Ashen Dragon

"Boom——"

As the steel gates of August City slowly rose, accompanied by heavy footsteps, massive Steel Golems emerged, charging towards the giant armor outside the barrier.

The Steel Golem roared, the alchemy matrix on it glowing brightly, as it swung its iron fist, smashing hard towards the giant armor before it.

However, the giant armor extended its left arm with a Force Field Giant Shield to block the heavy punch, while its right arm's Elemental Cannon shot a blinding Pillar of Fire, piercing through the Steel Golem's abdomen in an instant, destroying the intricate and complex alchemy matrix within.

From behind the giant armor, hundreds of missiles launched, bombarding the Steel Golems one after another, leaving them charred black and furiously roaring in anger.

Quickly, one of the Steel Golems also targeted the giant armor's head, unleashing a punch that smashed the alloy-made head into scrap metal, causing the giant armor to collapse, with its pilot crushed into a bloody pulp.

"Boom! Boom!"

These colossal beings wrestled together, with their steel-forged fists and alloy-made hammer punches interlocking, causing the city walls to tremble and the ground to crack.

However, the Steam Tanks and the Imperial Army were not entirely useless in this war, constantly pulling the trigger and raining bullets, drilling countless tiny holes in the Steel Golems' bodies.

"By Amanata—look there, what is that?"

"God, oh God..."

Suddenly, a Portal slowly opened, and a massive shadow stretching 200 meters appeared in the distant sky, like a floating fortress—this was the flagship of the Ashen Empire's Third Airship Legion, the Istalia.

This airship harnessed Hell technology provided by Piere, powered by twelve Hellfire Furnaces in parallel, with gear assemblies converting the heat energy of magma into Pulse Magic for driving rune pistons, and the steam valve-spewed exhaust forming a sulfuric cloud storm.

But most terrifying of all was its destructive weapon—a "Annihilation Throat" class Magic-guided Orbital Bombardment Cannon in its belly.

This thirty-meter-long heavy cannon was entirely black, covered in menacing spikes, with a hexagon-shaped barrel cast from Purgatory Black Iron, embedded with seventeen layers of arcane rune coatings, each shot consuming energy ore worth ten thousand gold coins.

This was currently the Empire's most destructive and lethal weapon, appearing on the battlefield with only one purpose—to breach August City!

"Buzz——"

At this moment, the cannon's dark barrel was aiming at August City, releasing incredibly dazzling light from within.

The mere energy fluctuations emanating from it caused the winds to rise and sweep across the surrounding two dozen miles, with dust storming the earth, even warping and folding space around it.

Gazing at the light at the cannon's mouth, even Wilhelm, hovering above the Sun Tower, snapped his eyes wide open, his voice filled with fury: "Stop them!"

"For Thrace!"

"For Amanata! Destroy that heavy cannon!"

In an instant, the Angel Divine Descendants surrounding the Sun Tower let out war cries, wielding burning Longswords, spreading their wings, and diving down with a piercing whistling sound.

Tierna charged at the forefront, her eyes emitting divine light as she raised the Judgement Longsword, commanding the many Angel Divine Descendants.

"Roar——"

Under Stieg's roar, the Sub-dragons surged forward like dark clouds and spreading tides, eager to block the Angel Divine Descendants' offensive.

Clearing out the Sub-dragons obstructing them.

"His Majesty Wilhelm will grant you death!"

The Angel Divine Descendants trailed golden light, streaking across the sky like stars, attacking the distant Istalia.

"Sin Souls consumed, our lord eternal."

On the gunpowder smoke-filled wasteland, the Commander in a dark gray uniform stood atop a steam tank. His eyebrows, sharp as swords, slanted to his temples, his coal-dusted knuckles gripping a brass telescope tightly, his gaze piercing through the rolling purple mist like a tempered steel blade. A scar slashing his left eyebrow flexed with his facial muscles as the telescope lens reflected the rising ghostly blue runes within the Magic Army's formation.

Three hundred yards away, a Silver-armored Mage raised a Magic Wand embedded with Blood Amber, cold light bursting from peach blossom eyes under a hood's shadow. As the industrial army's mortar formation began loading, the Mage's long eyelashes quivered, and the wand's tip suddenly exploded into hexagonal Ice Crystals, while twelve Spellcasters behind simultaneously slashed their palms, blood coagulating into scarlet chains in the air.

The steam tank's exhaust pipe spewed sulfur-colored thick smoke, treads crushing frost-covered gravel. The loader's burn-scarred muscular right arm thrust a 200mm Armor-piercing bullet into the chamber, coinciding with a Flame Dragon's eruption from the Magic Array's center, tearing through the morning mist. The young gunner's pupils contracted, sweat sliding down his nose as he saw the Dragonflame reflected on the ice pellets condensed on his eyelashes through the scope.

A communications officer with bronze goggles suddenly yanked off his headset, a burn-scarred thumb pressing on the telegraph. His dark brown pupils reflected the command center's sand table—the tin figurines representing the Third Infantry Regiment being swallowed by crimson mist. An unsaid warning stuck in his throat, while emerald lightning exploded outside the observation tower's bulletproof glass.

The heavy machine gun positions fell into an eerie silence, the shooter's calloused index finger still tightly on the trigger. His pupils reflected a bizarre sight: bullets in the brass belt rusting into powder at a visible rate, while a hundred meters away, an enemy Priest with a bone-white shield, whose veiled face had autumn water eyes flowing with dark green light.

"Soul contract holder, your family may avoid mine labor."

Forty-seven thousand prisoners of war and criminals were dragged by iron chains into the foundry, their flesh cast into the "Annihilation Throat" base—a forbidden union of the School of Necromancy and mechanical engineering. Whenever the cannon barrel overheated, its surface would manifest twisted human faces wailing, which engineers called a "living cooling system."

The "Phase Acceleration Track" carved on the cannon's inner wall was based on the fossil structure of the ancient dragon "Odin's" spine. The Empire bought off the Red Dragon Queen with 200,000 gold coins, obtaining fluids for marrow etching from her offspring. When the liquid Dragon Bone was injected into the grooves, the entire test site echoed with Dragon Soul shrieks, with seven operators' brains boiling on the spot.

The Elf Kingdom Aislan's National Guardian Barrier, the "Jade Veil," essentially folded the entire capital into a Phase Maze between the star realm and reality. The roots of seven Holy Trees delved deep into Spirit Veins, with dawn Holy Crystal Stones suspended atop their canopies, continuously absorbing sunlight and converting to energy for the barrier. High Priest Erin Vier once assured her people: "No physical weapon can penetrate a defense in a multidimensional superposition state."

They underestimated the Empire's understanding of "Laws."

"Load the Void Collapse Bomb!" Cannon Chief Glenn Hawk's voice drowned out by steam valve bursts. Inside the ammunition chamber, a three-ton dark purple Crystal Core was pushed into the cannon by hydraulic arms, its surface wrapped in vein-like Secret Silver Net emitting a sickly glow. This was the "Void Seed," obtained by trading 300 Star Realm Caravan captives, the warhead imprisoning torn fragments of small-dimensional Shards.

"Gravity Distortion Field charging 90%... Hellfire Furnace overload warning!" the Adjutant stared at the dials on the instrument panel. Marta personally cut off the safety valve: "Let those weeping Elves witness true chaos aesthetics!"

0.03 seconds after the shell touched the barrier, the resonance frequency of the Holy Crystal Stone was violently altered. In the Central Temple, Erin Vier witnessed the collapse of her lifelong belief—as the jade-energy web was "deconstructed" on a mathematical level, as if an axe had split lace embroidery. The Phase Maze's structural formula was contaminated by the Void Collapse Bomb's "Fake God Code," with every inch of space fracturing into mutually exclusive geometric paradoxes.

"Quick, sever the Spirit Vein connection!" Erin Vier shouted, but the Holy Tree roots had already deeply integrated with the earth vein's neural network. The National Guardian Barrier transformed from a defense device into a massive bomb, with millennia-accumulated magic power pouring reversely into the crust through cracks. The last image she saw was the palace spire twisting into a Möbius strip in dimensional turbulence, with Elf children imprinted into non-Euclidean space before they could evaporate.