Ludwig no longer cared about the original plan. That plan had been to send them out one by one, wearing down the enemy while collecting data.
He could see that Belial was in an overclocked energy state, which was why this rotation plan had been chosen. The idea was that once the big move was used on the first target, things would get easier later.
But now, even basic attacks were enough to nearly kill them. Holding back any longer would mean total loss.
"Hm?"
While playing around, Belial suddenly shoved the two mangled heaps forward as shields. It did not help, as a bio-disrupting Rend beam pierced straight through the Nanometal body and into Belial's chest.
The massive impact blasted Belial away, though his chest wound healed during the flight. Descending from the clouds was Mechagodzilla, now larger and more vicious, with additional thrusters mounted on its back.
"Roar!"
The thrusters adjusted their angle and shrieked sharply. The entire body flickered as if performing spatial jumps.
Belial fired back with Spiral Heat Ray, but it passed through the body in a strange way.
"What is going on?"
"The Evil God has invested more power. The surrounding space is under its control, and the spatial targeting on that monster has been confused."
"In other words, it is on a different layer. Without similar spatial interference or finding the hidden coordinates of the Evil God, you cannot hit it. But I have a way."
Mechagodzilla dove down sharply, but after landing it did not rush into melee. It simply stared at Belial.
"You thing, are you moving all the time? Does your blink have no cooldown?"
Belial lashed out with a slap of Gravity Tornado and seemed to touch something. He immediately understood the opponent's state, constantly blinking in place and stuck between appearing and leaving.
In this state, even Belial's Spiral Heat Ray could not deal damage. No matter how strong the attack was, it could not connect.
"But that is fine. Once I catch the instant you blink back, you are dead."
He paused slightly after receiving a coordinate update, then confidence filled him.
As long as there was even a tiny moment of pause after the blink, a moment where damage could register, it would be enough. That window might be extremely short, but overwhelming sustained damage within that instant would finish the job.
"Just wait for the chance. Get ready to die."
He opened his mouth wide as blazing light poured from his entire body, like a falling sun. The ground around him melted from the heat, and even drifting Nanometal was destroyed by the natural energy output.
Mechagodzilla narrowed its eyes. Ludwig laughed disdainfully, convinced it was just a raging beast that thought strength alone meant freedom.
"How foolish. If I can take you down here, all the better. Authority of Decay, if it can erupt, you might still have a chance."
"Maybe you have another trick, but it is too late. I will not give you that chance."
Mechagodzilla charged forward with a prepared beam attack, energy surging in both claws. All weapons across its body powered up and locked on.
"Mortals, you are the challengers."
Ludwig laughed wildly as he rushed in.
Then he slammed straight into a highly compressed Gravity Tornado.
"?"
Apart from the tearing sound of Rend from the extreme pressure around the machine, Ludwig felt his movements slow slightly. It was only a little.
"To be honest, when I realized that dragon could control gravity, I thought about this already. Luckily, I calculated the model in advance."
"The return time of spatial jumps is very short, but at a certain point the time scale changes. It was once called a black hole."
Bella's eyes were full of excitement. Below Sky Island, armor plates opened to reveal a cannon barrel, and the energy inside began lowering the surrounding temperature.
"This virtual black hole can only stretch time a bit. But if I freeze you at that moment and solidify matter, how will you respond?"
"Absolute Almost Zero Cannon. Fire."
An ice-blue glow erupted, and around Sky Island it looked like a solar corona formed by heat being drained away. Only with the stable rules near Belial could such a weapon operate.
The beam slammed into the immobilized Mechagodzilla. Frost instantly covered its surface, and the nanomachines forming its body fell silent as heat was stripped away.
Under the influence of destruction code at the lowest level, it began to break itself down. Even with Ludwig's power supporting it, the process continued.
"Damn it. I should have killed you two ants earlier. But you think this is enough to deal with me? Delusional."
Ludwig laughed loudly. His former self might have fallen here, but after fusing with the ecological power of his kin, even code attacks could not topple him.
Once he broke free, he could restart spatial jumps. Unless the dragon could kill him instantly in this short time, it was impossible.
He had calculated it before. Even extreme heat could not one-shot him, and as long as it was not instant death, repairs were possible. The problem now was that he had to take a direct hit.
"As long as I endure the first wave, you cannot kill me outright."
"The chance is here."
Receiving the familiar orbital strike coordinates, Belial opened his eyes. White light patterns spread across his chest from Rend, and the elemental fusion process activated.
Orange-red and blazing white light surged out as a fusion reaction beam with temperatures nearing a million degrees erupted forward.
Anything it touched was instantly vaporized, and the two fallen MOGUERA nearby exploded from the heat.
Ludwig was still laughing when, without any reaction time, the entire machine was blown apart by the absurdly hot beam.
The remaining force carved out a molten Canyon and surged toward the silver-white metal city ahead.
"What just happened?"
In the distance, three Clone units crashed instantly. Ludwig awakened within the city core and immediately saw something very bad flying toward him.
The aftershock of the fusion beam slammed into the Nanometal city. The towering outer walls melted instantly, and directly hit structures were completely destroyed.
Facilities burned and exploded, unable to withstand such heat.
Belial slowly closed his mouth. The damage around his jaws was already repairing itself.
He looked at the remains of Mechagodzilla, now only a lower half, and nodded in satisfaction.
"That is done. The remaining three red dots are gone too. Only the last one is left."
Belial turned his head toward the distant Nanometal city.
Bella stared at the silver-white Nanomachines City not far away and drifted into thought for a moment. Lilith felt that this was the first time the usually dull fellow had calmed down, and at last looked a bit like her. "What are you thinking about? Is that the place you used to stay?" "...It looks a little similar, but it also feels wrong. To be honest, I do not remember it clearly."
It was the same old problem of database damage, and some visual data fragments had been deleted as pollution. Bella only felt a vague sense of familiarity. Was it nostalgia? Not quite. She was even somewhat glad to be in this era, without so many strange monsters, because she could faintly recall that simply staying alive back then took courage.
There was also a suspicious point that Bella had never mentioned. Even if her energy core had separated from the body, why had it never tried to regroup over such a long time? Even if trapped in a spatial gap, she should have been able to get out.
"Be careful. Activate Barrier. We should stay cautious. Evil God is very dangerous." "Oh... okay."
The next fight was not something they could join. The plan was simple. Belial would rush in and, while overclocked, tear everything apart. Then the rest would wait for the right moment, force out the Nanometal core hosting Evil God, and fire together to press it back into its grave.
Still, Bella had a thought. With Belial present, just existing within his Energy Field would suppress the pollution, and the corruption level here was far below that of the native Divine Kingdom. So should she take the risk while the enemy was weak, search the database, and see what had really happened back then that required forcibly separating her core?
A deafening blast erupted. Dense saturation fire, thicker than rain, was stopped by a shining Prism Shield. Crystals around Belial kept growing and shattering, repeating in a deadlock. Blue-white Spiral Heat Ray swept across the city walls, each strike precisely destroying blockbuster clusters of firepower.
Thick Nanometal walls melted under extreme heat, blasted open, then repaired themselves with wave-like ripples. Gravity Tornado spread out, forcing shells launched by Electromagnetic Catapult to freeze in midair and explode, ripping entire metal buildings from the ground and hurling them away to reduce mass.
"I never thought I would get to destroy a city someday. This really is Godzilla's proper job." On the ground, Belial advanced head-on with Photon Reflection Shield active, tanking barrages of fire while unleashing Spiral Heat Ray at high frequency. Even with rapid repair, the metal city was left scarred with blockbuster damage.