Omniscient First-Person's Viewpoint - Chapter 362

WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Chapter 362: The King Who Kills Others, the God Who Kills Himself - 20

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Hundreds of mounts raced across the barren wasteland, kicking up thick clouds of dust. Their destination, through all that noise and dust, was the Golden Palace.

After several transformations, the Golden Palace now looked more like a true palace. A fortress surrounded by thick walls stood in the empty plains. Not even the smallest gap showed in those towering walls, while birds with steel wings circled the pointed spires.

The seemingly impregnable fortress was moving.

It was hard to believe, but it was no slower than the nimble jackals.

"More! Push it harder!"

Hecto increased the output further and urged the others on.

Their objective was to create a distraction, but at this rate, they would struggle even to get close. They needed another approach.

Seeing the jackals following behind, the Suppression Lord picked up speed. Leaving even their own subordinates behind, they operated the Juggernaut and brought out a cannon.

"Lord of Gold! If you truly intend to abandon the Lesser States!"

Hecto used innate arcane instead of gunpowder, and the longer the barrel, the more power it could produce. That was why the Suppression Lord's cannon was Juggernaut-sized. Its barrel looked more than ten meters long as it aimed at the Lord of Gold.

"Then step over my corpse!!"

Thump.

Rather than an explosion, it sounded as though someone had struck a drum. Hecto's shell flew straight toward the Golden Palace, but it did not strike directly. The instant it touched the Golden Palace, it was absorbed as though sinking into water.

The attack had failed, but one thing was certain. Hecto had drawn his attention.

As if in response, something abruptly rose from the Golden Palace, smashing through a window. It was a cannon dozens of times larger and longer than Hecto's, as though displaying the difference in their class.

Something like that could not possibly exist. A barrel that long should have bent beneath its own weight.

Yet the Lord of Gold could alchemize even a cannon that should only be possible in theory.

Then it could fire, too. Hecto gave an urgent order.

"Everyone, evade!!"

Just before the shell was fired, Hecto sharply turned the controls. They had not seen it coming and dodged. They had simply sensed danger and moved a beat early.

Hecto proved that surviving this long had not been luck.

The instant a shockwave burst from the barrel, a faint line flashed through the air, and the ground where Hecto had been shattered like glass.

It was too large to call a shell. An iron ball nearly a meter in diameter arrived faster than the blast itself. It broke even the solid earth apart, causing a localized earthquake.

The aftershock alone made the Juggernaut stagger. A direct hit would kill anyone instantly.

The jackals following far behind Hecto were struck by the shockwave and reeled. Some slipped and rolled across the ground. Having witnessed the Lord of Gold's terrifying might, they screamed at once.

"You never said anything about this!"

"This is insane! Run!"

The terrified jackals turned around. Hundreds of people who had been racing toward the Lord of Gold scattered in every direction.

They moved like a disorganized mob, but that was better.

If they carelessly approached the Lord of Gold, they and their mounts would be alchemized into something else entirely. Since they had spread out while keeping their distance, the Lord of Gold's attention was divided as well. The cannon muzzle lost its target and wavered.

Only for a moment.

The muzzle opened wide like a trumpet. Inside was a black sphere similar to the one used earlier in the city.

Grapeshot.

He intended to sweep away every jackal in a rain of steel.

"Haaaaah!"

Hecto drew on every bit of strength they had.

Their power was suppression, the force used to hammer steel. Their innate arcane shoved the black sphere back into the barrel. The bomb that had been about to leave the muzzle was forced backward by Hecto's power.

'I never thought the Lord of Gold cared for the Lesser States. The place he truly loved was the Golden Kingdom. Still, I, who served at his side... I believed the two might be the same. I had no basis for it.'

There were limits to Hecto's power. The force they applied could only reshape metal through hammering.

Compared to that, the Lord of Gold's power was close to limitless.

Hecto tried to force the shell back while the Lord of Gold tried to fire it. Their powers contended briefly before the balance collapsed. The shell that had nearly been forced down the barrel sprang back out. The pitch-black shell floated in the air, ready to explode and pour out grapeshot at any moment.

"Hngh... Nghhhhh!"

Hecto desperately suppressed the bomb just before it exploded. Interrupted at the last moment, the shell lost much of its force.

Boom.

Still, it was far smaller than before. Steel fragments scattered across a much narrower area than when they had blanketed the city. Even the slowest jackals could see them coming and evade.

- But Hecto had barely managed to stop a single shell.

They had spent all their strength, ingenuity, and even luck to stop only one of the Lord of Gold's shells.

New cannons broke through the walls above and below the first. Nine new cannons appeared. The terrifying cannons aimed at Hecto and the jackals behind them.

Even if they had been hastily made, cannons created by the Lord of Gold could easily take hundreds of human lives. Hecto calmly finished their assessment.

'Ah. I'm finished.'

It was impossible. Hecto's power was only enough to deal with one cannon the Lord of Gold had casually made. If the Lord of Gold acted personally, Hecto would be broken apart like a toy.

'I need to run, even now. At least then I might save my life. My life...'

Hecto sank into thought for a brief moment.

Alchemy and metallurgy could not be separated. Even if one changed a material's composition, some physical intervention was needed to forge it into the desired shape. Not every alchemist was the Lord of Gold.

Hecto had been a craftsman who handled that work. Born without legs, they walked on their two arms instead, and their arm strength had grown stronger than anyone else's. Hecto hammered and bent iron plates with strength and skill.

Even renowned alchemists sought Hecto's help at important moments. Hecto had developed some pride in their work and, when things were going well, had even looked down on alchemists.

One day, the Formation Lord, who had taken an interest in Hecto and watched them, brought them before the Lord of Gold to correct their arrogance.

There, Hecto saw a god.

The god of the Lesser States, who alone gave form to the world.

'...The Celestial God, the Earth Mother. Their names are grand, but no one has actually seen them. Yet a god truly exists in the Lesser States. A god greater, more powerful, and more human than something like the Celestial God.'

Having gained that realization, Hecto became a Lord. Chosen as the Lord of Gold's guardian after the Formation Lord, they devoted their entire life to serving him. Alongside the Golden Lord, Hecto looked after the Lord of Gold and guided him to make the things the nation needed.

To be blunt, the Lord of Gold was no more than a puppet of the two Lords...

Yet Hecto had genuinely revered the Lord of Gold.

At the last moment, rather than turning away, Hecto removed Steel Heart's limiter.

The Juggernaut entered a self-destructive runaway state.

The engine screamed as it vibrated. The wheels spun uselessly against the ground as their rotation speed rose sharply. Hecto used the power of suppression to press the Juggernaut down against the ground. The spinning wheels dug into the ground and accelerated even further.

"...Here I go."

The runaway mode had been made by the Lord of Gold for amusement. It could no longer be stopped. It would continue accelerating until it hit something and Hecto's body was torn to pieces.

Hecto turned themself into a massive bullet and charged toward the Golden Palace. Dozens of gun muzzles and cannon barrels sprang from the Golden Palace and aimed at them, but Hecto paid them no mind as they gripped the shaking controls even tighter.

It did not matter whether they fired or not. The moment the Juggernaut began running wild, Hecto was as good as dead.

And whether Hecto died no longer mattered, because their intended goal had already been achieved.

Hecto had clearly drawn his attention.

Their rampage was not threatening to the Lord of Gold, but it was loud and intense enough that he could not spare much attention for the approaching mound of earth.

Still, even the Lord of Gold could not have predicted that the hill would split open and a ship would burst from within.

"The operation succeeded! Verdigris Lord, charge!"

The Golden Ark surged forward as it skimmed over the rippling ground. In place of a figurehead, the regressor stood on its deck with Jizan in hand. At the point where the Golden Ark and Golden Palace would collide, she stood in the most dangerous place in the world and swung Jizan wide.

A tactic unprecedented in human history unfolded: an ironclad ship ramming a castle.

"Earth Staff Style, Great Severance!"

Just before the two massive bodies collided, the regressor split the Golden Palace's walls. No matter how sturdy those walls were, Jizan, carrying the weight of the earth, tore them apart through sheer mass.

The Golden Ark rammed itself into the crack Jizan had carved into the wall.

Kraaaack, crunch.

The steel ship became a sharp blade and gouged into the Golden Palace. Crushed stone rained down, while steel crumpled into hideous wrinkles. The line infantry caught between those overwhelming forces suffered a terrible tragedy.

The steel behemoths tore at each other. Debris crumbled by Verdigris rose like a spray of blood. The two Juggernauts, neither of which had ever encountered something larger than itself, roared fiercely at the appearance of an equal rival.

The walls surrounding the Golden Palace were sturdier than steel, but they were still an alchemically made body. Perru's Golden Ark was an icebreaker that melted and crushed every obstacle before it. Gradually, the Golden Ark ate into the Golden Palace and burrowed deeper within.

Even amid that, the regressor, barely maintaining her balance at the center of it all, looked back at the Golden Ark and shouted.

"Good! Verdigris Lord, keep going like this!"

As if responding, the Golden Ark pushed harder. It scraped across the ground and dug deeper, as though trying to enter the Golden Palace itself...

Until half its hull had gone inside.

"Father?"

"Yes?"

Hilde, who was driving while carrying me, pointed ahead.

"Is that really right? It looks like it's getting eaten, you know~?"

"Well, if you put it nicely, it's digging in well."

Put it badly...

It was getting swallowed whole.

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