The record for the highest number of scientists working on a single Machina was when fifteen hundred of their highest ranking scientists had come together to increase the power level of their Overlord from Titan Rank I to Titan Rank II. The process had taken more than a week, and the scientists had worked around the clock to make sure everything had gone perfectly. But at this moment, that record was already being broken.
The Machina General reached a large set of iron doors at the end of a hallway, and he stopped and took in a deep breath before he moved forward to scan his eye. A retina scanner took the reading, and once it was sure that he had access, the door beeped and opened to allow the General in. The room the General walked into was filled with scientists. There were more than five thousand scientists moving around various computers and machines as they carried out their duties! Various heavy-duty machines were carrying cybertronic body parts around the various workstations, and in the center of the room, on a large vertical table that towered over the General, was the body of the Overlord. The Overlord’s body had been disconnected into various parts. His legs and arms had been removed from his torso, and his head had been disconnected from his body. All the body parts were being held together by various wires, and there were scientists on floating platforms taking various readings as they studied the Overlord’s body to make sure everything worked properly. Sparks and clanks echoed through the room as the Machina parts were tested, repaired, and discarded, and the General couldn’t help the awe in his eyes as he looked up at his leader.
The Overlord had been in this state for the past month, and every Machina in the army was waiting with bated breath for the moment when the Overlord’s Cybertronic augmentation would finally be over.
’So this is what we have to go through before we can reach TITAN Rank III. Will I also have this honor someday?’
Even with the anxiety clouding his mind, the general couldn’t help but admire the beauty of what he was seeing before him, and he would’ve continued to stare at the Overlord even longer if a voice didn’t snap him out of his trance.
"General Navor. What in the world are you doing here? Weren’t you supposed to be overseeing Destro’s attack?"
General Navor turned around, and he immediately saluted the right-hand man of the Overlord. The main Emmissary and Grand General of the army, who was in charge of handling all military and economic affairs in the Overlord’s absence, and the second-highest-ranking member of the military. Grand General Amrich. In the cutthroat world of the Machina where power was everything, Grand General Amrich had managed to work his way up to becoming the right-hand man of the Overlord using nothing but his intelligence. Most of the soldiers in the Machina army held some sort of doubt about the Grand General, and there were others who outright hated him since they believed he was stealing a position that should have belonged to someone else. But General Navor held the highest respect for the Grand General since he knew that it wasn’t an easy feat to become the man that the Overlord trusted the most. But over the past few months, ever since the Grand General took over from the Overlord, things have been very shaky in the army. It all began after Jason Marc was tagged as a Black Enigma. There were various Generals sent out by the Grand General to arrest the criminal, but for some reason, none of them managed to return at all. Jason Marc had only been seen as a small-level threat at the start, but after so long, he was slowly becoming a thorn in the side of the Machina! Jason Marc killed no less than a thousand Machina in less than two months, and the Army generals soon started to call the missions to capture him a suicide mission!
But things had taken a turn for the worse when the Machina attempted to capture Jason Marc on Hanir, within the territory of the Beast of the Apocalypse. It was an absolute massacre, unlike anything the Machina had ever gone through before. On that day, they lost multiple generals and hundreds of foot soldiers, as well as various important technologies that cost millions of Gold coins! It caused one of the longest meetings between the remaining generals, and they started to question the sensibility of what they were doing! What was the point in trying to capture Jason Marc if it was going to cost them so much! The entire reason why they were trying to capture Jason Marc was so that they could get the gold coins that they were owed by both the people of Earth and Radagan, but at this rate, receiving the gold coins wouldn’t matter anymore since they were going to lose even more by trying to capture Jason!
The generals came to a vote, and they decided that they would stop the attempts to capture Jason Marc with the army until the Overlord was finished with his augmentation, and since the Grand General couldn’t go against the vote, he had no choice but to accept it. But even after the generals had voted, General Navor had been contacted by the Grand General, and he learned about a new plan to use a different group to try to capture Jason Marc. This time, the Grand General decided not to use the army at all since they had already lost too many soldiers, and instead, he would use people who didn’t matter at all. The Black Enigmas that the Machina had captured in the past would be the ones to capture Jason Marc.
This plan was only shared amongst a very tight-knit group of scientists and soldiers who had shown support for the Grand General in the past. The major reason for this silence was because the Grand General didn’t want the other generals to learn of what he was about to do. But the other reason for the secrecy was because the plan they were about to carry out was obviously illegal! The use of criminals as mercenaries or soldiers was something that the Council of Nine and One abolished after the Period of Lawlessness, and if they were found out, then the Overlord as well as the Grand General would face severe consequences for it. And at this moment, General Navor had just learned that this is exactly what happened!
General Navor moved closer to the Grand General and spoke in a low voice so that the others wouldn’t hear.
"I just got news from a sentry. Queen Hesabeth has filed a complaint against the Machina with the council."
The Grand General felt his eyes widen in shock, and he had to struggle to control his emotions as he quickly asked what the complaint was about! General Navor grit his teeth and looked to the side to make sure there was no one there before he finally answered.
"The mission on Vratac was another failure. Queen Hesabeth showed up sometime in the middle of the battle, and our spies reported that a Sunheart warrior from the world of the Living Lights also appeared a few seconds later and destroyed the shield surrounding the battlefield. According to the report, the Sunheart warrior’s appearance was only an accident, so we think it had something to do with Queen Hesabeth’s Primordial Bias. Queen Hesabeth was then able to contain the rest of the prisoners without any more incident. According to reports, she already filed the complaint against us for going against the Primordial Treaty and using criminals as a subjugation force."