The treads of the first tank crushed the soil of the Imperial Capital.
The exit of the underground passage was an abandoned merchant guild warehouse. The wooden doors had long since rotted, and the iron bolts had been rusted shut for years. As the tank's prow slammed into them, the door panels, along with the brick walls on both sides, collapsed. Debris smashed against the armor, wood chips flying everywhere.
A second tank followed closely behind. Then a third, a fourth... Before the light of the blue teleportation array had even faded, the tanks were emerging one after another from beneath the earth. The vibration of their engines traveled through the foundations, making the ground tremble for two hundred meters around the warehouse.
Lin Yuan stood atop the lead tank's turret. He pushed open the commander's hatch and leaned out.
The eastern outskirts of the Imperial Capital.
The afternoon sun hit the armor, reflecting sharp white glints. Outside the warehouse lay a wasteland covered in waist-high withered grass. Three kilometers ahead, the outer wall of Saint Laurent City stretched across the horizon.
Imperial flags hung from the greyish-white stone walls, snapping loudly in the wind.
Lin Yuan raised his binoculars and scanned the area.
The East Gate of the outer city. Two massive steel doors, twenty meters high, stood half-open. Inside the gateway, two squads of guards were changing shifts. Their movements were sluggish; their spears leaned against the walls while several men huddled in the shadows of the gateway, playing cards.
Atop the walls, things were even more disorganized. Archers sat in clusters behind the battlements, soaking up the sun. One had even stripped off his shirt and was scrubbing grime off his skin.
Not a single soul was looking toward the eastern outskirts.
Lin Yuan lowered his binoculars.
"Full battalion, deploy. Wedge formation."
A hundred tanks filed out, quickly forming up outside the ruins. Their armored hulls glinted coldly in the sunlight, and white steam trailed from their exhausts like long ribbons in the wind. Two echelons unfolded, pointing like a steel arrowhead directly at the East Gate.
Grenadiers leaped down from their positions behind the tanks, forming skirmish lines on the flanks. Three thousand men, their iron boots crunching through the dry grass with a rhythmic sh-sh-sh sound.
Qian Duoduo stuck his head out from the back seat of the third tank, his face pale.
"Brother Yuan, are we really just gonna—"
"Get in."
Lin Yuan didn't look at him.
Qian Duoduo shrank back into the vehicle and pulled the hatch shut, his knuckles white as he gripped the rim.
Lin Yuan slapped the armor plating on top of the turret.
"All units, hear my command."
The engines of a hundred tanks revved in synchronization. A low-frequency tremor filled the air.
"Target: Outer City East Gate. No parley, no stopping, no engagement. Smash your way in."
Lin Yuan raised his hand and pressed it forward.
"Run them over."
The treads churned through the withered grass, plowing countless deep furrows. A hundred tanks moved as one. The vibration rippled out from the eastern wasteland toward Saint Laurent City in concentric circles.
On the outer wall, a dozing guard was jolted awake by the shaking.
He thought it was an earthquake. The capital had seen a few minor tremors over the years; they were never a big deal. He rolled over, intending to go back to sleep.
The man next to him slapped his shoulder.
"Look over there."
The guard rubbed his eyes and sat up, looking in the direction his companion was pointing.
In the eastern wasteland, the horizon had been severed by a black line. That line was advancing, drawing closer and closer.
The black line turned into a row of blocks. The blocks turned into massive steel monsters.
"What... what is that?"
No one answered him.
Every guard on the wall stood up. The one who had been scrubbing his skin froze in place, his towel falling to his feet. The card players let their cards scatter across the stone.
A hundred black iron boxes in a wedge formation were charging toward the East Gate at full speed. From the top of each box protruded a thick pipe, all aimed—
Directly at the gate.
The guard captain finally snapped out of it. He lunged for the edge of the wall, screaming at the top of his lungs toward the gateway below.
"Close the gate! Close the city gate!"
The soldiers changing shifts in the gateway scrambled to push the half-open steel doors. The twenty-meter-high panels were incredibly heavy. Eight men hung onto the winch of the door axis, cranking it with everything they had.
The doors moved.
Excruciatingly slowly.
The lead tank was a thousand meters from the gate.
Lin Yuan glanced down at the system radar. The gate was closing; the progress was at about thirty percent.
"Lead vehicle," Lin Yuan tapped the armor beneath his feet.
The sound of mechanical gears grinding came from inside the turret. The cannon barrel slowly leveled, locking onto the closing steel gate.
"Single round."
The loader shoved a 120mm HE-AP (High-Explosive Armor-Piercing) shell into the breech. The breech-block slammed shut.
"Fire."
BOOM.
A two-meter flame erupted from the muzzle. The tank lurched backward violently, its treads digging deep ruts into the ground.
The shell crossed the thousand-meter distance in an instant.
The moment it struck the gate, the enchantment runes on the panels flared. The blue patterns glowed for half a second before shattering from the point of impact. Cracks spider-webbed outward with a sharp snapping sound as blue fragments fell away in sheets.
Then came the explosion.
The twenty-meter steel gate blew apart from the center. The impact shredded the door panels, sending iron shards and stone debris flying for over a hundred meters. The gatehouse above collapsed halfway, stone bricks and wooden beams crashing down.
The eight soldiers pushing the gate were vaporized instantly.
The guards on the wall were shell-shocked.
One shot.
One shot had obliterated the gate of the Imperial Capital.
No one ordered a counterattack; no one blew the horn. The archers didn't even pick up their bows; they stood behind the battlements, their legs shaking.
The tanks didn't slow down.
The column entered in single file, surging through the breach of the destroyed gate. Their treads crushed the stone slabs of the gateway and rolled over scattered iron and brick with a deafening, rhythmic crunching.
The main boulevard of the outer city.
A forty-meter-wide bluestone road lined with three-story shops and residences.
As the tank battalion surged onto the boulevard, there were still pedestrians on the street. An old man carrying a vegetable pole saw the first tank roar around the corner; he dropped his load and scrambled into an alley.
A woman holding a child froze in the middle of the road.
A grenadier ran up, hauled her to the side, and shoved her into the nearest shop doorway. He didn't say a word before turning back to join the ranks.
The tanks did not stop.
The roar of the engines echoed through the narrow streets, vibrating the windows of the buildings on both sides. Several panes of glass shattered from the resonance.
Every door along the street was slamming shut—wooden doors, iron grates—a frantic cacophony of banging.
Behind the windows on the second and third floors, faces were huddled together, peeking out from behind the frames.
A hundred black steel monsters, forming a long line, were grinding past their front doors.
There were no flags, no horns, not even the neighing of horses.
There was only the sound of treads crushing stone and the unrelenting roar of engines.
Three thousand infantry followed behind the vehicles.
The soldiers' faces were expressionless. Their steel helmets were pulled low over their brows, revealing only the lower half of their faces. Their march was unnervingly synchronized—three thousand pairs of iron boots hitting the ground and lifting at the exact same time. With every step, loose pebbles in the road gaps were jolted into the air.
A child peeking from a windowsill was yanked back by his father.
"Don't look!"
Lin Yuan glanced at the system radar. The signal for the city defense force's mobilization had only just begun to flash—two minutes later than Lin Yuan had estimated.
Four minutes after the East Gate was blown sky-high, the urgent sound of a horn finally drifted from the direction of the inner city. The horn sounded twice before cutting off abruptly—the bugler had seen the endless line of tanks and dropped the horn from his hands.
Three patrol units were encountered along the way.
The first, a thirty-man squad, ran into the lead tank at an intersection. The captain raised his spear and screamed for them to stop. Before he could finish his sentence, the tank brushed past him. The wind pressure knocked him to the ground. By the time he scrambled up, twenty vehicles had already passed.
No one shot at him.
He wasn't on the target list.
The system radar showed only one red dot.
Lin Yuan stood on the turret, the hem of his black coat flapping in the wind. He stared at that red dot on the radar screen—four kilometers away, and the distance was closing fast.
The Lin Estate.
The column turned the final corner, and the street ahead suddenly opened up.
A sprawling estate covering hundreds of acres appeared in view. The walls were five meters high, topped with iron spikes. The main gate was a magnificent purple-gold portal, featuring the Lin family crest in gilded letters that shimmered in the sun.
The plaza in front of the gate was black with people.
Five thousand Silver-rank private soldiers were drawn up in a square formation, their armor polished to a mirror finish. On the flanks were ten thousand Imperial Guards, their banners arranged in three rows.
An observation dais was set up in the center of the plaza, rising higher than the walls. Standing upon it was a middle-aged man in dark-gold armor, holding an enchanted longsword pointed toward the north.
Lin Zhentian.
He was giving a speech. An amplification spell carried his voice for half a mile.
"—The Lin family swears by its blood! Until the traitor is slain, we shall never—"
The ground began to shake.
The soldiers below felt it first. The vibration traveling up through their boots grew stronger and stronger. Some looked down at their feet, then looked around in confusion.
On the outskirts of the plaza, the Imperial nobles who had been invited by Lin Zhentian to witness the departure also sensed something was wrong. Several old men in silk robes clutched each other and backed away.
"Is it an earthquake?"
The vibrations were rhythmic. Thump. Thump. Getting closer, getting heavier.
Then, everyone heard it.
The sound coming from the south.
A low, continuous grinding of metal accompanied by a roar none of them had ever heard before.
Lin Zhentian's speech faltered.
He turned toward the south.
At the southern end of the estate walls, directly opposite the purple-gold gate, a black silhouette appeared at the end of the street.
Square. Massive. A thick pipe protruding from its top.
Then came a second, then a third... More and more black blocks surged from around the corner, filling the entire boulevard.
A hundred tanks.
Wedge formation.
The arrowhead pointed straight at the purple-gold gate.
The lead tank accelerated.
The engine shifted from cruise to a full charge, the tread speed doubling. The moment the sixty-ton steel hull hit the purple-gold gate, the panels and hinges were blown away. Shards of purple gold flew in all directions; one piece embedded itself in the steps of the dais.
The tank surged through the shattered frame.
The 120mm cannon barrel leveled, pointing directly at the man in dark-gold armor on the dais.
Fifteen thousand people in the plaza fell silent simultaneously.
Total quiet fell, save for the faint mechanical hum of the rotating turret.
Lin Zhentian's sword was still raised in mid-air. His lips moved, trying to finish his oath. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. His arm began to tremble. Inch by inch, the tip of his sword began to droop.
The turret hatch pushed open.
A young man in a black coat stood up from within.
Lin Yuan had an unlit cigar in his mouth. He pulled a match from the inner pocket of his coat and struck it. The flame flickered in the wind as he leaned in to light the cigar.
He took a puff.
The smoke drifted away in the breeze.
Lin Yuan looked up, meeting Lin Zhentian's frozen expression.
"I heard you were going to the Northern Border to kill me?"
Lin Yuan flicked the matchstick away. It tumbled twice in the air before landing on the stone floor of the plaza, the flame extinguished.
"Don't go to all that trouble."
Lin Yuan took the cigar out of his mouth, holding it between two fingers as he gestured toward Lin Zhentian.
"I've delivered myself to your door."