"Leave me! Run and save your troops, Valerius!" Commander Vance's voice sounded suppressed, mixed with groans of pain forced not to become screams. In the middle of the gunpowder factory's reactor core room, which was now bathed in red warning light, the situation had turned from a brilliant infiltration mission into a suffocating nightmare. That blast-proof steel door didn't just lock them inside. When the Vexxos automated defense system detected an anomaly on the conveyor belt's mass sensors, the reactor room sterilization protocol was immediately activated. A giant mechanical compression wall descended from the ceiling, pinning Vance's left ankle right as he tried to jump toward the emergency control panel on the opposite wall. Now, the commander of Thorne's elite troops was trapped in a prone position, while two tons of steel crushed his leg with increasing pressure.&

“There's a storm! A storm!”Cogs spoke up again. Now louder than before."That's not a storm, Cogs. That is hovering death."Edna's voice trembled. Her usually sharp and confident speech suddenly quieted down and was replaced by horror. The steam pipe on her lips fell, hitting the watch balcony floor with a metallic clink.Her mechanical eye spun wildly, trying to auto-focus on the massive silhouette that had just emerged from behind the clump of steam clouds in the Grind Valley sky.Valerius, who had just jumped down from the truck in the Thorne alliance convoy, looked up. The cheers of the camp residents welcoming the arrival of food and ammunition silenced. Their laughter was swallowed back into their throats.The aroma of soup that had just started cooking to celebrate the Prince's return was now covered by the sharp smell of ozone. It was a smell indicating the presence of high-level technology that shouldn't be here.A very low, powerful bass tone was heard next. The concrete fl

"Turn on the emergency lights!" shouted Bastian as darkness swallowed them.Bunker Thirteen was a relic from the era before Vexxos took power. The place was essentially a mine cavity reinforced with steel pillars as thick as giant tree trunks.And located hundreds of meters below the surface of Grind Valley. The air inside was very stuffy, smelling of sweat, and rock dust falling from the ceiling every time an artillery explosion hit the mountain surface above them.The only light source was a row of red emergency lights blinking unstably. Hundreds of camp residents, the remaining Thorne soldiers, and the workers sat huddled on the cold floor. The sound of children's muffled crying and the groans of the injured became a heart-wrenching background.Bastian stood in front of the giant airtight door which was the only access in and out of this bunker. The door was made of tungsten alloy two spans thick, designed to withstand underground methane gas explosions.Bastian had locked its hydr

The pale morning sunlight the next day tried to pierce the thick dust still floating in the air, sneaking in through the gaps of the Grind Valley cave roof which was now shattered to pieces."We are going to use a giant gas pipe steam catapult to launch a five-ton machine into the sky? You are crazy!"Inside the bunker, the tension of the previous night had not yet evaporated. Valerius stood in the middle of the room, spreading a torn old blueprint over an ammunition crate.His dirty hands pointed to a structure in the middle of the map, while his blue eyes stared sharply at the people around him. He tried to ignore his thoughts regarding Elara's condition who was still buried under the rubble. He couldn't sleep all night just thinking about it."Valerius!"Edna shrieked, her voice bouncing off the bunker's concrete walls. The old woman held her head with both hands, staring at Valerius as if the child had just told her to drink poison."Valerius, listen to me!" Edna continued. Her br

"Air impact warning! Something just crashed into our hull deck!"