83 The Steel Mirage

It's 7:30 PM, in the Capital of the Hectorium County, an area located to the south of the Urvostrion County, Zrathno is mingling together with the people attending the late-night sermons at the local cathedral. As the people begin to leave, Zrathno makes his move.

Taking out one of his mechs, the GW Type-0 Alpha-V2, causing the ceiling of the Church to collapse and sending the people into a panic. The GW Type-0 Alpha-V2, or Ground Warfare Type-0 Alpha Version 2, is a modified version of the prototype of the first mech Zrathno built. A medium-class bipedal humanoid type mech designed for ground warfare, standing roughly 13.3 metres tall, a little shorter than its final design. After Astur began working on the ring to contain mechs, Zrathno returned to his ship and began to modify this mech. Adding smoke generators to give a better look when it appears from seemingly nowhere as well as an autopilot function. Despite his previous statements on an unmanned and manned machine, Zrathno gave this mech an unmanned function since after taking it out he can't easily enter it without people seeing him. His plan is simple to release the mech, let it cause some chaos and grab whatever seems valuable while he escapes with the immediate area with the crowd, then order the mech to make its way towards him to put back into the ring and book it to the next city.

As debris falls from the ceiling, screams can be heard throughout the cathedral as people rush to get out. The common folk and priests alike are confused and scared. But the clergy quickly pull themselves together as they try to take down the giant metal contraption.

The GW Type-0 Alpha-V2 is soon bombarded by a variety of magic spells. Seeing the various dents in the armour of his mech, Zrathno can't help but feel a bit of pain in his heart. It could have been worse though, he could have used his newer model, that would have really hurt him. But he has no time for worrying over such matters, knowing that the armour can't hold out against a magic bombardment for much longer. He focuses on running away with the crowd while giving the order to his mech to blow up the ground.

Receiving the order, the missile launcher on the mechs left shoulder opens up and begins firing, taking out some of the clergies along with opening up the underground vaults.

"This machine! It's stealing our holy relics!" A Priest yells out.

"Don't just stand there gawking at it, keep attacking you fools! Don't let it take our relics! And where the hell is the Provincial Army!? And what are they doing!? How can they let something like this into the city!" A Bishop shouts.

"Your Excellency, the machine appeared from thin air… neither the police nor the military let it in…" Another Priest says.

"... Right, well… keep shooting!" The Bishop says, ignoring his mistake.

But after a minute of causing havoc and stealing the Church's stuff, the mech turns and begins its retreat.

"Your Excellency, we've received word that the Provincial Army and the City's Police Force are on the way!"

"It's too late for that now! Can't you see the machine is running away!"

"But maybe we can stall for their arrival."

"Did they say how long?" The Bishop asks.

"Only a few minutes before they arrive," a Priest says.

"I'll use the Curtain of Light," The Bishop says.

The Curtain of Light is one of the unique spells used by the higher ranks of the clergy in the Church of Light. It's a barrier of light meant to contain threats, although it's seldomly used as it requires a large amount of mana to maintain.

While Zrathno is moving along a path to get close enough to the mech to put it back into storage, a wall of impassable light appears and surrounds the GW Type-0 Alpha-V2, blocking Zrathno just before he could get into range.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me, my luck shouldn't be this bad," Zrathno mutters as he's separated from the mech by only a few metres.

Using the pile bunker on its right arm, the GW Type-0 Alpha-V2 stikes at the wall of light blocking its path, but the results aren't good, with no sign of breakage in the wall. Zrathno gives the order to stand its ground and return fire against the clergy still shooting magic at the mechs backside. Turning around to face the clergy and the destroyed cathedral, both shoulder-mounted weapons, the left missile launcher and the right Gatling gun begin firing, mowing down many of the priests trapped inside the barrier with the mech.

It doesn't take long before all enemies within the Curtain of Light is dealt with, leaving the GW Type-0 Alpha-V2 alone. Zrathno, still waiting just beyond the barrier begins to hear a rumbling sound. Looking around he soon sees several tanks various other heavy artillery, and looking at their design, he can easily tell they're energy-based weapons using magic as their guiding principle over the standard kinetic bullets that his mech was designed to deal with.

Thankfully, Zrathno's luck really isn't as bad as Astur's as the Curtain of Light is dispelled, causing him to immediately withdraw the GW Type-0 Alpha-V2 back into the storage ring and runs off.

Seeing the giant humanoid machine suddenly disappear leaves the clergy, the army, and the regular people watching from afar confused.

Over the course of a week, similar incidents were happening in many other cities. The media has given the mech the name 'Steel Mirage', due to it appearing and disappearing from seemingly out of nowhere and it always being surrounded by smoke, making it difficult to see clearly from afar. And the effect this has had on the people of the Kingdom and to a small extent beyond the Kingdom is rather detrimental to the Church.

Nowadays, people are too scared to approach their local cathedrals, fearing that it might be the next target of the Steel Mirage. The fact that it makes for a good story means that news outlets are eating this up and spreading the fear even more. The Church is now facing record lows for its number of attendees amongst the general public.

Returning to the Sea of Trees, Zrathno is listening to the radio new show talk about his feats as he thinks, "Steel Mirage? I like the sound of that, I'm taking that one."