Nikolai coughed up blood, gasping for breath.
“D-Damn it...”
The reckless surge of mana had shredded his insides.
If he’d been a battle-hardened War Mage, well-trained in such strain, this wouldn’t have happened—but to Nikolai, who’d only ever barked orders from above, it was a foreign experience.
He spat a mouthful of blood onto the floor. The metallic tang on his tongue and the wrenching pain in his gut brought tears to his eyes.
‘Still... he took a mana blast head-on. He shouldn’t be getting up.’
That fleeting sense of relief vanished the instant he saw what stood before him.
Gariel—who should have been down for good—was swaying, yet slowly rising to his feet.
“Y-You...”
He’d seen it hit. The blast had landed cleanly.
Though it hadn’t pierced all the way through—it lacked the full power he’d intended—the impact of that iron sphere had been more than enough.
Ribs broken, organs damaged.
His cheeks were even burned.
And yet Gariel stood.
His face twisted in pain, his body trembling as if it might collapse at any second.
But the look in his eyes, locked onto Nikolai, was sharper—clearer—than ever.
The moment their gazes met, a chill ran down Nikolai’s spine.
That unbroken will.
That mad resolve to keep fighting despite being wrecked and bloodied—
It threw his mind into disarray.
Nikolai, who had always looked down from above, had never once rolled in the dirt himself.
This kind of fight—this environment—was utterly alien to him.
“Why... why are you looking at me like that?”
He demanded, as though he genuinely couldn’t understand.
“What the hell are you fighting so desperately for?”
“Why, you ask?”
Gariel steadied his breathing, straightening his stance.
“The fact you even have to ask... means you’ll never understand.”
“What nonsense—!”
Gariel’s figure vanished.
Almost like a shift through space, he reappeared right before Nikolai’s eyes.
His time magic faltered mid-way—he grimaced briefly—but Nikolai was too shocked to notice.
Gariel’s sudden closeness froze him where he stood.
And Gariel, seeing that fear, found courage.
He threw a punch.
Thwack!
His fist cracked against the bridge of Nikolai’s nose, snapping his head back.
Blood spurted as Nikolai stumbled backward.
Gariel tried to follow up—but his leg gave out beneath him.
‘No. I can’t fall here. Not yet.’
He clenched his teeth.
His mind was foggy from pain, his body barely obeying him.
He felt like someone else entirely.
For a fleeting moment, a thought crossed his mind.
Why am I doing this? What glory or reward could possibly be worth this agony?
Wouldn’t it be easier to just give up, to take the easy path?
He hated fighting. Hated burdens. Hated pain. He just wanted peace and quiet.
Then why—
‘Why can’t I stop?’
The more he tried to move forward, the heavier the shackles felt around his body.
He’d once tried to break free of them.
But the chains were vast and unyielding, never breaking.
The harder he fought, the tighter they wrapped around him.
At some point—he stopped resisting.
He accepted them as if they had always been part of him.
It was a coward’s surrender.
Gariel had thought it better to be a peaceful loser than a suffering victor.
He’d believed that once.
‘Because there’s someone I want to protect.’
Rine’s face flashed through his mind.
Then the woman he had once loved—the only one he’d ever loved—followed.
Her words, her gestures, her smile.
Even among all those shackles, they remained clear—unfaded.
He had thought himself a worn-out man.
Rusty, creaking, irredeemable.
Unable to recall when his radiant days had ended, when he’d become so far gone.
And yet—there was still something inside him that hadn’t lost its color.
A fragment of light.
A memory that refused to die.
That was why he fought.
With everything he had.
To defeat the man before him.
“UAAAAAAHHH!”
His raw roar made Nikolai flinch.
The arrogance that had once filled Nikolai’s gaze was gone—replaced by fear.
In his eyes, Gariel looked like a demon.
A blood-soaked demon who refused to fall, intent on tearing him apart.
“Stay away! Don’t come near me!”
His will to fight shattered, Nikolai turned to flee.
It was laughable. Despite the overwhelming difference in strength, the snake had turned its back on the rat.
Seeing it, Gariel remembered Ludger’s words.
—Power isn’t everything in a fight. Once battle begins, a hundred other factors decide the outcome. Even an undeniable powerhouse can kneel before someone “weak.”
He hadn’t understood it then. But now—he did.
Gariel tried to give chase—but his legs wouldn’t move.
He dropped to one knee and could only watch Nikolai’s retreating back.
Nikolai didn’t even notice that Gariel had stopped. He just ran.
Ran without looking back—pathetic, cowardly, unlike the man he’d pretended to be.
“Heh... what a coward.”
Gariel laughed at the sight.
Every chuckle drove broken bones deeper and tore muscles anew, but he couldn’t stop.
It felt... freeing.
With a faint, satisfied smile, he pulled a pill from his inner pocket and swallowed it dry.
He chewed and forced it down; the pain coursing through him dulled immediately.
He took one of his few remaining high-grade potions and poured it over the burns on his face.
The wound sealed, the potent anesthetic dulling the agony enough for him to stand again.
He wasn’t fully healed, but movement was no longer a problem.
Gariel took the communicator from his belt.
“It’s done here.”
His eyes drifted to the artifact Nikolai had left behind—
More precisely, to the image of Ludger reflected within it.
“So you’d better win too.”
He couldn’t be sure if the words reached him.
But right after he spoke, a faint smile formed on Ludger’s lips.
* * *
“Looks like it’s over on that side. If I fail here, I’d lose all face.”
The golden statue extended its right hand, pressing down on the God of Machinery.
One of the creature’s four mechanical arms lifted, mirroring the statue’s gesture.
“So now—you’ll help me save mine.”
The wave emitted from the mechanical arm slammed into the statue’s palm, but the statue didn’t budge.
Instead, the immense pressure forced the arm back—and the force carried all the way into the God’s body.
The remaining three arms wrapped around it defensively.
Then the statue’s radiance swelled—and exploded into a golden blast.
Swept up in that burst, the God of Machinery was hurled through the air like a falling star, trailing light.
From the third floor to the fourth—
From the fourth to the fifth, the summit of the island—
It arced through the sky and smashed into a massive structure.
Crackkk—!!
The impact’s pressure rolled out like thunder.
For the first time, the God of Machinery reacted violently—like a fish flailing out of water.
It had finally taken damage.
And no wonder—
Because Ludger had slammed it straight into the Divine Tower.
The same tower that had just been attacked moments earlier, its external defenses pushed to maximum output.
The God of Machinery struck the tower’s shield.
Before it could recover, the tower’s automatic defense systems activated.
A violent current surged, and layers of embedded spells flared to life.
The Divine Tower was a fortress—and when that fortress unleashed its full output, it defied measurement.
The creature convulsed like an insect electrocuted midair, trembling uncontrollably.
Inside the tower, chaos erupted.
“Enemy! Another enemy sighted!”
“Damn it! What the hell is happening?!”
“Call reinforcements!”
The tower had already been in turmoil after Roteron’s escape.
The Bourgeois and Proletarian factions were on the verge of civil war, daggers drawn.
They’d been focused inward—on quelling their own fire.
Now that battlefield had been flipped entirely on its head.
An external threat forced both factions to cooperate instinctively.
Normally, they would have mocked whoever was foolish enough to attack a fully fortified tower.
But this attacker was no fool.
“The defense system’s still active?!”
“What’s going on?!”
The tower’s outer shell pulsed with blinding light.
Even inside, they could feel the vibrations.
Anything that struck those shields should have been vaporized on a cellular level—yet the entire structure was trembling instead.
Realizing this was no ordinary situation, the tower’s mages instinctively declared a temporary truce.
For now, the priority was clear: eliminate the external enemy.
While that unfolded inside, the God of Machinery was already adapting to the tower’s output.
Its three remaining arms absorbed the brunt of the power. The strain on its core was enormous—but still tolerable.
Above its head, twin halos blazed.
BOOOOM—!!!
A massive shockwave rippled across the tower’s shields.
The whole tower shuddered like an earthquake had struck.
Taking advantage of the recoil, the God of Machinery tried to retreat beyond the system’s range.
It might have succeeded—
If not for an interruption.
“Where do you think you’re going in such a hurry?”
CRASH!
A golden palm slammed down, pinning it against the shield.
Caught between the statue’s hand and the tower’s defense field, the God of Machinery was crushed flat—like a patty in a sandwich.
Ludger didn’t waste the chance.
He intended to end it here, using the collision of both colossal forces.
“Be crushed to death, right here.”
Even a god of machines couldn’t endure two such powers at once.
But it wasn’t about to die quietly.
Creeeeak.
Its head twisted toward the tower wall.
From within its visor, light blazed.
KWOOM!
A repulsion blast erupted against the shield.
The kind of force that could annihilate an entire zone in one hit—yet it wasn’t enough to pierce the tower’s defense.
That wasn’t the point.
The explosion made the shield ripple violently, easing the pressure on its body.
That was its true aim.
One of the three supporting arms broke free and lunged toward Ludger.
The statue’s other hand met it, blade-edge sharp.
KRAAASH!
The struggle weakened the crushing pressure, allowing the creature to slip free.
Ludger reached out again to seize it—but one of the distant mechanical arms flew in and collided with the statue’s hand.
A brilliant flash split the air, followed by a spherical shockwave spreading outward.
The mist and steam were swept away, revealing both combatants clearly.
For an instant, Ludger and the God of Machinery locked eyes.
At the same moment, the small black hole above Ludger’s head pulsed with an immense presence.
[────.]
Hearing that sound at close range, Ludger frowned.
Perhaps out of irritation—perhaps out of discomfort at what that voice implied.
A moment later, the God of Machinery heard it too.
It froze midair—then stared not at Ludger, but at the black hole above him.
It could feel it.
From that void emanated a force eerily similar to the power within its own core.
“I know your toy’s the one causing this mess,” Ludger said coldly, looking upward. “But maybe you could at least pick a better time and place.”
“Thanks to what you just said, its mood’s completely changed.”
The God of Machinery’s aura surged—stronger than ever before.
The very air trembled from the intensity.
It was hard to believe this was the same creature that had until moments ago acted without emotion or reason.
The God of Machinery—
Or rather, the Relic forming its core—
Had recognized its original master.
And now it burned with one overwhelming emotion.
Hatred.