Vibrations.
Noise.
They were everywhere.
Following the waterwheels that drew a constant supply of power from the waterfall, the disturbance traveled inward.
In the highest room of the entire Royal City, countless cables, gears, and springs connected to a huge water tank at its center.
An utterly hunched bug floated slowly within it, his eyes tightly shut.
His limbs had withered, his skin hung loose, and machines had replaced the functions of eighty percent of his internal organs. Though he was a bug, he was so old that even his shell had fallen away entirely.
But he was not dead. He still lived.
He should have slept here forever, but the commotion outside had inevitably awakened him.
Metal plates had replaced his throat, yet his eyes still held a king's majesty. No orders were needed. At his will, several machines sealed in stone coffins abruptly awakened.
Tall or short, massive or slender, seven perfectly preserved war machines, their craftsmanship the pinnacle of perfection, were ready to carry out their duties once more.
Without a word, they briefly surveyed the situation, then immediately set off toward different parts of the outer city.
The battles raging throughout the Royal City had disturbed its highest authority.
And he very much disliked being disturbed.
By now, all the machines roaming the outer city had been exterminated. Campfires were being lit one after another, and the Sunrise Expedition forces had begun establishing basic footholds.
Fortunately, most of the machines had already broken down after years without maintenance. By advancing steadily, step by step, even ordinary soldiers could achieve respectable results.
But this was only the outskirts. The closer they came to the enormous central castle, the harder the roaming machines became to deal with.
Gron, however, was far from unprepared. From the earliest battles onward, prolonged fighting had allowed him to keep refining every detail.
His proudest achievement was the Emblem System he had developed after reading the notes on potential personally written by the Sunfire God.
The Emblem System established the optimal combination of charms for bugs who chose to walk a particular path, allowing them to better master their strength.
After all, mortal bugs had only one life. Unless they were vessels or possessed demigod blood, they were better off not wearing too many charms.
Likewise, mastering different spells took time and practice. Without a special bloodline, no matter how many spells a mortal bug learned, their understanding would remain superficial.
Drawing on extensive experience, Gron had created his own ashen way.
The ashen way's emblem resembled a burning flame, with different slots distributed across its three sections: the outer flame, the inner flame, and the heart of the flame.
Red slots [2], yellow slots [2], blue slots [2], spell slots [1].
Focused on balance, the ashen way did not seek extraordinary superiority in any single area. It sought only to develop a bug's potential as fully as possible within their theoretical limits.
On a radar chart, none of its attributes would reach S, but none would fall below B, either.
And in actual combat, the warriors of the Ashen Clan demonstrated this very well.
Against immensely strong but slow-moving machines, they kept wearing them down and maneuvering around them, waiting for an opportunity to finish them in a single strike.
Against extremely fast but badly damaged machines, they concentrated on defense and vigilance while continually harassing them with ranged weapons.
Every enemy might present some difficulty, but the Ashen Clan could always find its own advantage and devise an effective enough plan.
This was Gron's philosophy of war: steady, methodical progress toward an unstoppable victory.
The Ashen Clan advanced steadily toward victory, and with no large units left that could pose a threat, Gron took command once more.
"Shield guards, advance and draw their attacks! Spearmen, support them! Crossbowmen, spread out!"
Order after order went out steadily, and the Ashen Clan executed them as quickly as possible.
Thinking before acting was still too slow. After so many battles, the Ashen Clan could now obey commands on instinct.
Under Gron's command, the Ashen Clan became a single, indestructible whole.
The machines, already at a disadvantage, were now completely surrounded and destroyed. Their defeat was assured.
At the other end of the outer city, Mortas leaped high into the air, his swift and deadly Nail-Spear piercing another machine's body.
Even as he impaled one enemy, the Mantis Lord sprang onto another wall, pushing off it to thrust at his next target.
Without a pause or a moment's hesitation, he moved so quickly that the old machines could not even track his afterimages.
The Hunter Clan followed the Mantis Lord, continually leaping between raised platforms and walls to ensure their attacks were equally lethal and effective.
"Still not fast enough! Remember, speed is power, and power is everything!"
As Mortas drove his spear clean through one machine, he flung several throwing knives with his other hand, jamming another machine's delicate gears and immobilizing it. He even had the leisure to reprimand the hunters under his command.
The mantises merely quickened their movements in silence, wasting no words.
They felt the pressure.
The Ashen Clan was constantly evolving, and they could not afford to stand still.
Charms had circulated across this land since ancient times, but the Emblem System was something entirely new.
In the past, bugs had combined them haphazardly, hoping to find the most suitable arrangement. Most, however, could not withstand their power, and the losses outweighed the gains.
Rather than letting charms dictate one's fighting style, one could first determine that style, then choose the charms best suited to it. The idea immediately caught Mortas's interest.
After a brief period of thought, the Mantis Lord had naturally followed Gron's example and established his own Emblem System: the hunter's way.
The hunter's way's emblem resembled two crossed hunting knives, its core principles being speed and lethal killing power.
Red slots [2], yellow slots [2], blue slots [3], spell slots [0]
Every preparation a hunter made served one purpose: victory in a single strike.
Abandoning all defense, they focused their will on greater speed and sharper weapons, seeking only the opportunity to kill with one blow.
Although their coordination was not as seamless as the Ashen Clan's, the hunters still made full use of their advantages.
Speed was the mantises' greatest asset on the battlefield, and their agile leaps allowed them to perform all manner of astonishing maneuvers with ease.
Whether the machines were fast or slow, massive or slender, almost none could touch those emerald-green mantises.
At the sight, Mortas stopped and stood atop a tall building to watch.
After his reminders, the hunters under his command were carrying out their individual hunts. At last, Mortas smiled confidently.
"Gron, you certainly work hard, but I'm not necessarily your inferior. In this battle, the Hunter Clan will leave you far behind."
"Hm? What?!"
Mortas's smugness did not last long. A blurred bronze figure suddenly appeared in his line of sight, approaching rapidly from the distance.
The uninvited guest interrupted his self-satisfaction.
At first, it had been a thousand meters away. In another blink, it was right before them.
Two sharp, straight lines passed clean through the abdomens of two mantises, instantly spilling blood across the ground.
The two fallen mantises had not even understood what had happened. Their twitching faces were filled with shock.
The surrounding mantises noticed immediately, but rather than flee, they instantly unleashed everything they had in a counterattack.
Countless attacks flew straight at the thing. Whether Nail-Spears or throwing blades, they struck its shell with nothing but a crisp series of clangs, failing to leave even a mark.
In the next breath, another gust swept past, and the warriors who had attacked died on the spot.
Their corpses were sliced into four pieces in an instant, yet the thing moved so fast that not a drop of blood stained it.
"You bastard!"
Seeing his clansmen killed, Mortas immediately sprang into action, thrusting at the thing with what appeared to be all his strength, though he was actually using only seventy percent.
Even at his angriest, Mortas had not forgotten to set a trap.
Contrary to the dodge or block he had expected, the thing chose to answer his thrust with an equally swift, powerful slash.
No defense at all?
Mortas thought in disgust. If they committed to this exchange, both would most likely be injured.
After weighing everything, Mortas chose to avoid the attack for now, angling his thrust so that he brushed past the thing.
In the process, Mortas finally got a clear look at it.
Though its head was veiled, beneath the veil was indeed a mechanical face.
It resembled the machines he had exterminated earlier, but it was more advanced, with longer, more slender limbs. If he had to describe it, it looked more feminine.
The number four was engraved on its mask, though he had no idea what that meant.
And its most distinctive feature was its four arms, with the parts that should have been hands replaced by four blades gleaming with cold light.
"So this is what I saw earlier? The thing that sliced my clansmen in half. This is going to be trouble!"
Clearly, this opponent had been dispatched specifically to counter his fighting style.
Mortas immediately realized how difficult it would be to handle, but who besides him could stand against it?
If he chose to retreat, many of his clansmen would be sacrificed covering his escape. He had no choice but to fight.
"I'll just have to fight with my back to the wall." Mortas forced himself to get ready.
Mortas had run into trouble, and back on the Ashen Clan's side, things were no better.
Gron was already down on one knee, coughing up blood and gasping for breath.
There were few visible injuries on his body, but the blood he coughed up was very real. It was internal bleeding caused by blunt-force blows.
The surrounding Ashen Clan warriors encircled their chief and his enemy, countless heavy shields braced at the front. In a battle between such overwhelmingly powerful opponents, this was all they could do.
The machine assigned to deal with Gron was a huge iron block with defense pushed to its absolute limit.
It carried no weapon. Or rather, the iron block itself was the strongest weapon. Even its eyes were covered by layers of reinforced glass, and the number seven was engraved on its face.
A simple wave of its hand delivered the same force as a bug swinging an enormous warhammer with all their might.
Its already immensely heavy body had been fitted with another layer of sturdy armor, making its entire frame look round and bulky.
That shape, which caused blows to glance off so easily, reduced piercing damage from weapons such as nails and spears as much as possible.
Though the iron block had stood upright the entire time, none of the bugs present doubted that curling itself into a ball and rolling over its enemies to crush them to death was well within its tactical repertoire.
Gron forced himself to stand, and his opponent obligingly remained where it was, waiting.
"With my body as kindling, let the flame burn on!"
Gron shouted and attacked again, the Soulfire within him beginning to burn with unprecedented ferocity.
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