Chapter 322: Metamorphosis (4)

Immediately after ejecting Hina’s seat, a fighter jet appeared beside them. Aris, who would have been in the co-pilot’s seat, was nowhere to be seen.

She must have dropped Aris off at the first fortress. As if reading Lennok’s thoughts, a communication came through.

“You seem to have successfully dropped Hina off. I knew you would.”

“What do you mean?”

“It seems you’re always uncomfortable with other people’s help. I thought you’d try to handle this alone, somehow.”

“……”

“Even the fortress you just captured by yourself. The three entry routes you set up with your authorization. If you had lent your power to one of them, killing three Major Generals and retaking the fortress wouldn’t have been impossible.”

“But we couldn’t have prepared for a situation like this.”

“……”

This time, Pallard fell silent.

“Ultimately, we didn’t know the Lieutenant General’s true objective until just before the assault began. Neither that he intended to abandon his body and be reborn as an 8th-level Archmage, nor that he was constructing two more fortresses.”

Lennok knew that the Defense Force and Gearsight didn’t intend to concentrate all their forces on just one Mobile Fortress.

The scale of the Mobile Fortress was too large, too conspicuous, and not fast enough to contain all their aspirations.

That’s why Lennok had tried to deal with things as quickly as possible to prepare for any unforeseen circumstances… but he hadn’t expected Gearsight to construct and deploy two more fortresses.

Pallard drove the fighter jet without a word, then brought up something else over the communication network.

“I told you I was a pilot, didn’t I? But I wasn’t always an Agent.”

“……”

“I was a pilot in the Defense Force Mobile Fortress combat flight squadron. Lieutenant General Treffen was my superior.”

“……I see.”

Lennok understood why Pallard was bringing this up now and nodded.

Indeed, Pallard’s actions so far had been excessively proactive, more so than simply being the Deputy Director of the Agents.

The very fact that he, who should ideally have remained near the Delta satellite city to manage the remaining troops, had personally taken to piloting a fighter jet, proved it.

Kugugugu!!

Two fighter jets raced through the sky. Only Pallard’s voice quietly echoed through the empty communication channel.

“The Lieutenant General will be in that fortress further away. You know that, don’t you?”

“Did you know?”

Of the two fortresses, the one that was relatively trailing behind.

Lennok had identified his target by observing the fortress with relatively distorted space using his recently awakened spatial perception ability.

But Pallard, too, seemed to have figured out which fortress Treffen was in by his own means.

“I only realized after observing the Mobile Fortress that was in the Delta satellite city up close. What was there wasn’t the fortress the Defense Force originally used. It was probably something quickly completed with Gearsight’s help at a shipyard.”

The reason the fortress’s exterior had a strange mix of old and new parts. It was likely because it was newly assembled from the wreckage of a Mobile Fortress that had been under construction.

The supplies piled on the deck looked strangely old, probably because they were discarded materials left over when the project was halted.

Considering Barclay Yagerth’s and the control room officials’ unusual behavior, there were clues that the Mobile Fortress in the Delta satellite city was not the one they originally used.

“If it was charging its reactor, it must have been a recently constructed fortress.”

“The fortress in the Delta satellite city was Unit 3. If Unit 1 and Unit 2, which finished charging their power sources and were hidden, are now moving……”

Lennok, understanding Pallard’s words, immediately nodded.

“You’re saying Lieutenant General Treffen will be in Unit 1?”

“He’s a man who served as a fortress commander for 20 years and never left that position. Even if he’s abandoned his body now, his nature wouldn’t change.”

“……”

Had he figured out the location of Unit 1, the fortress he originally used, from his experience as a Defense Force pilot?

His personal acquaintance with Treffen and his time as a pilot seemed to have given Pallard another answer.

“But now, that’s the end of it. I never thought I’d say my final goodbyes like this……”

At the same time, a missile detached from beneath Pallard’s fighter jet and swiftly plummeted to the ground.

Clank!!

“It’s time to put an end to a long relationship.”

The missile, falling diagonally, following the fighter jet’s speed and direction, directly struck the deck of the rear fortress.

KWAOOOOM!!

It ignited a magnificent explosion.

A tall spire stood in the middle of the fortress’s deck, instantly engulfed in flames.

Atop its peak, a man in an iron mask looked up at the sky, alone and isolated.

As soon as Lennok saw him, he pressed the ejection button on the dashboard and, without hesitation, pulled the seat lever.

Thump!

Lennok’s body, ejected from the center of the seat, shot straight up into the sky.

He spun upside down and plummeted back towards the ground.

Carefully mitigating the violent winds and gravity with shields and magic, the wizard, his coat flapping, landed directly on the fortress deck.

KUUOOONG!!

On the deck, where the heat from Pallard’s missile had not yet dissipated.

Lennok stood up and slowly looked up at the spire in the center of the deck.

The man in the thick iron mask lowered his gaze from the sky and cast it downwards again.

“……”

Lennok, confirming the dazzling light shining through the iron mask, immediately raised his magic power and smiled.

“Lieutenant General Treffen. It’s my first time seeing you in person.”

WOOOOSH!!

Thousands of meters high in the sky, where ears were ringing.

Hina, clutching the blade at her waist, shrieked, then hiccuped at something that suddenly appeared before her eyes.

“Hii-yak?!”

“You don’t need to be so surprised to see someone.”

What appeared before Hina’s eyes was Aris, falling gracefully with her legs together, her golden hair fluttering.

She, too, had been riding in Pallard’s fighter jet and had been ejected around the same time as Hina, now falling from the sky.

“Oh, it was Professor Aris……”

“Agent Hina, it seems you were thrown out at a similar time to me, am I wrong?”

Though the parachute pack strapped over her flapping shirt hadn’t deployed yet, no fear was visible on Aris’s face.

She simply held down her hair with one hand, maintaining a cold expression as she faced the approaching ground.

Hina, implicitly marveling at her courage, nodded obediently.

“That’s right.”

“Then it seems we’ve been assigned one of the nearby fortresses……”

Aris said, glancing down at the incredibly distant ground.

The middle of the desert approached rapidly.

Two Mobile Fortresses traversed it relentlessly. Were they not assigned the one moving relatively close to them?

It was a reasonably rational distribution of personnel, but Aris’s face looked somewhat displeased.

“Hmm……”

“Um, is there something you don’t like……?”

Instead of answering, Aris raised her sapphire eyes and scrutinized Hina’s entire body from head to toe.

Her body glowed bright blue from the after-effects of Remnant Thunder Body.

Hina seemed unaware of the magical processes occurring within her body, but Aris could guess the exquisite level of augmentation magic placed upon her.

It didn’t merely amplify physical abilities; it precisely stimulated the central nervous system, elevating reaction speed and magical sensitivity to an entirely different realm.

Even if muscle strength and speed were abnormally boosted throughout the body, the mental augmentation was sufficient to perfectly handle the temporarily increased power.

A spell formula so perfectly tailored to her body would surely be proof that similar spell formulas had been cast on Hina multiple times before.

And who had cast that spell was obvious.

Aris, narrowing her eyes and crossing her arms, murmured.

“Still suspicious……”

“……Pardon?”

“The fortress is getting closer. Let’s get started as soon as we land.”

Aris casually dismissed Hina’s question and turned her gaze.

“Calculating the time it will take for Agent Hina’s augmented strength and magical intensity to cross half the deck, it’s roughly 13 seconds… During that time, sweep the immediate vicinity as much as possible and herd the enemies on the deck into one place.”

“Ah, understood.”

Clank!

Hina replied, clutching the sword at her waist.

As the fortress drew closer, the sight of enemies crawling onto the deck became visible to her senses.

Their magic and appearance were completely different from the Defense Force soldiers she had encountered so far.

Not only were their entire bodies mechanically modified, but their disparate attire and powers, as they looked up at her, felt eerie.

These were probably members of Gearsight, the force behind the Defense Force. And they were likely the masterminds who commanded the construction of the two fortresses.

Even with hundreds of meters still remaining, they had already detected her and were waiting to intercept.

But Aris, looking at them, did not hesitate and immediately channeled her magic, speaking.

“They’ll open fire to intercept us from around 200 meters. I’ll block the lower half, so you can go in first and stir things up.”

“Then what about you, Professor Aris…?”

“I don’t intend to waste much time here either.”

Aris smiled brightly at Hina, then began to form hand seals with both hands.

WOOOOOOOOSH!!!!

Simultaneously, a massive volume of magic power swirled and rotated around her body, and the sand on the ground writhed violently.

The summoning magic seals, arrayed and deployed with both hands, glowed, instantly projecting her powerful will.

Immediately afterward, the sand from the surrounding desert defied gravity and surged upward, forming the shape of a colossal giant.

KUGUGUGUGUGUGU!!!

“GROOOOAAARRR!!!!”

As the colossal Sand Giant, dozens of meters tall, roared fiercely, the air in the vicinity violently trembled, spreading the sound in all directions.

Lennok was not the only one who had accumulated knowledge and experience through constant research into summoning magic.

Rather, by researching together with Lennok’s perspective, which viewed summoning magic in a completely different way from conventional interpretations, Aris, too, had deepened her understanding of summoning magic.

Summoning a creature of this size would ordinarily be difficult even for a powerful sorcerer like her.

However, using a workaround by partially adjusting the environment and conditions based on Lennok’s interpretations would not be impossible.

As a result, she succeeded in summoning a creature that could only be summoned in extreme environments like deserts, at a level several dimensions higher than her own summoning magic mastery.

Only Hina, unaware of the inner workings, gasped repeatedly in astonished murmurs.

“Ugh, ahhh……”

“Let’s go quickly.”

THUD!

Aris, lightly landing on the Sand Giant’s shoulder, formed another series of hand seals, and simultaneously, the giant began to walk forward.

The summoned creature, formed by coalescing the sand from the entire desert and imbuing it with will, advanced, violently scattering sand everywhere.

DUDUDUDUDUDUDU!!!

The incessant rumbling that shook the ground was already unclear as to whose it was.

Only the impact generated by two monsters, far surpassing human comprehension in size, charging towards each other, violently hammered the surrounding desert.

The Mobile Fortress, tirelessly moving its steel legs, and the dozens of meters tall Sand Giant, charging forward, collided head-on.

KWAAAOOO!!

On the fortress deck, burning from the missile explosion.

Lennok confirmed the piles of supply boxes burning helplessly on the deck and nodded.

Unlike the supplies of Fortress Unit 3 seen in the Delta satellite city, these boxes clearly showed signs of use.

This fortress was probably the original one the Defense Force had used for 20 years.

“……”

The man in the iron mask silently looked down at Lennok, then lightly stomped his foot.

At the same time, his body moved as if disappearing, instantly appearing directly on the deck.

SKREEEEEEECH!!

Immediately afterward, a fighter jet landed on the deck behind Lennok.

The man in the iron mask looked at the fighter jet before Lennok and opened his mouth.

“You’ve aged greatly, O’Con. What happened to your face?”

“It’s been a long time, Squadron Commander.”

Pallard replied through the fighter jet’s speaker.

“Have you come with that old, tired body to stop me? Dragging a discarded fighter jet?”

A heavy laugh echoed from behind the mask.

“Foolish… truly foolish… You haven’t changed at all since then.”

“And you, sir, have changed greatly.”

At Pallard’s calm reply, the man fell silent.

“I… I believed the Squadron Commander wouldn’t change. Everyone else thought so too. That’s why everyone agreed to your ascension to the Commander position.”

“……”

“Because everyone believed that no matter how harsh the trials that befell the Defense Force and the outer front, the Commander wouldn’t change.”

“I did my best to protect the military!!”

WOOONG!!

With the man’s fierce shout, a violent shockwave erupted from around him.

The heat flowing over the deck instantly dissipated and vanished.

“You’re the ones who abandoned us, who tried to fulfill our duty until the very end, and now you dare utter such words..!!”

The man’s roar, brimming with unspent rage. It was impossible to even guess how deep the anger festering in his chest was.

But Pallard, gripping the joystick until it creaked, replied.

“So, is this the answer you’ve come up with, sir? Abandoning the subordinates who sacrificed their lives, and this moment, rushing towards destruction with the fortress you’ve spent your life with?”

“……”

“It’s over, Squadron Commander. You know all of this is meaningless. This is just a desperate struggle.”

Perhaps Lieutenant General Treffen’s original plan wasn’t this.

Constructing two more fortresses with Gearsight’s help wasn’t for a reckless charge, but rather a means to boost power and pressure the city council.

But the Agents’ response, led by Councilman Meyer within the city, was too fast, and at that moment, the Defense Force had to face the city’s combined forces while unprepared.

And the moment when Colonel Vylen, who had accepted Gearsight’s body modification, fell so easily and futilely.

Treffen had realized that the entire scenario he had envisioned had crumbled.

The only options left to him were to accept Gearsight’s proposal, completely reconstruct his body, and reach the 8th-level Archmage realm.

And through that, to directly control the two fortresses and rush towards his original goal.

Faded intentions, shattered plans. Failed schemes and meaningless sacrifices. What was left for Lieutenant General Treffen now?

“SHUT UPPP!!!!”

CHIRRRR-RRRRR-RRRRR!!!

With the man, Treffen’s utterly desperate scream, the tirelessly advancing Mobile Fortress suddenly halted and began to twist its body on the spot.

At the same time, tens of millions of components making up the Mobile Fortress flowed out as if unscrewed, losing their original form and creating a colossal sphere.

A massive mechanical sphere formed, embracing Lennok, who was on the deck, and Pallard’s floating fighter jet.

“Inner World Miniature Universe: Iron Machine God’s Passage”

“Domain Activation”

KAKAKAKAKAKAKAKAKAK!!

A grating noise, like insects gnawing all around.

Within the spherical machine prison that trapped Lennok, an immeasurable number of components flowed and rotated ceaselessly, creating a noise that echoed grandly like a chorus.

Inside the sphere, with a vast diameter easily encompassing hundreds of meters.

Treffen wailed from atop a colossal mechanical god that began to assemble like a Buddhist statue from the inner wall of the sphere.

“Not yet, it’s not over yet!!! Do you think I’ll fall so futilely?! I am Edmus Treffen, Mobile Fortress Commander of the Defense Force!!!!”

Puff!

“Deputy Director. This story is different from what you told me.”

Lennok, lighting a cigarette he held in his mouth, silently looked back at Pallard.

“Lieutenant General Treffen’s Mind Imprint wasn’t like this.”

The Mind Imprint of Treffen, briefed beforehand using the intelligence of Pallard O’Con, the Deputy Director of the Agents, was a power focused on ‘stasis’ and defense.

So, while preparing for a battle with the Lieutenant General, he had been contemplating blades to pierce through defenses, but what was now before his eyes was a Mind Imprint with a range so vast it was almost a Domain.

No, it was questionable whether this steel prison, created by disassembling the entire Mobile Fortress, could even be called a Mind Imprint.

“…I’m sorry, but this is also the first time I’ve seen something like this, so I don’t know what to say.”

Pallard, gripping the joystick with a disgruntled expression, retorted.

“As I recall, Lieutenant General Treffen’s Miniature Universe was never like this. Didn’t the other Major Generals possess similar powers as before, even after undergoing body modification?”

“Hmm…”

If so, perhaps his Mind Imprint was completely warped and distorted during the body reconstruction process.

He couldn’t even guess the price one would have to pay to completely twist and distort an already imprinted Mind Imprint.

But what if all these phenomena… were observed as Treffen transcended humanity?

What if it was the result of severing everything that constituted a human, casting aside hierarchy, and reaching a new realm?

KWAOOOOM!!

Hundreds of turrets erupted from the surface of the mechanical sphere, immediately spewing fire.

Lennok instantly raised a shield like a barrier, deflecting the incoming artillery shells, and channeled his magic.

“I’ll just have to see for myself how far he’s come. Get out of the fighter jet first.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I can’t fight while worrying about you in this chaos.”

Lennok turned to Pallard and snapped his fingers.

A pencil extended from his sleeve and fell into Pallard’s hand.

Enakphil’s five fingers. A consumable item that allows one to escape urgent situations by spatially leaping.

It was a fragment of the reward Pallard himself had offered in his deal with Lennok.

“So, just do what I tell you quickly and get out of here.”