Just as Tony was marveling at the surreal juxtaposition of chaos and order, the intensity of the slaughter on the distant battlefield suddenly spiked.
Without warning, several gaps opened up in the Hex army's solid defensive line.
A horde of hideous, nightmarish demons of all shapes and sizes surged through these breaches, facing zero resistance. In the blink of an eye, they had "broken through" to the rear of the Hex formation.
Tony felt a jolt of panic.
They... broke through?!
But before his fear could take root, Luca's voice drifted over, casual and utterly unimpressed.
"Hey, stop staring. Let's go to the war room so you can get your bearings."
Hearing Luca's indifferent tone, Tony was shocked and confused. He glanced back at Luca quickly, then whipped his head around to look at the demons who had "breached" the line.
Once he calmed down enough to observe carefully, he realized something.
These demons who had "broken through" were incredibly quiet. Their formation was orderly. And each one was carrying something—heavy wreckage of Hex mechs, piles of shell casings, or even corpses of other demons—either in their arms or strapped to their backs.
Watching these creatures of chaos marching in perfect order like battlefield engineers, hauling "supplies"...
It gave Tony an indescribable sense of wrongness. It was creepy.
Only then did he notice the truth.
They hadn't "broken through." The Hex soldiers had deliberately opened lanes to let them pass.
The mech legions in the center of the battlefield ignored them completely, continuing their forward assault. Even the fresh troops marching out of the factories, heading to the front lines in perfect lockstep, brushed past these demons without a second glance.
"This is..."
Before Tony could ask, he saw the demons approaching the base. Suddenly, they split into several neat columns and, without blinking an eye, marched straight into a row of massive, roaring buildings filled with grinding gears.
The Unit Recycler!
A lightbulb went on in Tony's head. He recalled the data Luca had shown him—specialized buildings designed to reclaim and decompose resources.
He was right.
In reality, these goose-stepping demons were all hapless victims mind-controlled by Hex psychic units right on the battlefield.
Initially, the Hex army used Yuri Clones and Mastermind tanks to sow chaos in enemy ranks—mass mind control to make demons fight demons.
But as the war escalated from skirmishes to this endless meat grinder, the Hex command system realized something: there was no "downtime" to salvage wreckage or harvest demon corpses.
To recycle resources, they either had to use expensive WMDs to clear the field temporarily and scramble to grab what they could, or send troops into the fire to retrieve scrap at a snail's pace.
Neither option was efficient. It defeated the purpose of recycling to save resources.
Then, Command discovered a loophole. As long as mind-controlled demons didn't attack their "own side," they generally didn't draw much aggro from the demon horde.
And as long as the demons didn't attack the mind-controlled ones, and the Hex mechs ignored them too...
These temporarily "neutral units" became the perfect salvage crew.
Since then, Hex psychic units prioritized controlling tanky demons capable of heavy lifting.
The multi-armed Mariliths, with their immense strength and ability to carry multiple large wrecks or corpses at once.
The massive, toad-like Dagon demons, whose gullets acted as natural cargo holds for swallowing small debris like shell casings and loose parts.
These two species became the "Employee of the Month" favorites for every psychic on the field.
Once controlled, they weren't ordered to backstab their kin. They were just told to be good little garbage collectors. Pick up trash and bodies, save up a load, and walk it back to the Unit Recycler.
And then... well... enter.
Since maintaining mind control cost very little energy for most Hex units, these "demon laborers" were disposable.
When they returned with their haul, they marched right into the grinder along with the trash, becoming part of the resource pool themselves.
Once the "porters" had voluntarily sacrificed themselves for the cause, the psychics would just pick a new batch of demons and repeat the cycle.
This loop had become a standard operating procedure on the battlefield.
Of course, the Hell dimension was the attacking side.
Most of their main force consisted of low-level demons with zero IQ. Even those with some intelligence tended to lose it in the bloodlust of the Dimension War, reverting to chaotic instinct.
But there were always High Lords—demons with superior intellect who could maintain their reason.
They might miss the Hex army shearing the sheep once or twice. But after seeing it happen constantly, even if they didn't fully grasp the resource logic, they knew they had to stop it.
That was why the intensity of the battle would suddenly spike right before a salvage operation began.
And it wasn't just the grunts fighting harder...
ROAR—!!
A deafening roar drowned out the sounds of battle.
A Hell Dragon, easily ten times the size of the wyverns swarming the sky, appeared out of nowhere, screaming as it ascended into the heavens.