Beneath the central spires of Skyborne City, within the district where the Central Assembly convened, six obelisks flickered in frantic succession. Their lights flashed like voices raised in panic, urgent and bewildered, each straining to speak faster, to grasp what had just occurred.
"I can't comprehend it. In the blink of an eye, I lost sight of every alchemical construct under my command. One by one, their feeds went dark, until nothing remained but blackness.
"Even the ‘eyes' I had hidden nearby to watch the Council of the Arcane are gone. Their entire quarter is now a void to —utterly invisible."
Eye spoke in a tone steeped in disbelief. Never in all the years of his service had such a thing occurred.
"I as well," said Ear. "Every channel that could gather information is gone. Absolute silence. Any attempt to monitor the Council's vicinity now returns nothing at all..."
Their situations mirrored each other. All their observation points had been obliterated in an instant. Whatever force had struck, it had ended their surveillance over the Council of the Arcane entirely.
"No different on my end," said Mouth. "I can no longer send so much as a whisper in that direction. All windows are gone."
"The chanical legions I commanded—every unit—have gone dead to ," added Hand. "No command reaches them."
Mouth and Hand had had the sa experience.
A terrible suspicion began to take shape in the minds of the Assembly mbers: sothing had, in a ti too brief for them to react, annihilated every one of their eyes and hands—the constructs, the legions, everything.
The last signals they had received were two images: the ripples of Icarus' Temporal Halt, and the activation of the counter-chanical systems. But their counterasures had clearly failed.
"Did Icarus conceal so hidden strength? Impossible. Even if he is of the Winged and hid his abilities, no one could destroy the alchemical legions so quickly—certainly not in the span of re heartbeats.
"Or... could there truly be a being here in Skyborne City capable of such destruction? This is beyond even the reach of a legend."
Eye's analysis grew more fevered as he spoke, each word quickening with unease. If the Council of the Arcane had indeed hidden such a being, the implications would be terrifying.
"We're already scanning the surrounding districts. No sign of further destruction. No new faces. Not even movent from the Council."
Mouth's voice faltered mid-sentence, his tone shifting from faint fear to puzzled disbelief—perhaps Julius had relayed sothing to him.
"Then... perhaps it's nothing but an inexplicable break in the link. Astartes will check later. We'll know soon enough—"
The hissing of air split the chamber.
The far wall, wrought of layered, self-repairing, anti-magic alchemical alloys, twisted and buckled. An opening yawned wide. A figure stepped through.
An instant later, another figure t him. The Machine God had made a move.
It struck in less than a heartbeat, faster than any legend in terms of pure speed and strength. As if smashing through paper, its fist punched clean through the intruder's chest, bursting his heart.
Wang Yu had no ti to react. One step into the chamber—just the rest flicker of awareness—and his upper torso was already gaping with ruin.
The blow's force had been ant to pierce his heart, nothing more—to protect the mbers of the Central Assembly against the unknown assailant.
But the gale that accompanied the punch tore a hole the size of a man's head through half his body.
It looked almost as if Wang Yu's body was about to split in two from that head-sized hole through his torso.
Heart, lungs, ribs, and spine—all were shredded to a pulp. What clung to the Machine God's arm dripped down in rivulets; the rest splattered against the wall behind him.
The sight was clear enough to the obelisks of the Central Assembly: Wang Yu was dead.
"Well, you killed ..."
"...now what?"
The words were weak, barely a whisper, but they stood out in the sudden, deafening silence.
Minutes earlier, veiled in the flowing darkness of the Lady of the Night herself, Wang Yu had slipped away from the Council's quarter under the firework-like bursts of the exploding alchemical legions.
Her power shrouded his presence, blinding Skyborne City's detection systems—save for the small device in his hand, the sa one Astartes had once used to contact him.
"You said you'd help when you could," Wang Yu murmured into it. "Point toward the Central Assembly. Open the way if you can."
Astarte's reply ca, edged with disbelief and tension. "What are you trying to do? Kill the Assembly mbers? That's impossible. I don't know how you escaped the legions—was it that shrouding power? But it can't fool the Machine God. The instant you enter, it will kill you. That's the rule. I can't stop it!"
Wang Yu's eyes flicked down at the device. So, the Assembly had blinded Astartes' surveillance of the Council. Good. That made things simpler.
"Spare the lecture. Help if you can. If not, I'll manage. But you never know unless you try."
His tone was casual, but there was no mistaking the seriousness beneath it.
"You really are insane. Even if I open the way, you'll only reach the sealed periter—you can't get inside. And if you do, I cannot keep the Machine God from killing you."
"Can you do it?"
"............"
"I've never t anyone so absurdly unafraid of dying. Fine. I'll try my best to keep the Machine God from killing you, you lunatic."
"Thanks."
And so, Astartes had watched him press a hand to that impregnable alloy wall—designed to nd itself in seconds, proof against magic and wizardry alike—open a hole in it, and step inside.
Then, the Machine God made a move, faster than thought. Even with the full focus of Astartes' chanical mind and its identity as the Machine Spirit, there was no stopping it.
Bound by the highest of commandnts, Astartes couldn't hope to control the Machine God. It could only watch on as it dealt Wang Yu an annihilating blow.
But it suddenly rembered Wang Yu's offhand wish: "If I must die, I hope it's not with my head blown apart. A burst heart will be cleaner."
Astartes sighed. So he'd known he would die. Why did he bother coming at all?
He sent the Machine God a single andnt to its lethal directive. A burst heart, as requested. That wasn't against the rules. The blow ant to tear half his body apart beca a strike aid precisely at the heart.
The sound ca a heartbeat after the low murmur faded from the air—a sudden, jarring impact, as though sothing unyielding had struck stone.
It was the Machine God. Before the stunned eyes of all present, the iron titan whose fist had just punched clean through Wang Yu's body collapsed to its knees, dragging with it the limp, blood-soaked weight of its victim. The two crumpled together, bereft of power and will.
"Ugh... It's the first ti I've had to recover from an injury this bad. Almost made use that, too. I'm hardly a real human at this point, huh?"
His thoughts were scattered, but a basic instinct for survival remained. On the back of his hand, the silver-etched sigil of wings had glimred for an instant—a power Wang Yu had very nearly unleashed.
The War Machine rose once more, hauling Wang Yu up with it as though supporting a wounded friend. The sight was grotesque: its arm was still impaled clean through his broken torso. Step by deliberate step, it began to move toward the six monoliths.
"?"
"What is the Machine God doing?"
"Why hasn't it finished him off completely?!"
"..."
Their voices, laced with disbelief and confusion, echoed from the obelisks. None were answered. The Machine God could not speak, not as it once had. It was no longer Skyborne City's guardian. It was now Wang Yu's.
As Wang Yu had said before, he had chosen Skyborne City for a reason. The power of the Chariot granted him an unimaginable edge here of all places.
That power could not touch anything with a soul, anything deed "alive." But every other form of matter bent to his will.
And Skyborne City's greatest strength lay in its alchemical legions: soulless, steel-forged engines of war. To him, they were no different from ingots of raw tal.
The only exception was the Machine Spirit Astartes—but fortunately, Astartes was on his side.
Months of study since arriving in Skyborne City had given Wang Yu intimate knowledge of the alchemical legions—their designs, their energy cores, their every flaw. He had prepared for this mont: to destroy them in seconds with the Chariot's power.
Alchemical constructs were built for resilience, forged from tal and magitech circuits, their cores shielded by arrays against all manner of spellcasting.
Ti magic? They had specialist counters for that. Structural magical sabotage? The anti-intrusion circuits and layered wards within would foil it.
But the Chariot's power was neither magic nor anything the world could na. It twisted matter directly, and in that domain, every alchemical engine was equal. Even the Machine God. No soul ant no defense.
Their strength ca from complexity—nested circuits, precision parts, composite-core reactors. But the finer the craft, the swifter the ruin when even a single thread was severed. And Wang Yu knew exactly which threads to cut.
A twist here, a cut there—once a reactor's intake and exhaust were linked, the result was as inevitable as the Cursed Fire that had just blossod in the Council of the Arcane's district: a detonation and massive explosion.
The Chariot's power needed little force to wreak havoc on such intricate machinery. The only limits were range and the number of targets he could affect at once.
That was why he had worked with Icarus—drawing the legions into range while Icarus halted ti, buying him the precious seconds needed to obliterate twenty percent of their forces in one strike.
The Central Assembly's caution ensured that their Machine God was the sole guardian at their side. No other uncontrollable beings were allowed near them.
And thanks to Astartes' orders, Wang Yu had not been struck down instantly. He had seized the chance he needed to seize the Machine God in its entirety.
Now, supported by his new robot, he neared the six obelisks that marked the Assembly's mbers. Blood writhed across his wound, knitting where it could, but the regeneration was painfully slow.
"Wang Yu," Astartes' voice cut in, urgent. "Do not attempt to kill them. If you attack, the city's safeguards will trigger—every weapon save the Machine God will be brought to bear on you.
"I don't know how you've bent the Machine God to your will, but the rest of the legions are already here. These obelisks are stronger than you think. They may not fall, and the area bombardnt will obliterate you."
Wang Yu had demonstrated a miracle before its eyes. It didn't want that newfound hope to be snuffed out so quickly.
And he was right. Wang Yu had no defense against a long-range barrage. If he triggered the alchemical legions' failsafe, not even ashes would remain.
"...Who said anything about killing them?"
His reply was strained but steady. Before the six obelisks, darkness pooled in his palm, extending into the shape of a sword. He raised it high.
"To make sothing cease to exist is quite different from killing it..."
The Sword of Darkness fell.
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