mountains apart.
One edge had already buried itself deep into Victor’s thigh.
Blood stread down his leg in thick crimson lines, dripping onto the cracked battlefield below, yet the blade had stopped only inches before the bone.
Because Victor had caught it.
CRCCCKKK...!!
His left chanical arm groaned violently under the pressure. tallic plating cracked apart while sparks burst from the joints like tiny explosions.
The force behind that strike alone could have torn a normal human completely in half.
But Victor did not move.
Did not scream.
Did not even blink.
In truth, the strike had originally been aid at his neck. The enemy had descended from above with terrifying precision, intending to decapitate him instantly.
Victor reacted at the final possible mont.
He had twisted his body sideways and raised his leg directly into the axe’s trajectory. The sheer mass of his reinforced lower body altered the weapon’s angle just enough to prevent a clean execution strike.
Even then, the impact still carved deep into his thigh.
Just about to cut off cleanly, Victor shifted his weight backwards, reduced the montum, and caught the axe using his chanical hand beneath the illusion covering his body.
If he had stopped the strike head-on with the arm alone, the entire limb would have exploded into scrap tal instantly. Worse, the remaining force would have continued directly through his chest.
Behind him, the tailed tallic figure that attacked earlier collapsed fully onto the battlefield. Its limbs twitched uncontrollably while blue particles leaked from cracks throughout its armour. Sparks erupted from its visor before the lights inside faded.
Its body no longer responded.
[System Shutdown in 10 seconds]
Victor ignored it completely.
His eyes locked onto the new enemy standing before him.
Slowly, he pushed the axe away from his bleeding thigh using only his damaged chanical arm. Muscles across his body tightened while blood continued pouring down his leg.
The whitish-black machine imdiately reacted.
The pistons around its shoulders compressed inward with explosive force. Hydraulic cylinders rotated violently while steam blasted from their elbows. Instead of pulling back, the machine pushed harder.
The axe drove deeper.
Chunks of flesh tore apart.
Blood splattered across the weapon’s dark tallic surface.
Yet Victor’s face remained terrifyingly emotionless.
Noticing the difference in raw output strength, Victor imdiately activated his movent skill.
A sharp distortion flashed beneath his feet.
SLUCKK...!!
His body vanished backwards in a single step.
The enormous axe suddenly lost resistance and sliced through empty air instead. Montum carried the blade downward with frightening weight before the enemy forcefully stabilised itself by rotating its hips and shifting balance chanically.
Victor stared at the figure silently.
This one was different.
The armour plating looked denser than the previous units, layered with overlapping tallic scales that absorbed light instead of reflecting it. Blue currents moved beneath the seams like flowing veins while tiny light flickered across the surface of its visor.
Victor’s eyes lowered toward his injured thigh. Blood continued running down his leg in thick streams, soaking the torn fabric around the wound. Without changing expression, he removed a healing potion from his storage device and shattered it directly onto the injury.
Golden liquid spread across the exposed flesh.
Steam rose imdiately.
The torn muscles slowly began reconnecting while damaged tissue crawled back together inch by inch.
The machine observed everything carefully.
Then it slowly raised its massive double-edged axe again.
chanical joints rotated with heavy tallic clicks while blue energy gathered along the sharpened edges.
Still, it did not attack.
It simply stared at Victor through its smooth, faceless visor... except that two crimson lights glowed within the darkness like artificial eyes studying prey.
Then a chanical voice echoed from inside the armour.
[Activating Translator]
The red lights narrowed.
"We truly did not expect to encounter His Majesty, the Dragon Emperor, in a place like this."
For the first ti since the war had begun, the Terra People spoke to him directly using their own Lycorian language.
The mont those words echoed across the battlefield, Vesperine’s expression stiffened.
She had never expected it.
Not only did the Terra People know the Lycorian tongue... they spoke it fluently. Naturally. As if it belonged to them.
Victor tilted his head slightly before a faint, amused smirk appeared on his face.
*Oh? So I’m famous in your land, too?*
His tone carried a half-joking calmness, but the battlefield itself seed to grow quieter afterwards.
For the first ti since arriving, the tallic figure visibly reacted.
Its body froze mid-motion while reaching toward its fallen comrade.
Then the red lights inside its visor narrowed sharply.
*You... know our language?*
There was genuine surprise beneath the chanical distortion.
Victor’s smirk deepened slightly.
*Of course.*
His eyes remained fixed on the figure.
*After all... we received your first gift, didn’t we?*
The aning behind those words struck imdiately.
The bait.
The first sacrifice the Terra Empire had deliberately sent into their world to initiate the war.
The battlefield fell silent for a mont.
Then the tallic figure released a low chanical hum. Almost laughter.
"I see..."
Its voice returned to Victor’s language once again, calr now.
"So you discovered that too."
"Interesting. It seems we have underestimated you far more than expected."
Victor’s eyes narrowed slightly.
The machine continued speaking, casually moving closer to the fallen one.
"Regardless, the mission has failed... We will now be returning."
BOOOOMMM!!!
A deafening white beam suddenly tore through the battlefield.
Vesperine instinctively shielded her face from the impact.
But when the smoke cleared...
The tallic figure still stood there.
Completely unhard.
Not even a scratch marked the pristine whitish-black armour. The surface remained polished and untouched while faint blue energy rippled harmlessly across it.
The machine slowly lifted its head back toward Victor.
Its glowing red eyes lowered toward the weapon in Victor’s hand.
A gun.
White energy still leaked from the barrel.
"Oh?"
The figure’s chanical voice carried a clear interest now.
"What do we have here?"
The red lights inside the visor brightened intensely.
A faint scanning field swept across Victor’s weapon repeatedly.
"A firearm?"
It paused briefly.
"Powered by Origin Core crystals?"
The machine tilted its head slightly.
"No..."
The scanning intensified.
"A replica."
Victor remained silent.
The machine gave another low hum.
"So soone in this world managed to reverse-engineer fragnts of our technology."
Its fingers tightened around the axe handle.
"That explains several irregularities we encountered during this operation."
The red glow inside its visor pulsed slowly.
"We failed to account for variables developing this quickly."
Then it sighed.
An actual sigh.
"The President is going to be furious."
Victor frowned slightly.
"You’re the President?"
He genuinely sounded surprised.
Victor had already sensed this unit was vastly different from the others. The aura radiating from this figure felt heavier.
Not rely stronger.
Superior.
He had initially assud this individual might be the ruler of the Terra Empire itself or soone holding supre authority.
The whitish-black figure imdiately shook its head.
"?"
A distorted laugh escaped from the translator.
"The President?"
"Oh, please."
Its tone carried playful sarcasm now.
"I’m honoured you would evaluate so highly, Dragon Emperor..."
The red lights inside the visor sharpened.
"But no."
The machine slowly planted the massive axe beside itself.
Then it straightened fully.
"I am rely... Arcane King."
The red lights glowed brighter.
"Chosen personally by our Saviour... Goddess Arcane."
"..."
The instant those words left the machine’s visor, Victor’s expression changed completely.
The faint amusent vanished.
His eyes turned cold.
So that was it.
That subtle difference he sensed from this figure earlier... it finally made sense.
Victor had already extracted information regarding the "Chosen Ones" of the Terra Empire from the captured prisoner before. According to him, these individuals rarely appeared publicly and almost nobody had direct contact with them.
At that exact mont, a transparent system panel suddenly appeared before Vesperine’s eyes alone.
[New Target: Allen Hatcher]
The colour instantly drained from her face.
All of it twisted together inside her expression.
Her next seduction target... was him?
Slowly, almost instinctively, her gaze shifted toward Victor.
But Victor was no longer looking at the Arcane King.
His eyes had already fallen toward the broken tallic figure lying unconscious beside him.
"Oh? Of course..."
The Arcane King tilted its head slightly.
"She is the Arcane Queen."
The mont those words entered the battlefield, Victor’s expression turned completely emotionless.
A second gun materialised instantly into his right hand.
Victor pulled the trigger without hesitation.
BANG!!
BANG!!
Twin white beams exploded forward like compressed lightning, tearing across the battlefield at terrifying speed.
The Arcane King moved instantly.
SHRRAAAKKK!!!
Its massive double-edged axe swung once through the air.
The glowing edge sliced directly through both beams.
Split apart.
The white energy divided cleanly into two streams before detonating violently behind the machine.
Yet Victor was already moving.
The instant the Arcane King swung, Victor accelerated forward like a bullet.
Distance vanished in less than a second.
He appeared directly before the Arcane King’s visor.
The barrel of his gun pressed against the machine’s faceplate.
BOOOOMMM!!!
The point-blank blast erupted like a cannon.
White light engulfed the Arcane King entirely as the impact wave exploded outward in concentric rings. The machine itself staggered backwards several ters.
But before Victor could capitalise on the opening, the Arcane King reacted.
Its fingers clenched tightly around the axe handle.
Blue energy violently surged along the weapon’s edges, causing the air itself to shriek under the pressure.
Then it swung.
Once.
Twice.
Three tis.
Frenzied slashes tore through empty air.
Victor imdiately frowned while jumping backwards.
What the hell was it doing?
The attacks hadn’t even co close to reaching him.
Then he saw it.
SHHHHHRRRAAAKKKK!!!
Blue crescent-shaped waves suddenly erupted from the axe swings.
Gigantic energy claws ripped through the battlefield toward him with horrifying speed, carving through everything in their path. The ground split open instantly while massive claw-shaped trenches exploded across the ruins.
Victor’s pupils contracted sharply.
He leapt upward imdiately.
BAAAAMMMM!!!
BAAAAMMMM!!!
BAAAAMMMM!!!
The claw waves crashed beneath him one after another, pulverizing the battlefield below. Entire chunks of earth exploded skyward while the shockwaves shook the surrounding ruins violently.
Victor twisted midair before landing heavily across broken stone several ters away.
The instant his boots touched the ground, he prepared to charge again.
But he stopped.
The Arcane King had already reached its fallen comrade.
With one arm, it lifted the unconscious Arcane Queen onto its shoulder effortlessly.
Behind them, the portal opened earlier by the tailed figure still shimred in the air.
The Arcane King stood directly before it.
Its glowing red eyes stared toward Victor with clear amusent now.
"Apologies for disappointing you... But I haven’t received authorisation to engage in full combat."
The statent alone made Victor’s face darken.
Not authorised?
After all this destruction... this thing still considered itself restrained?
The Arcane King adjusted the unconscious Queen slightly on its shoulder before continuing calmly.
"Even though she failed her mission to retrieve the artifact..."
Its visor glowed brighter.
"Do not worry."
A faint, distorted chuckle escaped the translator.
"We are not leaving empty-handed."
Victor’s eyes narrowed sharply.
Then suddenly...
SSSSHHHHHHH~
A strange breeze swept across the battlefield.
Victor instantly turned toward the distant barrier surrounding the war zone.
And his expression changed.
Bright flashes began appearing across the sky.
One after another.
Then dozens.
Then hundreds.
Spatial portals began opening across the heavens like fractures splitting reality apart.
Victor’s heart slamd violently inside his chest.
"You fucking assholes!!!"
His roar exploded.
He imdiately raised his gun and fired repeatedly toward the Arcane King.
BANG!!
BANG!!
BANG!!
But before the beams could even reach their target, the Arcane King stepped backwards into the portal alongside the Arcane Queen.
The portal collapsed instantly afterwards.
Victor’s breathing turned heavy.
Just as he prepared to rush toward the distant portals himself, a familiar voice suddenly echoed inside his mind.
’We already prepared for this.’
Aria’s voice echoed in his mind with calm and confidence.
Victor froze briefly in confusion before instinctively looking upward.
And then he saw them.
Hundreds of dragons soared across the sky.
And beneath their claws...
They carried enormous tallic cages?
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