The moment the Data Purification Protocol activated, the cheers that had just risen from the city wall were cut short.
The fervor on the soldiers' faces quickly faded.
Below, they saw every unit in the steel tide, which had briefly fallen into chaos, return to perfect synchronization.
Uniform. Cold. Merciless.
As if Apostle Commander Richard's earth-shaking roar had been nothing more than a harmless joke.
Richard's expression darkened.
He could still feel his connection to the Altar of Wrath outside the city, but the power that had been pouring into him now flowed sluggishly.
The enemy had not struck back with brute force.
Instead, it was analyzing and disrupting him in a way he could not understand.
That unsettled him more than a direct attack would have.
"Permission Override... Data Purification..."
Richard turned the two unfamiliar phrases over in his mind, anger and confusion mingling in his Dark Gold eyes.
Just then, the hundred-meter-tall Annihilator mecha slowly raised one metal arm.
Everyone on the wall felt their heart leap into their throat.
They thought another energy blast powerful enough to vaporize the earth was about to fire.
But it did not.
The Annihilator opened its hand. In its palm was not a cannon muzzle, but an intricate honeycomb structure.
Humm—
A low vibration, almost too faint to hear.
Countless specks of light smaller than dust poured from its palm and gathered into a faintly shimmering silver cloud that drifted toward the main city.
The cloud looked harmless. It even had a strange beauty to it.
But no one on the wall dared lower their guard.
Richard summoned his Divine Might, raising a barrier of dark red flame before him to stop the silver cloud.
The cloud passed straight through the flames, utterly unaffected.
Ignoring barriers of both matter and energy,