High above the Purgatory River, far beyond the reach of the acrid sulfur smoke and the stench of rotting water.
There, piercing through the clouds and hovering in stillness, was a massive golden airship: the
If the ground below was hell, this place was heaven.
Of course, it was a very morbid and twisted form of heaven.
Hiss―
The interior of the cockpit was filled with a honey-sweet scent so strong it made one dizzy.
It came from the brass pipes lining the walls, ceaselessly pumping out pink steam. It was highly concentrated mana vapor—a substance that made one forget the pain of reality the moment it was inhaled, implanting only pleasure and hallucinations.
Inside that hazy fog sat a massive mechanical chair adorned with gold and red velvet.
"Kukuku... Oh my, oh my."
Buried within the chair was a morbidly bloated mass of flesh.
It was the Lord of Greed, the 'Honey Emperor,' Yuan Shu.
As if moving his own body was too bothersome, he was receiving injections of sticky golden liquid—Liquid Mana—through dozens of transparent tubes connected to the chair.
The white powder plastered over his pale, floating face and his painted crimson lips made him look less like an emperor and more like a grotesque pierrot.
Yuan Shu brought a gold-plated telescope to his eye and looked down.
"Civil war among the fish-smelling bastards. They truly are beasts without a shred of dignity."
Through the lens, he saw Liu Biao's camp, now in chaos from the explosion caused by Gan Ning.
Yuan Shu clicked his tongue and accepted a wine glass offered by a mechanical arm.
"Now, let's see what those who like playing with fire are up to."
Yuan Shu turned a dial with his swollen fingers.
The focus shifted across the river to the Sun family's camp.
With Gan Ning crossing the river noisily and Liu Biao's tentacles churning the water in pursuit, the gaze of Sun Jian's army was entirely focused on the edge of the river cliffs.
Soldiers were hanging off the walls cheering or standing guard, and even the generals had rushed to the front lines.
In that instant, Yuan Shu's narrow, slit-like eyes glistened with greed.
"Oho..."
His gaze was not on the riverbank, but on the empty courtyard inside the fortress.
He was looking at the roof of the
"Stupid fire-heads. The tiger is so busy watching the fire in his front yard, he doesn't realize his back is wide open."
Even the troops meant to watch the sky for air defense had vacated their posts, too shocked by the appearance of the 'Mad Dog' Gan Ning.
Yuan Shu licked the honey from the corner of his mouth and laughed grotesquely.
Getting blood on one's hands in a brawl was something only amateurs did.
A true king takes only the profit at the most critical moment, from the safest place.
"The time is now."
Yuan Shu raised his fist and slammed down on a red jewel button embedded in the armrest of his mechanical chair.
[DEPLOY ALL FORCES]
"While they are distracted by that mad dog, I will take the King's head."
Yuan Shu shouted into the communication tube connected to his throat.
"Production lines, full throttle! Dump every piece of inventory we have in the warehouse! Ji Ling, take the lead and bring me Sun Jian's head!"
*
Airship Lower Deck, Hangar 1.
As Yuan Shu's order fell, the massive factory that had been sleeping in the dark awoke with a scream.
Whirrr― Bang! Bang!
The floor hatches opened, revealing the dizzying ground far below the clouds.
Simultaneously, the halted conveyor belts began to turn with a deafening roar.
Lined up on the belts like merchandise were hundreds of soldiers wearing expressionless bronze masks—the Iron-Mask Rifle Corps.
They didn't jump on their own.
Pushed to the end of the conveyor belt, they fell into the void, drop by drop, like industrial waste being disposed of.
From the ceiling, thousands of Clockwork Wasps poured out, making the sharp sound of metallic wings fluttering.
And in the center of that steel rain.
Kwoooaaa―!
There was a massive shadow spewing red steam.
A steel doll general whose entire body had been modified with crude brass armor and cast iron—Ji Ling.
The mana engine on his back spun to its limit, puffing out smoke like a train smokestack.
[...Target... Sun Jian... Extermination protocol initiated.]
With a metallic voice devoid of emotion, Ji Ling threw his body into the void.
Shoooooo―!!!
The metal legion covering the sky pierced through the clouds in a vertical freefall.
In the falling Ji Ling's vision, there was only a red targeting box rapidly zooming in on the defenseless back of Sun Jian below.
Until the disaster falling from the sky struck the tiger's back.
Time remaining: 5 seconds.
* * *
The defensive line of the
KWANG! BANG! CRUNCH!
5 seconds.
That was enough time for hell to open its gates.
Hundreds of the Iron-Mask Rifle Corps, dropped just a step ahead of Ji Ling, slammed into the fortress walls and the front courtyard like a meteor shower.
There were no parachutes.
The sound of legs snapping from the impact of falling bare-bodied, the noise of armor crumpling as they landed on their comrades' heads—these sounds covered the battlefield.
But those who were not broken rose, their joints making grotesque clicking sounds as they staggered to their feet.
"Don't get pushed back! Burn them all!"
The defensive line of the Sun family was, quite literally, pandemonium.
The Iron-Mask Riflemen dropped by Yuan Shu were clinging to the fortress walls like a swarm of ants.
They were less soldiers and more terrified slaves.
"Break through! If we don't, we get scrapped!"
The voice ringing from within the thick bronze mask held a desperate terror that a machine could never possess.
"Aaaagh!"
The Iron-Mask soldiers grabbed the ankles of the Sun soldiers, ignoring their own severed arms or bodies caught on fire.
If they retreated, they would be scrapped by Yuan Shu. If they advanced, they would be killed by the Sun family. A dilemma with no escape.
They were using themselves as meat shields, absorbing the Sun army's firepower with their own bodies.
"These crazy bastards...!"
The Sun family's Bellows Troopers pumped their bellows roughly, spewing out fire stone dust.
But when corpses piled up, other enemies stepped over the bodies to cross.
The front line fell into a deadlock.
And there was a gaze looking down at this scene from high up in the sky.
*
Airship
Yuan Shu had his eye pressed against a complex optical lens device that looked like a periscope.
Through the barrel, where dozens of convex and concave lenses overlapped, the tragedy on the ground, tangled like ants, was magnified clearly.
"Good. My toys are hugging the enemy tight."
Yuan Shu hummed, looking satisfied.
The mechanical adjutant standing next to him made a metallic scraping sound.
[Warning. Multiple friendly units identified at the drop coordinates... Friendly survival rate 0% upon bombing. Production cost loss occurring.]
"Stupid lump of scrap metal. Don't you know it's cheaper to just stamp out new ones?"
Yuan Shu clicked his tongue and licked the honey smeared on the corner of his mouth.
"The opportunity is when they are holding on tight so the enemy can't run away. Let's start the cleaning."
Yuan Shu's hand grasped the drop lever made of brass.
Screech― Clank!
With the sound of the rusty lever being pulled, the massive hatch at the bottom of the airship opened.
*
Back on the ground, the Defense Line.
A foreign sound began to mix into the noise of the battlefield.
Whir- whir- click, whir-
It was the sound of thousands of clockwork springs winding simultaneously, and the sound of sharp metal wings tearing through the air.
The Iron-Mask soldiers, who were screaming while hanging off the walls, lifted their heads to look at the sky.
Something like dark storm clouds was pouring down.
Yuan Shu's special weapon, the Clockwork Wasp Legion.
"M-My Lord...?"
A red light fell upon the masks of the Iron-Mask soldiers.
It was the intense glow emitted by the Red Incendiary Fluid boiling inside the wasps' transparent glass abdomens.
That light passed through the crystal lens on the wasp's tail, becoming a red searchlight illuminating the target.
That eerie light was stamped not only on the enemy Sun army but also on the heads of the friendly Iron-Mask soldiers.
"We... We are still here! Don't shoot! Aaaagh!!"
The screams didn't last long.
Thousands of Clockwork Wasps nose-dived vertically toward the fortress walls where the biological signatures were most dense, without distinguishing between friend or foe.
KWAAAA-BANG―!
With the explosion, the soldiers at the front vanished without a trace.
The sky was covered in a rain of steel, and the ground was covered in the flames of explosions.
Amidst that desperate sandwich situation.
Only one man was calmly looking up at the sky.
"..."
The second son of the Sun family, Sun Quan.
He was carrying a massive Multi-Tool Backpack the size of his own body on his back.
Four rusty steel arms extending from the backpack were moving ceaselessly, swatting away flying debris.
Sun Quan turned the rim of the thick magnifying spectacles resting on his nose with his finger.
Click, whir.
Another lens slid over the glasses, adjusting the magnification.
His eyes moved rapidly.
'Falling speed: 40 meters per second. Explosion radius: 3 meters. Current ally barrier durability... Total annihilation in 10 seconds.'
There were no floating numbers or convenient automatic calculation devices before his eyes.
Only genius-level brain processing and cold Engineering Intuition were the weapons he possessed.
"Crazy bastards. Burning their own limbs as fuel just to increase explosion efficiency a little bit."
Sun Quan clicked his tongue.
But there was no sympathy in his eyes.
He was an engineer, and to an engineer, emotion was just an unnecessary variable.
"But thanks to that, there are plenty of materials."
Sun Quan muttered quietly, pushing up his glasses.
"Commandeering materials on site."
Sun Quan turned the Output Dial on his Multi-Tool Backpack to the maximum.
Wooo-ooong―!!!
The mana core of the backpack began to spin with a roar.
Screech― Kwooooom!!!
The giant copper coils built into the backpack screamed as they began to rotate at high speed.
At the same time, the four steel arms extending from his back spread out toward the sky in a fan shape.
A wave of invisible, massive Magnetic Force swept over the sky.
Crunch! Crack!
Bizarre sounds of metal tearing rang through the battlefield.
The trajectory of the Clockwork Wasps pouring down over Sun Quan's head was twisted.
Drawn by the powerful magnetic field, the wasps began to collide and tangle with each other.
Bang! Boom!
A primary induced explosion occurred in mid-air.
But Sun Quan did not let the debris of the explosion fall to the floor.
Moving his fingers like a conductor, he kept the burning lumps of scrap metal floating above his head.
"Weld."
Blue sparks from an Arcane Arc Welder flew from the tips of Sun Quan's steel arms.
Zzzzzzt―!
Hundreds of tons of scrap metal paused in the air melted and fused together in an instant.
The wreckage of Clockwork Wasps, the torn armor of Iron-Mask soldiers, and broken gun barrels merged into one.
It was a giant Steel Umbrella.
Bang! Kwaaa-bang!
The subsequent waves of wasps poured down onto the umbrella.
But the more they exploded, the more their debris was drawn in by the magnetic force, only adding to the thickness of the umbrella.
Finally, a crimson
Outside the dome was a hellscape where explosions and screams ran rampant, but inside the dome, it was eerily quiet.
The only sounds were the hissing of red-hot iron cooling down and the rough breathing of the surviving soldiers.
Hiss―
The smoke cleared, and a single ray of light entering through a crack in the dome reflected off Sun Quan's glasses.
Sun Quan gazed numbly up at the hideous ceiling made of enemy corpses and mechanical fragments covering his head.
"Your corpses are my shield. Go ahead, pour down more."
It was then.
KOOOOOOOOM―!!!
A heavy vibration, incomparable to the bombardment he had just blocked, shook the ground.
It was a sound coming from outside the dome, from the center of the battlefield.
Sun Quan turned his head urgently.
"...Father?"
His gaze turned toward the exit of the dome.
An ominous premonition was knocking on the cold engineer's heart.