In an effort that seemed to be a near exact copy of the Battle for the Uncharted Lands, countless MSGs were pouring into the Imperial Palace in a desperate attempt to claim some of the glory that would come with the death or capture of the Holy Crux Emperor. While the forces Hiroyuki had at his disposal were considerable and were quite powerful, they each were only able to take on three or four MSGs at a time.

While the numbers that defended Hiroyuki were about 10,000 before the final assault, they were like a drop in the ocean compared to the numbers that were swarming like a mechanical hybrid of locusts and ants through the corridors and passageways in the Imperial Palace. In this battle, it wasn’t a matter of IF kill-stealing would happen, but rather WHEN it would happen, which it turned out was quite often. The sheer amount of fire that was being sent through the wide pathways that connected everything made the act of defending the palace like trying to survive a run through a multi-hour-long Bullet-Hell game with no pauses and with only one life.

Sure, the defenders were strong, the best of the best even, but in the face of beam-spam, bullet-spam and missile-spam they were nothing more than targets to be turned into swiss cheese. Hiroyuki still believed that he would somehow get out of this alive and as the victor, long ago having lost himself to delusions of absurd grandeur, but as the Imperial Palace was taken piece by piece he found himself backed into increasingly smaller corners.

Eventually the whole of the above-ground portions of the palace, or what was left of it, had been taken and the more dangerous work of delving into the tunnels underneath the palace had to be undertaken. While the sewers had been unnavigable due to magical interference, the tunnels under the palace were more or less just tighter versions of those that were above ground. In an attempt to cover more ground and secure as much of the tunnels as possible before they could be fortified. a group of RTX-440 Ground Assault Type Guntanks, some MS-06V Zaku Tanks and their ranked-up version, the YMT-05 Hildolfrs were sent to take as secure as much of a beachhead as possible.

…

As the few defenders tried to construct a hasty barricade to deter the Metal Demons, the sound of some bizarre and abominable noise grew steadily louder as they worked. It was a sound they knew all too well, an infernal song that told anyone who heard it that shit was about to go down. It was just the defenders’ luck that they were trying to cordon off a section of open area, just large enough for those damned crawlers to speed around.

As the noise got steadily louder the men stopped their hasty and impotent efforts and crouched down and huddled up against the walls so that they wouldn’t be run over or hit by the speed of the crawling Metal Demons. Some of them tried to hide themselves behind obstacles, but as the similar efforts of others had shown this was not as good an idea as one might think.

…

A single Hildolfr sped down the tunnels while blaring an endless loop of several extended versions of songs from the anime ‘Initial D’. This was a psychological tactic that had proven very effective and also quite funny. The Hildolfr in its tank mode smashed through the hastily erected barricade and began to drift in a circle around the open area it found itself in. It spun around for a bit before coming to a dead stop and facing in the direction it arrived in.

It transformed, its torso and head lifting off the tank-like body that it had fit snuggly in and its mono-eye scanned the debris that remained from its dynamic entry. Several meatbags had been impaled by the fragments of wood and metal that had been the result of the Hildolfr smashing through the barricade, but most of the meatbags were still very much alive.

It would remedy that.

As the meatbags got up and tried to surround it, the Hildolfr merely pulled our two MMP-80 Machine Guns and spun around in place, laying down a deadly field of fire. A few of the meatbags were cut to ribbons but most of them hit the ground before they could become ground meat. Not a problem for the Hildolfr, as it proceeded to run over the idiots in front of it, using their guts to grease its treads.

At this sight, the rest of the meatbags decided that staying prone was not a good idea and that fleeing in all directions was. This was another big mistake as the Hildolfr simply began to systematically eliminate every man who attempted to flee. One brave/foolish man at the end had stood his ground, and the Hildolfr faced him down. Deciding to give this brave/ foolish man a proper send off, the Hildolfr lowered its torso and aimed its main gun at the man who only realized what was going to happen too late to do anything to stop it.

BOOM!

With a single shot the man’s whole upper body became a fine red mist and his legs were sent dancing in the air. With ‘Déjà Vu’ still blaring on loop, the Hildolfr transformed back into its tank mode and sped off down another corridor, looking to waste a few more fools.

…

“Ha! That was good! The look on that one’s face as he realized how terribly unfortunate his situation had been was beyond priceless!”

Asharia continued to move ever upwards at a slow but steady pace. It would only be a few days now before she was capable of bursting through the ground. She hoped that the battle for the deepest parts of the palace would be over by then, so she wouldn’t end up destroying these neat little golems. She felt magic from them, but only barely, which made her curious as to how they worked.

Most things in this universe ran off of magic, and things like these that were only magical in the way that they were connected to that boy were beyond simply being uncommon, they were basically unheard of. At least that would have been the case seven thousand years ago, but she wasn’t sure about the modern day. Had the other nations in Heaven created things that were less magical and more scientific, or were they still relying on the Deus ex Machina of magic to solve all their problems?

Time would tell, and time was something she had a lot of.