Shu-shu-shu-shuk!
Roteron felt his spine go cold as a mass of metal swept past his eyes.
Had he been even a moment slower, his body would have been shredded to pieces by that enormous mass of steel.
Even a 6th-Circle mage’s defensive spell would have been useless.
Before such overwhelming power, it would have been no different than trying to block a storm of bullets with a sheet of paper.
‘More than that—who did that?’
Rather than relief ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) at surviving, what filled his mind was the question of who had just saved him.
“Ah, what a nuisance.”
An unfamiliar force pulled Roteron toward the source of that voice.
He turned—and saw him. A pale-faced man, for once without his mask.
“Sir Andrasch?”
Roteron called his name, but Andrasch only frowned, glaring quietly at the God of Machinery.
For Andrasch, this was a deeply unpleasant and complicated situation.
‘I came because they said the New Tower was under attack—and what the hell is that?’
A dull ache spread through his head.
The machine-covered monstrosity shaking the Tower was unmistakably one of Nikolai’s secret experimental subjects.
No one but Nikolai could have brought such a thing into existence.
‘What a headache.’
His alliance with Nikolai had been strictly transactional—business between two men with mutual interests, not goodwill.
In fact, each had secretly planned to cut the other out as soon as their cooperation ended.
This disaster was simply the result of Nikolai making his move first.
Roteron, meanwhile, was equally astonished.
Not only had the core figure of the opposing faction—Andrasch—appeared, but he had also saved his life.
Their relationship had never been hostile, but belonging to rival factions meant they were hardly close.
Andrasch could easily have let him die without lifting a finger.
The fact that he hadn’t genuinely surprised Roteron.
“Why are you looking at me like thaaat?”
“I just wanted to thank you for saving me.”
“Hmph. However much we may snarl at each other, we’re not stupid enough to keep fighting when the Tower itself is under attack.”
“That’s true enough.”
Had they ever spoken this openly before?
Never.
Roteron, who always hid his identity behind a mask.
Andrasch, who suppressed his power beneath his own.
Now, both stood barefaced, speaking together amid the chaos.
Even as the Tower burned around them, Roteron couldn’t help but think how strange it felt—mad, really—to have such a thought now.
‘So the reason he always drags out his words—it’s because of his Word Magic.’
Only now did Roteron realize that Andrasch’s peculiar speech pattern had been to conceal his use of Word Magic.
And yet, he had used it freely to save him.
“The enemy’s powerrr—how strong is it?”
“To be honest, I don’t know. It’s beyond estimation.”
“Hm. Figures.”
That creature was shaking the entire New Tower by itself.
If they hadn’t interfered, the great spire that stood at the heart of Isla Machia might already have collapsed.
‘And Ludger’s been holding out against something like that?’
How could one even gauge the strength of such a monster, one that fought the Tower alone?
Even Clinton Rothschild, who had reached the supposedly unattainable 7th-Circle, could never have breached the Tower’s defenses.
Which meant the thing before them had to be at least on the level of a 7th-Circle being.
“We must be careful. That creature can manipulate metal freely.”
“Some kind of Iron Mage, theeen?”
“That would be the bare minimum. Each of those four floating mechanical arms has the power of a 6th-Circle mage on its own.”
And that wasn’t all.
Its strength seemed limitless.
It could even unleash an immense repulsive force merely by turning its head—no chant, no signal—crushing anything it looked at beneath terror and pressure.
“Can it even be defeated?”
“If I thought we were going to lose, I wouldn’t have joined this fight.”
Roteron’s tone carried a rare spark of hope.
“Because we still have hope.”
At that moment, a golden palm slammed down on the crown of the Machine God’s head.
The deity withdrew two of its arms from attacking the Tower and raised them to block the falling palm of the Buddha statue.
Not one, but two.
That alone spoke volumes of the Buddha’s immense strength—but beyond that, there was a strange new emotion flickering in the machine’s movements.
“...Well, now.”
Andrasch murmured as his eyes caught the man floating at the Buddha’s center.
He’d wondered what kind of lunatic could wield such power—and realized it was someone he recognized all too well.
At the same time, a strange relief washed over him.
If he had chosen to fight Ludger to the end back then, the one standing before that golden statue now would have been him instead of that steel monster.
No—he probably wouldn’t even have been granted the chance to stand there.
A 6th-Circle mage, one of the New Tower’s finest, a master of a rare magical discipline—Andrasch had always taken pride in his strength.
But at this moment, he realized how much of a frog in a well he truly was.
He tasted bitterness in his mouth.
The only small comfort was that the situation left no room for despair.
The clash between the Buddha and the machine’s arms shook the air.
The surrounding steam was swept away, and a blinding light burst forth.
The explosion forced their power struggle apart.
The golden statue behind Ludger shrank, its radiance dimming—it could no longer maintain its full form.
Sensing the opportunity, the Machine God pulled back its remaining arms from the Tower and aimed them all at Ludger.
The authority of steel activated.
Scattered fragments, broken debris, every scrap of metal around—
—all rose into the air under its command and began to gather.
Whaaaang—!
Shards of every size and shape clustered around the deity, orbiting it.
Even a swarm of tens of thousands of bees would have been quieter.
The mages of the Tower could only stare, speechless, as the sight resembled a massive school of sardines swirling through the sea—
Only, these were no harmless fish.
Each piece carried the power to tear apart even the predators that tried to devour it.
The metallic swarm turned its front toward Ludger.
A march of steel cutting through the sky.
Instead of thrusting its palms outward, the Buddha behind Ludger pressed both hands together.
From its back, countless golden arms spread like wings.
The Thousand-Armed Arhat.
Though smaller now, a thousand radiant palms met the incoming steel.
Pabababababang!
Between Ludger and the Machine God, hundreds of lights flared and vanished every second—
A beautiful, blinding collision of power.
And while that storm raged, others moved, targeting the Machine God itself.
Verom, his red mane blazing, raised his sword and slashed across the creature’s neck.
A black line of light traced sharply through the air, seeking the gap between its armored plates.
But the Machine God did not defend.
It had no need to.
Kwagagagagak!
Verom’s strike sliced through the countless shards of steel orbiting the Machine God, but failed to reach what lay within.
The same went for Phyron’s attack.
“Damn it! The defense is too thick!”
It hadn’t been like this before, but as the battle dragged on, the situation had changed.
The Machine God, with the body of an Iron Mage, grew stronger the more metal surrounded it.
And this battlefield—Isla Machina—was the most metal-filled place in the world.
The traces of destruction left behind in their clash only served to create more debris, which became the Machine God’s hands, feet, and weapons.
The mechanical arms moved.
As its fingers twitched like a puppeteer’s strings, metal fragments gathered before it, merging into a single shape.
“They’re... multiplying?”
What formed was another mechanical arm.
It was smaller and less refined than the original four, but there was no mistaking—it was an arm.
Each arm moved independently, working together to forge the new one.
Now, the Machine God had eight arms.
The real problem was, there was no telling how many more it could create.
If it could continue to construct more as long as material was available—
Even if these were inferior to the originals, each would still surpass the power of a 5th-Circle mage with ease.
They couldn’t afford to drag this out.
[Scatter.]
Andrasch’s Word Magic activated.
He had no time to hold back or conceal his strength.
He opened his mouth wide, channeling every ounce of power he could muster through his arms and voice alike.
Crackle—!
One of the newly forming arms lost cohesion, its energy collapsing before it crumbled into dust.
Shhhhkkk!
Some of the enraged steel swarm broke off, surging toward Andrasch.
But he hadn’t come here alone.
“Move!”
The War Mage unit under Andrasch’s direct command intercepted the oncoming debris.
The Tower mages joined in.
While some worked to restore the Tower’s disabled interception system, others who could still fight rushed outside, unleashing their own magic upon the Machine God.
The defense force also mobilized—
Evacuating civilians while attacking the god with specialized non-metallic artifacts.
From all sides, attacks rained down. The metallic swarm encasing the deity began to thin.
Like rain carving grooves into stone, the endless steel cloud was being worn away layer by layer.
It still loomed like a black storm above them, but if they could press the advantage now, they might just be able to reach the core.
However, the Machine God had no intention of remaining passive.
Flash!
A golden light burst from within the dark clouds, and in that instant, a massive repulsive force swept across the island.
KUKWAAANG!
The unimaginable impact tore through Isla Machina’s fifth layer—
—and erased nearly a third of it in a single blow.
Kugugugung!
Though each layer of the island narrowed upward, the fifth layer was hardly small.
To destroy thirty percent of such an area at once—
The collapse cascaded downward like an avalanche, sending debris crashing into the fourth layer and amplifying the devastation exponentially.
And this couldn’t be dismissed as mere destruction.
Because the fallen debris was made of metal.
The Machine God activated the Authority of Steel.
The wreckage rose into the air.
The metallic swarm they had barely managed to whittle down was suddenly replenished with an overwhelming mass of new material.
The eight mechanical arms now directed the steel like the hands of a conductor leading an orchestra.
Their twitching fingers guided the shifting metal clouds, which moved and transformed in perfect coordination.
“H-how are we supposed to win against that?!”
Faced with such an impossible sight, the Tower mages began to despair.
A being that commanded limitless power and moved mountains of steel as if it were air—this was no longer a battle, but a calamity.
The faint-hearted fell to their knees, praying.
And they were not alone—more and more people across the area began to do the same.
Bzzzzzzz—
Above the Machine God’s head, the halo’s light grew even stronger.
Around the twin rings of the halo, a faint third ring was beginning to form.
‘No...’
Ludger bit his lip as he realized what was happening.
Because the creature was made from a divine Relic, it was absorbing faith.
It was feeding on the worship of those who feared it.
The more despair and reverence it drew, the brighter its halo shone—and the stronger it became.
If that continued, its power would spiral beyond control.
Andrasch understood it at the same time Ludger did, and he invoked his Word Magic again.
[Calm yourselves.]
The command spread across the battlefield, seeping into the hearts of all who heard it.
Those who had knelt to pray blinked in confusion as awareness returned.
They had been terrified, yes—but why had they suddenly begun to pray?
As the energy feeding the halo faltered, the Machine God turned its gaze toward Andrasch.
Its look alone carried enough force to pulverize.
Just before that power ignited—Ludger intervened.
“Where do you think you’re looking?”
Out of the thousand golden arms, several struck the Machine God’s main body squarely.
The blow diverted its attention, but not for long. The deity’s wrath toward Andrasch only deepened.
One of the newly forged extra arms clenched its fist and launched it toward him.
The steel fist, moving faster than sound, filled Andrasch’s eyes. His expression twisted in dismay.
Roteron, Verom, and Phyron leapt in to intercept—but one arm still remained.
Andrasch, mid-chant, had no time to dodge or defend.
‘So this is it.’
Just as he was ready to accept his end—
Something seized him from behind and yanked him sideways.
Just as he himself had pulled Roteron to safety earlier.
From above, Andrasch watched as the mechanical arm slammed into the ground, erasing everything in its path.
‘Who...?’
He turned to see who had grabbed him—and his eyes widened in disbelief.
“A wolf?”
A massive wolf, no ordinary beast by any measure, stood on air itself, gripping the collar of his coat in its jaws.
