61
"Don't be so cold," Angelina said, her eyes startlingly bright as she pointed at the mountain of spoils behind her. "All five treasure chests are yours. Just say yes."
"Those are mine." Floreia's answer was brief and absolute.
Angelina froze, a flicker of disbelief crossing her eyes. "But... these are thousand-year-old relics dug up from underground. What makes you say they're yours?"
"Everything upon the land of West Asia belongs to me," Floreia said calmly, following it with an unquestionable command. "Take them away."
The middle-aged man beside her, named Akanji, wore a solemn expression. A composed, capable adjutant in his forties, he said nothing, signaling his men with a single glance. Several soldiers swiftly stepped forward and hoisted the five heavy treasure chests one by one, their movements perfectly coordinated.
Angelina could only watch as her spoils were carried out of the cellar and loaded onto jeeps. Engines roared, and the convoy kicked up clouds of dust before vanishing into the wilderness.
Meanwhile, up in the sky.
Xun Uchiha piloted a small plane, with Little Bird gripping the control stick tightly as the aircraft tore through the air at five hundred kilometers per hour, racing southwest. As they drew closer, a suffocating pressure traveled through the fuselage and into his entire body. The earth began to tremble, and a dull, thunderous rumble rose from deep within the desert, like the low growl of an ancient beast.
At the edge of his vision, an endless torrent of steel swallowed the horizon. It was not an army, but a moving forest of death. Fifty thousand mechanical units spread out like a rising tide, churning up relentless waves of dust that blotted out the sky.
Leading them were a full ten thousand heavy mechs, each four meters tall. Beneath their enormous