Gron rallied himself and once again faced the steel monster temporarily named Number Seven because of the number seven on its face.
Accelerating to his top speed, Gron gripped his spear as though pouring a thousand pounds of force into it, then leaped up and drove it down.
Clang!
The piercing screech of metal striking metal instantly rang across the battlefield.
Many soldiers grimaced in pain at the blow, not only because of the grating noise, but also because of their own weakness.
Yet when the powerful strike ended, Number Seven simply stood where it was, without retreating a single step. Gron, on the other hand, was badly shaken by the recoil.
"Cough! Cough, cough..."
Only after gasping for breath several times did Gron barely manage to raise his head and look at the spot he had attacked.
Without a close look, anyone would have thought the white mark was merely a smear of dust.
"Is that all?"
Gron clenched his teeth, staring bitterly at the smudge that could not even be called a wound.
The result of my all-out strike was nothing more than a white mark?
What kind of joke is this? That didn't even count as a scratch!
Compared with his opponent's utterly unscathed armor, the spear in Gron's hands had suffered obvious damage. After just one collision, its spearhead-the most crucial part of its killing power-had already broken.
The reliable weapon that had accompanied him through countless battlefields had finally reached its end here.
Strength, defense, weapon quality-his opponent surpassed Gron in every respect.
The terrifying sight nearly made one shield guard lose his grip on his shield. "You've got to be kidding! With a gap this big, how are we supposed to fight?"
Gron had always been confident in his strength and endurance, but against the steel creation before him, those advantages were useless.
"All right, I understand. A contest of strength is out of the question."
But Gron had not given up.
Watching his opponent's every movement intently, he kept weighing possible countermeasures, pushing his potential to its limit.
Back when they had wandered the wilderness in exile, Gron's first thought as chieftain upon encountering an enemy he could not overpower would have been to flee.
Survival had been the foremost priority then. His only concern had been preserving the clan's last spark however he could. That had been his duty, but things were different now.
"I cannot flee, and I cannot lose! For the clan's survival, for those who sacrificed themselves without regret, for my lord, for the Sunfire God!"
As his willpower surged, Gron began pushing his body as hard as he could. Even the Soulfire Arts he was not particularly skilled at using were instinctively called upon to bolster his strength.
As though sensing its opponent's increasingly powerful presence, Number Seven finally reacted.
It uncrossed its arms, and its fists, each larger than an adult insect's head, slowly clenched.
Clenching its fists-that tiny gesture alone was enough to subject the soldiers present to terrifying pressure. Their instincts screamed desperately at them: Run! Run now!
But none of them moved, because their chieftain, their commander, was fighting at the forefront.
Whatever the outcome, they had to fight until the very end.
Naturally, the change in his opponent did not escape Gron's notice.
It probably did not intend to give him another chance to attack, so this final strike had to accomplish something.
Gron knew very well that occupying this place was not merely the Sunfire God's will. The Ashen Clan would need it in the future, too.
Under the Sunfire God's sacred flames, the clan would surely continue to grow, and when that time came, it would need more land.
He had to finish all the necessary battles before then, rather than leave that problem for future generations to solve.
"All right, then. Let's settle this with our lives!"
Even after thinking for so long, Gron could not come up with a solution. In the end, he simply abandoned thought and staked everything he had on this final blow.
His aura kept rising, and even his body temperature continued to climb, until his entire insect body streamed with vapor like a piece of red-hot iron.
Number Seven realized something as well and immediately crossed its arms before its chest. This was the first time it had actively defended itself throughout the battle.
"Flame! Burst!"
"Wait!"
Just as that terrifying strike was about to finish charging, a voice suddenly interrupted Gron.
"Hey, Chosen of God, catch!"
The Snail Shaman called down from atop a tall building. "A little late, but thankfully, still in time."
As those words fell, a spear with a distinctly fiery design landed before Gron.
The Snail Shaman had not even put any particular force into throwing the brand-new spear. It had simply fallen naturally, yet planted itself firmly in the ground.
That alone showed how sharp it was.
"This is another of my research achievements: a forging method that involves engraving special characters onto a weapon, allowing it to resonate with the wielder's Soulfire and unleash greater killing power."
"I used the very best materials, too. So far, I've only made this one, but I knew something like this would happen, so I made it into a spear first. You can thank me for that."
Gron did not respond. He had been mesmerized from his very first glimpse of the spear and had not even registered what the Snail Shaman said afterward.
It was completely unlike the spear he normally used, and the difference was not something as crude as merely being longer or harder.
The spear was slender overall, with a diamond-shaped, concave head. Twin blood grooves ran along the spearhead, a design that increased both killing power and strength while making wounds inflicted by its thrusts harder to heal.
Together with the Flame Cloud Engraving along its shaft, its intricate patterns were nothing short of art. Gron swore he had never imagined in his life that a weapon could be so beautiful.
He took hold of it without hesitation. It did not feel unfamiliar in the slightest, as though this spear had been his from the moment it was made.
"Now things are getting interesting."
Gron regained his confidence in the fight.
Yet at that very moment, Number Seven, which had still been over ten meters away, suddenly flashed behind Gron.
Contrary to its massive, bulky appearance, its explosive bursts of speed were extremely fast as well.
It had chosen to reveal that speed now because it sensed that Gron's threat level had risen several notches after he obtained that weapon.
That forced it to act, to eliminate every possible risk.
Number Seven clenched its enormous right fist as tightly as possible, while straight jets of steam continually shot from its back.
That was its built-in pressurization equipment. Unlike the other models, Number Seven had no special abilities. It simply relied on overwhelming brute force.
By continually compressing the steam within its internal pipes, it generated more pressure, then converted that pressure into kinetic energy. Ultimately, the power of this strike would reach a terrifying extreme.
At last, Number Seven's fist finished charging. A blast of air mingled with steam swept outward, flinging the surrounding insects away before the attack had even begun.
Nothing could withstand such tremendous force. Number Seven had absolute confidence in its iron fists.
Boom!!!
The sounds of steam and clashing steel rang out in rapid succession.
Yet the result was not what Number Seven had expected. After that god-slaying blow came down, the insect, who was not even as large as its arm, was still alive. Instead, its own right fist had been sliced into several pieces.
The cables and steam pipes inside had been completely severed, and steam kept leaking out. Number Seven hastily used its other enormous hand to crush the broken opening shut, forcibly sealing the leaking pipes. Only then did it avoid losing its power source.
Gron, meanwhile, was a different story.
He still stood where he had been, with only a hint that the weapon in his hands had been swung.
A closer look would reveal that, at some point, tiny, flickering crimson lights had appeared on the spearhead, as though flames had truly ignited upon it.
It was that indistinct layer of light that had effortlessly cut through Number Seven's immensely thick body.
Faced with this incomprehensible situation, the mechanical eyes behind Number Seven's bulletproof glass immediately began scanning.
Yet its built-in system could not identify what that energy was. All it detected was a hazy, high-energy field.
In Number Seven's eyes, Gron's threat level rose once again.
"I've decided. I'm going to call you Fireflow Cloud!"
Without dwelling much on what he had just accomplished, Gron gave the weapon its impressive name and swung Fireflow Cloud a few times before pointing it at Number Seven.
"Now, let's see what you can teach me."
Before you continue