194: war

"Pass down the order! Start all steam locomotives! Light the beacons! Tell the border legions to return and reinforce us immediately! Tell all the lords that this is not a drill; this is the battle for the end of the world!"

Gareth roared, his voice infused with thick combat qi, causing the surrounding air to tremble.

However, reality was cruel.

Beside him, the most elite royal messengers mounted the fastest warhorses and charged out of the palace gates. They whipped their horses desperately, attempting to convey the Emperor's will to every corner of the empire.

But in the face of a strike that transcended the era, this method of relaying information via hoofbeats was as slow as an insect frozen in amber.

Before Gareth's orders could even leave the gates of Angus City, the "meteors" in the sky had already landed... North Continent, Ironforge. This was a heavy industrial city focused on mining and smelting, and it was also the steel heart that the New Empire took pride in.

Tens of thousands of workers watched in terror as dozens of black dots in the sky, trailing long plumes of flame, rapidly enlarged.

Boom!!!

Accompanied by deafening roars, dozens of black metal giant eggs slammed violently into the city's various squares and transportation hubs. The shockwaves overturned surrounding houses, and the rising dust blotted out the sun.

Without waiting for the dust to settle, the doors of those metal giant eggs—the Human Federation's Assault Drop Pods—snapped open amidst a hiss of depressurization.

"Zzt— Zzt—"

A grating sound of mechanical operation rang out, followed by countless red electronic eyes lighting up in the smoke and dust, like the gaze of demons from hell.

The first to charge out were the [Hound] Tactical Robots. They had a quadrupedal structure similar to canines, but their bodies were covered in pitch-black composite armor, with twin-linked high-rate-of-fire electromagnetic machine guns mounted on their backs. Their movements were incredibly agile as they leaped and ran through the ruins, instantly occupying various high points on the streets.

Following closely behind were the [Tarantula] Multi-functional Siege Robots. These behemoths with eight sharp mechanical legs could easily climb vertical walls; with micro-missile pods and flamethrowers mounted on their abdomens, they swarmed over factory chimneys and the walls of the city hall.

Finally, the [Soldier] Humanoid Combat Robots stepped out. Standing two and a half meters tall and armed with heavy pulse rifles, they exuded a cold aura of slaughter, advancing with synchronized steps like a moving wall of steel.

"Bzz... Loading local language database... Loading complete."

All the robots simultaneously emitted electronically synthesized voices amplified by speakers; the sound echoed over the city, drowning out the cries and sirens.

"This is the Human Federation Second Interstellar Fleet landing force."

"All armed personnel, drop your weapons immediately, put your hands behind your heads, and lie on the ground."

"All civilians, return indoors immediately and stay away from windows."

"Resisters will be considered hostile targets and will be eliminated."

The city's garrison, after a brief moment of daze, finally reacted.

"This is a monster invasion! For the Empire! Fire!"

A garrison officer drew his command sword and shouted at the top of his lungs.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

From behind cover on both sides of the street, hundreds of muskets spat fire simultaneously, and the smoke from burning black powder instantly filled the air. Dense lead bullets rained down on the robots' armor.

Clang, clang, clang—

The crisp sounds of impact were incessant.

However, a scene that drove all the soldiers to despair occurred: the lead bullets, powerful enough to pierce chainmail, only kicked up a few sparks upon hitting the robots' armor, barely even scratching the paint.

The robots made no evasive maneuvers, allowing the bullets to strike their bodies.

"Under attack. Threat level: Low."

"Determination: Armed resistance."

"Executing elimination protocol."

In the next second, the massacre began.

The machine guns on the [Hound]'s backs emitted a deathly roar. Electromagnetically driven metal spikes were fired at several times the speed of sound, easily piercing the soldiers' crude breastplates and tearing their bodies apart.

The [Tarantula] leaped down from the walls, their sharp mechanical legs piercing through soldiers' bodies like knives through tofu, while the high-temperature fuel from their flamethrowers turned the entire block into a sea of fire.

The humanoid robots raised their pulse rifles; every burst took a life with an accuracy that was hair-raising.

In just ten minutes, the Ironforge garrison was completely wiped out, blood staining the newly laid concrete pavement.

This was the crushing weight of a technological gap. In this era still using a mix of black powder and cold weapons, facing a mechanical legion that had already crossed the threshold of interstellar warfare, courage served no purpose other than to add a sense of tragic grandeur to death... Meanwhile, in the imperial capital of Angus City, the situation was even more complex.

This was the primary target designated by Commander Karl, the "King" piece that had to be taken.

Therefore, what was deployed here were not just robots used to sweep away fodder, but the true main combat forces.

On the plains outside Angus City—the very place where Gareth had once defeated the main forces of the Ailan Empire—it had once again become the center of the battlefield.

In the sky, hundreds of heavy transport ships hovered at low altitude, their massive anti-gravity engines humming, pressing down so hard that the vegetation on the ground could not stand straight.

As beams of tractor rays descended, massive figures crashed onto the ground.

Those were the main combat weapons of the Human Federation's Starrealm Army—Titan-class Bipedal Combat Mechs.

These mechs stood twelve meters tall, coated entirely in dark gray radar-absorbent material, with the cockpit located in the center of the torso, protected by the thickest armor. Their arms were equipped with a large-caliber Plasma Cannon and a High-frequency Vibration Thermal Axe capable of cutting through several meters of steel, while multi-tube missile launchers were mounted on their shoulders.

At the feet of the mechs, tens of thousands of combat robots converged into a black ocean.

And above their heads was an overwhelming swarm of drones.

Palm-sized [Killer Bee] Micro-drones densely obscured the sky like a giant dark cloud, emitting a distracting hum.

On the other side of the city, the gates of Angus City swung wide open.

Driven by desperation, Gareth played all his trump cards.

At the very front was the Centaur Heavy Cavalry Legion.

These strong creatures, human from the waist up and horse from the waist down, were clad in heavy plate armor—an alloy steel Gareth had manufactured after learning from the knowledge of Earthlings, with defensive capabilities far exceeding ordinary steel. They held four-meter-long heavy lances, and their hooves were shod in iron, causing the earth to tremble with every step. They were the tanks of the cold weapon era, the kings of the charge.

On the flanks of the centaurs were the Orc Heavy Infantry Phalanxes.

These green-skinned giants from the Northern Wastelands generally stood over two meters tall, with knotted muscles. They wore crude but thick cast-iron armor and held battle-axes and great hammers. Though their equipment was simple, their innate berserk bloodline granted them the ability to ignore pain and fear.

Behind the phalanxes was Gareth's most relied-upon long-range firepower: the Royal Musketeer Regiment and the Combat Mage Corps.

Thirty thousand musketeers were lined up in neat three-rank firing formations. Although their smoothbore muskets had limited range, they made up for it in sheer numbers. Interspersed among them were hundreds of combat mages in robes. Though most were only low-tier, capable only of casting Fireball, Ice Spike, or Mass Shield, magic remained a force that could not be ignored in large-scale warfare.

And in the sky, accompanied by bursts of loud cries, the Royal Gryphon Knight Order took flight.

Hundreds of massive gryphons flapped their wings. The knights held enchanted lances or carried special alchemical bombs. At the very front of the order, a massive Red Dragon was particularly eye-catching.

Klaus Difan.

This giant lizard, usually cowardly to the core, now had to brace itself and lead from the front.

Because it knew that if it dared to flee, the madman on its back named Gareth would truly slaughter it first.

"For survival!"

Gareth stood on the back of the Red Dragon, his [Dawnbreaker] greatsword held high, the particle stream on the blade carving a dazzling trail of light against the dim sky.

The [Embrace of the Stars] battle armor on him was operating at full power, wrapped in the blue light of a shield, looking like a god of war descended to earth.

"All forces, charge!"

At his command, this army, a blend of fantasy and steampunk styles, let out roars that shook the heavens and earth.

"WAAAGH!!!" the orcs roared.

"For glory!" the centaurs neighed.

"For His Majesty!" the human soldiers shouted.

This army, representing the strongest military force on this planet, launched a desperate charge toward the steel legion from the stars.

This was a collision that transcended eras, a direct dialogue between magic and science fiction.

On the opposite side, at the Human Federation's position, the frontline commander in charge of this battle sat in a specialized mech, a cold smile appearing on his lips.

"What a spectacular suicide charge."

He lightly pressed the communication button.

"All units, attention. Fire at will."

Boom—

...The plains outside Angus City quickly turned into a Shura Field.

In the eyes of the Centaur Heavy Cavalry Legion Commander, "Iron Hoof" Karus, the world collapsed in just a few minutes.

As a centaur of noble blood, Karus was one of the top warriors on this continent. He was clad in alloy plate armor manufactured under the personal supervision of His Majesty Gareth using a mysterious formula; this armor had allowed him to ignore heavy crossbow fire while suppressing the southern rebellion, earning him the title "Unbreakable Wall."

He gripped the four-meter-long heavy lance in his hand, feeling the rhythm of the earth brought by the thundering hooves behind him; the momentum of such a charge could crush even a small mountain.

"For His Majesty! Trample them!"

Karus roared, his gaze locked onto the row of silver-gray humanoid objects ahead that looked incredibly flimsy.

In his view, those "steel golems" without horses, shields, or even helmet visors were perfect targets. As long as they charged in, the centaurs' iron hooves could trample them into scrap metal.

However, at a distance of five hundred meters from the enemy line—a position that should have been a safe charging distance—destruction descended.

A dense and ear-piercing "bzz-bzz" sound suddenly erupted in the air.

Karus saw the "short sticks" in the hands of those steel golems light up with blue light.

In the next instant, his proud alloy plate armor—the divine armor once boasted by royal craftsmen as "able to withstand a dragon's claws"—suddenly developed a finger-sized scorched hole at the chest.

Extreme heat instantly evaporated his heart and the surrounding flesh.

"What... is this..."

Before Karus's consciousness faded, the last image he saw was his adjutant beside him being cut in half by an even thicker blue light beam; the cut was instantly carbonized by the high temperature, and not even blood flowed out.

The front line of the charge fell like wheat being harvested.

The centaurs in the rear discovered in horror that they were not facing a rain of arrows, but an invisible wall of death. Those blue light beams were too fast, so fast that not even an afterimage could be seen; they could only watch their companions' bodies mysteriously explode, burn, and fall while running.

"Stop! Stop quickly! It's high-level magic!"

The momentum of the charge was abruptly halted. The speed the centaurs took pride in seemed so laughable before the pulse lasers... In the sky, Arthur, the commander of the Royal Gryphon Knight Order, was experiencing a nightmare even more desperate than the one on the ground.

He was a knight of the sky, riding a bird of prey to look down upon all living things; in past wars, only the blood of his enemies could excite him.

But now, he felt like a sparrow that had blundered into a hornet's nest.

"Damn it! What on earth are those black bugs!"

Arthur pulled desperately at the reins, trying to control the gryphon beneath him, which was already screaming frantically in fear.

In his field of vision, those palm-sized black flying objects, the [Killer Bees], were demonstrating terrifying maneuverability that completely defied aerodynamics. They could hover instantly during high-speed flight, make right-angle turns, and even fly backward.

In contrast, the gryphon's massive wings and clumsy turning movements looked like a slow-motion replay.

"Wind Blade! Quick, use Wind Blade!"

Arthur brandished his enchanted spear, and a cyan wind blade whistled out, hitting a [Killer Bee].

Boom!

That drone exploded.

But before Arthur could even smile, three more rushed out from the smoke of the explosion.

The buzzing they emitted was like the whisper of the Grim Reaper, instantly closing in on Arthur.

One drone crashed directly into the gryphon's eye and then self-destructed. A mist of blood erupted, and the gryphon tumbled, screaming.

Another drone flexibly circled behind Arthur and extended a miniature laser cutter.

"Ah!"

Arthur felt a chill on his back, followed by a surge of intense pain; his mithril chainmail was sliced open like paper.

He fell from the high altitude.

During his descent, he witnessed a scene that drove him to despair.

Across the entire sky, hundreds of gryphon knights were falling like dumplings into a pot. Those once-proud eagles of the Empire were powerless before these cold mechanical creations.

This wasn't an aerial battle at all; it was a unilateral slaughter.

If the annihilation of the centaurs and gryphon knights only made the Mana people feel fear, then the next scene to unfold completely shattered their worldview.

The Orc Heavy Infantry Phalanx was the Empire's strongest shield.

These green-skinned monsters, with muscles like granite, wore three-centimeter-thick cast-iron heavy armor and held giant axes the size of door panels; they had once charged through heavy crossbow fire to crush countless city walls.

"WAAAGH!!!"

Grom the Orc Warlord roared, trying to use a battle cry to dispel the fear of those steel monsters.

However, the earth began to tremble.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

The heavy footsteps drowned out all the clamor on the battlefield.

As the smoke cleared, dozens of twelve-meter-tall steel giants, [Titan-type Mechas], appeared in the orcs' sight.

They were entirely black, without any decoration, featuring only cold geometric lines and glowing electronic eyes; before them, the strong orcs were as small as kittens.

"What... is that?" Grom looked up, the giant axe in his hand nearly falling to the ground.

In the myths of the Mana Star, only the ancient Titans possessed such massive bodies.

One mecha stopped its pace and lowered its head slightly, as if scrutinizing the green ants beneath its feet.

Then, it raised its right arm.

That thick metal tube (Plasma Cannon) began to charge, with blue electric arcs jumping at the muzzle.

"Defend! Raise shields!" Grom bellowed.

The orcs instinctively raised their iron shields, though they also knew it might be futile.

Boom—

A ball of blinding blue light exploded in the center of the orc phalanx.

The extreme heat made Grom's vision go white, followed by a wave of heat hitting his face.

When his vision returned, he discovered in horror that a vitrified crater fifty meters in diameter had appeared in the center of the phalanx.

The hundreds of orc warriors in that area had vanished.

They weren't dead; they had vanished.

Not even corpses, armor, or weapons were left behind, having been instantly vaporized into dust in the air by the extreme temperature.

On the edge of the crater, some orcs' armor was melting, molten iron flowing over scorched skin with a sizzling sound.

"Roar..."

Grom let out a distorted scream.

Another mecha demonstrated a different kind of violent aesthetic.

It did not fire its cannon but instead brandished the High-frequency Vibration Thermal Axe on its left arm and charged into the crowd of orcs.

A red halo shrouded the edge of that massive battle-axe.

A sweep.

A simple sweep.

A dozen orcs in its path, along with their shields and armor, were instantly cut in half; the cuts were so smooth that blood only began to spray seconds later.

Blood splattered onto the mecha's leg armor but was instantly evaporated by the surface heat, leaving no trace... At the rear of the battlefield, on the position of the Combat Mage Corps, Chief Court Mage Cecilia's face was as pale as paper. At the tip of the staff in her hand, the mana crystal was covered in cracks due to overload.

"Why... why is our magic ineffective?"

She looked ahead.

Just now, she had gathered over a hundred mages to collectively cast a sixth-circle grand spell, [Meteor Shower].

Dozens of burning boulders whistled down toward those steel giants.

Ordinarily, even a giant dragon would have its bones shattered by such a strike.

But as the meteors were about to hit those mechas, a layer of pale blue light film lit up on their surfaces.

It was an Individual Deflector Shield.

Boom boom boom!

The meteors exploded against the shields, and flames engulfed the mechas' silhouettes.

A sliver of hope rose in Cecilia's heart.

But in the next second, the unscathed mechas tore through the flames and strode out.

A young mage apprentice asked in despair, "Is that a Holy Shield? But I didn't feel any fluctuations of Holy Light!"

"No, that's not magic," Cecilia said tremblingly, recalling the words of His Majesty Gareth from years ago. "That is... science."

Just then, several drones discovered the position of the mage legion.

Several red laser dots danced on the mages' foreheads.

"Run! Scatter!" Cecilia shouted.

But it was already too late.

Several miniature missiles flew in, trailing exhaust flames.

Boom!

The mage legion's position turned into a sea of fire... In the sky, Gareth witnessed all of this while riding on the back of the Red Dragon.

His heart was bleeding.

The army he had spent over a decade of painstaking effort to build, the power he thought could change the world, was like a fortress on a beach before the military might of the Human Federation—effortlessly washed away by the rising tide.

This wasn't a war at all.

This was a massacre, a heartless crushing of a lower civilization by a higher one.

He saw the fear in his soldiers' eyes, the despair after their faith collapsed.

He saw his generals being crushed into meat paste before the steel torrent.

He even saw the entire Empire burning.

"Master Ilya, is this... the power of the Human Federation?"

Gareth tightly gripped the [Dawnbreaker] in his hand; it was his only reliance and the last gift Ilya had left for him.

"Master... did you know it would be like this all along?"

"Is this the kind of despair you wanted me to see?"

"No! I haven't lost yet!"

Fire reignited in Gareth's eyes—the fire of a desperate gamble.

"As long as I take out the commander! Destroy that largest mecha! There might still be a chance!"

His gaze locked onto a specially customized mecha in the center of the battlefield, which was a size larger than the ordinary Titan mechas and had a command antenna on its back.

"Klaus Difan!"

Gareth exerted all his strength, pouring battle qi into the dragon scales beneath his feet.

"If you don't want to die, show your dignity as a dragon! Charge with me one last time!"

"Roar!!!"

The Red Dragon Klaus Difan also felt its rider's determination; more importantly, it knew that running away now would only result in being blasted to bits by the warships in the sky, and only a desperate struggle might offer a glimmer of hope.

It let out the loudest dragon roar of its life.

The Mana Core inside its body went into overload, its heart pounded violently, and the blood throughout its body boiled like lava.

Crimson dragon flames enveloped its entire body as it dove toward the commander's mecha like a falling sun, with an aura of unstoppable momentum.

"For Mana! For survival!"

Gareth stood on the dragon's head, his battle qi compressed to the limit; the [Dawnbreaker] in his hand hummed with a piercingly sharp sound, its particle stream surging to ten meters long.

This was a strike that surpassed the legendary rank, even surpassing the limits of mortals... "Oh? Interesting."

In the cockpit of the command mecha, the human frontline commander watched the rapidly expanding high-energy reaction point on the holographic screen, his brow twitching slightly.

"Energy reading... it actually broke through A-rank? This sword has some tricks; it doesn't look like indigenous craftsmanship."

"However..."

The commander's finger lightly rested on the control stick.

"Your courage is commendable."

"But before absolute power, courage is merely a decoration on a tombstone."

"All units, take note: do not interfere."

"Since he wants to play the decapitation tactic, I'll grant him his wish."

The mecha's head tilted up slightly, its massive mono-eye locking onto the Red Dragon in the sky.

The Plasma Cannon on its right arm began to charge, and a blade popped out from the thermal axe on its left arm.

"Come, hero of the natives."

"Let me see if your sword can cut through the stars."