Free Web NovelFrederick's right hand had already instinctively reached out—
His fingertips were less than an arm's length away from that dark, pulsing sphere.
He could even feel the heat radiating from the core, a searing heat that burned the soul, not the skin.
Victory was within reach.
It was practically there for the taking.
Then—the incarnation of destruction moved.
A precise, deliberate, long-planned tactical maneuver.
Its left arm snapped back from the right side.
That tower shield, which had been 'protecting the damaged right shoulder', moved with a speed and force entirely different from before.
Sweeping inward from the outside, like a pair of massive steel jaws snapping shut, heading straight for Frederick's waist.
Like a hunter eagerly closing the trap.
Frederick's pupils constricted sharply.
In that split second, a terrifying thought pierced his mind—
It was intentional?!
The opening at the right shoulder was deliberately exposed.
Moving the tower shield to the right side was a deliberate action.
The exposed breastplate—was it bait?
From the very beginning, from the moment it 'instinctively' moved the tower shield to the injured shoulder—
It was waiting.
Waiting for someone to throw themselves into this open embrace.
It could think.
It could set traps.
It would sacrifice the integrity of its right shoulder armor for a chance to lure the enemy into a deathtrap!
This wasn't 'block when threatened, counterattack when sensing an attack'.
This was—tactical deception!
Damn it, Margaret was wrong!
This thing doesn't just have combat instincts!
This thing isn't even Iron Wall Clausewitz!
Iron Wall Clausewitz would never stoop to using such underhanded tricks!
Frederick tried to pull his hand back.
But all his strength was spent on the previous charge; his body was still embedded in the shattered breastplate of the incarnation of destruction, utterly unable to move.
His legs felt like lead, every muscle twitching from the backlash after the Path of the Chariot had burned out.
Time seemed to slow down.
He saw the shield getting closer and closer.
Saw the pure, absolute, all-rejecting black on its surface.
Saw his own distorted reflection in that blackness—a man with severe burn scars on his face, hand still outstretched, as if reaching for a star he could never grasp.
He had done it.
He, this coward, had truly broken through that breastplate.
But that breastplate had been waiting to be broken through from the start.
What he had breached was not a defensive line, but the entrance to a trap.
Frederick closed his eyes.
However, the expected agony of being cut in half by a speeding steam locomotive did not arrive.
A cold, strong, and utterly unfeeling hand suddenly grabbed the collar of his uniform from behind.
'Go!'
It was a voice so low it was almost inaudible.
Reinhardt.
The gloomy youth had somehow managed to sneak up to the feet of the incarnation of destruction.
With a powerful yank, he pulled Frederick bodily out of the shattered breastplate.
But that black tower shield was too fast.
The wind it stirred had already shredded the hem of Frederick's school uniform.
In the face of absolute power and size, this level of evasion was /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ utterly meaningless.
It was a devastating sweep covering the entire sector.
At this critical moment, Reinhardt's free left hand suddenly crushed the dark golden card on his chest.
'Crack!'
It was the sound of paper tearing, yet it drowned out everything amidst the howling wind and snow.
A dark golden light screen, dense to the point of being tangible, instantly unfurled, like an inverted bowl, tightly encasing Reinhardt and Frederick within it.
'Boom—!!!'
The tower shield slammed heavily into the light screen.
The air in the entire basin seemed to have been sucked dry by this blow.
The dark golden light screen trembled violently, countless fine cracks crawling across the entire barrier within half a second.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
The light screen shattered precisely at the third second, dissolving into a sky full of swirling golden fragments.
But the terrifying impact force had already been neutralized by ninety percent.
The remaining shockwave sent the two flying like kites with severed strings, sliding dozens of meters across the thick snow before crashing heavily against a massive piece of mecha wreckage.
'Pfft—!'
Frederick spat out a mouthful of blood, feeling as if all his bones had been rearranged.
Reinhardt was in worse shape. To maintain the directional defense of the card, he had taken the final impact head-on. He now lay pale-faced in a snow pit, his carving knife fallen not far away, his always cold eyes now bloodshot.
'Not... over yet...'
Reinhardt rasped out a warning.
The incarnation of destruction did not stop because its trap had failed.
On the contrary, it became even more dangerous—a certain hidden, cold, and orderly killing intent was released at this moment.
The black mecha brought the tower shield back to its chest, once again protecting the shattered breastplate and the exposed core.
Then it raised high the dark red greatsword in its right hand. The light on the blade surged at this moment, dyeing the surrounding wind and snow an ominous crimson.
It was going to settle the score.
If the trap didn't kill the prey, then crush it in the most direct way.
Margaret was half-kneeling in the distance, her breathing completely ragged.
To create an opening for Frederick earlier, she had nearly drained all the power she could mobilize in this void realm.
She had kept only the last shred, reserved for shattering the core.
But now, this shred of power was certainly not enough to pierce through the tower shield.
'Damn it...'
Gritting her teeth, her fingertips trembled as she tried to gather the last bit of light, but the originally pale golden magician's power was now as thin and weak as a candle flame about to go out.
This misjudgment was too fatal!
This sword strike had locked onto Frederick and Reinhardt's positions.
It was a large-scale destructive attack, the purest expression of the Path of the Tower.
There was no avoiding it now!
However, at the very moment the greatsword was about to descend— ƒrēewebnovel.com
'Bang—!!!'
A heavy, resonant gunshot, carrying the sound of metal impact, exploded from the hillside above the basin.
Only a high-caliber anti-materiel rifle for mechas, 100mm or larger, could produce such a roar!
A crimson streak of light tore through the curtain of snow, carrying nearly insane kinetic energy, and struck precisely the spine of the greatsword the incarnation of destruction was about to swing down.
'Clang—!!!'
Sparks flew!
The sword was knocked off course mid-air.
The terrifying kinetic energy caused the massive body of the incarnation of destruction to sway involuntarily. The greatsword, capable of cleaving mountains, slammed heavily into the ground three meters away from Frederick and Reinhardt.
The shockwave sent the two tumbling again, but this was far better than being cleaved into paste.
'?!'
Margaret whipped her head around, looking in the direction the bullet had come from.
On the ridgeline at the basin's edge, sharpened by wind and snow like a knife's edge, a figure was slowly emerging.
Wind and snow swirled at that person's feet.
It was a girl.
Though covered in wounds, she exuded an indescribable, dashing aura.
She wore an ill-fitting Usar Union mecha pilot's uniform.
A dark gray, heavy, and coarse cold-weather jacket.
The originally baggy military trousers were tightly cinched around her legs with several black belts.
The sleeves of the jacket were rolled up high, revealing slender forearms wrapped in white bandages.
Most striking was the gun on her shoulder.
It was indeed a heavy firearm intended for mechas.
The two-meter-long barrel was propped on a rock, the stock braced against her shoulder. That super-heavy weapon, which should have been supported by hydraulic mounts, looked in her hands like a light, long rod.
Her silver short hair danced wildly in the wind, even stained with some red, like a flickering flame in a dead gray world.
Leaning on the gun barrel, her crimson eyes looked down imperiously upon the devastation at the bottom of the basin.
'Sorry, everyone.'
She spoke.
Her voice was clear, carrying a lazy drawl characteristic of a seasoned battlefield veteran.
'I made myself look pretty pathetic earlier, so I took a little time, washed up, changed clothes.'
'Am I too late?'
As she spoke, she expertly worked the bolt of that giant sniper rifle.
A huge, still-smoking shell casing ejected from the chamber, landing on the snow with a crisp 'clink'.
