Hundreds of vehicles raced across the barren wasteland, kicking up a thick cloud of dust. Their thunderous noise and the swirling dirt marked their charge toward the Golden Palace.

The Golden Palace, now resembling a proper fortress after several transformations, stood on empty ground, surrounded by thick, impenetrable walls. Its towering fortifications bore no visible openings, and birds with steel wings circled its sharp spires.
This fortress, which appeared invincible, was moving. Incredibly, it matched the speed of the lightweight jackals.

“Faster! Step on it harder!”

Hecto barked orders as he pushed his output to the limit. The goal was to create a diversion, but at this rate, even approaching the target seemed impossible. A different tactic was necessary.

Seeing the jackals following behind him, Hecto accelerated further, leaving even his subordinates in the dust. Taking the lead, he manipulated his juggernaut to deploy a cannon.

“Oh, Golden Mirror! If you truly intend to abandon the Heat Nations—”

Hecto, who used his Unique Magic in place of gunpowder, knew that the longer the barrel, the more powerful the force. As a result, his cannon was massive, nearly the size of his juggernaut. A barrel over 10 meters long pointed defiantly at the Golden Palace.

“Then step over my corpse to do so!!”

Thump. Instead of an explosive roar, the sound resembled the beat of a drum. The cannonball, fired by Hecto, flew straight toward the Golden Palace but did not strike directly. As soon as it touched the palace, the cannonball was absorbed as though sinking into water.

The attack was futile, but it served its purpose—he had drawn the palace’s attention.

In response, something emerged violently from the palace’s shattered windows. It was a cannon—much larger and longer than Hecto’s. Its sheer size, dozens of times greater, seemed designed to emphasize the gap in their capabilities.

Such a monstrosity shouldn’t exist. A barrel of that length should have collapsed under its own weight. Yet, the Golden Mirror had transmuted even this theoretical impossibility into reality.

And, undoubtedly, it could fire. Hecto shouted hurriedly.

“Everyone, evade!!”

Before the cannonball was launched, Hecto yanked his steering lever sharply to the side. He wasn’t reacting to what he saw—this was pure instinct, a preemptive move born of an ominous feeling.

His survival thus far was no mere coincidence.

The moment the cannon fired, shockwaves erupted from the muzzle. Lines of force briefly shimmered before the ground where Hecto had been shattered like glass.

The projectile wasn’t merely large—it was colossal, a steel sphere with a diameter of one meter. Faster than the accompanying sound of its explosion, it smashed into the solid earth, triggering a localized earthquake.
Even the aftershock caused Hecto’s juggernaut to wobble. A direct hit would have been instant death for anyone.

The jackals following far behind Hecto were caught by the shockwave, many skidding and tumbling across the ground. Witnessing the overwhelming power of the Golden Palace, they screamed in panic.

“This wasn’t part of the deal!”
“This is insane! Run for it!”

Terrified, the jackals scattered, their once unified charge fracturing into chaos.

The disarray, however, turned out to be an advantage.

Had they approached recklessly, the Golden Mirror would have transmuted their vehicles—and their very existence—into other objects. By spreading out, they also divided the Golden Palace’s attention. The massive cannon lost its target, wavering as it searched for prey.

For a moment. Then, the cannon expanded like a trumpet. Within its mouth, a black sphere similar to the one used earlier in the city appeared.

Shrapnel. A rain of steel meant to annihilate the jackals.

“Hrrraagh!!”

Hecto poured every ounce of strength he had into his Unique Magic. His power was oppression—the ability to hammer metal into submission. Applying this force inside the cannon’s barrel, he reversed the flow of the black sphere, forcing it back. The bomb, meant to launch outward, was instead swallowed back into the cannon.

‘The Golden Mirror… I never believed it cared for the Heat Nations. Its true love was always the Golden Nation. But as someone who served at its side, I wanted to believe they were one and the same. Even if I had no reason to.’

Hecto’s power had limits. He could only hammer and shape metal to a degree. Compared to the infinite might of the Golden Mirror, his strength was finite.

The cannonball, caught between Hecto’s oppression and the Golden Mirror’s force, wavered briefly before the balance broke. Instead of launching outward, it rebounded, floating into the air. The black sphere looked ready to explode, its surface trembling with instability.

“Urrrgh…!”

Hecto suppressed it with desperate effort. The blast, though it finally erupted, was far weaker than anticipated. The steel shrapnel dispersed over a much smaller area, slow enough that even the slowest jackals could dodge it.

But Hecto’s valiant effort only neutralized a single cannonball. It had taken all his strength, wits, and luck to manage just one.

From above and below the massive cannon, nine additional barrels burst through the fortress walls, aiming squarely at Hecto and the jackals behind him.

Even if hastily constructed, anything created by the Golden Mirror could reap hundreds of lives with ease. Hecto evaluated the situation coldly.

‘Ah, I’m done for.’

It was impossible. Hecto could only hold off a single cannon from the Golden Mirror. With this many, even his juggernaut would crumble like a toy.

‘I should escape. At least I’d have a chance at survival. Survival….’

For a brief moment, Hecto hesitated.

Alchemy and metallurgy were inseparably intertwined. Even if you altered the composition of a material, physical intervention was often necessary to refine it into the desired shape. No alchemist—except the Golden Mirror—was exempt from this.

Hecto had been a craftsman who specialized in such work. Born without legs, he had developed extraordinary upper-body strength, walking with his arms. Using brute force and skill, he had hammered and folded steel. Even the most skilled alchemists relied on him for assistance at critical moments.

Then, one day, the Overseer of Casting had brought him before the Golden Mirror to humble his arrogance. That was when he witnessed a god. A god who alone sculpted the shape of the world.

‘The Heat Nations have a real god, unlike the distant deities of sky or earth. The Golden Mirror is stronger, greater, and more human than any other.’

Awakened to this truth, Hecto became an Overseer, chosen as a guardian of the Golden Mirror. His life had been one of unwavering loyalty, guiding the Golden Mirror to create what the nation needed. Though technically, the Golden Mirror was but a puppet of the two Overseers, Hecto had revered it deeply.

Now, in his final moment, instead of turning to flee, Hecto released the limiter on the Iron Heart. The juggernaut entered a self-destructive rampage.

Its engine howled, vibrating violently as its wheels spun wildly against the ground. Using his Unique Magic, Hecto pressed the juggernaut down, forcing its wheels to dig into the earth and gain traction. The vehicle accelerated, careening toward its doom.

“…Let’s go.”

The Iron Heart, now in its berserk mode—a function added by the Golden Mirror as a joke—was unstoppable. It would accelerate until it collided and shattered into pieces.

Hecto hurled himself like a massive projectile at the Golden Palace. Though dozens of cannons took aim, he gripped the shaking controls tightly and charged forward.

It didn’t matter if they fired or not. From the moment the Iron Heart went berserk, Hecto’s fate was sealed. His death was a certainty.

And yet, whether Hecto lived or died, his objective had already been achieved.

He had captured the Golden Palace’s attention.

Though his rampage posed no real threat, it was chaotic and intense enough to divert its focus. The Golden Palace failed to notice the moving hill as it split open, revealing a ship emerging from within.

“Mission success! Verdant Overseer, charge!”

The Golden Box slid across the rippling ground, rushing toward the Golden Palace. Standing on its deck, wielding Jizan, was the Regressor.

At the moment of collision between the Golden Box and the Golden Palace, the Regressor swung Jizan with immense force.

The world’s first battering-ram strategy, executed with a steel-clad ship, unfolded against the Golden Palace.

“Earthblade Style: Grand Severance!”

Just before impact, the Regressor cleaved through the fortress walls with Jizan. No matter how sturdy the walls, Jizan’s immense weight tore through them with ease.

Through the cracks in the walls, the Golden Box smashed its way inside, grinding against the fortress like a colossal blade. Rubble and twisted metal flew everywhere as the overwhelming force of the collision devastated everything caught in between.

The two colossal machines clashed, tearing into each other. Shattered debris rained down like a bloody mist. Both juggernauts roared ferociously at the appearance of a rival worthy of their might.

The walls of the Golden Palace, tougher than steel, were made of alchemy. The Golden Box, a ship designed to break through all obstacles, steadily eroded and penetrated deeper into the palace.

Balancing precariously at the center of the chaos, the Regressor looked back at the Golden Box and shouted:

“Good! Verdant Overseer, keep going!”

As if responding, the Golden Box drove further into the palace, tearing through the ground. Its hull sank deeper, almost halfway inside.

“Father?”
“Yes?”

Hilde, who was steering the ship with me aboard, pointed ahead.

“Is that… supposed to be happening? It looks like it’s being eaten~.”

“Well, if you put it nicely, it’s digging in well.”

And if you put it bluntly… it was being swallowed whole.