Of course, Azril couldn't have missed on purpose. She didn't do this to intimidate Su'er and Think.
If they say kill, they kill. There is no such thing as being all goofy in the world of the Flügel.
So, there was only one reason for her to make this mistake that she shouldn't have made—someone had stopped her.
And that person was here.
Two pairs of irregularly spread red and blue mechanical wings, a disc-shaped mechanical halo on her forehead that was emitting a dazzling light. There was no skin covering her pure mechanical body. Her right arm was a cannon barrel raised high, and the power that was enough to flatten a mountain was pointed at Azril.
In the instant that Su'er and Think were about to perish, it was Schwi who had broken into this place at a speed that was beyond sound, and she crashed into Azril chest, completely knocking her off course.
"...I won't... let you pass..."
The slender Ex-Machina girl said softly. Her voice was not loud, but there was an unshakable determination in her words. She would not hesitate, she would not regret, and she would not waver until the moment the fire of life was extinguished.
"...I'll bet Schwi's life on this..."
"Oh my? Isn't this the super-rare lady?" Rubbing her chest, which was a little sore from the impact, Azril expression, which had been a bit angry and embarrassed, suddenly became excited when she saw who the person was.
"How about it? Have you finally come to your senses? Are you going to become my collection Nyaa?" Azril said one after another. It was obvious that she really liked Schwi... her head. "Don't worry, I'll be very gentle Nyaa. I won't let you feel even a little bit~ a little bit~ of pain Nyaa~~"
Facing her eager words, Schwi just shook her head slightly.
"...Schwi... won't die... No one will die..."
"...What kind of joke is this Nyaa?" The smile on Azril face suddenly turned cold. She glanced at the seed in the distance that had flown very far away in the time it took for them to say two sentences. She wasn't in a hurry to chase it. "You were clearly called an enemy by the master, but you're saying such things that sound like a dream Nyaa? Are you trying to laugh your enemy to death with such jokes Nyaa?"
"..."
However, Schwi had no intention of talking to her. She just closed her eyes in rejection and shook her head vigorously.
In the world that only she could enter, which belonged only to the Ex-Machina, for the first time in more than a decade, Schwi initiated a new connection request.
[Individual identifier Üc207Pr4f57t9—Requesting reconnection to 'Ü-Connection-Body First Command-Body'.]
Although she was mentally prepared, when she actually said these words, Schwi found that her voice was still trembling uncontrollably.
It wasn't because of the fear that Azril brought, nor was it because of the unknown future.
This was Schwi requesting a conversation with the Ex-Machina connection body that had permanently decommissioned her in the past.
However, she received no response.
And in the outside world, Azril, who also didn't get a response from Schwi, had impatiently raised her hand again. The light of compressed spirits was gathering there.
[Requesting again! Individual identifier Üc207Pr4f57t9 has completed the analysis of {heart}! There's not much time left! Immediate synchronization is needed—requesting reconnection!]
It felt like an instant had passed, yet it also felt like an eternity. When Schwi's heart felt as if it had jumped into her throat and was about to leap out, she finally heard a response from the other end of the communication.
It was a dark world, like interconnected circuit boards. The machines with their shells removed were connected to each other, having heads but being oddly rectangular. Lines of various colors flowed over its entirety.
[Üc207Pr4f57t9, your machine has been permanently disconnected. Request denied.]
Its answer was a refusal.
As expected.
[I refuse your refusal!! I strongly demand data synchronization to the {Full-Connection Command-Body}, no matter what the analysis body Einst-Fe reports, Über-Eins! Your machine should not have the right to veto the transfer!]
[Hurry! The Flügel is right in front of me!]
She couldn't help but get anxious. Although both Riku and Su'er had told her not to be afraid and just say what they had taught her beforehand, Schwi found at this moment that she couldn't do that.
The machine that should have been forever cold and controlled everything with logic seemed to have a real heart. No, it was a real heart. That heart had gone beyond simple calculation. Its operation could not be explained by digital logic. It was jumping in Schwi's chest, feeling nervous and panicked about everything it might lose.
The Heavenly Strike in Azril hand was not fake, and the murderous aura was not a joke.
She would die, she would really die.
The voice Schwi sent to the connection body was close to a roar.
[...I can't lose here... Everyone put in so much effort... Everyone's lives...]
[...I don't want to give you... the memories of living with Riku and everyone else...]
[...There's no time for more nonsense... Failure is not allowed... So, so hurry up and agree! Let this heart, my love—be inherited!]
It wasn't because she was acting, but because the crimson-haired Ex-Machina girl really saw that desperate future in a trance, the future of Su'er's failure.
The world of dim light fell silent. The connection body named Über-Eins seemed to be thinking, or perhaps it was caught in a logical loop.
[Üc207Pr4f57t9, your machine is indeed broken.]
[...Isn't that... nonsense?]
[Conflicting, excited, and no longer like an Ex-Machina, yet still operating without damage. This is not normal, this should not be.]
[...Still... nonsense...]
Azril had already made the throwing motion. Time seemed to have slowed down at this moment. Schwi could even see the excited drool at the corner of this Flügel's mouth.
[Therefore, you are judged to be a valuable data sample.]
She got this answer.
Schwi's whole body relaxed for a moment, and she answered with a sigh of relief.
What followed was the long-lost feeling of having the connection with the entire Ex-Machina race restored.
The feeling of being connected to all four hundred and thirty-seven machines, including herself. However, Schwi knew that she was already different from them and was even annoyed by this feeling. Everything in her mind was being peered into without any hesitation, and her discomfort was naturally ignored.
Thinking as a collective, Über-Eins's words continued.
[Üc207Pr4f57t9—Unlimited use of all armaments owned by the Ex-Machina is allowed. Use various armaments and firepower to fight with it. "Total destruction" is forbidden before synchronization is completed.]
[This is an order. There is no right to refuse.]
As if she hadn't heard Über-Eins's words, Schwi remained silent from the beginning, as if the communication and clamor that echoed in her mind did not exist.
"—Full-scale deployment—Structure: combat calculation for unknowns—activate!"
Facing the light spear that Azril held high, Schwi said one word at a time through gritted teeth.
Steel was proliferating. It was the two thousand seven hundred and fifty-one kinds of armaments that all the Ex-Machina had copied and learned for countless years, cannon barrels, light wings, layers of growing steel armor, and cables that grew like vines and extended like blood vessels to the entire armament. Her massive body multiplied in size.
Azril didn't stop Schwi's transforming body. She even dispersed the Heavenly Strike in her hand with great interest and watched with her chin resting on her hand and her legs crossed in mid-air.
Schwi was doing what she should be doing step by step, but she quietly clasped her hands together and bent her ten fingers as if she were praying for the lie she had just told.
'I'm sorry... Über-Eins...'
'I'm sorry... all my Ex-Machina comrades...'
The Ex-Machina girl, who was protected by layers of steel barriers, questioned her apology in her heart. It was a "safe zone" that had been reserved beforehand, which no Ex-Machina would ever do, a corner that could not be peered into.
In her words just now, Schwi did something that no Ex-Machina would ever do: lie—the data transfer was real, but the idea of transferring all the data was fake, and the so-called inheritance was also fake.
When the data transfer reached its last and most crucial part, Schwi would cut off the transfer with the connection body.
"...Riku... can only be Schwi's... I won't give him to you..."
Her ten clasped fingers caressed the ring on her finger. It was the gift Riku had given her on their wedding day, a pledge that belonged only to the Ex-Machina girl.
'...What I can give you... is only this way of thinking... and my own heart... so... go find it...'
After only staying in this brief guilt for a few seconds, Schwi's attention was once again focused on the emerald-haired Flügel.
The only goal now was to stall for time and stay alive... to stay alive until the moment Su'er succeeded.
"...Schwi... can do it..." The Ex-Machina, protected by steel, kept muttering to herself, "...Schwi... you can do it..."
"Is this massive wing mocking me, Nyaa? If this is a provocation, then you've succeeded, scrap metal Nyaa~" Azril stared at the massive steel fortress in front of her, but she wasn't very afraid or nervous. Instead, she laughed relaxedly.
The huge wings woven from light that Schwi fully deployed with her armament made Azril a little annoyed.
[Target—survive... with all my might!]
Ignoring the Flügel's words, Schwi's words entered Azril ears through the gaps in the steel fortress. In the next moment, the huge cannon barrel on the surface of the fortress fired with full force!
BOOM!!!
"What is that?" Lóni pointed at the huge steel fortress on the horizon and asked a fatal question.
What he was asking was not the simple question of what a steel fortress was in a literal sense, but why a steel fortress would appear there.
Why would the Ex-Machina appear here?
This was completely bizarre.
"Did the Ex-Machina also join this war? When? Why?" Another Dwarf standing next to Lóni asked a question after him.
"Could it be that they were accidentally caught in the crossfire?" A Dwarf guessed this, but it was denied in the next second.
"Impossible. This war has been going on for so long. Those iron blocks should automatically avoid this area. After all, they don't have a strong desire for the victory of the great war."
It was indeed impossible.
Lóni agreed with this judgment in his heart.
Compared to the participation of the Ex-Machina, he was more concerned about the thing that fell out of the huge flower-sailing ship before it fell. If he wasn't mistaken, the Flügel who had appeared mysteriously on the outskirts of the flower-sailing ship and was then driven away by the Forest God Kainath had also appeared next to those thrown objects at that time.
And then there was the battle between the suddenly appearing Ex-Machina and the Flügel.
After fighting up to this point, not only did the questions in Lóni's mind not get answered, but they even increased. He couldn't say he was frustrated, he could only say he was very frustrated.
Even though the Elf flagship had already fallen because of the God of War's attack—so why did the God of War specifically attack the Elf flagship?
Lóni felt that his questions had been increasing at a steady rate since more than ten years ago. Anyway, not to mention the God of War's inexplicable attack for now, why was it that even though the Elf's creator, the Forest God Kainath, had been injured and fled, the sense of frustration in his heart from his intuition had not been answered at all??
Had he fallen behind this world?
Perhaps he knew something. Lóni could hear his old man's hearty laughter when he hid his figure again after Kainath fled, but he had no intention of asking. Even if he did, his old man probably wouldn't say.
Annoyed. The one-eyed Dwarf was very annoyed right now.
He walked back and forth on the ground with his hands behind his back, and the other Dwarfs also sensibly did not disturb Lóni's thoughts.
"...Bomb that place."
Suddenly, Lóni stopped walking and looked up at the map, giving an order.
"Where?"
"Right there."
Following Lóni's finger, the Dwarf who asked the question saw the place Lóni was pointing to.
The city that once belonged to them, but was now a sea of blue spirits.