「Half a day later.」

The Ironstar 6th Legion intercepted the main vanguard of the beast tide approximately eight hundred kilometers from Zone 18.

The Demon Eye reconnaissance network transmitted back images of the collision.

Allen’s main consciousness withdrew from his Sea of Spirit, connecting to the Demon Eye’s perspective to watch the grand scene unfold.

The mountain of steel was already hovering high in the sky.

Below, a black tide flooded the entire lava plain. Countless Magical Beasts swarmed like ants, stretching from one end of the horizon to the other with no end in sight.

Then, in addition to the four hundred-plus exposed launch arrays, even more hidden cannons lit up simultaneously.

It was as if a second sun had risen in the sky.

The blinding, incandescent light overexposed the Demon Eye’s optical sensors, leaving the screen pure white.

The Demon Eye IV automatically reduced its sensitivity by three levels before the image barely became visible again.

It was a devastating volley.

Hundreds of thick, high-energy beams, mixed with countless Magic Missiles, rained down in a torrential storm.

There wasn’t even the roar of explosions on site. The energy levels were so high that the sound was directly swallowed by a distorted Force Field.

The ground collapsed instantly in the areas swept by the beams.

The crust of rock on the lava plain, cooled for who knows how many years, was pierced through, revealing the churning, incandescent magma below. Pillars of steam shot a thousand meters into the sky, mingling with the fiery explosions of the Magic Missiles to form a gray-white curtain that blotted out the sun.

A blank area, over fifteen kilometers in diameter, appeared in the center of the beast tide.

Nothing was left.

Tens of thousands of Magical Beasts—big or small, with high or low Magic Power fluctuations—were instantly vaporized the moment the beams touched them. The rising mushroom cloud could be seen from the workshop, hundreds of kilometers away.

"So fierce!" Allen couldn’t help but exclaim.

[Firepower assessment complete.]

Jarvis’s voice rang out in the control room.

[Total output of a single volley is approximately dozens of times greater than the combined fire of five of the Commander’s fully-staffed legions.]

Allen stared at the screen.

Dozens of times. And that was a conservative estimate; the actual destructive effect far exceeded the on-paper data.

’So this is the power of a High-tier Wizard,’ Allen murmured to himself. ’A single strike from this Golem could flatten an entire mountain range.’

But the beast tide showed no sign of retreat.

They were corrupted by an abyssal aura and controlled by the will of a Morning Star-level Magical Beast. Having long since lost their instinct for self-preservation, the fifteen-kilometer blank zone was maintained for less than a minute.

The black tide surged from the rear, like a river rejoining after being split. The surrounding Magical Beasts poured in like a bursting dam, fearlessly filling the gap.

They trampled over the scorched earth of their kin and continued their charge eastward.

The second and third volleys fell.

Two more blank zones appeared.

Although they were soon filled again, the speed had clearly slowed.

These three volleys had wiped out a third of the vanguard.

Just as Allen thought this overwhelming suppression would continue indefinitely, the behemoth identified as the Ironstar 6th Legion made a move he hadn’t anticipated at all.

It began to break apart.

It was as if a rain of steel began to fall from the sky.

This was not a collapse, but an orderly separation.

The colossal mountain of steel began to peel away from the bottom. Sections that looked like outer armor detached, unfolded, and transformed, ultimately becoming independent combat Golems.

One, fifty, one hundred...

Thousands of them.

Like falling leaves, or more aptly, like iron hornets swarming from a Hive, they poured out from the colossus’s body, spreading into formation at an altitude of three thousand meters before diving toward the ground.

’No wonder it’s called a "legion,"’ Allen realized. ’It’s a combination Golem.’

The individual Golems that had detached were not small.

The Demon Eye’s rangefinding module provided the data—each one was about ten meters tall, much taller than his PX-1. After landing, they immediately deployed into combat formation, establishing an interception line that stretched for dozens of kilometers along the front of the beast tide.

In the sky, as the outer structure completely broke apart, the "mountain’s" core was finally revealed.

It was a gigantic Humanoid Golem.

Its height was estimated to be over three hundred meters. Two arms, two legs, a torso, a head—a standard humanoid configuration, but its proportions were much thicker, like an ironclad warrior magnified countless times.

The Ironstar 6th Legion.

Hundreds of sub-units could combine into a flying fortress when needed and separate into a complete mechanized force. And that three-hundred-meter giant humanoid was the legion’s core and main body.

It was motionless now.

Hovering in mid-air like a colossal god awaiting its opponent’s entrance.

Allen knew what it was waiting for.

The Morning Star-level Rock Armor Earth Dragon with a Magic Power fluctuation of 12,000 was still in the rear.

Only a giant can face a giant.

But it wasn’t completely still—the Demon Eye’s composite scan caught a detail: the giant main body was continuously channeling Magic Power to the hundreds of sub-units below. Umbilical cords of Magic Power, invisible to the naked eye, connected it to each of the ten-meter, silver-gray Golems.

These sub-units didn’t need to carry their own magic power furnaces.

Their firepower was nowhere near as cataclysmic as the mothership’s volley, but their strength lay in their precision and sustainability.

Each sub-unit fought independently, yet they coordinated as if they were a single entity. Melee slashes, energy shots, positioning, fire distribution, formation rotations—there were no wasted movements.

An ordinary Magical Beast couldn’t last a second against them.

Allen stared at the screen for a long time before closing the Demon Eye’s perspective.

It was fine to be shocked, but he couldn’t get lost in it.

On the holographic map, Jarvis’s predictive model had finished updating. The Ironstar 6th Legion’s interception line stretched across the front of the beast tide, providing fire coverage about thirty kilometers wide, but the beast tide’s fan-shaped front was over one hundred and twenty kilometers wide.

The front was being torn apart, crushed, and annihilated.

But on the flanks, large numbers of scattered Magical Beast groups were spreading eastward through the gaps in fire coverage, like seeping water.

They were no longer an organized legion; these scattered groups had degenerated into instinct-driven packs, but their direction of travel remained unchanged. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Eastward.

Jarvis projected a new holographic map in front of Allen. The red dots representing the Magical Beasts hit the blue wall representing the Ironstar Legion, then split into countless small red streams that flowed around the defensive line and converged again.

[Prediction model updated. An estimated 18,000 to 25,000 Magical Beasts will bypass the interception line and continue to advance eastward. There are no further interception forces ahead.]

[This includes sixteen Second-Level Magical Beasts, with Magic Power fluctuations between 3,200 and 4,800. Approximately 320 Magical Beasts are at the First-level Wizard grade. The remainder are ordinary to elite-grade.]

[Based on their current speed and direction, approximately one-third of the vanguard’s scattered groups will reach Zone 18. Time remaining: twelve days.]

In other words, about five to six thousand Magical Beasts would reach Allen’s territory.

There were thirty-two at the Crystal Shell Scorpion King Level.

Six had Magic Power fluctuations above 3,000, two of which exceeded 5,000.

Twelve days.

This was what his mentor meant by "what slips through." Moreover, the latest reconnaissance reports showed that a continuous stream of Magical Beasts was following, though their strength and density were not as high as the first wave’s.

Giants fight a giant’s war.

He had to fight his own.

"Jarvis, assemble all the Storm Falcons. Organize them into independent attack waves. Prepare for a proactive long-range interception bombing of the scattered groups."

[Calculations complete. The Storm Falcons, fully loaded with aerial bombs, have a combat radius of six hundred kilometers. They will enter the Flying Golems’ range in two days. The Demon Eye reconnaissance network will provide real-time coordinate guidance.]

The scattered groups were currently eight hundred kilometers from the workshop and would arrive in twelve days. This meant they would engage the Storm Falcons in two days.

Allen took one last look at the westernmost edge of the holographic map.

That three-hundred-meter giant Humanoid Golem was still hovering motionlessly in the air. And at the end of the horizon, a thousand kilometers away, a moving mountain was slowly approaching.

But the mountain’s spine was empty.