Inside Gigantes – 00:35
KLAAANG—KLAAANG!
The signal of the Revolutionary Corps had dropped.
I listened in silence from within the cavern.
This was no longer mere hearing. The virus pulsed violently, radiating mana. Its waves swept across a wide area, gathering data and feeding it directly into my senses. In effect, the virus’s field of vision was overlaid onto my neural network—an expansion of perception itself.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Aah!
Gunfire and screams blended into chaos. The security guards confronting the revolutionaries collapsed helplessly. The Corps seized choke points and erected barricades almost instantly.
Then, another force entered the field.
The Imperial Guard.
They were fundamentally different from knights. Knights were elite warriors—individual blades of the Empire. The Imperial Guard, by contrast, were the palace’s hunting dogs. Trained from childhood within the royal compound, raised as a purely martial institution—machines bred solely for the Emperor’s protection.
“…”
I closed my eyes and focused.
Amid countless overlapping mana waves, a single, unmistakably alien pulse surfaced.
Thump.
A presence that made my heart tremble.
Ezenheim.
Within the Imperial Guard sworn to protect the Emperor, a shadow lay hidden.
Was that even possible? It shouldn’t have been—unless Ezenheim had infiltrated the palace at the age of five or six.
For now, I would merely observe.
I would not rush to draw my sword. I would remain calm and wait.
Because the variable believed not to exist was always the one that unleashed the deadliest destruction.
—
Inside Gigantes – 00:45
“Ah—stop them! Stop those bastards! Shoot them all dead!”
The supervisor fled in terror as the Revolutionary Corps erupted from underground access points.
“You idiots! Shoot already!”
Panicked guards unleashed wild machine-gun fire, but the revolutionaries deployed artifacts that deflected the barrage and cut them down with precise counterfire.
“A—ugh—aaagh!”
Hatred twisted the supervisor’s face.
Crash!
As he desperately retreated, a familiar figure seized him—one of the laborers he had beaten only days earlier.
“You pig bastard—”
“S-spare me—”
Bang!
There was no mercy.
A single bullet pierced the supervisor’s brow with perfect accuracy. His eyes rolled back as his breath ceased. The revolutionaries did not even spare him a glance. Indulging personal emotions was a luxury they could not afford.
“Move!”
They hastily assembled a barricade from steel frames and scattered materials. They needed to buy even one more second for their comrades infiltrating the core of Gigantes.
Thud—thud—
Heavy footsteps shook the ground. The stench of mana rode the air.
The revolutionaries stared beyond the barricade.
Through thinning steam and smoke, Imperial Guards clad in jet-black full plate emerged.
The Revolutionary Corps opened fire in unison. Hundreds of rounds poured forth, yet the Imperial Guards neither dodged nor blocked. With gleeful clangs, bullets ricocheted harmlessly off their bodies. The elegantly coated armor—crafted by a high-ranking alchemist—could not be scratched even by sustained gunfire.
Whoooosh!
A grenade flew.
An Imperial Guard waved his hand. An invisible force crushed it midair.
“Fire! Don’t stop!”
They did not stop. Fear gnawed at them, but they showed none of it. Their lives had already been forfeited. Whether they lived or died mattered little if the Empire endured—so it was better to become blood-soaked stepping stones for future generations.
“Shoot! Don’t hesitate!”
Ratatatatata!
Mana-infused rounds surged forward, carving blue arcs through the air.
—
Inside Gigantes – 00:50
Deep underground, the sealed gate to Gigantes’ mana reactor marked a forbidden zone. Even supervisors were denied access.
“Detonate.”
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The Revolutionary Corps blasted open the gate with Mency’s magical bomb.
“Move in.”
They advanced before the smoke could even clear. First came the oppressive heat and pressure of raw, unrefined mana. Then, at the center of a cavern hundreds of meters underground, an endless column of ore was revealed—Gigantes’ heart, pulsing alternately with crimson and blue light like a living gate.
A complex web of pipelines and cooling systems sprawled around the mana-vein core, spiral staircases winding endlessly between them.
“Demolition teams, descend and attach charges at assigned points.”
At Tiger Mask’s command, personnel vanished. To destroy the mana-vein, uniform pressure had to be applied at dozens of precisely calculated locations. They descended deeper, drawn downward along the spirals.
“All remaining combat teams, re-form!”
Rabbit Mask, Eagle Mask, and the other elites responded instantly, checking equipment and preheating mana circuits.
“Let’s.”
“I’m ready.”
In the end, the Imperial Guards had to be eliminated. Without that, the mission would fail. Twelve targets had been confirmed.
It was now a war of attrition.
“Move out.”
The elites split along multiple routes within Gigantes.
—
Inside Gigantes – 00:55
An Imperial Guard slammed his gauntleted fist into the ground.
Pazzzzt!
Hardened asphalt shattered like thin ice. Shards blasted through the barricade, tearing Revolutionary Corps members apart before they could even scream.
As the Imperial Guard raised his fist again—
Ziiing!
A sharp whistle cut through the air. Rabbit Mask descended from above on a hoverboard, steel wires snapping outward and scraping across the Guard’s wrists and neck.
The Imperial Guard sneered and flooded his body with mana.
Weeeeng!
He intended to melt the wires with raw output.
Rabbit Mask did not panic.
She analyzed the mana frequency and transmitted perfectly inverted mana through the wires.
It was the basic principle of counter-interference mana theory—one of the most difficult techniques to execute in live combat.
The Imperial Guard’s mana failed to ignite. His power dispersed uselessly into the air as the reinforced wires tightened.
In that instant, Tiger Mask struck.
His blade flashed like lightning, slicing cleanly through the gap between helmet and neck guard.
Slash.
The helmet flew free.
Rabbit Mask froze.
The face revealed beneath was young—barely past adolescence. A terrified boy stared back at her.
Tiger Mask cut him down without pause.
“Don’t hesitate.”
Rabbit Mask nodded.
“One down.”
Ten remained.
There was no time for sentiment.
They advanced to the next target.
Clang!
This one wielded a greatsword. Each swing of the two-meter blade tore chunks from the corridor walls. Mana detonated along its edge, crushing space itself.
Tiger Mask met the blade head-on—but the overwhelming force hurled him backward.
Snap!
Rabbit Mask’s wire lashed out and caught the Imperial Guard’s ankle. It did nothing.
Instead, the Imperial Guard seized the wire and yanked her toward him.
Clatter!
She hurled dozens of micro-spheres at point-blank range. They burst against the Imperial Guard’s face.
Armor seams were never perfect. Air vents, vision slits—though shielded by mana barriers, neutral-form micro-particles slipped through.
The vapor spread inside, blinding him.
The Imt Guard staggered.
Tiger Mask lunged, thrusting his blade as Rabbit Mask skimmed low on her hoverboard and planted a compact mana bomb into the exposed joint behind the knee.
The explosion dropped the giant.
“Ten left.”
They exchanged a brief glance.
Crackle—
Static-filled reports flooded the comms.
“Sector 3, Imperial Guard eliminated.”
“Sector 7, same here.”
“Sector 9—this is Eagle. Took damage, but got one.”
Tiger Mask flicked blood from his blade.
“No—seven left.”
A grim smile touched Rabbit Mask’s lips.
—
Inside Gigantes – 01:35
As battles raged across access routes, demolition teams finished planting explosives along the mana core.
“Almost done.”
No one celebrated. Everything was proceeding as planned.
All Imperial Guards eliminated. Most security forces neutralized.
They regrouped at Gigantes’ deepest level.
“Tiger.”
Rabbit Mask handed him a vivid blue bomb.
A specialized compression mana explosive—designed to burrow inward once attached to the mana-vein base. Activation would give them twenty minutes before detonation.
Escape was theoretically possible.
Their lives, however, were secondary.
“For the cause.”
Tiger Mask raised the recorder. Everyone clasped wrists.
Without hesitation, he pressed the button.
Small detonations bloomed across the mana-vein—preliminary charges stripping the exterior.
Blue and red mana fragments rained down like glittering hail. Bathed in the shards, the revolutionaries smiled calmly.
But—
The primary charge remained silent.
It glowed blue. Nothing more.
Strange.
“W-What…?”
Unease spread. Tiger Mask slammed the button again.
“Tiger Mask! It’s not working!”
Nothing. Not even a scratch.
Tiger Mask ground his teeth.
“What’s going on?!”
Rabbit Mask grabbed him.
He spat the words like gravel.
“It means there’s a traitor among us.”
Silence fell.
Eyes turned, suspicion igniting.
Finally, they settled on Eagle Mask.
“What? Me?”
He stumbled back.
“Are you insane? We’ve been together for ten years!”
Tiger Mask roared.
“You were the first to report Mency’s capture. You forced us to maintain outside contact—despite our agreement never to form personal ties!”
Gazes hardened.
Eagle Mask shouted back.
“That’s bullshit! If anything, I suspect you, Tiger! You inspected everything yourself!”
Tiger Mask snarled.
Eagle Mask laughed hollowly.
“So that’s it? You’ll kill me on a hunch?”
“Impressive. Truly.”
He clapped.
Clap. Clap.
The sound echoed through the chamber.
Rabbit Mask pointed.
“Stop. Why are you clapping?”
Still applauding, Eagle Mask slowly scanned the group.
“Because you’re right.”
The underground wall tore open.
Goooooo!
A figure descended—jet-black armor tinged with red, radiating mana of an entirely different order.
A Decurion.
—
Inside Gigantes – 01:45
Ezenheim had hidden behind both revolutionary masks and Imperial helmets.
They had played both sides.
Their calculation was simple.
The complete destruction of Gigantes was not in their interest.
If the mana-vein were annihilated, the Empire would abandon the site entirely—zero loss, zero liability.
But partial destruction told a different story.
The Empire would be forced to pour immense resources into reconstruction. For a decaying Empire, that cost would be fatal—and countless thieves would siphon funds along the way.
The revolutionaries did not understand this. They sought symbolism, not efficiency.
The destruction of an imperial symbol. The reassurance that someone fought for laborers. They gambled their lives on the message success would send.
Ezenheim shattered those sincere hopes—exploiting them to fabricate the image of “Imperial Guards who protected Gigantes from terror.”
In truth, the real bastards were them.
I walked through Gigantes’ quiet interior, stepped past the ruptured gate, and looked into the abyss.
Four hundred meters straight down—essentially open air.
My vision tinted blue as the scene below projected onto my retinas.
Revolutionaries clashing with Imperial Guards.
“Damn you—because of you!”
“You bastard!”
“Screeeaaagh!”
Betrayed screams echoed upward.
“Brutal.”
I waited until the chaos subsided.
Then I hoisted the bomb onto my shoulder.
Even with my limited intellect, I had planned contingencies.
If the main charge failed—as it had—this one would suffice. Purchased from Eckentoi’s black market, it carried enough yield to obliterate the mana-vein.
If this worked, I might even buy Chiron a meal.
I placed my foot on the upper railing.
Four hundred meters.
This, too, was a descent.
No—
a true descent.
The essence of descent is not distance.
If I had to name the difference between heavily armored guards and a knight like me—
It was this.
I come from the sky.
I leaned forward.
