Zhuge's Territory – The Cloud Palace
Zhuge's island was a masterpiece of aesthetic design. Unlike Atlas's muddy wasteland, this island was paved with white marble. Elegant pagodas with blue-tiled roofs floated on small sub-islets connected by bridges made of solidified cloud. The air smelled of jasmine and ozone. It was a paradise.
CRASH.
The Steam-Ceramic Centurion hit the marble plaza like a meteor. Stone tiles shattered. A cloud of dust and steam billowed out, obscuring the pristine view. The Centurion rose from its crouch, the hydraulic pistons in its legs hissing violently as they vented excess pressure. It stood ten feet tall, a white, faceless giant leaking oil and soot onto the holy ground.
Atlas hopped down from the machine's back, dusting off his leather apron. "Nice place," Atlas commented, his voice distorted by his skull mask. "A bit fragile, though."
Zhuge stood on the steps of his main Pagoda, surrounded by a dozen nervous Sylphs. He looked at the machine, then at the cracked floor. He didn't get angry. He calculated. "It's heavy," Zhuge observed. "The mana density is... surprisingly low. I barely sense any magic in it."
"It doesn't run on magic," Atlas patted the Centurion's hot ceramic leg. "It runs on pressure. Where is the enemy?"
Zhuge pointed his feather fan toward the horizon. "Approaching. Warlord Khan doesn't use portals. He prefers... traditional projection."
Atlas looked out. Emerging from the purple fog was a fleet. They were wooden Viking-style longships, but instead of sailing on water, they drifted through the void, kept aloft by glowing gravity stones embedded in their hulls. Oars dipped into the ether, rowing against the cosmic wind. There were ten ships. Each one was packed with Gnolls.
[Scan Complete][Enemy: The Horde of Khan][Unit Count: ~200 Gnolls.][Leader: Warlord_Khan (Level 5 Barbarian).][Trait: Magic Resistance (Skin naturally diffuses mana).]
Atlas whistled. "Two hundred. That's a lot of mouths to feed." "They are hungry," Zhuge corrected. "They are here to eat my Sylphs. And me."
Zhuge raised his hand. "My Wind Mages will form a barrier. But once the Gnolls land, their 'frenzy' passive triggers. If they touch my units, my units dissipate. I need you to hold the line at the bridge."
Atlas climbed back onto the Centurion's rear platform, gripping the manual override levers. "Unit 01," Atlas spoke into the comms tube. "Wake up."
The Centurion's chest-eye glowed red. The Ghost in the Shell—the rudimentary machine spirit formed from the soul core—growled a low, metallic sound. Acknowledgment.
"Zhuge," Atlas called out. "I charge 10 Faith Points for every kill. And I keep the bodies. Agreed?" "Just keep them off my stairs!" Zhuge shouted as the first longship slammed into the edge of the island.
The Siege
The Gnolls poured off the ships like a plague of locusts. They were seven feet tall, covered in matted grey fur, wielding heavy iron axes and spiked clubs. They didn't scream; they barked—a guttural, wet sound of bloodlust.
"WIND BLADE!" Zhuge commanded. His Sylphs thrust their hands forward. Crescent moons of compressed air slashed toward the horde. Whiff. Whiff. The blades hit the Gnolls' fur and shattered like glass. The Gnolls didn't even bleed. A faint purple aura shimmered around their bodies—Magic Resistance.
"Magic weak!" The leading Gnoll roared. "Eat cloud-men! Eat!"
The horde surged toward the central bridge—the only path to the Pagoda. Zhuge's face paled. "My attacks aren't penetrating. They have Rank D resistance! I need Rank C spells to hurt them!"
"Physics has no rank," Atlas whispered.
He pulled the throttle lever on the Centurion. Inside the machine's belly, the intake valve opened. A chunk of C4-Clay dropped into the boiler. Combustion. The pressure gauge screamed. The needle buried itself in the red zone. Steam erupted from the back vents with a sound like a screaming train whistle.
CHOO-CHOO, MOTHERF*****R.
The Centurion charged. It didn't run with grace. It ran like a landslide. Two tons of steel, ceramic, and water moving at forty miles per hour. The Gnolls on the bridge saw the white giant coming. They didn't understand what it was. A golem? It had no magic aura. They raised their shields.
Impact.
The collision was sickening. The Centurion didn't stop. It plowed into the front line of Gnolls. Shields shattered. Bones turned to powder. Bodies were launched into the air like ragdolls. The sheer kinetic mass of the machine turned the first three rows of the horde into paste.
The Centurion stopped in the middle of the bridge, blocking the path entirely. A Gnoll Champion—larger than the others, wielding a two-handed hammer—roared and swung at the machine's leg. CLANG. The hammer hit the white ceramic plating. Sparks flew. The ceramic chipped, but it didn't break. The Centurion looked down. Its hydraulic arm raised. The three-fingered claw opened. Snap. It grabbed the Gnoll Champion by the head. The hydraulics hissed. Squelch.
The Centurion dropped the headless body and looked at the rest of the pack.
"What is that?!" Warlord Khan screamed from the deck of his flagship. "It has no mana! Why is it moving?!"
Atlas peered out from behind the Centurion's shoulder. "It's called an Engine, Khan! It doesn't care about your resistance!"
"Swarm it!" Khan ordered. "It's just one golem! Topple it!"
The Gnolls scrambled over their fallen kin. They jumped onto the Centurion, clawing at the ceramic, trying to find gaps in the armor. Zhuge watched from the balcony, horrified. "Atlas! They're swarming you! Retreat!"
Atlas checked the internal temperature gauge. [Boiler Heat: Critical.][Venting Required.]
"Perfect," Atlas grinned. "Unit 01. Purge."
The Centurion didn't move. It simply opened every exhaust port on its body simultaneously. Superheated steam—pressurized to 800 PSI—blasted out in a 360-degree radius. It wasn't magic fire. It was boiling water vapor. Gnoll fur provides resistance against spells. It provides zero resistance against cooking.
SCREEEEE!
The Gnolls clinging to the machine shrieked as the steam boiled their skin instantly. Their eyes melted. Their lungs burned as they inhaled the scalding air. They fell off the machine, writhing on the ground, clawing at their own faces.
Atlas closed the vents. "Crowd control complete. Now, the cleanup."
He steered the Centurion forward. Stomp. Crush. Grab. Throw. It was a massacre. The machine was a meat grinder. Every time a Gnoll tried to swing an axe, the Centurion just tanked the hit and countered with a hydraulic punch that caved in chests.
Warlord Khan watched his elite raiding party get dismantled. He realized he had made a fatal error. He had prepared for a wizard duel. He was in a fistfight with a forklift.
"Retreat!" Khan barked. "Back to the ships!"
"Oh no you don't," Atlas muttered. "That's my fuel leaving." Atlas scanned the battlefield. He couldn't chase the ships; the Centurion couldn't fly. But he had the High-Ground.
"Zhuge!" Atlas shouted into his radio stone. "Can your Sylphs carry something heavy? Like... a bomb?" Zhuge, who was watching the battle with his mouth slightly open, snapped out of his trance. "My Sylphs? They can carry... maybe 10 kilograms."
Atlas reached into his bag. He pulled out a Boom-Spider. "Have them drop these on the ships. Air raid."
Zhuge's eyes lit up. He understood immediately. "Sylphs! Grab the packages! Target the gravity stones on the ships!"
Five Sylphs swooped down, grabbing the chattering clay spiders from Atlas's hand. They flew over the retreating longships. Khan looked up. "Birds?" The Sylphs dropped the spiders.
The spiders landed on the decks. They scurried toward the glowing purple gravity stones that kept the ships afloat. Beep.BOOM.
Three ships lost their gravity drives instantly. They didn't explode. They just... fell. Gravity reclaimed them. The ships tipped forward and plummeted into the infinite void below, taking fifty screaming Gnolls with them.
Khan's flagship, however, was faster. It turned sharply, dodging the bombardment. Khan stood at the stern, shaking his fist. "I WILL REMEMBER THIS, METAL MAN! THE HORDE DOES NOT FORGET!"
Atlas watched the Warlord escape. "He got away," Atlas sighed. "A waste of biomass."
He patted the Centurion's hull. The machine was vibrating, cooling down. "Good job, Unit 01. Now, help me pick up the bodies before they despawn."
The Aftermath – The Harvest
The bridge was a mess of gore, broken wood, and steam burns. Zhuge walked down the stairs, stepping carefully over the corpse of a Gnoll. He approached the Centurion, which was currently kneeling as Atlas used a saw to remove the horns from a dead Gnoll.
"That..." Zhuge swallowed hard. "That was horrific."
"That was efficient," Atlas corrected, tossing the horns into a sack. "Gnolls are rich in bone marrow. Good for phosphorus. And their fat renders down into decent oil."
Zhuge looked at Atlas with a mix of fear and admiration. "You treat war like a grocery trip." "And you treat it like a chess match," Atlas countered. "That's why you were losing. In the early game, brutality wins."
Atlas stood up and wiped his gloves. "The bill. You owe me 50 kills confirmed on the bridge. That's 500 Faith Points. Plus, I want the salvage rights to the broken weapons."
Zhuge nodded. "Paid. And... I want to place an order." "For a Centurion?" "No," Zhuge said, looking at the scorched marks on the bridge. "That steam blast. Can you miniaturize it? My Sylphs are weak in close quarters. If they had... steam grenades?"
Atlas paused. [Trade Opportunity Detected.] "I can make pressurized canisters. One-time use. Flash-boil grenades. Expensive." "I have gold," Zhuge smiled. "Lots of it."
Atlas shook his hand. "Pleasure doing business."
As Atlas loaded the corpses onto the Centurion's back (using the machine as a pack mule), a system notification pinged.
[System Alert: Combat Data Analyzed.][Unit 'Centurion' Performance: Satisfactory.][Weakness Identified: Fuel Efficiency.]Note: The Centurion consumed 40% of its fuel reserves in a 10-minute skirmish. The combustion of Clay/Nitroglycerin is powerful but burns too fast.
Atlas frowned. "The solid fuel problem," he muttered. "I need liquid fuel. I need consistent burn."
He looked at the pile of Gnoll bodies. "Rendering fat into Tallow is okay... but it's medieval." He needed Oil. Petroleum. Or... He looked at the Alcohol Zhuge used for his alchemical potions.
"Ethanol," Atlas realized. "High-proof Ethanol. If I refine sugar... I can make Bio-Fuel." He turned to Zhuge. "Hey. Does your island grow anything besides flowers? Something with sugar?" Zhuge blinked. "We grow Spirit Rice. And Star-Fruits."
"Star-Fruits," Atlas mused. "High sugar content?" "Extremely. We make wine for the gods."
Atlas's eyes glowed behind the mask. "Forget the steam grenades. I need your wine. All of it." "My... wine?" "I'm going to build an Internal Combustion Engine," Atlas declared. "And I'm going to run it on holy champagne."
Interlude: The Darkness Below
While Atlas and Zhuge celebrated their victory, the camera pans down. Deep in the void, miles below their islands.
The wreckage of the three Gnoll ships that fell was drifting. Most of the Gnolls had died from the fall or suffocation. But on a large piece of debris, something survived.
It wasn't a Gnoll. It was a Slime. A small, black, viscous puddle that had been hitching a ride on the hull of Khan's ship. It slithered over the dead Gnolls. It touched a corpse. Absorb. The slime grew. It turned grey, then furred. It grew a snout. It was mimicking the biology it consumed.
[Species: The Mimic (Wild).][Current Form: Gnoll (Imperfect).][Objective: Evolve.]
It looked up at the distant stars where Atlas lived. It felt the vibration of the Steam Engine. It felt... hunger.