Hummm…
Amid that eerie, vibrating resonance, the gold-and-blue star patterns across the Giant God Weapons' bodies began greedily drawing in nearby Ether particles, their glow intensifying by the second.
At the same time, the magic power gathering around them flowed like water through "channels" formed by the linked divine patterns, surging into the core at the center of each bronze giant's chest, like countless rivers pouring into the sea.
With a teeth-gritting screech of mechanisms grinding inside their chests, rings of light meant to gather and aim took shape one after another in front of them. Those constantly adjusting apertures locked squarely onto the coastal wall.
Ssssss!
Dozens of crimson beams swept across again. Along their deadly tracks, the waves split to either side, surging up into several-meter-high torrents. Great sheets of seawater steamed away, and the stench of salt and brine spread everywhere.
"Incoming! Brace for impact!" Samael roared, brows drawn tight.
He dropped his stance and stamped down hard, slamming Medusa's shield forward. Golden light patterns—born of both his and Medusa's power—rippled outward across the coastal wall, forming a golden shell that sealed around them like an egg.
This time they were ready, and the crimson beams didn't come in the same synchronized volley as before. The second wave looked terrifying, but it only sent ripples shivering across the expanded light shield. The surging Ether poured into it and vanished without leaving a trace.
But after taking more than a hundred magical bolts head-on, the two deities gripping the shield's guard tightly could feel Medusa's shield heating up and trembling. It was clearly nearing its limit.
You think you can harvest the civilization of the Greek World? You're not worthy.
The Ancient Serpent lifted his head and bared a savage grin.
"Ana!"
Medusa understood instantly. The two old partners met each other's eyes, and instead of relief, there was only a cold, solemn resolve. They raised the shield and drove it forward together.
In the next instant, the Gorgon head at the shield's center snapped its eyes open.
Crimson-purple snake hair erupted and spread, hissing and flicking tongues in every direction. Countless vertical pupils glittered with chilling light, and thousands upon thousands of crimson-purple magecraft formation diagrams appeared across the surface of the golden shield.
"Forceful Seal: Pandemonium Cetus!"
Medusa threw back her head and roared, eyes wide. Her crimson-purple rectangular pupils were deep and dead like an abyss, and purple snake scales spread from her neck up along both cheeks.
At once, tens of thousands of crimson-purple beams tore across the sky. Wherever they struck—whether the deep-sea fleet or the bronze giants—gray-white petrification spread in an instant. Even the hardest metal became as brittle as rock baked hard, then doused with cold water.
Crack… crack…
Shattering sounds rang out across the sea.
One petrified black warship after another broke apart and sank as chunks of stone.
The bronze giants kept marching toward shore with mechanical stubbornness. But a teeth-grinding metallic tremor rose from their bodies as petrified arms, thighs, even half their torsos fractured and collapsed. The massive frames toppled into the sea, throwing up waves a hundred meters high.
By the gods above… it worked!
Orpheus stared at the sea. The deep-sea fleet and Giant God Weapons that had been so aggressive only moments ago were now a field of wreckage, losses easily reaching seventy percent. He clenched a fist, trembling with excitement, his eyes burning with reverence as he looked toward the two figures at the wall's edge. For a moment, he almost wanted to grab his lyre and burst into song.
But Samael and Medusa, backs turned to their followers, showed none of the ease of victory.
Their expressions were grim, as if facing something far worse.
"Laaa!"
Out in the Storm Sea, Sefar spread its arms and lifted its head, releasing syllables like a sing-song chant. The faint gray-white petrification that had clung to its body where several beams had grazed it was instantly vaporized.
Gold-and-blue patterns raced outward across the sea surface, and a strange resonance thrummed through the air.
Bzzzz bzzzz bzzzz bzzzz!
In an instant, gold-and-blue pillars of light, star-patterns rippling across them, rose from points all over the sea ahead.
Under the coastal wall defenders' disbelieving stares, the shattered deep-sea warships were wrapped in those gold-and-blue currents and reassembled, their cracks knitting shut. Severed limbs of the Giant God Weapons rose from the sea and reattached to their bodies.
And the thousands of wide-area annihilation weapons that had been completely erased didn't "repair" at all. They were rebuilt.
They hatched from the sea inside those light pillars, reformed and reactivated, then surged forward like a swarm, sweeping toward the opposite shore to begin low-altitude bombardment in thick, relentless waves.
For a time, battle nymphs, human heroes, city-state reinforcements, and Magi-priests worked in tight coordination under the protection of the coastal wall and Medusa's shield, constantly shooting down the swarms rushing in.
After a brief stretch of chaotic fighting, Atalanta—sharp-eyed and meticulous—jumped down from the back of the Colchis fierce dragon and landed behind Samael, speaking in a hurried whisper.
"If I'm not seeing things wrong… that monster isn't just using seawater to repair its losses. It's even incubating more combat units."
"Then could it be… even Atlantis's explosion in Giant God Weapons came from the same process?"
The Ancient Serpent kept one eye on Sefar's movements as he pressed his lips together and nodded, voice low and grim.
"Probably. The land has mineral deposits, but seawater is rich in metal elements too. With Atlantis's data templates and weapon prototypes, Sefar can use the ocean itself as raw material and mass-produce Giant God Weapons, deep-sea warships, wide-area annihilation weapons… all of it."
"We're in trouble."
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
With Giant God Weapons and wide-area annihilation weapons providing cover, dozens of pitch-black warships surged in like sharks smelling blood. They broke through the shallows, slammed into the shore, and threw their hatches wide open.
In an instant, humanoid combat units—batch-copied and batch-created in black metal shells—flashed with crimson patterns and rushed the breaches with unnerving agility.
Seeing that, Greek heroes old and new rallied reinforcements from the city-states on their own initiative, throwing bodies into the gaps to share the load and take pressure off the two deities.
Samael, feeling Medusa's shield starting to fail, finally agreed to their plea. He pulled back a few less stable segments of the barrier and ordered them to hold the line and wait for further support.
But the moment it turned into real close-quarters fighting, the human side started suffering immediately.
These monsters were built from some kind of special metal, steel-boned and tough as hell. Against something no one had ever seen before, arrows and spears didn't even know where to "bite."
Often, even a mass-produced, low-grade humanoid combat weapon like this still forced a well-trained human soldier to burn nearly half his reserves just to barely put one down.
The next tier up—those lapis-blue Atlantis soldiers—could go one-on-one against elite troops from any city-state and fight them to a draw.
As for the battle nymphs and god-blooded heroes, they were immediately tied down by waves of gold-and-red units wielding cylindrical weapons, almost equivalent to the Olympian guard of humanity's Golden Age.
These things wore powered armor driven by external divine patterns. Even giant axes and heavy hammers meant for cracking armor barely did anything. Only weapons forged and refined by gods had a clear effect.
And the numbers…
A single glance showed the sea surface packed almost solid. For spellcasters lobbing magecraft from range, or human soldiers drawing bows and crossbows, aiming was basically optional. Close your eyes and throw, and you could still blow a whole patch apart.
For a garrison that, at best, only numbered a few tens of thousands, it was a nightmare.
Greek city-states produced heroes and favored elite forces, so their conventional troops were limited. With this kind of gap in sheer quantity, even trading at one-for-two or one-for-three wouldn't be enough. Just the things in the shallows and nearshore could grind these defenders down seven or eight times over.
If Samael and Medusa weren't repeatedly delaying the more dangerous Giant God Weapons legion out at sea, the handful of people below wouldn't even be enough to fill their teeth.
So much for "reputation." Sefar was giving him a very thorough lesson.
Samael, his worldview freshly smashed, stared at Sefar in the Storm Sea and cursed under his breath.
What happened to the promised one-on-one?
This isn't a "vanguard." It's an infinite-spawning, walking hive.
But once he cooled off and thought about it, it made sense. As the pinnacle weapon used by the Star-Eater Velber to harvest planetary civilizations, relying on brute personal power alone to wipe out intelligent species would be ridiculously inefficient.
Using alien legacies and available resources to mass-produce autonomous weapons to assist in the mission was the standard approach.
And Poseidon had practically gift-wrapped Atlantis's centuries of accumulated achievements and handed them to Sefar. No wonder she woke up with the mass-production skill tree fully maxed.
Sea King, and you still want to claim you're not the mole?
You're basically an ally's blood-letting spigot and the enemy's fuel pack.
As the close-quarters fight grew fiercer, both sides started taking losses.
Clang-clang-clang!
Atalanta sprinted and fired in rapid bursts. Dozens of red-black grunts trying to flank the breach were pierced straight through their magic reactors, metal shards spraying in glittering sheets.
But at the same time, a soldier who'd lost his shield slipped up for just an instant. A metallic serpent tail lashed out, hooked him, and dragged him out of formation.
Several black grunts swarmed him, pinning his limbs. The metal construct's "face" split open, revealing only darkness inside.
Then the lead grunt's light patterns flickered. Its open face became a sucking gold-and-blue vortex.
Under that horrifying draw, specks of light-dust leaked from the soldier's mouth, nose, and other openings, swallowed as nourishment. His body slowly turned transparent… and then shattered.
Far out in the Storm Sea, beneath the motionless Planetary Vanguard, dense light-dust streamed upward and poured into Sefar's body, making the star patterns on her form grow sharper and brighter.
"Not just Ether… their intellect is gone too," Medusa said, startled, relaying the discovery to Samael, Prometheus, and the others. "Are we…"
But before she could finish, the magic reactors inside hundreds of Giant God Weapons began spinning violently, forcing their way free of suppression. Strange runes flared in their hands and condensed into spears of light, which they hurled in a sweeping throw.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Samael and Medusa reacted in time, but Medusa's shield was already at its limit. Amid bursts of blinding halos, several more gaps tore open, and even the shield's main body split with thin, threadlike cracks of light.
"The barrier has been broken. Wide-area scan complete. Multiple civilization substrates confirmed. Execute annihilation directive!"
A muffled, thunder-like hum rolled out from the Giant God Weapons' chest cavities and spread across the sea.
In an instant, the nearshore waters churned violently. Primordial Hydras, Hades's three-headed hounds, Naga serpent women—huge numbers of creations produced by Echidna's armory—rose from the shallows, mixed in with even more humanoid combat units. Crimson-eyed, they charged the breach in a frenzy.
The human defenders were already at the end of their rope. Watching the annihilation host multiply and surge ashore again, their hearts sank into despair. They didn't have the strength or manpower to seal the other cracks in the coastal wall. All they could do was stare as the monsters poured through and began to encircle them.
Sssshk—!
At the very last moment, shrill whistles tore through the air one after another.
Divine-patterned throwing spears, so dense they blotted out the sky, fell like a meteor shower. The metal constructs forcing their way into the breach dropped in rows, like wheat cut down by a farmer's scythe, pinned dead to the ground.
Then came the sound of marching.
Heavy, perfectly synchronized footsteps rolled in from the distance like muffled thunder, building into a roar that made guts turn cold. Through the drifting dust, a formation emerged in an intercepting arc—Corinthian helmets, bronze shields, ranks bristling with spears.
And every single one of them was a muscle-bound warrior with the same feral aura.
"No prisoners! No mercy!"
A pair of twins—brother and sister, slimmer than the rest—stood at the flanks with sword and shield. They struck blade against shield as they bellowed the words, their voices sharp with killing intent.
The soldiers stacked their bronze shields with practiced ease and thrust spears through the gaps. They advanced with brutal precision, finishing and dismembering the metal constructs in their path. Then they literally skewered the remaining hundreds like hedgehogs and forced them back out, sealing most of the breach.
Even while doing that, they peeled off manpower to both sides, replacing exhausted allies.
These men of flesh and blood moved like a turning millstone, grinding every metal thing that tried to break the blockade into fragments.
It was enough to make you wonder if they were monsters wearing human skin.
"Sparta's reinforcements!"
The patchwork defenders hastily gathered from the surrounding city-states nearly cried out in joy. Their aching limbs seemed to stop shaking. It was as if strength surged back into them. They swung their chipped weapons with renewed fury, hacking down the monsters that had made landfall.
But just as morale surged—
A dense cloud of wide-area annihilation weapons slipped through the breach and rose into the air. Their massive cores gathered magic power and raked the crowd with crimson fire. Wherever those beams swept, arms and bodies flew apart.
"Athena above, with my shield, protect the city-state! With my sword, I call victory!"
At the same time, brilliant figures streaked overhead like shooting stars.
Thousands of armored Pegasus knights—each in uniform sea-god-forged equipment—charged in under the command of dozens of Saints, carving the wide-area annihilation weapons into exploding fireballs.
At their head were several of Areopagus's Typhon offspring: Chimera, Sphinx, Nemean Lion, and more.
Athens's carefully cultivated Pegasus knights… nearly all of them had been pulled in.
Samael and Medusa looked up to confirm, then finally let out a breath.
Next, along the southeastern forest line, dust billowed as reinforcements hit the field.
A Hydra with nine heads like small mountains lifted its necks and spewed venom, flame, and frost, sweeping the outer ranks clean.
A serpent mother with a snake's lower body and purple-patterned scales raised dense magecraft formations in front of her. Outside the wall, the ground rumbled as the terrain warped violently—poison swamps, falling boulders, and jagged spikes erupting one after another.
The Caucasian Eagle whipped up a gale, wings spread like blades. It dove, bit, and tore, bursts of fire blooming along its path.
And from the rear, little nymphs with transparent wings filled in behind the groups the Colchis fierce dragon had ferried first, tossing specially prepared crystal vials of magic medicine to their companions to restore stamina and Ether.
Good. The Arima Caverns' follow-up force had arrived too.
Samael's expression eased further as he turned toward the eastern sea.
Waves slanted in, surging forward—and as they drew closer, thousands of bronze chariots came thundering in, escorted by a host of sea nymphs.
Perseus, Telamon, Caenis, and a blue-haired woman whose skirt fluttered as gentle watery mist clung to her—stood atop the chariots, charging straight at the grounded deep-sea fleet.
Behind them followed dozens of warships, their hulls visibly patched and repaired.
Thessaly's chariot corps and Troezen's fleet. And that blue-haired woman beside Peleus… if he wasn't mistaken, she had to be the sea goddess Thetis.
If Atlantis's sea gods had met with disaster, Greece didn't have many sea deities left with the influence and capability to rally forces like she could.
Even so, being able to gather this many sea nymphs on such short notice was an unexpected windfall.
"So we're set?" Samael asked, watching elite reinforcements from city after city converge on the line. He turned to the old friend coordinating everything.
Prometheus opened his eyes slowly, looking over the situation as it finally came under control, and nodded with satisfaction.
"Roughly two hours. The elderly and weak across the city-states have basically completed the first stage of evacuation. More importantly, most of the troops we needed have arrived. The rest have already passed through the spatial gate and are on their way."
"Finally." Samael exhaled long and slow, releasing Medusa's fingertips. As he rolled his neck, his joints popped sharply. "Now we can actually move."
Opening large-scale spatial gates with spatial authority was never just about evacuating the elderly and infirm.
Clearing the flanks, tightening the line, pulling forces forward from the rear and sides, building the defense here, drawing the Planetary Vanguard's attention, and slowing these things' landfall—that was the real goal.
Now, the Planetary Vanguard and its controlled monsters wouldn't be able to push into population centers anytime soon to harvest intelligent spirit particles and secure the fuel it needed to evolve.
Which meant… after all this probing, it was time for a true king-to-king clash.
As Samael recalled the heavily damaged Medusa's shield, the golden light curtain faded. The coastal wall was left completely exposed beneath the deep-sea fleet's guns.
But before the ship cannons and Giant God Weapons could finish charging and fire—
A shadow of abyssal darkness swept across the sea.
Where it passed, rippling rings spread outward, and nearby grunts twisted, shattered, and fell into the "recasting" process.
"Laaa!"
In the Storm Sea, the Planetary Vanguard sang out in a strange, high rhythm. The rings of light around its body flared instantly, and from its outstretched hand a hundred-meter greatsword formed from fused pillars of seven-colored light.
It swept down across the sky toward the intruder.
Boom!
Gorgeous light-fire erupted with a deafening roar—
And within that torrent of magic beams, the black figure surged upward against the flow.