"This is footage of the battle captured by the surveillance cameras. Please review it."
Murawski operated the Data Slate and displayed the surveillance footage to the Mad King.
Puhach's prosthetic eye turned toward the enemy forces that had slaughtered their way through the Upper Hive and were advancing straight for the Hive Spire.
When he saw the giant in the footage, his prosthetic eye flashed red.
A few seconds later, Puhach abruptly rose to his feet.
"Good! Excellent!"
Puhach swept his scarlet prosthetic eye over the crowd and spoke with disdain.
"You idiots, watch carefully. Now you will understand just how weak flesh is."
"That fool thinks himself powerful, but compared to me, with my truly perfect body, he is nothing more than a toy."
"Activate the surveillance feeds beneath the Hive Spire. You trash, open your eyes and watch."
Puhach then strode out of the palace.
Everyone let out a sigh of relief, and most of them had the same thought.
[Omnissiah above, please bless that giant with victory and let him kill the Mad King!]
The instant Puhach's elevator reached the ground, he impatiently smashed through the iron doors and charged outside the Hive Spire.
As he ran, the battlefield came into view.
Puhach discovered that his painstakingly built army of Iron Warriors, despite outnumbering the enemy several times over, held no advantage whatsoever. Instead, they were being driven back step by step.
[This defies logic.]
Light flickered in his prosthetic eye. He immediately activated the motion scanner installed in his left eye, tracking the positions of both sides across the battlefield.
Puhach first locked onto two targets: Thierry Vieira and another brawny man he did not recognize. They had plunged into his army of Iron Warriors and were utterly unstoppable.
When Puhach saw that both had been assessed as moderate threats, he lost interest in them.
He pushed the scanner to full power and finally captured the giant's movements.
The next instant, the scanner began crackling violently, and Puhach lost sight through his left eye.
"Impossible! This is impossible!"
Puhach stared at the giant with his remaining eye. Someone had exceeded the scanner's analytical limits; this lay completely beyond his understanding.
His body trembled as he strode straight toward the giant.
Puhach would never permit any existence that defied truth. The blasphemous giant had to be purified.
The moment the mechanical man emerged from the Hive Spire, Nimrod noticed him and connected him to Lukpo's Mad King.
After sweeping down a swath of enemies with his heavy halberd, Nimrod was preparing to kill the enemy leader first when Puhach unexpectedly charged toward him.
"Heretic, die!"
A droning hum, mixed with the hiss of electric current, came from Puhach's Sonic Array synthesizer.
He raised his left arm high. A 3.2-meter folding blade, shaped like a mantis limb, shot toward Nimrod's head.
Nimrod swung his arm and met it with his halberd. With a clang, the blade tip scored the halberd's shaft.
The sharp Mantis Blade, forged through repeated tempering at immense cost, gained the advantage in their clash of weapons.
The Mechanical Arm gaining the upper hand briefly silenced the crackling noise in Puhach's mind.
"Machinery is indestructible..."
His voice cut off abruptly as a tremendous force suddenly surged through the Mantis Blade.
With an explosive bang, the Mantis Blade shattered. Flying fragments shot toward several Iron Warriors rushing forward.
One blade fragment pierced an Iron Warrior's alloy armor, burst through his flesh-and-blood heart, and protruded from his back.
A spinning joint axle slammed into another man's throat, sending blood gushing out like a fountain.
"Error, all errors..."
Puhach heard the machinery's mournful wail and swung his Mechanical Arm at Nimrod.
Nimrod raised his left hand and caught the Mad King's fist.
With a powerful swing of his arm, Puhach lost control of his body and was flung into the air.
Nimrod wielded the Mad King like a Mechanical Arm. He flung him to the front left, smashing several Iron Warriors into pulp, then swung him backward and sent a mass of enemies flying.
Finding the "weapon" in his hand unexpectedly useful, he immediately charged toward the densest crowd. His left arm spun like a windmill, and enemies fell in swathes like wheat beneath the Reaping.
The Iron Warriors charged madly at Nimrod, trying to save their king, the one who had led them toward mechanical ascension.
A tide of people surged forward, throwing itself at the giant.
The human tide crashed against a reef harder than steel and scattered in every direction.
Nimrod savagely swung Puhach until, with an explosive crack, the steel body could no longer withstand the Primarch's violent strength and shattered, forcing him to stop.
At the same time, Nimrod, having acted in a manner befitting a "Barbarian" and broken Lukpo's rules, clearly felt that more than half of the potion had been digested.
"King Puhach is dead!"
The Iron Warriors stared wide-eyed. Having lost their faith, they dropped to their knees in despair.
"The Mad King is dead!"
Thunderous cheers erupted from the Hive Spire palace. Most of the nobles raised their arms and celebrated the end of the dark age.
They looked at those strange figures retreating from the fight. "Don't let the Mad King's lackeys escape."
As the nobles vented their fury, Thierry ran excitedly to Puhach's corpse. After confirming that the Mad King was truly dead, he immediately came before Nimrod and dropped to one knee.
"My king, Thierry Vieira swears loyalty to you upon my family's honor and my soul. It shall never change for all eternity!"
"I accept your allegiance!"
Nimrod said in a deep voice, "Take your men and ascend the tower with me."
"Rawlslev, lead your men and take the captives into custody."
"Establish a defensive line. Guard against attack."
"As you command, my lord!"
Rawlslev accepted the order and immediately began acting on it.
With Thierry leading the way, Nimrod arrived at the palace.
The moment he stepped inside, he saw the golden hall stained red with blood and corpses lying amid pools of gore.
Nimrod turned his gaze toward the nobles in splendid attire. Before he could speak, he was startled to see every one of them drop to one knee.
"We offer our loyalty to Lukpo's liberator!"
Nimrod fell silent for a moment, then activated Spirit Sight to observe them. When he discovered that the dominant colors of their auras were cheerful, outgoing yellow and bright white, understanding dawned on him.
"I accept your allegiance!"
"My king, the entire Hive City will welcome your arrival, except for Magos Kivior-15 of Altar 3."
Nimrod had already prepared a response. He looked at Lukpo's nobles and asked in a deep voice.
"Has production capacity declined sharply during this period?"
The nobles all stared at the giant in astonishment. How had this new king known? Had Thierry told him?
"My king, I am Count Murawski. Wise as you are, that is indeed the case."
Nimrod nodded faintly. His judgment had been correct. Puhach, who valued heavy machinery over flesh and was nearly insane, clearly would not have cared about the food crisis caused by the alien pirates.
Even remote Tezwork had been affected. Lukpo, with its larger population and central location, would inevitably have suffered even more, yet no one had dared report it to the Mad King. Puhach cared even less about those fragile flesh-and-blood lives.
"I need a representative to tell that Magos that I will restore Lukpo's production capacity and raise it even further."
The nobles exchanged looks before all turning their gazes toward Murawski, who had spoken earlier.
"My king, I am willing to go. I believe the Magos certainly does not wish for the war in Lukpo to continue."
"My king, I will accompany Count Murawski."
Thierry volunteered, and Nimrod agreed at once.
"Good."
"Tell Kivior-15 that if he does not believe it, he may verify it with Magos Kaminski."
Before you continue