Steel Raven crossed the sky.
The shock wave created as it tore through the air drummed against the atmosphere, producing a thunderous noise.
People caught in the confusion of battles taking place all over the island were startled by the thunder-like sound in the dark night sky.
Even looking up at the sky, nothing was visible.
A hazy gray mist, dark night sky, a dense monochrome world where not even starlight existed.
Even if a black line streaked across it, there was no way it could be seen with the naked eye.
Rudger, riding the steel bird, headed straight for the center of the third floor.
Isla Machina, composed of a total of five floors, generally took on a conical shape, comparable to a steel mountain standing tall.
If most people were to live on a mountain, they would likely settle on the ridge, but Isla Machina was different.
Just as various caves and mines are dug inside a mountain, Isla Machina also had various pathways and passages leading to the interior.Rudger headed for the one among those passages that would allow him to reach Nikolai as quickly as possible.
A passage visible in the distance was blocked by a huge bulkhead.
An alloy door at least 30 meters high and several meters thick.
It was an entrance that should have been open normally, but Nikolai, knowing Rudger would come, had closed the bulkhead.
Rudger didn't stop or detour when he saw it.
Instead, he demonstratively spurred the Steel Raven's speed.
-Whoosh!
The Steel Raven's form became even more streamlined and sharp.
The tip of its beak extended and transformed into something like a blade.
The Steel Raven, which had become a flying giant shadow blade, cut through the air and plunged into the bulkhead.
The bulkhead was made of special alloy materials.
It wouldn't break even if high explosives were brought in, and it was also specially treated to have strong resistance to magic.
Even for Rudger, recklessly charging like this was clearly an action that entailed danger.
But unlike the expectation that a loud impact sound would be heard, there was no noise.
-Pung!
Even collision sounds only propagate when two forces of similar levels clash against each other.
If one side unilaterally and smoothly penetrates through, it's a different story.
A round, tunnel-like hole was drilled into the huge alloy bulkhead.
Nikolai's subordinates, who were waiting in ambush around the entrance, gaped at the sight.
The Steel Raven, which had easily broken through the iron fortress door, didn't stop.
As it flew through the large, dark passage, hidden devices activated from various places in the corridor.
-Click.
Gun muzzles that emerged from everywhere—floor, walls, ceiling—fired at Rudger and the Steel Raven.
-Rattatatata!!
Tracers flickering in the dark space streaked continuously, decorating the surroundings brilliantly.
A scene as if the entire narrow, dark space was dyed with starlight.
In reality, the number of tracers was only what the eye could see; the invisible bullets were many times more.
Even the fast-moving Steel Raven couldn't avoid them.
'If I can't avoid them, so be it.'
As he infused more magical power into the Steel Raven, the shadow on its body flared up like flames.
The shadow made of magical power swallowed all the incoming bullets.
The shadow finely decomposed the swallowed bullets and the decomposed metal steadily accumulated inside Rudger's shadow.
The rain of bullets that seemed like it would go on endlessly stopped. Before he could feel puzzled, a new interference came.
-Zzzzzap!
Intense currents arose from various places on the wall, creating a wide net of electricity that spread waves throughout the entire passage.
-Screech!
The Steel Raven, which had been flying without any interference until now, reacted violently for the first time.
Beyond just slowing down, it was as if the Steel Raven had been caught in a spider web, blocked by the electric net.
Rudger, who urgently jumped off the Steel Raven, narrowed his eyes.
'A magnetic field? Could they have hidden Tesla coils in the passage?'
The Steel Raven, made of metal, was bound to be strongly affected by magnetic fields.
But a magnetic field emitted by a simple Tesla coil couldn't possibly restrain the Steel Raven.
As could be seen from the electrical net, this too was clearly magical engineering with magic added but the Steel Raven wasn't just suffering.
Seemingly quite angry at the fact that it was tied up, even if momentarily, the Steel Raven roughly flapped its wings and tore apart the net with force.
The scattered current crackled in the air, sending off sparks.
The Tesla coils operated fiercely, spreading a stronger magnetic field and electrical net.
The Steel Raven also spread the shadow covering its body widely, beginning to swallow up the entire area.
-Zzzzzzzap!
The two forces collided, creating intense energy in the air.
-Screech!
After spreading its wings wide, the Steel Raven gathered all its energy throughout its body and flew forward as if shooting out.
The Steel Raven, containing power that had exceeded the critical point, was now no different from a bomb itself.
Just as the electrical net was about to bind the Steel Raven's metal body in response...
The condensed power spread out, causing a massive explosion.
BOOM!!!
As the explosion occurred, the surrounding passage resonated.
Some parts of the metal passage couldn't withstand the shock energy and became distorted, causing significant vibrations throughout the island.
Due to the impact of the collision, the defense system installed in the passage became inoperative, and the Tesla coils inside the walls couldn't withstand the energy and melted.
The passage's defense system was completely down but the Steel Raven wasn't completely unscathed either.
The forced overload had destroyed its steel body, making it impossible to maintain its form intact.
Rudger retrieved the Steel Raven's shadow, draped it over his body as Aether Nocturnus, and gathered the remaining steel debris into the shadow.
"You did well."
Now he had to proceed with his own power.
Rudger slowly walked through the passage.
Inside was only deep darkness, but he felt intuitively that the destination wasn't far away.
-Weeeeeen!
Perhaps because of the earlier shock, red emergency lights came on throughout the dark passage.
Loudly sounding siren noises and red lights that repeatedly blinked.
Each time the lights turned on, they took on an ominous color as if blood had been splattered around.
Rudger, with the shadow draped over his body, walked through that chaos of blood-colored light.
-Weeeeeen!
With the sirens periodically blaring loudly, Nikolai's subordinates felt like they were going to lose their minds.
"Hey, can someone turn off that annoying sound?"
"Well, the system is completely messed up due to the earlier impact, so it can't be turned off."
"Damn it. At this rate, both the enemy and us will be fighting with the same visibility."
If it weren't for this red light, they could have spotted the enemy from afar through the newly made night vision goggles.
But with this light confusing the eyes, using night vision goggles would surely lead to blindness.
"Everyone, concentrate. Even if the opponent is just one, his strength equals that of an army."
"But is it possible for him to break through that bulkhead? I heard that even when mages repeatedly experimented to break it, they could only make slight scratches."
"I don't know."
"Besides, wasn't the passage leading here filled with defense systems? That alone is enough to wipe out an entire battalion and quickly take care of a war mage unit."
After saying that, the subordinate came up with one conclusion.
"In fact, isn't the intruder already dead from the explosion earlier?"
The captain should have told him to stop talking nonsense, but he couldn't because deep down, he too harbored similar thoughts.
No, rather than thoughts, it was closer to a wish.
If the intruder was a monster capable of attacking such a place alone, no matter how well-prepared they were, casualties were inevitable.
He didn't think they would be defeated.
However, the fear and pressure that someone might die here, and that it might be him, gnawed at their hearts like worms.
-Hoo. Hoo.
Rough breathing mixed in between the siren sounds.
"Hey, make that guy be quiet."
The captain said, annoyed by the sound, but there was no response.
Instead, the breathing became rougher than before, and anxiety and agitation spread like an epidemic.
"You bastards, get yourselves together!"
The captain was about to shout when he noticed something wrong with his own body.
-Tremble.
His fingertips trembled unconsciously.
'What, what is this?'
He thought he might be feeling cold, but the surroundings were rather hot. This was because endless circulating hot steam compression pipelines passed through this area.
But the captain felt his lips turning pale and his body trembling.
Something was off. This was too far from a normal reaction.
"For a captain, you're quite perceptive."
At the voice whispering in his ear, the captain felt as if his heart had dropped.
The reason he didn't scream in fear was because he was a veteran who had gone through many battles and experiences over the years.
His arm, which moved reflexively, pointed the muzzle of his specially made gun at the enemy.
It used special gunpowder that was unaffected by the silence of fire, so if he just pulled the trigger, he could instantly kill the opponent at close range, whether they were a mage or whatever.
"Ah, aah."
But he couldn't put strength into his fingers.
The moment he saw the black shadow staring at him under the blood-colored lighting, a sense of powerlessness swept over his entire body, and he couldn't exert any strength.
Just by making eye contact, he was overwhelmed.
His head was screaming to pull the trigger somehow, but his body wouldn't budge.
One arm of the black shadow moved.
"Huh?"
The captain lost consciousness with the last sensation of his vision spinning.
With one corpse created, the first proper reaction came to the suffocating space.
"It's, it's him! He's appeared!"
"The captain is dead!"
"Shoot! Shoot and kill him!"
Normally, they would have surrounded Rudger, established a fire network, and attacked using various tools.
But in confusion and fear, they couldn't respond rationally.
It wasn't that those gathered here lacked experience.
They were simply overwhelmed.
Beyond being psychologically intimidated by the intense magical power Rudger was spreading around, beyond the pressure of the atmosphere, they were even seeing hallucinations.
This meant that Rudger was that serious, and also that he was quite angry.
-Rattatatata!
Muzzle flashes flickering from all directions.
Emergency lights that periodically turned off and on.
The noisy sounds of gunfire, alarm, and screams mixed, creating a scene reminiscent of a hellish landscape.
Amidst this, Rudger, draped in a black shadow, revealed his form when light appeared and disappeared into darkness when the light disappeared, repeating this cycle.
-Flash.
When it flashed once, his form was faintly visible, and when it flashed again, nothing remained in that spot.
The moment one was entranced by this and became distracted, cold death descended.
Rudger moved swiftly among the enemies, and those who fell helplessly formed a path of corpses.
-Clank. Clank.
Large automatons stepped forward.
With the automaton's specifications arbitrarily released, their size matched that of steam golems.
Having released all sorts of limiters and even equipped with weapons, they had transcended tools and could aptly be called slaughter machines.
The mannequin-like automaton extended a blade protruding from the back of its hand towards Rudger.
But the automaton's body was dismantled with the extended blade.
The intense magical blast Rudger unleashed didn't stop there, sweeping away all the automaton soldiers lined up behind.
Test subjects who heard the commotion also gathered.
-Screech!
Pale-skinned humans crawled on walls and ceilings with all four limbs like insects, charging at Rudger.
Rudger didn't stop even at that sight.
The black trajectory rampaging in the darkness dyed everything around with destruction and despair.
The test subjects, as they charged, either died by being cut into pieces, burned to death, or frozen to death.
Some melted, some were pierced by countless pieces of steel, and some were buried underground and crushed.
The forms were diverse, but the result was the same: silent death.
Eventually, Rudger spotted a door in the distance and raised his hand to blow it away.
-Bang!
Seeing the massive door, reminiscent of an air-raid shelter, easily blown away, Nikolai clicked his tongue.
"I drove them in to at least hold you back a bit, but they couldn't even slow you down."
Despite knowing that all his faithful subordinates had died, Nikolai's expression didn't change.
An attitude as if it didn't matter to him at all how many of them died.
Eventually, from the darkness beyond the door where acrid smoke flowed, blue eyes emerged.
The owner of the eyes stepped in.
Unlike the dark passage, this wide place was bright and formed in a large sphere.
Nikolai, seeing Rudger, welcomed him with both arms wide open, as if pleased.
"Welcome, John Doe, to the center of Isla Machina, the Central Reactor."