With core break active, breaking through the enemy's defense line was no challenge. Lucas had control of Percival’s consciousness and decisions, but the golem still took action in its own way.

  Percival threw its lance with so much force that it tore through all the snakes and shot through several walls. Lucas guided the golem out of the arena-like structure and out into what looked like an ancient city.

  Arches connected buildings that took the shape of domes. The roads were smooth surfaces made out of what looked like marble flooring.

  Unfortunately, Lucas didn’t have the luxury to admire the architecture. Percival leaped into the sky and pressed a button on the crate it was carrying before tossing it into the sky. The crate opened and began launching the golems inside in different directions.

  Percival landed on a roof, then turned towards the building it came out of. It resembled a coliseum with seven towers surrounding it. On top of the towers were massive green crystals that seemed to swirl with energy.

  The walls of the building exploded as hundreds of golems of different types poured out of it, destroying everything in its path. Missiles fired, spells were cast, hammers smashed, and many more as the golems went on a rampage.

  It was hard to believe that Maxwell was controlling all of them. The golems moved systematically with the durable and defense specialized golems taking the front and the artillery golems staying back and firing.

  The close-range combat golems were divided into two groups. The first group protected the artillery golems, while the rest spread out to cause as much damage as possible.

  With Lucas in control of Percival’s decision-making, he decided to make one big move first before deactivating core break. Percival’s lance flew back into the golem’s hand and flared up as aura was infused into it.

  Personally, Lucas considered naming moves childish, but it felt appropriate in the situation.

  “Corrupted charging lance!”

  Percival threw the lance with enough force that it shattered the roof the golem was standing on and tore through the city before colliding with a mountain in the distance and exploding, causing a massive landslide.

  After the attack, core break deactivated, reverting Percival’s wispy appearance into its black armored knight form. Glancing down at the street, Lucas could see the severiumites charging towards the golems.

  Lucas saw a man hover in the sky as flames began swirling around him before firing towards the army of severiumites that responded to their counterattack.

  Both sides collided, launching attacks at each other. When Lucas was about to join the fight, a severiumite landed on the destroyed roof Percival was on. “Are you the champion?” the snake headed creature spoke.

  “You speak common?” Lucas questioned.

  The severiumite didn’t answer, instead, it drew two scimitars from its back as a green aura shrouded its body.

  “Alright,” Lucas responded as Percival was shrouded by its own purple aura.

  Macey stared at the woman in front of her. She greatly resembled Lucas’s younger sister, but with more mature features. Macey would have considered her being Shina, the eldest of the siblings but the sisters looked quite different from each other.

  “Hello. I’m Rose Atican from another universe. Just call me Maverick or Mavs to avoid confusion,” She introduced herself.

  Well, that answered Macey’s confusion.

  “Another universe?” Macey tilted her head in confusion. “I wasn’t expecting to ever meet someone from another universe this soon.”

  “It was bound to happen sooner when you hang around my brother,” Maverick replied. “He’s a magnet for trouble.”

  Macey raised an eyebrow that Maverick quickly noticed. “You call him brother?”

  It was Maverick’s turn to get confused. “Yes? I always did.”

  “It’s just that I’ve never heard Rose call Lucas, brother,” Macey mentioned.

  Maverick chuckled. “She’ll regret that,” she muttered. “Anyways. I wasn’t expecting my brother to have a mana vein.”

  “When I applied for the job, I wasn’t expecting to be sent to a mana vein either,” Macey commented. “But thanks to him, I’m a count-ranked mage now.”

  “How many circles do you have?”

  “Nine. Six of them are full,” Macey answered.

  Maverick nodded in approval. “All you need now is to learn powerful spells,” she said. “Ancient magic is also on the table for you since we’re in the southeastern sector.”

  “I don’t think people here would like someone with northern blood learning ancient magic,” Macey replied.

  Maverick scoffed. “Their words don’t matter. The only thing that matters is improving ourselves.”

  “Madam.”

  Both women turned to find Chief walking towards them. The massive golem kneeled before them and offered a bloody helmet. “Another batch of intruders have attempted to infiltrate.”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Maverick turned to Macey.

  “This happens regularly.”

  Within the observation room of the CDA, the military, the mage association, and the imperial government, they watched as the mission to counterattack the severiumites unfolded.

  And all eyes were locked into one particular confrontation.

  Using identification magic enchanted into the observation orbs, they got information on the two combatants.

  Two warriors stood inside a destroyed building with the rubble surrounding them creating a makeshift arena for them. The observation orbs identified them as Percival and Zareth.

  A low hiss breaks the stillness as Zareth, the serpent-headed warrior with a long, barbed tail and twin scimitars, steps into the makeshift arena. His muscles ripple under scaled skin, eyes glowing faintly green. He circles his opponent with eerie grace, each footfall nearly silent.

  Across the makeshift arena stands the golem, Percival, a towering knight clad in dark plate. Its great sword rests on its shoulder, and the golem’s lance is planted like a flag. It doesn’t speak—only lowers its visor and stares at its opponent with glowing wispy eyes, waiting.

  A heartbeat. Then another.

  They charge.

  Zareth lunges low, scimitars flashing in an X pattern aimed at Percival’s knees. Percival spins, letting the scimitars scrape harmlessly against greaves, and slams the pommel of its sword downward. Zareth hisses, twisting aside, tail whipping up dirt before trying to coil around the knight’s leg.

  Percival stabs its lance downward just in time, pinning the tail to the ground. Zareth snarls in pain, retracts the tail with a whip-crack motion, and backflips away, flipping his blades in a taunting flourish.

  Percival charges, lance first—like a battering ram of steel and fury. Zareth dashes toward the golem as well, blades spinning like propellers. The lance thrusts—Zareth twists his body unnaturally, almost boneless, narrowly avoiding impalement. He slices along the shaft of the lance, sparks flying, before ducking under and rolling to Percival’s flank.

  A quick flurry of slashes—clang, clang, a nick! Yet, no blood dots the edge of one scimitar.

  Percival drops the lance, whirls around with a roar, and brings its great sword down like a guillotine. Zareth parries with both blades, but the sheer force sends him skidding backward, boots tearing through the dirt.

  As both combatants exchanged blows, the spectators in the viewing room watched with mixed feelings. Thanks to the appraisal magic enchanted to the observation orbs, even the people who weren’t combatants were given a measurement of just how powerful each blow being thrown out was.

  They pause. Zareth breathing heavy. Sweat and blood mix with the dust.

  Zareth flicks venom from his fangs, tail swaying like a metronome. Percival slams its sword into the ground beside it, kneeling for a second—then rises, sword pulsing with purple aura.

  Zareth darts forward—this time aiming for the knight’s throat.

  But Percival was waiting.

  The golem feints, sidesteps, and slams its shoulder into Zareth’s chest, sending the serpent warrior sprawling. In the same motion, it spins and buries the great sword into the earth—and the ground erupts in a shockwave of energy.

  Zareth is launched into the air.

  Before he can recover, Percival grabs the discarded lance and throws it with all its strength.

  The lance pierces Zareth midair, pinning him to one of the crumbling pillars.

  Silence returns.

  Zareth’s arms fall limp. His tail twitches once. Then stills.

  Percival retrieves its sword, stands over the fallen warrior, and stabs its hand through Zareth’s chest to check for a core, only to find nothing.

  Lucas puked into a bucket after the intense battle that he just watched in a first-person perspective.

  “You good?” Maxwell asked.

  “I’ll be fine,” Lucas replied with a groan.

  It took a while for Lucas to recover after the fight. Even if Lucas wasn’t in direct control of Percival’s movements, he still experienced everything through the soul connection.

  “I really need to build a tolerance for this,” Lucas grumbled as he got up.

  After the first wave, the golems succeeded in destroying the city. During that, they managed to uncover some horrendous secrets of the Severiumites. To start, severiumites wasn’t some normal civilization. Their whole purpose was to conquer. Once they hatched from their giant eggs, they’re trained to fight, hunt, and kill.

  The only thing their species cared about was conquering others.

  “What exactly is our goal?” Lucas asked Maxwell. “I don’t believe the whole just do as much damage as possible thing.”

  Maxwell shrugged. “I don’t know about the other factions, but the CDA’s goal is to do enough damage to them that they will never think of returning to the empire.”

  “I think this’ll just motivate them even more,” Lucas commented.

  Revenge was quite the motivator.

  Excluding the suicide golems, a total of three hundred twenty-seven golems went into the rift. After the initial attack, only a little over two hundred were left. Both of the mages were still alive only four of the soldiers were left.

  Elise was fortunate to be one of them.

  She stared at where the dimensional rift they came through used to be. All that was left was a destroyed altar, meaning they no longer had a way to return.

  She resolved herself to this, but the instinctual desire of her body to survive this was still there. A small part of her hoped that they would somehow find a way home.

  Akina took a seat beside her. “How are you holding up?”

  Elise shrugged. “Still alive...”

  “We’ll be moving out soon. One of the scouts found another city a few kilometers away,” Akina mentioned.

  Elise just nodded.

  Percival stood atop a watch tower, giving Lucas an overhead view of the battlefield. After decimating one city, the army of golems ventured to another city. With the help of the few scout golems that were provided by the military, they found out that this city was where the tanks that fired corrosive beams were manufactured.

  That was further supported by the fact that the resistance they encountered came in the form of tanks and turrets.

  To counter the corrosive beams, they blocked the attacks with mana created barriers instead of mana enhanced shields.

  A massive red beam tore through the line of tanks. Percival turned to the source of the beam, spotting Fredrick Limestrow’s goliath golem. It stood at multiple stories tall, easily towering over buildings and dwarfing all other golems in the formation. Its body is wide and thick, giving off a tank-like feel, but it's still agile enough to move through city streets during the advance. The shape is a cross between a heavy-duty construction mech and a giant spider tank.

  Its power was a testament to the power of a king-ranked mage.

  But even with all its power, it was no match against the real threats. Behind the line of tanks stood three severiumites. One held a spear, another carried a staff, while the other wielded a cannon.

  They were threats for Percival to deal with. The severiumite wielding a cannon fired, blasting a hole through one of Limestrow’s golem.

  “A little help,” Maxwell said.

  “On it,” Lucas replied as he directed Percival to attack.

  The golem leaped off the watch tower and threw its lance towards the three severiumites in the back line. The attack was blocked by a barrier, but Percival was not done. Core break activated as Percival howled. The golem’s great sword flared up as it shrouded it like the raging flame of the sun.

  Twisting midair, Percival unleashed a powerful slash of energy that crashed down on the city.

  The slash collided with a barrier that it failed to break.