Alice in the Land of Steam

Chapter 1470 Is it no longer a secret?

The Thai Air Force has moved.

Without any warning, the thirty-meter-tall steel behemoth left an afterimage in its wake, and in the next second it had traversed a hundred meters. Its right fist, accompanied by a piercing shriek as it tore through the air, hurtled straight at Cheryl's location. The speed was so great that it left a series of sonic booms in its path. Cheryl's pupils contracted. She had no time to think, and instinctively raised the fairy sword Hydras in front of her. However, her size was far too small compared to the Skyship. It was like an ant trying to block the attack of a giant elephant. Whether she succeeded or not, it was visually absurd and surreal.

The moment fist clashed with sword, a visible shockwave spread out in a ring, instantly stirring up a cloud of dust. Cheryl felt as if she hadn't been hit by a fist, but rather as if she had been struck head-on by an entire mountain. The sword Hydras, forged by spirits and blessed by fairies, was exceptionally sturdy and naturally wouldn't break from this collision. However, the swordswoman was unable to withstand the surging power of the prototype Mecha God. She was sent flying backward like a kite with a broken string, her feet carving two deep furrows in the ground, until she finally came to a stop after crashing into a protruding rock pillar.

A sweet taste rose in her throat, and blood spilled from the corner of her mouth. Having not been injured for many years, the taste was somewhat unfamiliar to Cheryl.

The Thai Air Force gave her no chance to catch her breath.

Its attacks were relentless, like a predator hunting its prey, a apex predator that wouldn't let up until its prey breathed its last. This extreme and savage offensive wasn't even determined by the pilot, Pereike, but rather by the bestial instincts lurking within the steel mech. Even Pereike, determined to win, would never allow this humanoid mech to adopt such a frenzied offensive posture: torso leaning forward, waist taut, knees bent, fingers digging deep into the rock, the entire mech adopting a crouching, beast-like stance, its crimson eyes fixed on its enemy, releasing a brutal signal.

Then, it began to run. Although the flames from its foot thrusters were powerful enough to propel the machine for short sprints, it seemed to prefer this primal combat technique. Each push crushed tons of rock into dust, the steel behemoth leaving a blurry afterimage across the wasteland. It even learned true beastly cunning, choosing not to charge straight ahead but deliberately circling complex paths, always maneuvering and weaving in the enemy's blind spots, perfectly anticipating every counterattack.

After recovering from the initial clash, Cheryl unhesitatingly thrust the blade of Hydras downwards, plunging it into the earth of Atorica to seize the power of this wasteland. Thick rock pillars, as if summoned, rose from the ground, surging forward relentlessly, attempting to block the Skyship's path, yet it always narrowly avoided them. Cheryl even suspected it was doing it on purpose; it reveled in the feeling of dancing on the edge of a blade. Only such thrilling and exciting battles could satisfy it, rather than bullying defenseless fortresses or strongholds on a mortal battlefield.

The manner of its arrival was so divine, even reminiscent of a deus ex machina in classical drama, yet the result was such a barbaric creature…

"What a mad beast."

Cheryl felt a surge of emotion, unaware that at the same moment, in the cockpit of the Titan, the Plague Witch was expressing a similar sentiment. She recalled the first combat test of the prototype Titan after its development was completed. The pilots who participated in the test claimed that the smoothness of piloting the construct far exceeded their expectations, "It's almost like controlling my own body." But thinking about it the other way around, could it actually be the Titan controlling them?

Such a hypothesis is inconclusive, but at least at this moment, Pereike had this feeling. She was being swept up by the bestial instincts of the Titan, about to embark on a path of killing, destruction, and devastation.

Humans are always bound by the constraints of power. In the end, fate is indeed irresistible, whether it's one's own monarchy or the prototype machine, the Titan...

The pilot's momentary lapse in concentration was a fleeting opportunity for the Taikong. At 1.25 seconds, the machine's built-in combat core could precisely calculate this number. It had broken through the blockade of the rock pillar position and rushed in front of Cheryl. Its left claw lashed out—yes, it could no longer be called a "hand." When the giant mechanical finger was fully extended, a three-meter-long alloy claw shot out from its tip, tearing through the wind with a shrill shriek, threatening to completely engulf the tiny human before it.

There is no way to retreat.

Cheryl poured all her will into Hydras, and the sword burst forth with an unprecedentedly intense light. She swung her sword to meet the claws, and the enormous sword image, seemingly formed from thunder and storm, met them head-on. The fairy sword collided with the steel claws.

"Qiang——!!!"

A piercing metallic groan echoed across the wasteland. The tip of Hydras's sword met the claws, the two forces locked in a stalemate. A terrifying shockwave rippled outwards from the point of impact, instantly creating a spiderweb of cracks. Debris and gravel flew everywhere, the ground caved in three inches, and Cheryl's feet sank deep into the rock. Her sword-wielding arm trembled violently; she could feel the groan emanating from Hydras—even a divine weapon forged by fairies seemed to be reaching its limit against such pure physical violence.

Suddenly, the Skyhawk's right claw, which had been lying in wait, moved. Like the fangs of a viper or the sting of a wasp, it swept across from a sinister angle, aiming straight for her waist and abdomen. If this strike landed, Cheryl would be severed in two at the waist. Such a bloody and cruel scene was precisely the kind of killing that a beast craved. It would smell the fragrance of blood and derive satisfaction from flesh and bone.

It can no longer be preserved.

Cheryl was reluctant to involve her friend in this battle, but now that things had come to this, only by fighting side by side could they confront this beast.

"Sephis—!"

The sacred beast that guards the sword has answered the summons.

The ground beneath the Taikong exploded with a deafening roar, and countless crystalline rock spikes as thick as mountains erupted from the earth, biting at the steel hull like the fangs of a giant beast. The Taikong was forced to abandon its attack, its limbs slamming against the ground, and it evaded the encirclement of rock spikes with a backflip that completely defied the laws of physics. It flipped 360 degrees in the air, but landed more than a hundred meters away.

In the center of the rock spikes, the guardian beast Serphis finally revealed its full form.

Its size was even greater than Cheryl remembered; perhaps years of recuperation had allowed it to accumulate more power. Its majestic body reflected a golden glow in the bright sunlight, each hair like a blazing flame. Most striking were its eyes: not the eyes of a beast, but pure crystals, like the essence condensed over millions of years on the land of Atorica; wherever its gaze fell, gloom and dust were purified. "The guardian beast of the Fairy Sword..."

Pereike murmured to herself, not feeling that Cheryl had broken her promise of a fair duel, because the two were originally one, and the power of the guardian beast Serphis also came from the fairy sword Hydras—or rather, from the recognition of the land beneath her feet.

But that doesn't change anything.

The Titan's offensive wouldn't stop there. The instant it landed, it bent its knees, crouched, leaned forward, and thrust its legs forward—then the thrusters on its legs and the magic reactor on its back exploded simultaneously, unleashing a torrent of platinum-gold flames that, like an ancient tide, engulfed all living things in the air, completing a highly efficient massacre at a speed beyond human comprehension. At the same time, the thirty-meter-tall steel behemoth shot into the sky like a cannonball, stirring up a series of howling sonic booms. A huge gap opened in the clouds, and through it, the Titan's shadow could be seen frozen high in the sky, becoming a tiny black dot like a shooting star.

But that frozen moment was just an optical illusion. In reality, the time that the Taikong stayed in the sky was only a breath or even a heartbeat. The next moment, it began to fall, crashing to the ground with astonishing acceleration, like a meteor falling from the sky.

The target is not Cheryl, but Serphis.

"Sephis, get out of the way!" Cheryl shouted instinctively, but she knew better than anyone that it was too late. The impact of the Skywarp's crash was too wide, and it was impossible to completely avoid it no matter where you ran.

Serphis was fully aware of this, so instead of trying to dodge, it let out a wary roar from deep within its throat, stomping its forelimbs heavily on the ground. The surrounding rock layers rose as if alive, forming a thick shield above it and Cheryl's heads. At the same time, it opened its massive maw, drawing in the active natural energy from the air and the depths of the earth, the magic of storms and lightning, gathering it in its throat into a blazing white sphere—

The Thai Sky crashed.

At the moment of impact, time seemed to stand still for a frame.

Then came the burst of light, the annihilation of sound, and the blossoming of destruction.

The rock shield shattered in the first second, offering only a slight buffer. The blazing white sphere spewed from Serphis's mouth transformed into scorching breath reaching thousands of degrees Celsius, striking the falling mech head-on. However, it only caused the armor on the Titan's surface to glow a dangerous dark red—a sign of overload and heat dissipation—but failed to stop its attack. Or rather, at that moment, the instinct for attack prevailed, preventing the Titan from ever considering evasion or retreat. The steel-forged mech pierced through the fan-shaped radiating breath, ultimately slamming heavily into Serphis.

The shockwave spread in a ring, causing the ground to churn, bulge, and then shatter like ocean waves. Several rocky hills closest to the impact point collapsed in the tremors, boulders tumbling down and dust billowing into the sky. Cheryl was thrown into the air by the shockwave, barely managing to regain her balance before rolling a dozen times upon landing to absorb the impact. When she struggled to lift her head, the sight before her made her hold her breath:
Serphis was suppressed.

The Titan's feet pressed down on the guardian beast's shoulders, its left claw gripping Sephis's throat, its right claw raised high, its sharp tips aimed at the most vulnerable part of its heart—a fatal attack for any creature. The guardian beast of the fairy sword Hydras might not die from this, but it was unknown how many years it would take to regain its power and reappear in the world. Unwilling to face such an end, Sephis struggled, its claws scraping against the Titan's armor, sending blinding sparks flying, but it was powerless to break free.

At this critical moment, Cheryl had no time to think. She raised the fairy sword Hydras high into the sky, calling upon the power of the fairy spirits to descend and save the guardian beast born from the sword.

Then, thunder roared down from the sky like a waterfall.

The gloomy wasteland was illuminated. Each powerful bolt of lightning striking the Taikong's fuselage sent a profound shock through the observer, as if it were a thunderous hammer wielded by an ancient dwarven craftsman, tempering the most stubborn piece of iron in the world. The savage, beastly nature lurking within this machine refused to yield to such hammering, stubbornly determined to kill its opponent. Yet, the machine could no longer withstand such aggressive baptism. The steel groaned, and a dark blue coolant seeped from the joints of its limbs, staining them like blood only to be evaporated by the lightning. The armor from its waist to its back began to flicker with an unstable red light, obscuring the machine's original steel blue and lead gray—a harbinger of collapse.

Pereike also noticed the abnormality of the machine. Unlike the Sky, she at least retained her rationality. So she stopped letting the beastly nature run rampant and forcibly took control of the machine. She decisively gave up the opportunity to completely destroy Serphis. She used her right claw to strike the head of the guardian beast, smashing Serphis into the depths of the rock. Then she used the reaction force to leap backward, avoiding the last and most intense wave of lightning.

"As expected... I've reached my limit." Cheryl coughed up blood, but then smiled.

She silently thanked Ovira for the information she had provided.

Pereira instantly guessed who was behind this.

As a prototype created in imitation of Alexander the Great, the god of steam engines, the Taikong was naturally not perfect. In fact, limited by the level of magical technology at the time, its design, materials, and even structure all had some flaws. These flaws should have been corrected one by one after subsequent combat tests and data analysis. However, after the first combat test, it was abandoned because of the biggest, and utterly uncorrectable, flaw. The project was permanently shelved, and the machine was no longer used. Since this was the case, there was no need to correct these flaws, and they remained. Furthermore, because Perec was in a hurry when she left the Western Continent, she didn't have time for her colleagues in the magical research department to carefully inspect and repair the machine. Only some simple maintenance was performed. As a result, although the Taikong possessed excellent machine performance and perfect combat instincts, it was still subject to limitations imposed by external conditions.

Originally, this wouldn't have been a fatal problem, since the design blueprints and experimental data for the Taikong were kept on the Azure Dragon Nest Ladiste, which was top secret. Normally, members of the Society wouldn't even have the right to access them, let alone leak them.
But this time, there is one special enemy among them.

In her presence, no secret in the world is a secret.

Give me some cats