Chapter 442: Chapter 430: My Turn?
Hoofbeats shattered the frost-white moonlight.
Thirteen warhorses galloped across the late-autumn wilderness, kicking up a trail of dust on the road to Cybertron.
William Aislan was bent low over his horse’s back, feeling none of the chill.
A fire burned in his chest, and his simple tunic whipped loudly in the night wind.
The twelve Knights behind him exchanged glances, but none dared to speak.
They had never seen the King like this.
In the distance, the city of steel had already come into view.
William reined in his horse, slowing down. The white puff of his breath was instantly torn away by the wind.
The main gate at the entrance to Cybertron slowly opened, and several Factory Servants were lining up to guide them.
William swung himself off his horse. His boots hit the metal ground as he and the Knights strode forward to follow.
After passing through three heavy blast doors and a two-kilometer-long enclosed corridor, a colossal gate over eighty meters high appeared in their field of vision.
CLANG—
The gate opened slowly, and a beam of light surged from the gap, so bright that William and the Knights had to raise their hands to shield their eyes.
When the light softened, an unbelievably vast testing ground unfolded before them.
The entire area was paved with thick metal flooring, and the wreckage of various targets—cut, smashed, and scorched—was scattered all around. It had clearly undergone violent testing more than once.
But William’s gaze didn’t linger on any of that.
His eyes, and the eyes of the twelve Knights behind him, were all frozen on the center of the testing ground.
Five enormous Steel Giants, the likes of which they had never seen, stood there like slumbering gods.
The nearest one was about eighteen meters tall, with a stocky build. Its round, single eye refracted a dim, crimson light. Heavy armor plates covered its entire body. It held a giant axe in its right hand and a Tower Shield, a full three meters thick, in its left.
The one next to it was slightly more slender, its streamlined armor profile hinting at a design philosophy completely opposite to the stocky one.
The third was forty-five meters tall! It had two main arms, with an auxiliary arm extending from its back. The mere sight of it was enough to make one’s scalp tingle. Each of its fists was the size of a house.
The fourth had a cannon with a deep, dark muzzle mounted on its right arm, and a Chainsaw Sword blade retracted into its left forearm.
And then—
William’s gaze traveled upward, and upward, and upward still.
He had to crane his neck back as far as it would go.
The one on the far right was nearly twice as tall as the tallest Golem he had ever seen—Allen’s forty-eight-meter-high Cyclops.
Merely by standing there, the oppressive presence emanating from its steel frame weighed heavily on everyone’s chest.
William stood at the very front, head tilted back. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed unconsciously, and the guards behind him instinctively placed their hands on their sword hilts.
"By the gods..."
someone muttered, their voice trembling.
Just then, a slender figure slowly descended from the air.
Black robes billowed.
Allen landed on the ground without a sound. His azure eyes glowed faintly, giving him an inhuman quality.
"You may have already guessed. That’s right. These are the weapons I’m giving you."
William’s heart leaped. He turned back to look at Allen, then tilted his head up again to gaze at the five steel behemoths.
He walked toward the nearest one, the stocky, eighteen-meter-tall Mecha, and reached out. His fingertips touched the cold armor plating, feeling the seamless craftsmanship of its joints.
After several minutes, William finally pulled his hand back and turned to Allen.
His expression was complicated. Beneath the shock was a deeper layer of bitterness.
"Lord Allen."
"These Golems are indeed powerful."
He paused, a pained smile appearing on his face. "But in all of Aiselan, I’m afraid we don’t even have a single Level 5 Spirit Mage who could control them."
"Is... is this truly the power you promised us? A power that belongs to us?"
Hearing this, the excitement and shock that had just appeared on the Knights’ faces quickly faded, replaced by the same dejection as their King.
’That’s right. What difference was there between the most powerful weapon and a pile of scrap iron if you couldn’t even use it?’
’This was still a power that belonged to Wizards, not to Aiselan.’
Allen’s azure eyes were calm and serene. He didn’t offer a single word of explanation.
His gaze went past William, landing on a young Knight standing ramrod straight behind the King, his face a mixture of nervousness and awe.
That Knight’s Spiritual Energy fluctuations were the weakest of anyone present, merely at the level of a Level 3 Spirit Mage.
Under the stunned and bewildered gazes of the crowd, Allen raised his finger and pointed at the Knight.
In a tone that allowed no argument, he issued a curt command.
"You. Go up. Pilot it."
What?
The young Knight was dumbfounded, and his companions were all stunned.
William turned around in astonishment, not understanding the purpose of Allen’s action.
"M-me...?" the Knight pointed at his own nose, his voice trembling.
Allen did not repeat himself.
An invisible force lifted the Knight, carrying him straight toward the cockpit in the chest of the eighteen-meter-high mecha amidst his short cry of alarm.
The young Knight’s name was Peram. He sat down stiffly in the pilot’s seat.
The hatch closed behind him, and the seals engaged with a dull THUMP.
The cockpit was plunged into brief darkness. Then, the Alchemy Display Array in front of him lit up, casting a deep blue glow on his face.
His hands hovered over the control sticks, not daring to touch anything.
Just then—
A massive, brutal stream of information was rammed unceremoniously into his mind.
It was as if someone had taken a stick and forcibly shoved an entire, thick instruction manual into his brain in under three seconds.
The function of every control stick, the corresponding action for every pedal, the meaning of every button... Peram felt like his own CPU was about to fry.
Although this machine was designed for mortals, a first-time user would always need some guidance.
Magic Power could carry information. Forcibly inserting data into someone’s head was one of the uses of the Allen Network. For Allen, pouring the entire pilot’s manual directly into Peram’s consciousness was a trivial effort.
[Auxiliary control functions enabled.]
The Spiritual Energy Conductors on the cockpit’s inner walls lit up. A faint glow flowed along the conduits in the seatback and armrests. Peram felt a strange warmth spread through his body from the points of contact.
It was the resonance between the weak Spirit Core inside his body and the Spiritual Energy Conductors.
And then—
The mecha’s single eye suddenly flashed to life.
A crimson light burst from the round optical sensor, like a behemoth, slumbering for a thousand years, had abruptly opened its eyes.
On the ground, everyone simultaneously took a step back, William included.
The surrounding Factory Servants quickly retreated, making space for the awakened Steel Giant.
Inside the cockpit, Peram’s breathing grew ragged.
On the Alchemy display screen before him, the status indicator Runes for each system turned from red to green, one by one.
[Power Systems—Nominal.]
[Unit Status—Nominal.]
[Spiritual Energy Assist—Engaged.]
[Firing authority granted. All weapons online.]
His palms were drenched in sweat.
’The information in his head told him what this was and how to pilot it. But knowing was one thing—he’d never touched a machine like this before!’
The left and right sticks controlled the weapon systems and posture; the pedals controlled movement.
All complex, coordinated joint movements were handled automatically by the central processing system.
’It sounded unbelievably simple.’
Peram saw the group of people watching him from below through the holographic cockpit screen. He took a deep breath, figuring he knew what he had to do.
His right foot pressed down on the forward pedal.
A muffled, metallic roar erupted from within the mecha.
The hydraulic drive system engaged at full power, and the eighteen-meter-high Steel Giant lifted its right leg to take its first step.
BOOM!
Peram’s body was thrown about violently inside the cockpit. The shock-absorption system absorbed most of the impact, but on his first try, he still accidentally bit his tongue.
The coppery taste of blood filled his mouth.
He didn’t let go.
He pressed his left foot down and lifted his right.
The second step.
It wasn’t very steady. The machine’s center of gravity shifted as it strode forward, and though the central processing system automatically corrected its posture, the correction process made the movement look incredibly clumsy.
The third step veered to the left, the fourth lurched to the right—
From the outside, the eighteen-meter-high Steel Giant staggered crookedly, like a toddler just learning to walk.
But it was, without a doubt, moving!
And it was being piloted by a mere Level 3 Spirit Mage—an ordinary Knight who wouldn’t even be considered elite on the battlefield!
William and his Knights stared with their heads tilted back, their eyes following the swaying, colossal machine. No one spoke. No one dared to speak.
Inside the cockpit, Peram gritted his teeth and stomped on the pedal.
Inertia threw him forward, the safety harness digging painfully into his shoulders, but the mecha stopped, its feet planted firmly on the ground.
The machine screeched to a halt in front of a ten-meter-high iron target.
"Steady your mind. Control it as you would your own limbs. Prepare to attack," Allen’s voice resonated in Peram’s mind.
After a moment of silence, the mecha began to move again.
The eighteen-meter-high machine reached back, its thick metal fingers closing around the handle of the Thermic Axe on its back.
The giant axe, nearly half the height of the mecha itself, was slowly raised.
The Thermic Rune circuits on the axe’s blade lit up with dark red patterns, and the air around it began to shimmer and distort from the heat.
A ruthless glint flashed in the young Knight’s eyes from inside the cockpit. He remembered his comrades, torn apart by the Heart Eaters three years ago.
Using all his strength, he slammed the right control stick all the way forward!
Channeling the full power of its hydraulic drives, the mecha swung the Thermic Giant Axe, which carved a searing arc through the air as it chopped down decisively!
A tremendous crash tore through the air of the testing ground.
The iron target was split in two right down the middle. The severed edges glowed red-hot, and molten iron dripped to the ground with a SIZZLE.
The two five-meter-high pieces of wreckage toppled to either side, crashing onto the ground with a thunderous roar.
The gale kicked up by the strike carried with it iron shavings and a wave of scorching air, blasting them in the face.
William raised an arm to shield his face. The sharp fragments of iron scraped the back of his hand, leaving several small, bloody scratches.
He didn’t even feel the pain.
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