Killing Machine (5)
The defensive magic barrier shattered into countless pieces.
It could not endure for even a few seconds. The fortress of magical power collapsed into multiple fragments amid raging flames, oxidizing into nothingness.
To Beatrice, every aspect of this scene felt perfectly natural.
This was the weapon her creator—Ronald Gutman, the greatest genius in the history of Hemonigent’s mage engineering—had poured his heart, soul, and every ounce of knowledge into.
Ronald Gutman had infused Beatrice with the full accumulation of his life’s work. He had chosen every material with absolute care, and the very first he selected for her was adamantium.
The hardest metal in Terraris history, said to be the strongest of all.
Orichalcum, mithril, stardust, cornium.
Several metals were renowned for their incredible hardness, yet when the greatest of them was named, everyone agreed on one.
Adamantium.
A metal found only at the deepest, most inaccessible depths of the earth—places even the dwarves of the fairy race, beloved by earth and metal spirits, rarely reached.
A sword forged from adamantium could effortlessly clash with a master’s mana sword using nothing but its own inherent strength. A shield of adamantium would not melt even beneath ninth-tier flame magic—Hell Fire.
Among all minerals in Terraris, its rarity was unmatched. Even a sliver the size of a fingernail, if used to plate a blade, would transform that weapon into a national treasure celebrated as a peerless sword.
Across the southern sea of the Astaris continent lay the gods’ own land, Odvolis. If mithril—found only there—was the treasure representing the gods and humans, then adamantium was the treasure that symbolized Hemonigent.
Adamantium was not exclusive to any single region, yet it could only be smelted in the fires of Hemonigent’s northern Barkus Volcano. The legendary metal that refused to melt even in Hell Fire could never be worked by ordinary means; it required the volcano’s deepest infernal heat and years of patient labor.
When Neromeltia had forged her greatsword Deus Ensis, success had only been possible because the dwarf master smith Rigenhart received constant support from heat-dissipating and cooling spells.
Beatrice, too, had been granted adamantium. Though Ronald Gutman could not acquire enough of the priceless historical treasure to satisfy him completely, Neromeltia’s full support allowed him to sweep up every scrap available in Hemonigent.
He first coated Beatrice’s entire cornium skeleton with adamantium plating. Then he bestowed upon her two weapons forged from the same metal.
Those were her circular saw and her chainsaw.
A pure adamantium chainsaw driven by the luina granted by the strongest Demon Lord in history, Neromeltia di Isis, producing overwhelming rotational force.
There was no conceivable way a human magic barrier could withstand such a monstrous weapon.
This was why Beatrice accepted the current situation as inevitable—and why, the instant the defensive barrier collapsed, she could immediately execute her planned attack.
Anything that touched those blades would be pulverized without mercy.
Kaaaaaaaang!!!!!
The moment the barrier shattered, Beatrice sprang forward at terrifying speed.
Having reached the summit of the magitech colossus, her next action was brutally simple.
She gripped the auxiliary handle on the chainsaw’s hand guard with her remaining left hand, then pressed down with both arms.
The fiercely spinning chainsaw erupted with powerful steam from its exhaust vents and began slicing straight through the center of the magitech colossus.
An unreal screech of metal being torn apart echoed violently. The piercing sound sent shivers through the human soldiers—not merely because it was unpleasant, but because they recognized it as the wretched death cry of their ultimate weapon, the pinnacle of their magical engineering.
Kuuuuuuuuu!!!
Kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!!!!!
Suddenly, magic discharge ports materialized at Beatrice’s shoulders and elbows. Just as the chainsaw had appeared in her right arm where nothing had existed before, these ports had been drawn from within her body.
From them, magic waves capable of generating propulsion burst forth violently. The luina-compressed waves burned like black fire, exerting overwhelming physical force.
The thrust from all four discharge ports drove Beatrice downward at blinding speed as she continued pressing the chainsaw through the colossus. Black flames of luina superheated the air, leaving flickering afterimages in their wake.
With every merciless cut, the colossus’s massive frame erupted in fierce flames. The severed surfaces melted and warped from the immense frictional heat.
A giant magitech colossus the size of an entire fortress was bisected in mere moments.
Kagagagagang!!
Having sliced the construct from crown to base, Beatrice landed on the ground and immediately leaped again, severing one of its legs.
Though the chainsaw effortlessly shredded everything its blades touched, the colossus’s enormous torso meant that internal sections beyond the blades’ reach remained untouched. Many mana circuits and components had been destroyed, yet the core’s operating power still held. The machine had not yet fallen.
Therefore Beatrice wasted no time in cutting away one of its legs.
Kiiiiiii…!!!
Kuuuuuuuuuuung!!!!!
The instant the four-legged colossus lost a limb, it lost balance. Its center of gravity shifted, causing the remaining legs to buckle grotesquely as the entire mass toppled toward the severed side.
The pathetic collapse of the metal giant scattered earth and debris in every direction before slamming into the ground. A deafening roar shook the entire area, as though a thousand-year-old fortress had finally crumbled.
Beatrice charged straight at the fallen colossus.
The cut surface she had created with the chainsaw gaped wide. She thrust her left hand deep into the exposed interior.
Kwadudududuk!!!
Tuduk!! Tuduk!! Tududududuk!!!
The sickening sound of machinery being ripped apart.
With her bare hand, Beatrice tore out the colossus’s mana transmission cables and power lines. A thick bundle of metal conduits came away in her grip, black conductive fluid and fuel oil oozing viscously over her fingers and the torn wires.
That bundle had been a critical link in the central control system. With the transmission severed, every mana circuit across the fallen colossus went dark. The machine froze completely, reduced to nothing more than intermittent sparks flickering from its ruined internals.
Uuuuuuuuuung!!!
Pushuuuuuuuk!!
Beatrice gripped the dripping bundle of cables in her left hand and intensified the rotation of the chainsaw that had replaced her right. She turned her gaze toward the human army.
Her face remained utterly expressionless, her blue eyes gleaming with cold light. The chainsaw’s exhaust vent spewed superheated steam with even greater violence, shrouding her in thick white vapor.
The human soldiers felt as if their hearts were being clawed from their chests.
They had just witnessed the infamous “Walking Steel Fortress”—a magitech colossus feared across the land—reduced to scrap in an instant by a mere maid’s chainsaw. Now that same weapon was turning toward them. The realization sank into their bones.
The chainsaw’s thunderous roar sounded utterly sinister. The vivid crimson glow from the magic stone embedded in its body tinted the billowing steam, resembling the blood-red eyes of a predator stalking prey through thick fog. The sight was nightmarish.
Most terrifying of all were the maid’s blue eyes—eyes as brilliant as sunlight fracturing across a clear, pristine sea, frozen into gemstones.
Had the circumstances been different, those radiant eyes might have stolen their breath with beauty. Instead, they felt colder than the cruelest northern blizzard, freezing the very souls of every man who met her gaze.
Kiuuuuuuuuuung!!!
Beatrice charged without the slightest warning, crossing the distance in a heartbeat. The merciless rotation of her chainsaw sent the humans into a panic.
The human commander flinched at her sudden assault. Yet even as terror seized his throat, he somehow issued the optimal orders. Whatever his personal failings, he possessed genuine talent as a commander—the fruit of more than a decade spent defending the northern walls and outposts of the Astaris continent.
Unfortunately, the opponent before him was a transcendent being no amount of mortal experience could overcome.
Kwaaaaaaaak!!!
“Urk…!”
“Kheaaaark…!”
Four soldiers died without even managing a proper death cry. Their bodies were sliced cleanly in half, the cut surfaces ragged and filthy as though torn by brute force.
When a predator invades the heart of a formation reliant on ranged attacks, the result is nothing but slaughter.