The Guardian vs. the Captors

As the immense energy cage formed from dark golden runes was about to close completely, the churning lake finally erupted in an outpouring of force.

The enraged creature cast aside its innate benevolence and bared the terrifying fangs of a "Guardian Deity" to the insignificant mortals trying to shackle it.

Its enormous head, formed from blue starlight, dipped beneath the water, then rose with a tremendous surge of waves.

A colossal pillar of water, composed entirely of highly compressed lake water and pure spiritual energy, shot toward one of the three steamships like a blue spear, tearing through the sky!

It was far too fast. The well-trained cult members aboard had no time to make any effective evasive maneuvers!

A deafening, earth-shaking boom erupted across the lake, louder than all the explosions that had come before combined. The modern vessel, built of steel and equipped with the most advanced internal combustion engine, was as fragile as a paper boat before that pillar of water, charged with fury.

The moment it was struck head-on, the irresistible force of the impact smashed it clean in half. The cult members aboard, along with their sophisticated Steam Weapons and Whaling Cannons, were hurled into the air amid terrified screams, then crashed into the churning lake.

With just one blow, an elite capture team had been utterly destroyed!

But the members of the Eternal Serpent were clearly a band of fanatics who feared no death. Their comrades' gruesome deaths didn't make them retreat. Instead, an even more deranged fervor burned in their eyes!

"The divine might has descended! This is the Primordial testing our faith!" The black-clad leader roared like a madman. "Keep going! Activate the rune resonance! No matter the cost, we must anchor it in the material world! For the sake of glorious evolution!"

The two surviving steamships pushed their engines to the limit and began circling the UMA at high speed across the raging lake, in an almost suicidal maneuver.

The surviving cult members aboard fired futile shots with their Steam Weapons while slashing their wrists and smearing their blood onto the ends of the steel chains already shot into the lake!

As their blood soaked in, the dark golden Dragon-Binding runes blazed once more with blinding light. At last, after sacrificing a ship, the incomplete cage formed by the two chains took shape!

A visible energy barrier rose from the lake in an instant, sealing the great elemental being and the waters within nearly a hundred meters of it inside!

When the UMA's starlit body, which had flowed between the real and unreal, came into contact with the runic barrier, it sizzled as if burning.

Its form grew somewhat more solid, as though it had truly been dragged by force from a higher dimension into the material world they inhabited!

"We did it! We did it!" The black-clad leader's voice rang with the joy of victory. "All units! Switch to Spirit-Breaking heads! Prepare for the second capture attempt!"

From the fishing boat in the distance, Lin Jie watched everything unfold with perfect clarity, and anger welled up inside him.

This was the vilest kind of hunt and desecration against a great, gentle, and friendly life!

"Sergeant William!" Lin Jie's voice was cold. "Bring the boat closer. Mr. Alistair, please operate the crane. We need to help it."

"What are you going to do?" William was just as furious, but the instincts of a veteran kept him calm. "If we intervene directly under these circumstances, we'll become enemies to both sides!"

"No." Calculation glimmered in Lin Jie's eyes as he raised his left arm, where the Spellbreaker Bracer shimmered faintly. "We won't join the fight directly. We'll do just one thing: clear away the last obstacle before this 'divine punishment.'"

At Lin Jie's insistence, William chose to trust the partner who had already performed miracles several times. Using the cover of night and the chaos on the lake, he steered the fishing boat toward the battlefield bathed in runic light from an unexpected angle.

By then, the battle had reached its boiling point.

The UMA, forcibly "made physical," was in immense pain and fury. It churned the lake wildly, raising towering waves capable of capsizing cargo ships and hurling them against the energy cage formed by the runes.

The cage teetered on the verge of collapse, but the cult members continued pouring in spiritual energy at the cost of their lives, keeping it from breaking.

The cult members aboard the two surviving steamships had fitted their Whaling Cannons with even more fearsome heads.

They were not made of ordinary metal, but carved from an obsidian-like crystal and covered in spiral blood-red runes.

This had to be their real trump card for dealing with energy-based UMAs: Spirit-Breaking heads!

"Target the core in its head! Fire!" The black-clad leader gave the order for the final attack.

Both Whaling Cannons took aim at the UMA's enormous, starlit head, ready to unleash a deadly strike!

At that critical moment, Lin Jie, who had remained hidden in the darkness, finally made his move.

"Now!" he shouted. His left arm, already charged to its limit with mental power, shot up, and the piece of Chaos Brass in his palm immediately unleashed a powerful disruptive field!

His targets weren't the sturdy Whaling Cannons or the frenzied cultists, but the most precise and delicate components aboard the two steamships: the internal combustion engines that supplied their power and the precision valves that regulated the steam pressure in the Whaling Cannons!

[Spellbreaker Bracer], activate!

"Clank—grind—!!!"

As Lin Jie released his ability, a series of metal parts grinding and jamming noises burst from the engines of the two steamships as they raced across the water!

One steamship's engine belched black smoke and died on the spot, leaving it completely powerless on the lake. The other kept running, barely, but its propeller began to spin erratically, leaving the vessel turning helplessly in place!

More deadly still were the two Whaling Cannons about to fire!

Their steam-pressure systems, dependent on precision valves, instantly went haywire in the disruptive field. Vast quantities of high-pressure steam leaked from the wrong pipes, forcing the cannon barrels to groan and creak as they threatened to explode at any moment!

The sudden, almost supernatural mechanical failures left every cult member completely stunned.

Their powerful vessels, symbols of advanced industry combined with alchemy, had turned into two useless heaps of scrap metal!

The great elemental being trapped inside seized this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

It could sense the force sustaining the energy cage waver for an instant as the cult members panicked.

Its enormous head strained upward, then slammed into the runic barrier with enough force to churn the entire lakebed!

"Boom!!"

The arrogant cage that had imprisoned the Guardian shattered at last before overwhelming force!

Freed from its restraints, the Guardian Deity flew into a rage.

It gave the surviving cult members no further chance. Its massive body rolled through the water, forming a whirlpool dozens of meters wide around itself.

The two powerless steamships were ripped apart, and some of the cultists, amid cries of despair, were sucked toward the whirlpool's center with the shattered decks by an irresistible pull, then swallowed by the unfathomable lake.

Moments later, the lake grew calm again. The harrowing hunt from just before seemed like some absurd farce.

Lin Jie collapsed onto the deck, panting heavily. That last, precise field release at the very limit of his range had drained most of his mental strength.

But as he looked over the lake strewn with shipwrecks, a heartfelt smile spread across his face.

They had succeeded. They had delivered the decisive assist in a battle where the odds had been overwhelmingly against them.

Just then, the victorious elemental being slowly turned its starlit head toward the fishing boat, which had radiated goodwill from beginning to end.