The Machina Race's use of Tyrant Missiles to launch random attacks on Military Bases within the Empire Shadow had thoroughly ignited the Empire, this powder keg.
They immediately raised the intensity of their extermination campaign to the maximum. As for investigation? The effort put into that had instead diminished considerably.
The Empire realized one thing: as long as those Machina died, the so-called clues and traces they left behind were unimportant.
Perhaps some secret did exist, but to the Empire, it no longer mattered.
Logically speaking, with the Empire being this fierce, the Machina led by Nio should have been doomed beyond doubt.
Yet the development went in precisely the opposite direction. Through growing through war, the Machina not only had not been wiped out, but had instead grown ever larger.
This made even the Empire feel that they were becoming troublesome, forcing it to increase its strength.
Yet the more military power they committed, the faster the Machina grew. They were like a spring—the harder you pressed them down, the higher they bounced back.
By this point, the Empire had completely confirmed that the leader who had brought this Machina force to rise was Fate's Favored.
Once or twice could be attributed to the other party's good luck, but if it happened every single time, that meant he was no ordinary person.
In the end, they had no choice but to suspend construction of the altar and throw all personnel into the campaign against the Machina.
It carried something of a final madness.
But as for results, there still were none.
The chaotic power Nio had gained, combined with the Machina's unique forms, erupted with tremendous strength.
During that time, they had even killed several Grandmaster Magi and, more than that, severely wounded a Magic Tool Researcher.
The Empire