Strength

The dust stirred up by the explosion settled rapidly, pulled down by the intensified gravity. Yisha released her grip on the conduit, observing that the luminous particles circling her body had dwindled to less than a third of their original number. Releasing any more would compromise her safety.

‘The enemy has abandoned their Defensive Array. It seems they have no intention of continuing a positional battle. The Mech-Mage Squad… have they still not given up?’

The young woman’s eyes darted around, finally landing on what she sought beneath the tower-shaped mana generator.

‘The anchor point is established. Now, it’s all up to my speed.’

She closed her eyes, taking deep, steady breaths to quell the murderous intent that threatened to overwhelm her senses.

Combat Automaton—a simple phrase, yet it represented countless lives, countless families plunged into despair. She had witnessed too much, known too much, in her travels over the years. Thus, she would not stop.

Naturally, they would not stop either. The success of the God-Slayer Project was within reach, a mere step away; they would not let it slip.

Her mind raced with a myriad of thoughts. After an indeterminate time, a distant roar roused her from her reverie.

“Boom!”

Mana Cannons fired volley after volley, impacting the Defensive Array. With its properties already altered to reflect, the projectiles collided with one another, detonating prematurely.

“It’s begun.”

The young woman’s eyes snapped open, her body tensing like a taut bowstring. Spiritual energy surged within her, wild, immense, and difficult to contain, yet at this moment, it was entirely obedient to her will.

Generate mana, charge weapons, pull the trigger.

Over thirty humanoid Mech-Mages ceaselessly repeated this sequence. They were divided into three groups, with each group firing its volley before the next took its place, ensuring the Defensive Array was constantly bombarded.

Had it been an array designed for offensive defense, it might have succumbed to a single salvo. However, its reflective nature prevented their entry, forcing them to wear down its mana to destroy it.

They targeted the first Defensive Array that the magical energy projectiles had previously struck. Given its initial, maximal distortion angle, this formation was also the most magically depleted and easiest to breach.

Even the reflective Defensive Array couldn’t hold them back for long. After just two rounds, the formation had already dimmed considerably.

Noticing this, they ceased their rotation. The remaining units began to charge their attacks simultaneously, while the previous group drew their blades.

“Boom!”

Ten projectiles tore from their barrels first, bringing the exhausted spell formation to its final demise. Following immediately, another ten shells rained down upon the last settling point of the smoke and dust—the crater where the mana generator lay buried.

The dust had long since returned to the ground under the amplified gravity. No sign of the enemy was visible now; the only place where the dust hadn’t fully settled was that very spot.

Trailing the projectiles were ten Mech-Mages. They descended towards the crater, maintaining a distance that allowed for mutual support while ensuring no corner of the edge was left unchecked.

Pong!

The projectiles landed within the crater, yet the sensation was akin to striking something remarkably soft. More crucially, they failed to explode!

The eerie situation, however, did not deter any of the automatons. Their eyes held but a single expression: an absolute coldness.

It was a frigid indifference that disregarded everything, seeing through the world’s fleeting attachments, even life itself.

The melee squad, acting in unison within their Territories, gathered a vast quantity of air. Then, like deflating balloons, they released the compressed air, creating a powerful gale that dispersed the smoke and dust within the crater.

The moment the scene entered the surveillance cameras’ range, those in the control room understood: the melee Mech-Mage Squad was doomed.

A dense, glowing green web of threads permeated the crater, resembling a gigantic spider’s snare awaiting its prey. As for the projectiles, the last one lay tightly bound by these threads, incapable of detonating, its mana absorbed and disintegrated by the scattered light particles surrounding it.

At the very heart of the web was the mana generator for the Defensive Array. Its conduits, designed to release mana, had long since been severed and blocked, causing the volatile, explosive energy to dissipate wildly.

Bang!

A bullet, fired from an unknown origin, struck the generator already teetering on the brink of explosion, becoming the final straw.

BOOM!!!

An unprecedented explosion ripped through the area. The automatons that hadn’t charged in immediately clustered together, bolstering their defenses by sharing magical energy through their Territories.

The chaos arrived and subsided with equal swiftness. The automatons’ formation proved effective; they withstood the immense blast by expending only thirty percent of their magical energy. The open ground was now a lava pool, scorched by intense heat to a depth of over ten meters. Had there not been a second layer of Defensive Arrays surrounding it, perhaps the entire city would have vanished.

“Even a Dancer couldn’t survive that, could they? A confined space combined with a secondary magical energy explosion…”

The rest of the words caught in his throat, unspoken.

He couldn’t believe his eyes. Emotion screamed that it was utterly impossible, yet reason forced him to acknowledge the scene unfolding before him.

A young woman, clad in black, her hair fluttering wildly in the blast wave, stood directly behind the clustered, defensive automatons.

She had used the automatons’ defense to survive the explosion!

Yisha paused, then subtly launched her attack once the residual shockwaves of the explosion no longer posed a threat.

Her palm rigid as a blade, her hand covered in luminous particles, she brutally tore through their defenses. The young woman now stood directly before them.

No new orders had yet been issued from the control room, so the automatons’ fundamental programming initiated combat with the young woman.

She sidestepped a slash, then delivered a devastating “crushing fist” to the automaton’s chest. Empowered by the Calamity, the young woman directly destroyed its core. Her free hand snatched the light sword from its grasp, then used its body as a shield against the bullets fired by several more distant automatons.

“Eight Extremities Heaven, Third Form: Vigorous Yang.”

Seeing this, several automatons promptly drew their light swords and lunged at the young woman. Their shared tactical processing ensured their sword paths blocked her retreat. Unfortunately, wielding a sword also required speed.

Her breathing quickened, her body felt lighter, and her mind grew sharper.

Luminous particles clinging to her legs and back simultaneously erupted with immense propulsive force. The young woman, moving with a speed akin to teleportation, breached the nascent sword net and appeared beside an automaton armed with a gun.

The blade pierced its chest. After twisting the hilt to ensure its demise, Yisha released the light sword, delivering a powerful side kick to the nearest automaton.

The magical energy firearm in its hand was instantly rendered useless by the kick. The automaton activated the thrusters in its chest, retreating while simultaneously throwing the military saber attached to its thigh.

Alas, Yisha had long anticipated its move. The young woman raised her hand to deflect the flying saber, simultaneously flicking out a dagger she had kept concealed in her sleeve.

“!”

The blade rapidly grew larger in its vision. The automaton abandoned its Territory, letting its body drop freely to evade the dagger and any potential pursuit from the ‘Dancer’ behind it. Yet, it still failed.

“Boom!”

It was not a loud sound, yet it heralded a downfall.

The explosive force of the projectile utterly shredded its body. The gushing flames, like a ravenous beast, lunged at the surrounding automatons.

‘Finally, I got it back.’

The young woman tightened her grip on the giant cannon, a silent sigh of relief escaping her.

While her previous strategy had eliminated roughly a third of the enemy forces, the repercussions were severe. Zadkiel (Source of Life) had been within the blast radius. To retrieve the scattered fragments of the Angel due to the explosion, she needed time. During this period, she would be without the Spirit’s sharpest blade, forced to rely on other means to delay them.

Just as Yisha dispatched the third automaton, the explosion subsided. The automatons that had formed a defensive cluster all drew the blades from their waists, their cold eyes fixed intently on Yisha.

‘Twenty-one left. Time to get serious.’

The young woman’s lips curved into a faint smile. The spiritual energy that had previously moved in sync with her breathing gradually shifted its operational mode.

‘I’ve used Calamity too much. Energy conversion takes time. I’ll have to kill them one by one.’

With that thought, she pulled the trigger. The recoil from the blast, substituting the Calamity’s kinetic energy, allowed her to move freely through the air.

The giant cannon carried Yisha directly before the nearest automaton. It immediately adopted a guarding stance, intending to block the young woman and then rely on its teammates’ support to overwhelm her.

Just as the cannon barrel was about to strike its sword, the cannon’s surface twisted bizarrely, like a mass of liquid with a will of its own. It swerved around the blade, revealing its internal components.

The automaton sensed something was amiss and changed its sword technique, intending to attack Yisha. However, the liquid, formed from the twisted cannon barrel, solidified into countless threads that ensnared its points of leverage, hindering its movements.

“Bye-bye.”

The young woman’s delicate hand settled on the bowstring, drew it back, and then released it.

An arrow, fired at almost point-blank range, pierced its head. The Territory, controlled by its brain, vanished. The threads retracted, and the fourth corpse plummeted from the sky.

The liquid flowed back onto the surface of the longbow, reforming into the various parts of the giant cannon. The young woman’s index finger lifted slightly, creating space for the liquid to shape itself into a trigger.

Kanzaki Ieyasu was on the verge of exploding. The bloodshot veins in his eyes and the throbbing blue veins on his forehead made him look like a demon clawing its way out of hell.

“A combined dual Angel! That was supposed to be ours!”

His furious roar echoed in everyone’s ears, stirring a resonant anger within them.

The power they had acquired through countless hardships, sleepless nights, and overcoming myriad dangers was now being wielded with such effortless mastery by the enemy!

“Order it! Release the Divine Machine! I want it back!”

With immense effort, Kanzaki Ieyasu suppressed the urge to don a CR-UNIT and rush out to fight the enemy himself. His command was delivered with a furious roar.

He refused to wait any longer. Even if the Divine Machine wasn’t fully modified, he wouldn’t delay.

Two Angels, combined into one using the characteristics of the other. If such a being were allowed to roam free any longer, who knew what new tactics it might devise to destroy them!