The artillery fire finally died down.

  Two of Skyreach’s proudest outer anti-air towers were now nothing but twisted, blackened steel skeletons, pointing at the sky like scorched ribs. Brad’s heavily fortified infantry line had been practically plowed flat. The dirt was littered with the melted slag of high-energy particle impacts and the agonizing groans of the wounded.

  Priestess Ela, her white robes stained entirely red, was desperately weaving through the rubble with her medical teams. Brad himself, wrapped in blood-soaked bandages, was grinding his teeth as he applied emergency tourniquets to several Bear-kin whose legs had been cleanly severed by lasers.

  With every step I took, my heart bled. This was the hard-won foundation of Skyreach. These were living, breathing people.

  Lyn, the logistics director, scrambled out from the rear lines. Her face was ashen.

  “Boss, the ammo reserves are scraping the bottom of the barrel!” Lyn stared at the data pad in her trembling hands. “We have less than two base loads of 120mm tungsten armor-piercing shells left. If that counter-battery exchange lasted another twenty minutes... Skyreach’s fragile defense grid would have completely collapsed.”

  I took a deep breath, remaining silent, and turned toward the ruins of the anti-air tower.

  There was still Selena.

  To execute that devastating “Anti-Phase Magnetic Storm” and forcibly scramble the enemy’s energy shields, the former Empress—stripped of her internal mana core and relying entirely on our external power grid—had practically burned through her own life force.

  She was slumped against a fractured load-bearing pillar. Her canvas uniform was soaked in blood, her face deathly pale, and her body was locked in uncontrollable micro-tremors.

  “You did exactly what you promised, Selena.”

  I walked up to her, my tone carrying a layer of genuine respect. If she hadn't volunteered that magical strike and put her life on the line, Skyreach would have already been flattened by those ancient mechs.

  “Go get some rest.” Looking into her exhausted eyes, I made the guarantee. “I’ll have Lyn allocate the highest-tier medical resources to you. Skyreach does not mistreat those who bleed for it, even POWs.”

  Selena didn't speak.

  She weakly twitched the corner of her mouth into a tired, yet deeply mocking smile. Then, she closed her eyes, letting the medics load her onto a stretcher.

  ...

  Before stepping up to the negotiation table, I had to run the diagnostics on one massive variable.

  Why did the “Golden Vanguard”—a force holding immense firepower superiority—voluntarily raise the ceasefire flag after their shields were cracked and they lost only two mechs?

  The Golden Emperor had deployed his most elite execution squad, marching them across half the continent to lay siege to my city. Did they really just decide to pack it in halfway through?

  “Go retrieve the Fourth Prince,” I told Jasta.

  A few minutes later, Jasta ushered Prince Viper into the command tent.

  “Listen closely, Your Highness.” I cut the pleasantries and went straight to the hardware. “The Third Prince outside is already putting a price on your head. You are going to hand over the raw truth of your political situation right now, or Skyreach will not burn its own survival margins for an outsider.”

  Viper’s expression tightened, but he rapidly forced his heart rate down.

  He let out a bitter laugh, straightening his torn silk cloak. “The Golden Emperor is ancient. His authority was hollowed out years ago. The First Prince controls the Empire’s standing army. The Second Prince controls the Magical Temples that operate the ancient tech. And the Third Prince outside, currently shelling your city... he only commands this patchwork ‘Golden Vanguard’.”

  A flash of shrewd, self-deprecating calculation crossed Viper’s eyes. “Me? I have zero interest in the throne. I only control the merchant caravans and the capital. Which is exactly why they all want to swallow me whole.”

  Dropping his voice, he handed over the fatal piece of intel:

  “The Third Prince hunting me down is a proxy hit ordered by the First and Second Princes! The First Prince refused to authorize heavy artillery reinforcements, and the Second Prince severed the Vanguard’s mana supply lines. Therefore, if he cannot secure a decisive, one-strike annihilation against your city, he is mathematically forced to call a ceasefire!”

  “If he burns through his remaining operational assets here, even if he drags me back in chains, his two brothers will immediately tear him to pieces the second he sets foot in the capital!”

  So that was the structural flaw.

  Politics was always more lethal than artillery.

  One hour later. The neutral buffer zone outside the Blackrock Gorge.

  Flanked by Zayla and Jasta, I stepped up to the makeshift negotiation table in the wasteland.

  Accompanied by blinding magical luminescence and heavy repulsor drafts, the Third Prince slowly descended from his colossal Pyramid Warship, surrounded by heavily armed guards.

  Wearing a spotless, radiantly glowing suit of ancient magical armor, his eyes projected unconcealed arrogance and pure disgust for the biological lifeforms of the wasteland. He looked like merely standing on this scorched earth was contaminating his boots.

  “Beast of the North.”

  The Third Prince didn't even grant me direct eye contact. He delivered his terms in the condescending tone of a god dispensing charity:

  “Surrender the traitor, Viper. In recognition of your pathetic, insignificant resistance, I will make an exception and grant Skyreach a sum of resources. You will be permitted to become a vassal state of the Empire, mining ore for us for generations to atone for your sins.”

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  “Vassal?”

  Hearing the word, Zayla let out a cold, sharp laugh. She wasn't buying a single ounce of this divine bullshit.

  The Cat-kin Queen took a step forward, casually spinning her twin blades in a lethal flourish. Pointing the tip of her sword at the two smoking wrecks of the Reaper-Class mechs stalled on our defensive line, her tone dropped below freezing:

  “Drop the parlor tricks for the gullible, false god! The fatal flaw in your untouchable magical shields has already been cracked! If the Empire wants to keep burning ammo, Skyreach is perfectly willing to trigger mutually assured destruction and bury your pathetic ‘Golden Vanguard’ right here in the dirt!”

  The Third Prince’s face instantly went livid.

  “Insolence! You dare threaten the Imperial Bloodline?!” The royal guards behind him instantly leveled their particle spears.

  Right as the tension hit the breaking point, Jasta executed a flawless, surgical interjection.

  “Oh my, please calm your wrath, Your Highness.”

  The old fox smiled warmly at the Third Prince. His voice was quiet, but every single word was a perfectly placed shaped charge.

  “Escalating to this level of conflict has been taxing on everyone. However... according to my logistics data... it appears the First Prince’s standing army and the Second Prince’s Temple Mages haven't exactly provided you with adequate supply lines, have they? If this Vanguard burns out the last of its operational capacity right here...”

  Jasta intentionally paused. A razor-sharp, predatory gleam flashed in his narrow fox eyes.

  “Take a guess. When you return to the Golden Empire, will those two brothers line the streets to welcome you as a hero? Or will they immediately strip you of every political asset you have left to claim the throne?”

  The Third Prince stiffened.

  He stared dead at Jasta, profound shock and poorly concealed dread flooding his eyes. He never anticipated that these northern barbarians possessed highly classified intel on the Empire’s internal politics.

  I didn't give him a second to recover. I dropped my terms on the table.

  “First: Indefinite ceasefire. The Golden Fleet initiates an immediate withdrawal from the Blackrock Gorge.”

  “Second: Skyreach establishes an autonomous ‘Free Trade Zone’ on the wasteland border, entirely exempt from Imperial jurisdiction.”

  Looking straight into the Third Prince’s eyes, I threw out the bait he mathematically could not refuse:

  “Aside from standard commercial trade, the Skyreach armory can covertly supply you with ‘cost-effective alternatives’ to Imperial weaponry. Your Highness, if you want to counter the First and Second Princes, you require an independent military-industrial complex. We are that complex.”

  The Third Prince’s breathing accelerated. He stared a hole through me.

  “Fourth,” I continued. “Prince Viper will remain in Skyreach under temporary asylum. He will sign a legally binding treaty permanently renouncing all rights of succession to the throne of the Golden Kingdom.”

  The Third Prince went silent. His eyes darted frantically, his brain running massive, high-speed cost-benefit analyses.

  A moment later, he sneered. “Leave him here with you? How do I calculate the probability that you won't supply him with artillery and an army to march South later?”

  “By keeping him here, we are effectively placing him under house arrest,” I said, holding his gaze with cold rationality. “He becomes a high-value hostage stored safely outside the Empire’s borders. He loses all military authority in the South and can never return to contest your claim to the throne.”

  I leaned forward slightly. "Without burning a single soldier, you permanently eliminate your largest political rival, preserve the operational capacity of your Vanguard, and secure a shadow munitions pipeline to counter your brothers. The ROI on this deal is mathematically guaranteed, Your Highness."

  Just as the Third Prince’s political resolve was about to crack, Jasta smoothly welded on the final clause:

  “Of course, to uphold the supreme glory of the Golden Emperor, Skyreach is perfectly willing to nominally ‘pay tribute’ to the Empire, supplying one hundred thousand tons of industrial goods annually. In return, as a gesture of divine grace, the Emperor merely needs to bestow a trivial three thousand kilograms of gold upon us.”

  The Third Prince’s eyes lit up.

  It was the perfect political payload. He could take this treaty back to the capital and arrogantly declare to the old Emperor and the entire royal court: ‘Though the beasts of the North were stubborn, I achieved a total, crushing victory! Not only did I force the traitor Viper to permanently renounce his claim to the throne, but I also forced these barbarians to drop to their knees and pay an annual tribute of one hundred thousand tons of supplies to the Empire!’

  The Emperor would be satisfied with the operational outcome. The Third Prince would return a hero, his army intact, massively increasing his political leverage for the throne.

  “...Contract accepted.”

  The Third Prince took a deep breath, suppressing his manic internal joy as he signed the magical treaty forged in blood and political calculus.

  “But log your promise. Viper does not take a single step outside the Blackrock Gorge.”

  Watching the Third Prince’s surviving troops and warships slowly extract, fading into the yellow sand...

  Zayla and the blood-soaked warriors standing behind me finally let their guard down. A brutally exhausted, yet deafeningly triumphant roar erupted across the trench line!

  We survived. Using artillery and raw computational logic, we had forced the legendary gods to retreat.

  But amidst the cheering, Zayla frowned, voicing her dissatisfaction to Jasta: “We clearly didn't lose! We even crippled their mechs! Why the hell did we sign a humiliating clause agreeing to ‘pay tribute’ to the Golden Empire?”

  Folding his fan, Jasta looked at the young Queen, laying out the brutal reality of capitalist economics:

  “Your Majesty, the ‘tribute’ designation is purely superficial. It satisfies the fragile egos of the old Emperor and the Third Prince, giving them a political off-ramp to withdraw. But operationally? We are the victors.”

  The old fox smiled shrewdly, his tail wagging with immense satisfaction.

  “The glass tumblers, soap, and low-tier machinery we manufacture... as production volume scales, our unit cost approaches zero. Tributing one hundred thousand tons of that industrial scrap costs us nothing. Meanwhile, to project the image of a wealthy, magnanimous empire, they are ‘bestowing’ three thousand kilograms of raw gold upon us...”

  The distinct gleam of gold coins flashed in Jasta’s eyes. “That is hard, physical currency! We can use that capital to liquidate every scarce magical resource on the entire continent. That isn't a tribute. That is an astronomical trade surplus!”

  Zayla blinked, stunned. She looked at Jasta thoughtfully, completely dropping her argument.

  I didn't join the rest of their discussion.

  I walked alone toward the two wrecked Reaper-Class Mechs, which our soldiers had agonizingly dragged back behind the Skyreach lines using heavy steam tractors.

  Staring at the impossibly thick armor plating and the sheared treads, I took a deep breath.

  Then, I slowly pressed my soot-stained hand flat against the freezing, ancient metal.

  The exact microsecond my skin made contact...

  The dormant UI panel on my retinas flared to life, flashing with an aggressive cobalt blue:

  A massive data dump flooded my brain—precision schematics and metallurgical formulas that completely bypassed our current steam-age tech tree by several dimensions.

  This data was paid for in the blood of the soldiers who had held the line.

  I looked up, using the back of my bloody hand to wipe the cordite soot from my face, and stared at the dissipating sandstorm on the southern horizon.

  Ceasefire? Vassal state?

  No.

  The real, dimension-breaking arms race had just officially begun.