"—Kneel and surrender! Await the Emperor's judgment!"
The golden pegasus traced an arc in mid-air, and the imperial decree in the knight's hand unfurled, scattering golden light. An amplification array crushed the final words onto the plaza ground, grinding over the stones and echoing three times.
Han Chong, Commander of the Imperial Guard. Peak Gold-rank, the premier warrior of the Empire's personal guard. His golden full-plate armor shone so brightly under the sun it made eyes ache. On each shoulder pauldron, a double-headed imperial eagle was carved, the angle of their wings matching the official Imperial flag perfectly.
Han Chong tucked the decree into a hidden compartment inside his bracer and looked down, surveying the tank formation amidst the ruins.
A hundred iron boxes and several hundred soldiers were surrounded by fifty thousand Imperial Guards, like ants trapped at the bottom of a bowl.
"Lin Yuan!" Han Chong's voice crashed down again. "You have ten seconds."
Lin Yuan stood beside the turret of the lead tank, a cigar clamped in his left hand, his right hand flicking across a floating interface.
He didn't look up.
Qian Duoduo poked half his head out from the back seat of the tank, his lips trembling uncontrollably.
"Brother Yuan—he said ten seconds—"
"I heard him."
Lin Yuan dragged the panel down two notches, stopping at the system upgrade interface.
The progress bar was fully loaded. The unlock button for Lv4 glowed with a blue light, and next to it hung the cost list: 50 million gold coins, 20,000 top-grade mana crystals.
It was enough.
The Lin family's centuries of accumulation hadn't been plundered for nothing.
Lin Yuan's thumb hovered over the button.
He didn't press it yet.
Han Chong began to count.
"Ten."
On the northern street, the front row of Imperial shield-bearers raised their shields in unison. Enchantment arrays embedded in the shield faces flickered to life; the moment the blue runes glowed, the entire shield wall was encased in a metallic shell of light.
"Nine."
The guards to the east and west moved as well. Pikemen leveled their spears, aiming squarely at the flanks of the tank formation. The battle qi on the spearheads condensed into physical form, emitting wisps of white smoke.
"Eight."
In the sky, over a hundred Royal Mages raised their staves simultaneously. Elemental particles gathered in the high altitude, the temperature plummeted, and a thin layer of ice condensed over the plaza.
Qian Duoduo's teeth chattered. Peering through the gaps in the armor, he saw nothing but shining silver plates in every direction, so dense he couldn't see the cobblestones underfoot.
"Brother Yuan, maybe... you should leave first? Give me the tanks, I'll stall them for ten minutes—"
"Old Qian."
"Yeah?"
"Shut up."
Lin Yuan put the cigar back in his mouth and freed his right hand to swipe the panel.
The tank company's turrets began to rotate.
One hundred 120mm smoothbore guns synchronized their azimuth calibrations, their muzzles pointing in three sectors toward the Imperial Guard ranks. The Gatling gun nests mounted on the walls activated simultaneously, their six barrels beginning to pre-spin.
Han Chong paused when he reached "Seven."
He saw the movement below.
A hundred barrels split to face three directions. The whine of the machine gun nests grew faster, a buzzing sound spiraling from the ground into the air.
Han Chong's pegasus backed up two steps.
"Stubborn fool."
He drew his ceremonial sword and slashed it forward.
"All forces—"
Lin Yuan's hand was half a beat faster.
A swipe on the panel.
One hundred cannons roared at once.
Fifty to the north, thirty to the east, twenty to the west. The flames spitting from the muzzles intersected and collided above the ruins; the overlapping shockwaves knocked down the last standing sections of the Lin family's perimeter walls.
Armor-piercing rounds and high-explosive shells traded places in the air. While the first volley's barrage was still flying, the Gatlings followed suit. Shell casings poured from the chambers, clattering onto the ground in a carpet of brass.
The rain of shells slammed into the three sides of the Imperial Guard.
To the North:
Fifty armor-piercing rounds smashed into the shield wall.
Fire tore open.
Shrapnel and dust swirled.
The smoke cleared. The shield wall remained.
The surface of the enchanted rectangular shields gained a few dozen dents, and the blue runes flickered a few times as the cracks self-healed. The front-row shield-bearers were forced back half a step by the shockwave, their iron boots gouging white marks into the stone slabs, but not one fell.
The pikemen behind them remained unmoved.
The situation was similar to the east and west. Shells and bullets struck the shells of light, and the ripples dissipated after a few rounds. Machine gun bullets ricocheted off the light, falling to the ground as twisted scrap.
The foundation of the Royal Guard.
Elite soldiers of Silver-rank and above synchronized their battle qi, funneling it into the enchanted shield arrays. The resulting defense was on a completely different level of thickness and density compared to the ragtag forces of the Northern Border.
Han Chong watched this exchange from the air.
His golden pegasus hovered steadily. He rested his sword on his shoulder and grinned.
"That's it?"
His smile held the smugness of a cat playing with a mouse.
"Those iron lumps of yours might be enough to deal with the trash of the North. But in front of the Royal Guard—"
He pointed his sword tip toward the shield wall below, which remained unshaken under the barrage.
"They are nothing but scrap metal."
Han Chong thrust his sword forward.
"Mage Corps!"
In the sky, the chanting of one hundred and twenty Royal Mages reached its final movement. The concentration of elemental particles was so high that points of light were visible to the naked eye, and the air was filled with ice crystals and snow. The plaza's temperature dropped from normal to sub-zero in ten seconds.
Frost began to form on the tank armor plates.
Large-scale combined magic—Polar Ice Storm.
Released by 120 mages of Silver-rank or higher, its range was enough to turn the entire ruin, along with all the machinery and personnel inside, into ice sculptures.
Ice crawled up from the ground. Ice shards wedged into the lead tank's treads, and the drive shaft's RPM began to drop.
Qian Duoduo huddled in the back seat; his breath came out as white mist, and a layer of frost hung from his beard.
"Brother Yuan! They're going to freeze the tanks!"
Lin Yuan looked down at his feet. A thin layer of ice stuck to his soles.
He reached out and tapped the panel.
Progress bar. Cost list. Unlock button.
His thumb pressed down.
Ding! Consumed 50 million gold coins, 20,000 top-grade mana crystals—
System upgraded to Lv4—Interstellar Phase!
The panel refreshed.
The entire interface color flipped from dark blue to deep purple. The tech tree expanded from a single tree into a spiderweb, with dense nodes filling his field of vision. Each node was an icon, with names and costs labeled below.
Lin Yuan scanned through them.
[Floating Battleship (Basic)] – Length: 1,000 meters. Equipped with Mana Main Cannons, Anti-gravity suspension. Cost: 20 million gold coins, 5,000 top-grade crystals.
[Orbital Star-Slayer Cannon] – Deployed outside the atmosphere, capable of precision strikes on the surface. Cost: 100 million gold coins, 200,000 crystals.
[Antimatter Bomb] – A single shot can erase everything within a ten-kilometer radius. Cost: ...
Lin Yuan didn't scroll further.
The first one was enough.
The Polar Ice Storm in the sky was taking shape. Ice crystals converged into a vortex over five hundred meters in diameter. In the center of the vortex, an ice pillar condensed, its tip aimed at the center of the tank formation.
Han Chong circled the edge of the vortex, the air stirred by his pegasus's wings freezing into ice chips.
"I'll give you one last chance, Lin—"
Lin Yuan looked up.
He gave Han Chong a single glance.
"What did you just say?"
Lin Yuan took the cigar out of his mouth and flicked it toward Han Chong.
"Scrap metal?"
The cigar butt tumbled twice in the wind before being extinguished by the ice particles.
"Then I'll show you something big."
Lin Yuan tapped the summon button for the [Floating Battleship (Basic)].
Confirmation of cost.
20 million gold coins and 5,000 top-grade crystals were instantly deducted. The remaining numbers were still ticking, but Lin Yuan didn't look.
A red line of text popped up on the panel:
[Summoning coordinates locked—Above the Imperial Capital, Altitude: 3,000 meters. Estimated manifestation time: 3 seconds.]
Three.
The ice storm in the sky continued to spin, the pillar growing longer. Han Chong held his sword high, prepared to give the final order to attack.
Two.
The clouds above the Imperial Capital began to shift abnormally. It wasn't the wind. They were being pushed aside by a force surging from within. The cloud banks tore apart, revealing the blue sky behind them. Then, the blue sky began to darken.
One.
BOOM.
It wasn't the sound of an explosion.
It was the roar of the atmosphere being displaced.
It was the sound of millions of tons of metal forcing their way from the void into reality.
At 3,000 meters above the Imperial Capital, the clouds were violently shredded by a sky-blotting titan.
First to emerge was the bow. Pitch-black armor plates poked out from the rift in the clouds, over two hundred meters wide, with a triangular prow designed to pierce the wind. Beneath the armor plates, rows upon rows of gun barrels were mounted, each one more than three times thicker than a tank's main gun.
Then came the hull.
Section after section slid out of the clouds, extending backward. Two hundred meters, four hundred meters, six hundred meters... it kept coming. Dark red runic arrays were carved into the side armor belts, and anti-gravity engines embedded in the four corners of the ventral hull emitted beams of ghostly blue light.
The shadow of the hull fell upon the ground. The shadow eclipsed the northern square of the Imperial Guard, then the eastern square, and continued to push toward the west.
Eight hundred meters.
One thousand meters.
The stern slid out of the clouds. The diameter of the main rear engines exceeded fifty meters, and the deep blue propulsion flames dragged a trail that spanned half the sky.
The low-frequency vibration of the anti-gravity engines pressed down from 3,000 meters, vibrating through everyone's ribcage.
The entire city of Saint Laurent trembled.
Han Chong's pegasus stopped moving.
Its four legs froze in mid-air, its wings ceased flapping. The pegasus let out a sharp, terrified cry, its wings suddenly snapping shut, and it plummeted thirty meters before barely steadying itself.
Han Chong's sword was still raised above his head. He hadn't lowered his hand, but his wrist was shaking uncontrollably.
He craned his neck, staring at the black hull that had blotted out half the sky.
His mouth opened.
No sound came out.
The vortex of the Polar Ice Storm dissipated. The chanting of the 120 mages was cut short. Staves slipped from hands, disappearing into the unreachable depths below.
No one noticed.
Everyone was looking at the sky.
Fifty thousand Imperial Guards. One hundred and fifty thousand citizens. Everyone in the palace.
They were all looking at the sky.
A thousand-meter-long steel behemoth hung steadily over the head of Saint Laurent.
Directly beneath the bow, a mana main cannon with a diameter of over ten meters was slowly rotating.
A point of light flickered inside the muzzle. Tiny, but steadily growing brighter.
Lin Yuan stood on the tank turret and glanced up at the thing he had just summoned.
The wind pressed down from the bottom of the hull, lifting the hem of his greatcoat.
Qian Duoduo poked his head out from the back seat, paralyzed with shock.
"...That... that is..."
Lin Yuan pulled his collar tight.
A crisp sound echoed from the direction of the palace—the sound of thick crystal smashing against a marble floor. Across half the city, it was still piercingly clear.
"Old Qian."
"...Yeah?"
"Help me calculate... exactly how much Emperor Charlie's life is worth."