Syra drew her dagger. She pointed toward the glowing spinal cables connecting the knights to the engine, and then pointed to the vials of highly corrosive toxin strapped to the sappers’ belts.

The Troglodytes nodded, instantly understanding the improvised strategy. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

While the sappers spread out along the edge of the blood lake, Syra unleashed the full power of her mythic Ley-Crystal. She bypassed the ambient lighting entirely, pulling pure, solid darkness straight from the corners of the vault.

She manifested fifty microscopic needles of compressed shadow directly behind the necks of the grafted guards.

With a sharp twist of her wrist, Syra drove the shadow constructs forward. The needles severed the brain stems of all fifty knights simultaneously. The guards slumped forward against the metallic casing, instantly dying without making a single sound.

The white light radiating from the engine immediately flared into a dangerous, unstable crimson. The machine lost its biological heat sinks.

"Now!" Syra commanded, stepping out of the shadows.

The Troglodyte sappers charged across the blood lake. They ripped the glowing arcane cables out of the dead knights’ spines, exposing the open intake ports on the side of the burning engine.

The sappers uncorked their glass vials and poured the concentrated alchemical rot directly into the machine’s internal conduits.

The reaction was instantaneous.

The engine let out a terrifying metallic shriek. The corrosive toxin aggressively dissolved the internal arcane wiring, violently clashing with the massive reservoir of sacrificed life force. Boiling green acid spewed from the intake ports, melting the dead knights into bubbling sludge.

"Fall back," Syra ordered.

She opened a massive portal of darkness on the nearest wall. The sappers threw their remaining explosive satchels directly into the boiling blood lake and dove into the shadow construct.

Syra stepped through the portal just as the alchemical rot reached the engine’s primary combustion chamber.

The resulting subterranean implosion violently shook the bedrock of the entire capital city.

Red watched the holographic projection violently distort across his central console. The green alchemical reaction detonated miles beneath the Aethelgard capital, triggering a massive subterranean implosion.

He tracked Syra’s life signature as she stepped through the shadow portal alongside the sappers, successfully escaping the blast radius just as the bedrock collapsed inward.

He let out a long breath and reclined against his throne.

Whenever a follower of a foreign faith crossed a divine border, the presiding deity received an immediate territory intrusion notification on their system console. Red knew this rule perfectly. Sending his lead assassin directly into the Fourth Continent was a massive, but calculated risk.

If the royal guard captured her, she faced brutal torture and certain execution. She was far too important of an asset to lose.

’If they caught her, I would have opened a direct channel to the Monarch,’ Red thought, tapping his fingers against the glowing armrest. ’I would have negotiated directly with a Rank 20 god and paid whatever ransom they demanded to get my assassin back.’

Fortunately, extreme diplomatic measures were completely unnecessary. The successful infiltration provided Red with a vital piece of strategic intelligence. The Radiant Monarch never reacted to the system warning. The Rank 20 deity did not alert King Voranthar to the intruders slipping into the vault.

This confirmed a major suspicion. Just like the Iron Arbiter on the Second Continent, or Ignisar and Nyxara in the desert, the four ruling gods of the Fourth Continent were entirely inactive.

’They are sleeping,’ Red deduced, staring at the corrupted digital map of the enemy capital.

Red also required sleep, taking a few hours to rest his mind between continental conquests. However, his slumber was incredibly light. A single system notification or minor perimeter breach could wake him instantly.

The older, higher-ranked deities clearly operated on a different biological scale. They required deep, prolonged hibernation to sustain their massive authority, entirely ignoring the minor territorial alerts flashing on their dormant consoles.

He had a clear window to strike while the gods rested.

Meanwhile, inside the Aethelgard throne room, King Voranthar stood near his crystalline scrying table. He waited anxiously for the Pre-Calamity engine to fully charge.

Suddenly, the marble floor heaved violently beneath his boots.

A catastrophic subterranean shockwave traveled upward through the foundational bedrock. The violent tremor cracked the gilded pillars lining the throne room. Massive stained-glass windows shattered simultaneously, raining colorful shards across the red carpets.

Voranthar stumbled forward. He grabbed the edge of the scrying table to keep himself upright. He looked frantically at the glowing projection of his capital city.

The white light representing his invincible superweapon flickered wildly. It turned a sickly, corrupted green before winking out of existence entirely.

The King stared at the empty space on the map. His mind failed to process the reality of the situation. He had slaughtered a hundred thousand of his own citizens to fuel that machine. He had sacrificed the entire outer ring of his capital city.

The weapon yielded absolutely nothing but a crater beneath his own feet.

"My liege!" The captain of the Royal Guard sprinted into the ruined throne room. He kicked aside a piece of fallen masonry. "The lower vaults just collapsed! The engine is gone!"

Voranthar ignored the captain. He looked past the digital representation of his ruined city, staring at the western edge of the map where the Sovereign’s Path lay completely unguarded.

His ultimate trump card was destroyed, and the massive western army was undoubtedly preparing to march.

The King of Aethelgard fell to his knees amidst the shattered glass. He possessed no more hidden weapons and no more grand strategies. Only the remaining Earthling Heralds stood between his throne and total annihilation.

Red watched the digital map of Aethelgard blink wildly as the subterranean shockwave settled. The massive Pre-Calamity engine was completely erased from the grid. He leaned back against his throne with a satisfied grin stretching across his face.

Syra and the sappers had executed the sabotage flawlessly.

Suddenly, four colossal energy signatures flared to life high above the Aethelgard capital.

The holographic projection warped violently. The sheer density of the new signatures eclipsed the ruined engine entirely. Red stopped smiling. He leaned forward and tapped his fingers rapidly across the central console to isolate the data.

[ HOSTILE DIVINE AUTHORITY DETECTED. ]

[ RANK 21, RANK 22, AND TWO RANK 23 DEITIES AWAKENED. ]

Red slapped his hands on the console and let out a loud chuckle, followed by a wide grin on his face.

"Finally!"