"Oh right, Acting Grand Master Jean? Why did you bring so many people?"
Lumine's gaze swept over the hundreds of Knights of Favonius behind Jean—this was nearly the entirety of Mondstadt's defensive strength.
The Cavalry, Outriders, and even logistics personnel were fully armed, and tension was etched onto every face.
"Oh right, I almost forgot about this!"
Jean suddenly slapped her forehead, her finger trembling as she pointed toward the sky.
"Look up!"
Lumine and Paimon looked up in confusion, and the next second—
"Ah!?"
Their screams overlapped.
A hideous rift had appeared in the originally clear blue sky, spreading out like a shattered mirror.
Eerie purple-black energy seeped from the rift, staining the surrounding clouds an ominous color.
Lumine suddenly remembered the Experimental Cannon shell the quartet accidentally misfired while assembling the Wolf King—it seemed they had fired it toward the sky... Good... Very good... Lumine mechanically turned her head, fixing a death glare on the four Hilichurls.
the quartet immediately shifted their gazes in unison. Jesse whistled off-key, Elliot pretended to study his Folding Stool, Zane's mechanical arm suddenly began wiping a glass cup, and Matt tilted his head back to count stars that didn't exist.
The Wolf King considerately handed her a cup of ice water.
Lumine took the cup and drank it in one gulp, and then—
"Can the four of you stop causing so much trouble!!"
Her roar shook the surrounding leaves loose.
"How many times is this now! This time is even worse! You actually broke the sky!!!"
Paimon, frightened, hid inside Jean's cloak: "Traveler is so scary..."
"You caused this mess, so you fix it quickly!"
Lumine's hand, pointing at the sky, was shaking.
The rift was expanding at a visible rate, and faint, eerie shrieks could be heard emanating from within.
"So this is the False Sky..."
The Wolf King's electronic voice suddenly deepened. It switched back to its twenty-meter-tall mecha form, and blue-green flames erupted from its rear thrusters.
"Attempt Repair Program initiated."
The massive mechanical body ascended, and precise mechanical arms extending from its shoulders released Element Stabilization Beams.
The instant the beam touched the rift—
"Alert! Alert!"
The Wolf King's warning system suddenly shrieked.
"High-energy reaction detected!"
The sky shook violently, and the rift shattered with a crash, like broken glass.
A terrifying shockwave flung the Wolf King hundreds of meters away; the mecha tumbled several times in the air before stabilizing itself.
"What happened?!"
Everyone looked up at the sky in horror.
Behind the shattered firmament, a giant claw that blotted out the sun reached out.
When the colossal creature fully emerged, the people below were engulfed in its shadow.
The fifty-meter-tall avian monster spread its wings, each flap generating a devastating hurricane.
"The Wind Demon King Beast, Magbasa..."
Zane said gravely.
"How did this thing appear here? Could it be that our desire to test the Wolf King drew it over..."
"Damn it! The Wolf King is no match!"
Jesse quickly pulled out an RPG, thought for a moment, and then pulled out a Dongfeng Express.
"We'd need Ultraman for something like this!"
As if answering his call, the Wolf King suddenly switched to combat mode.
All the Guizhong Ballistae on its back deployed, the Plasma Cannon began charging, and a metallic voice announced powerfully: "Activating Final Defense Protocol—Sirius System!"
Throughout Mondstadt, all elemental energy suddenly went berserk.
Venti's wine bottle shattered, and the bard displayed a rare serious expression: "Everyone, this is no time for jokes..."
Magbasa let out a deafening shriek, its eyes locking onto the people on the ground.
It opened its giant beak, and destructive wind pressure began to condense in its mouth... The array of Guizhong Ballistae on the Wolf King's shoulders fired simultaneously. Dozens of golden streams of light streaked across the sky, raining down upon Magbasa.
However, the arrows, which were powerful enough to pierce Ruin Guard armor, only sparked faintly against the Demon King Beast's feathers, failing to leave even a scratch.
The Wolf King's electronic voice calmly sounded: "Switching to Plasma Cannon, maximum output."
The Plasma Cannon on its back immediately moved to the Wolf King's shoulder.
Following the charge completion prompt, a brilliant blue beam of light, over five meters in diameter, shot out, accurately hitting Magbasa's throat where the wind pressure was condensing.
"Boom—!"
The shockwave from the explosion completely dispersed the clouds within a hundred meters.
Magbasa's charge was interrupted, and it let out a painful roar.
Its scarlet eyes instantly locked onto the Wolf King, its hatred maximized.
"Roar!!"
Accompanied by a deafening shriek, Magbasa flapped its wings, and its fifty-meter colossal body advanced toward the Wolf King with incredible speed.
Its sharp beak hammered down like a war hammer, tearing the air with a sharp sonic boom.
"Clang—!"
The Wolf King instantly drew the "Sirius Judgment" greatsword from its waist to block, and sparks from the metal collision erupted like fireworks.
But Magbasa's monstrous strength far exceeded expectations; its neck muscles bulged, and with a single head toss, it knocked the greatsword out of the Wolf King's hand.
Immediately following up with a wing sweep, the twenty-meter-tall mecha was swatted hundreds of meters away like a toy, smashing heavily into the cliff face at Windrise, shaking down countless broken rocks.
"Warning! Right arm joint damage 17%..."
The Wolf King's alarm echoed through the valley.
It performed a tactical roll to evade Magbasa's pursuit; the ground where it had just been was marked by a ten-meter-diameter crater left by the sharp claws.
Just then, Jesse, who was lying in ambush far away, pressed the launch button: "Taste this!"
Several Dongfeng missiles marked with four-leaf clover symbols whistled in from different angles, accurately hitting Magbasa's back joints.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
The continuous explosions caused the Demon King Beast's massive body to stagger.
The Wolf King seized this fleeting opportunity, engaged its thrusters fully, and leaped into the air.
Its mechanical leg swept horizontally against Magbasa's head with immense force; the beautiful high kick even created a sonic boom cloud in the air.
"Rumble!"
For the first time, Magbasa lost its balance, its mountain-like body crashing onto the ground, kicking up dust that obscured the sky.
However, this blow, powerful enough to destroy city walls, was merely an annoyance to the Demon King Beast.
It instantly righted itself, flames of fury Burning in its eyes.
"Roar—!!!"
Suddenly, another dragon roar came from the clouds.
Dvalin, who had rushed over upon hearing the commotion, spread his brilliant blue dragon wings and condensed a furious Anemo elemental breath in his mouth.
However, Magbasa merely raised a claw casually, and a massive tornado, connecting heaven and earth, instantly formed, sucking the Dragon of the East into it.
Dvalin struggled fruitlessly in the hurricane, tossed toward the distance like a falling leaf.
"Even Dvalin..."
Acting Grand Master Jean's hand holding her sword trembled slightly.
The Wolf King's tactical system flashed red wildly: "Recommendation: Activate Final Protocol..." It looked down at the quartet on the ground and said, "Requesting backup."
"Damn it! All or nothing!"
Elliot suddenly threw out four dramatically styled belts.
The belts were inlaid with different colored gems in the center and decorated with Hilichurl graffiti-style patterns along the edges.
"This is... wait, are we actually going to use these?"
Jesse caught the green belt thrown to him, his eyes wide beneath his mask.
They had made these toys according to their memory of Tokusatsu Drama during a moment of boredom, and they hadn't even tested them.
"Let's try it."
Zane calmly fastened the red belt, a rare hint of anticipation in his voice.
"I hope I can fit..."
Matt looked worriedly at the purple belt—given the seven-meter size of his Electro Lawachurl frame, an ordinary cockpit might not even fit him.
The four looked at each other and nodded, simultaneously raising the Transformation Devices in their hands:
"wind walker azure!"
"water walker blue!"
"thug red!"
"lei dou zi - mecha name!"
The instant the Transformation Devices were fastened to their waists, dazzling light erupted.
The four mechanical belts automatically extended, perfectly fitting each person's physique.
Their original wooden masks restructured and upgraded in the bright light—Jesse's mask turned into a streamlined green helmet, Elliot's transformed into a brilliant blue fin shape, Zane's switched to an angular red armored mask, and Matt's evolved into a purple heavy armor helmet adorned with lightning patterns.
Simultaneously, anomalies occurred across Teyvat:
The Wolvendom mountain range in Mondstadt violently cracked open, and an emerald green Werewolf Mecha burst out of the ground;
the surface of the Lake of Cleansing in Fontaine boiled, and a deep blue Shark-Man Mecha leaped out of the water;
the volcanoes in Natlan suddenly erupted, and a crimson Dragon-Head Mecha broke through the lava;
a thunderstorm suddenly arose behind the Grand Narukami Shrine in Inazuma, and a purple-black Minotaur Mecha smashed through the rock wall... The four mechas turned into streaks of light, piercing the sky, and arrived at the Mondstadt battlefield in the blink of an eye, watched by the terrified citizens of the various nations.
They hovered above their respective pilots, and the cockpits projected tractor beams.
"Come on!"
"We are! The Hilichurl Trouble-Making Quartet!"
The four struck their signature entrance poses and were sucked into the cockpits by the beams.
The entire process was smooth and practiced, as if rehearsed a thousand times—if one ignored a certain person.
"..."
"Why did I have to say something so embarrassing!!!"
Zane, inside thug red, hammered the control panel in collapse, his mechanical voice distorted into an electronic sound.
"What kind of public humiliation is this!"
"Just bear with it, it's the squad setting."
Elliot, inside water walker blue, laughed so hard he was bent over, his mecha mimicking the action.
"Look how happy the audience is~"
He was referring to the petrified Mondstadt citizens below—Acting Grand Master Jean's sword dropped to the ground for the third time, Kaeya's single eye lost its shine, Venti's wine bottle shattered again, and even Dvalin, who had just escaped the tornado, forgot to flap his wings.
Lumine stood frozen in the wind, her lips trembling for a long time before she finally squeezed out one word:
"6..."
Paimon had given up thinking and was counting how many clouds were in the sky: "1, 2, 3... Huh? Where are the clouds?"
Turns out they had been dispersed by the sheer presence of the four mechas.