Inside the magitech mechs, the goblin pilots were shocked, but as the Empire's most elite troops, they had seen it all.
They continued charging forward, their chest energy shields raised to maximum as their melee weapons deployed.
An alloy battle blade on the right arm, a high-frequency saw on the left.
They rushed before Lynn, the battle blades chopping down and the saws sweeping across.
Lynn did not move.
The battle blades stopped three inches from him.
He had not blocked them. The blades had stopped on their own.
The high-frequency saws spun madly, yet their blades could not descend. It was as if they were cutting through air, unable to advance even an inch.
The mech pilots desperately pulled their controls, but the mechs did not budge.
Then they felt it.
An invisible force reached into the cockpits, like a hand gently closing around their souls.
Fear.
An indescribable fear rose from the depths of their hearts.
They remembered every person they had killed, the looks in their victims' eyes before death, and the blood staining their hands.
Those memories surged over them like a tide, drowning them.
"No... no..."
Trembling voices came from the cockpits.
"I was wrong... I was wrong..."
"God... spare me..."
The two mechs lost power at the same time and fell from the sky.
Yet before they could smash into the ground, they vanished into thin air.
It was as though something had swallowed them whole, leaving not even wreckage behind.
The crowd fell silent.
Deathly silent.
The Emperor stood on the balcony, his face pale.
He had allowed those two mechs inside.
He had wanted to see how that man would react when facing true war machines.
Now he knew.
Missiles were useless. Lasers were useless. Melee weapons were useless.
Those carefully selected