The Archmage’s Destruction Strategy - Chapter 135

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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#135. Regrouping

Sung-jun pursued the fleeing enemies while unleashing area-wide spells, and after more than two hours of relentless pursuit, he succeeded in eliminating over 90% of the Corrosion Entity Legion that had established defensive positions in Kansas.
While Sung-jun chased down and annihilated the retreating foes, the soldiers of the Hive Hornet finally gained the breathing room to regroup. They cleared away the mountainous corpses of insectoid monsters and constructed a massive wall made entirely of the dead around the Hive Hornet.
Should the enemy launch another assault during Sung-jun’s absence, this fortress of corpses would serve as an impenetrable barricade. Moreover, clearing the area around the Hive Hornet was essential for their regrouping efforts.
The corpse-clearing operation simultaneously served another purpose: excavating the remains of Steel Golems buried beneath the mountains of bodies.

“Handle the fallen with utmost respect, and gather all broken wreckage in one location.”

The euphoria of victory that had surged through me upon awakening quickly evaporated the moment cleanup began.
The insectoid monster corpses, each measuring several meters across, spewed nauseating bodily fluids like open faucets whenever lifted. Beneath them lay the mangled remains of comrade mechas, so thoroughly destroyed that their original forms were barely recognizable, caked in blood and tissue.
Moreover, it appeared the enemy had concentrated their attacks on the cockpit sections where the Pilots sat. Many of the damaged Steel Golems had their chest sections—where the control seats were located—completely shattered and torn.
Naturally, the Operators inside had been equally ravaged by the massive claws, their bodies in horrific condition.
The Operators of the other Golems who had survived the battle handled their fallen comrades’ remains with meticulous care.
Using Golem-specific shovels and pickaxes that Barden had hastily crafted, they dug countless holes and carefully laid each body to rest within.
Though the volume of work was substantial, the actual labor didn’t take excessively long.
With the oversized shovels designed for massive Steel Golems, a single thrust could create enough space to bury a person.
However, careful consideration was required in selecting burial sites, as the vast majority of the land surrounding the Hive Hornet had been saturated with blood flowing from the monsters’ bodies.

“No matter what, we can’t bury our comrades in ground this contaminated.”

With corpses numbering this high, cleanup became a critical problem.
Leaving the bodies unattended risked contaminating the entire surrounding region.
Unlike human remains, which occupied relatively modest space when buried, the sheer volume of Corrosion Entity corpses—enough to construct a massive fortress wall—posed an enormous threat to the livelihood of those who would inhabit these lands in the future.
Yet excavating a pit large enough to bury all these bodies would require something akin to an open-pit mine. The soldiers had no choice but to hastily clear only the corpses immediately surrounding the Hive Hornet.
They prayed for their savior to return—that great Archmage Sung-jun, whose mere gesture could resolve any problem as if by magic.
And Sung-jun, living up to their expectations, returned from the pursuit and promptly shoved the mountainous heap of corpses entirely into the Subspace, solving the problem with elegant simplicity.

“Guess all that organizing was for nothing.”
“Not at all. Thanks to you gathering everything in one place, we were able to finish much more efficiently. Everyone worked incredibly hard to hold the line until you awakened.”

I remained within the power core of Atlas, communicating with the soldiers through a magically-constructed phantom.
Unlike the phantom created earlier, this new manifestation displayed the vibrant, refreshed demeanor of an office worker who had enjoyed a long, restorative sleep and recovered from exhaustion.

“Teacher.”
“Seoa. You’ve worked hard as well. To interpret the signal I sent—your skill with mana has grown considerably during our time apart.”
“Hehe, thank you, Teacher.”
“As a reward, I’ll teach you a new spell suited to your current level later. And General?”
“Yes, Sung-jun.”

Next, I turned my attention to General Seth Macfarlane, the commander of this operation and captain of the Hive Hornet.
I offered words of encouragement to the general, whose expression bore the complicated mixture of joy at victory and sorrow for the fallen comrades.

“You’ve done remarkable work. Honestly, I didn’t expect you to go this far. Thanks to you eliminating nine out of ten Level 8 Corrosion Entities, the battle concluded swiftly after I awakened. That success belongs entirely to you and those who fought alongside you.”
“Though as a result, the Hive Hornet has become inoperable.”
“There’s no need to worry about that. We can simply construct a new mana reactor using the remains of the Steel Golems and the corpses of the Corrosion Entities.”

Materials were abundant.
The rare metals that served as conduits for mana flow were substances impossible to create using only materials from Earth, but by utilizing the neural networks of the Corrosion Entities with their formidable durability, I could complete a mana reactor far more powerful than the original. The problem was that even using such methods, I couldn’t construct a reactor powerful enough to fully operate Atlas.
Until I faced the Apocalypse-class Corrosion Entity in New York, I would need to remain aboard Atlas personally during transit, so I began rapidly establishing maintenance plans for the next phase.
Eventually, until the fight with the Corrosion Entity in New York, Sung-jun had to move while directly piloting Atlas, and in that situation, Sung-jun quickly began establishing a maintenance plan for the next operation.

“Atlas’s external armor is damaged beyond repair, so it would be better to create new armor using the broken external armor as material.”

After getting hit by Sung-jun a few times for casually speaking in informal speech, Barden, who had started using formal speech again, spoke toward Sung-jun’s welcome with a face full of discontent.

“What specific upgrades are you envisioning? I should warn you in advance—increased durability is impossible. If we increase durability further, we’d need to add more weight, and that could result in me falling asleep again before we even reach New York.”
“No, the upgrade I’m thinking of is a different kind. If anything, I want to strengthen the magical aspects.”
“You want to add more magic to something that’s already a walking mana tower?”
“Yes. While I was asleep for maintenance, several ideas occurred to me.”
“Yeah. While I was resting to regroup, a few ideas came to me.”

It was essentially creating a hybrid system—like a hybrid car. Upon hearing my idea, Barden’s eyes sparkled with interest.
It was like building a hybrid car system in automotive terms, and when Barden heard Sung-jun’s idea, his eyes sparkled and he showed an expression that suggested it would be interesting.

“Exactly. Normally, we’d continuously accumulate mana, and then at the operator’s desired moment, we’d draw from the stored mana without requiring mana guidance. If we can achieve that, we’d have that much more surplus mana to allocate toward spell casting.”
“That’s right. Normally, you accumulate magical power continuously, and then at the timing the user desires, you draw upon that stored magical power without needing to channel it. If you could do that, you’d be able to redirect that much extra magical power toward casting spells.”

I judged the structure of Atlas—designed to accommodate personnel in three rotating shifts to operate the numerous interceptor mana cannons mounted on the main body—to be inefficient.
Of course, when Atlas was originally constructed, the development of the Hive Hornet wasn’t part of the plan, so the objective had been to safely accommodate as many personnel as possible. But now that we could utilize the Hive Hornet, which could house large numbers of people, it was inefficient to reserve so much space in Atlas for personnel to eat and rest.
It would be more efficient to send personnel needing rest to the Hive Hornet and rotate in fresh personnel from there.
It would have been more efficient to send personnel in need of rest to the Hive Hornet and replenish with personnel who had finished resting at the Hive Hornet.

“That approach would certainly conserve internal space. We could reduce the main body’s dimensions accordingly. With less armor weight, operational burden decreases as well.”

Once Barden’s enthusiasm truly ignited and he began conceptualizing the fundamental design of the new Atlas, I turned my attention to gathering the materials necessary for maintaining the Hive Hornet.
Working alongside the numerous Steel Golems who volunteered to assist me, the preparation process became a butchering operation—colossal four-meter-tall golems wielding wickedly sharp blades, methodically dismantling the corpses of insects dozens of meters in size.
Separating nerve bundles from the Corrosion Entity cadavers that would serve as mana conduits for the newly constructed mana reactors, carefully peeling away external carapaces to be incorporated into the outer armor plating, stacking them piece by piece.
It was work so grotesque that merely witnessing it induced waves of nausea, yet paradoxically, it proved remarkably beneficial for the Operators who participated in the dismantling process.

“Ah, now I see the structure here. No wonder it wouldn’t break even with brutal strikes…”
“Next time we fight, attacking this section should easily immobilize it. I’m not sure about other areas, but the blade penetrates cleanly here.”
“These are nerve bundles, not rope. Incredibly tough stuff, aren’t they?”

The Soldiers, discussing which anatomical sections of the variously-formed Corrosion Entities would be most effective to target, swiftly extracted the necessary materials from the corpses and organized them in neat stacks.
Then, as I finished the design plans with Barden, we approached the accumulated materials and spoke.

“Excellent. We have plenty. This should be more than sufficient to complete the work.”

Following my new plan, the Hive Hornet received two ultra-high-output mana reactors in addition to its existing eight mana reactors.
Should all existing mana reactors be fired at the enemy, we could barely maintain aerial suspension with all other functions shut down.
Furthermore, the Hive Hornet gained an internal portal that would establish a direct connection with Atlas whenever Atlas existed within a 100-kilometer radius, enabling the transport of supplies and personnel.
This new magical formation, created based on the Dungeon Gate I discovered in Japan, was a dimensional magic circle designed to maintain its connection even in the presence of a catastrophic-class Corrosion Entity generating powerful mana fluctuations nearby.
Through it, we could rapidly transfer wounded or replacement personnel into the Hive Hornet during combat, and fresh personnel dispatched from the Hive Hornet could man the interception mana cannons installed throughout Atlas.
Simultaneously, the sleeping quarters, hangar, and rest areas within Atlas vanished as well, leaving vast empty space as buffer capacity within the Atlas main body.

“We could fill the interior with something, but given our current situation, reducing the size proportionally to the decreased space would be advantageous—it would lower external armor weight and secure mobility. I’ll begin the work now.”

As Barden brought the hammer in his hand down upon the mountainous heap of Steel Golem remains and materials torn from Corrosion Entity corpses, the stacked materials melted like liquid and began flowing toward Atlas’s main body.
Simultaneously, the massive fuselage armor of Atlas lying on the ground began contracting inward with tremendous force.
Like an empty aluminum can being crushed by air pressure, the Atlas—which had previously resembled a colossal fortress—was reborn in a form far more akin to an armored knight.
To the point where “giant robot” seemed a more fitting designation than “mobile fortress.”
Barden, gazing upon the newly reborn Atlas, smiled and spoke to me.

“What should we do about the mana cannon that was mounted on the left arm?”

I paused briefly in thought, then shook my head and replied to Barden.

“Fashion both arms into human-form limbs with five fingers on each hand. The newly reborn Atlas will fight using a Mage’s combat methodology, not as a mechanical weapon.”
“A Mage’s combat methodology…?”
“I intend to show our enemies just how terrifying a walking Mage Tower truly is.”

Even as Sung-jun spoke those words, his mind churned with an endless cascade of newly forged annihilation-tier incantations that had materialized during his slumber—each one surfacing with relentless persistence.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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