Maximilien took a deep breath, steadying himself. Mentally, he chewed over my words, while physically, he wrestled with his broken body. The gears within him, which had been in disarray, slowly realigned themselves.

His joints creaked as they resumed functioning. The blood that was lacking flowed to his head, and the foggy, blurred reasoning in his mind began to flicker back to life.

"Did I try to become a god?"

Maximilien let out a small, mocking laugh, which immediately triggered a headache. He was now in such a state that even his own breath could harm him. Despite his body's devastation, his thoughts never ceased. Tick, tock. The gear at the center of Maximilien's mind slowly turned.

"I've never believed in gods. Since the moment I was born without arms, I never relied on something unseen, not for a single moment. What sustained me were my prosthetics, and what led me was alchemy. No god has ever watched over me. It has only ever been me."

No matter how deadly the crisis, his brain never stopped working. It wasn’t a matter of willpower; it was a matter of function. Maximilien had implanted gears into his brain.

The small mechanical device he called the "thinking gear" didn’t think for him, despite its name. If anything, it was closer to a whip for his brain.

It forcefully pumped blood into his brain, squeezing it. The parts of his mind that complained of fatigue were shut down, and emotions and reasoning were reconnected only when necessary. As a result, even if he was exhausted, hungry, or in pain, his brain didn’t slow down. Neither fear, anger, nor confusion could disrupt his thoughts. Even when the King of Beasts roared, his body would still move, and even the princess’s authority would be ignored. He would act, even if it meant treading close to the forbidden.

With this, Maximilien had earned the right.

A right to move solely according to his own will, unbound by fate or limitations.

"…You’re wrong, King of Humans. I don’t need to become a god."

"I am already the god of my own life!"

Maximilien exercised his earned right. According to his will, he extended his grotesquely exposed prosthetic arm.

"All I ever wanted was to give others a chance! To those who lacked it, a chance to become the masters of their own lives!"

Even though his body was in shambles, as long as he had the will, he could use his unique magic. Maximilien focused his mind, and the halted gears all began turning again.

The Steel Beetle, long silent, twisted its body. Until now, I had suppressed it, but now that I had stepped back, nothing was stopping the Steel Beetle. It groaned as it attempted to unleash its remaining power, power that even the King of Dogs couldn’t overpower.

But that was it.

"The word 'right' sounds nice, but don’t you think you’re twisting it to your advantage? In summary, weren’t you just trying to implant gears into other people’s bodies?"

I shrugged.

The Steel Beetle’s attempt to stretch was halted with a creak. If machines could experience full-body paralysis, that’s exactly what this would look like. The massive weapon twitched miserably, unable to use any of its great strength.

Maximilien tried multiple times to move the Steel Beetle, but he failed just as many times. The exoskeleton that surrounded the Steel Beetle refused to budge.

"I simply reacted in the most ordinary way possible. What human would sit idly by while someone tried to implant gears into their body? They would resist with everything they had, not out of fear alone."

I pointed at the Steel Beetle so that Maximilien could see. Between the large gears that made up its exoskeleton, smaller gears were wedged in.

When two gears mesh well, they turn smoothly. But what happens if you try to insert a third gear so that it touches both of the well-functioning gears? When three gears mesh together, they can’t move at all.

If one gear turns clockwise, the meshing gear must turn counterclockwise—that’s the basic principle of gears. But if a third gear touches both, it would have to turn both clockwise and counterclockwise.

A contradiction.

"Look at the Steel Beetle. If there’s an odd number of gears forming a loop, it stops like that. Even with such a simple trick, gears become useless. You may be able to use them, but others can’t—or rather, won’t."

"Ugh…!"

"Give it up. You have no moves left."

Until a moment ago, he had gears to throw. He had the magic power to use his alchemy. He even had the equipment to protect his body.

That is, until Historia’s gun-sword technique (총검총의) struck him. Now, he was nothing more than a corpse with a prosthetic arm.

I walked toward him, step by step. There were a few gears scattered around, but with so few, they posed no threat. After all, gears are only useful when properly connected.

He had no means left to stop me. Any ordinary human would be crushed by his prosthetic, but unfortunately for him, his opponent was me. If my hand touched his body, I could reverse all the gears inside him using his unique magic—even the thinking gear in his head.

Maximilien’s head drooped, as if he had given up. He staggered, barely holding himself up.

Now, just two steps. That was all that remained between Maximilien and me. Just two steps from death. When those two steps were left, Maximilien grasped his right arm with his left. His prosthetic arm trembled violently. To an onlooker, it might have seemed like he was shaking in fear.

"No! I will not stop!"

Of course not. The trembling of his prosthetic arm was the last death throes before it broke. Crunch. The connection between his right arm and shoulder snapped, and Maximilien’s left arm forcibly tore off the right, his eternal rival.

Maximilien, wielding his own arm as a weapon, let out a desperate cry as he swung it.

"If I lack something, I will fill it. If it breaks, I will fix it. If it is poor, I will improve it. If it is impossible, I will make it possible! I will not stop!"

Who would ever expect someone to tear off their own arm and use it as a weapon? It was a surprise attack that exploited the gaps in my consciousness. Even wounded, Maximilien had reached the rank of a Grand Commander (육장성). The speed at which he swung his own arm was terrifying. The gears embedded in his prosthetic clashed together, as if trying to bite into me.

But I am a telepath. If it’s a carefully calculated move, I can read it clearly.

Instead of dodging his swinging left arm, I reached out to meet it. My hand was far slower than his prosthetic, but speed is relative. Before his arm could reach my face, my fingers touched it. As my hand and his prosthetic arm crossed, one of my fingernails caught on a gear.

The long, drawn-out battle ended there. Maximilien’s body froze, as if captured in a photograph.

Due to inertia, his prosthetic arm still brushed against my cheek, but that was it. Feeling the cold metal on my skin, I muttered,

"I was going to reverse all your gears and destroy you, but you managed to stop them even in that brief moment."

Just as I could stop the gears, so could he. The moment he sensed the malfunction in the gears inside his body, he halted them all.

It was the best response he could manage. But it wouldn’t change the outcome.

"Even if you stopped the gears, you can’t move with them embedded throughout your entire body. You’ve only bought yourself a few seconds before you die."

As expected, his strength drained from his body. Stopping the gears meant his body couldn’t hold itself up.

I didn’t intend to dismiss his efforts. In fact, I wanted to applaud him for squeezing out every last bit of strength. But if I let go, he would start moving again, so instead, I clapped with my mouth.

"Clap, clap, clap. You really are amazing. I’m not being sarcastic or mocking—you truly were an amazing and honest person to the very end."

Objectively speaking, it didn’t make sense for me to lose.

Aside from his prosthetic, Maximilien had filled his body with gears to strengthen it. As a result, he was extraordinarily durable, capable of matching even those who had mastered Qi Gong. He had likely avoided explaining it out of laziness, but his ability to master such intricate alchemy and dominate gears was impressive.

Thanks to that, I was in a ridiculously advantageous position. With Historia and Azi by my side, the fight was skewed in my favor from the start. No matter how strong Maximilien was as a Grand Commander, this battlefield had tipped completely. The fact that he had dragged the fight this far was entirely due to his skill.

"But your direction was too off. Those who reach the power of a demonic god naturally change others. They don’t fight against them. But you—you fought against all of humanity. Even engaging in a proxy battle with me."

While holding onto his prosthetic with one hand, I pulled out a card with the other. A diamond one, a versatile skewer. Using what little magic power I had left, I transmuted it. The familiar weight filled my palm.

I held the skewer in reverse and raised it to Maximilien’s eye level. Despite having nearly lost all consciousness, Maximilien’s bloodshot eyes instinctively tracked the skewer’s tip. Even in this state, life instinctively recognized death.

"Goodbye, Maximilien. I’ll honor your wish. I’ll remember your unfulfilled dream. Even if I can’t grant it, I’ll etch that wish into a corner of the crypt. The King of Humans acknowledges you. Maximilien, though you weren’t a god, you were a fearless warrior."

After offering him a brief eulogy, I moved my hand. The skewer pierced his temple.

I felt a sensation, a soft crunch as it hit something solid…

I tilted my head. The skewer I aimed at his head had struck something else.

A tree had grown.

A tree had sprung up from the concrete floor, blocking my skewer, its branches swaying gently.

The situation felt so surreal that, for a moment, it seemed as if the tree had always been there, and I had simply failed to notice it.

Impossible.

This was the Alchemical Nations. A land covered in concrete, a military stronghold that had long since cleared away useless trees. There was no way a tree could exist here, where earth was replaced by concrete and trees by bricks.

Even if one had existed, no tree could grow through such thick concrete in mere seconds, reaching human height!

It was undoubtedly an artificial phenomenon, someone making a tree grow to protect Maximilien. But who could do such a thing?

"Forgive me, my king."

The voice came from beneath the earth.

First, there was a sprout. Then a sapling. Within seconds, the sprout had grown into a massive tree that towered in front of me.

It was the calmest explosion in the world. A green smoke and brown fire, a natural bomb, covered me in an instant.