The plan proceeded as intended, albeit not entirely smoothly. They arrived in Ostrau twenty-minutes early, which turned out to be the worst thing ever. Sitting idly to move on schedule was more stressful than fighting. At least they would have been on the move, doing something. Instead, they were bound to their position.

Salamander took that pause particularly badly, being eager to do battle, spending it in an entirely sour mood. Eventually, they got moving again though, and the tension dropped as much as was reasonable.

The giant strode towards Katowice with impressive speed, although that only seemed to be a thing that he could keep up in a simple forwards movement. At least their enormous travel time meant that John and Momo could regenerate all of their mana.

They were indeed the spearhead in Katowice, not that it meant much. The city had no abyssal counterpart; like Graz it was only the real city with bases all over. They were able to snuff out some bases thanks to Magoi melding the ones they came across into theirs.

On such occasions Ria would complain that she wasn’t allowed to use the robot to just smash the building or use something like laser beams or whatever she had installed in this thing. Maximillian did tell her to keep energy preservation in mind, however, so instead, they had their higher agility members take care of it. Also, John learned that the robot was named Phil. He just kept referring to it as the iron giant, as that was a stupid name. Even though it was absolutely not made out of iron.

It wasn’t a particularly stealthy tactic, nor were they thorough enough to get every last enemy. All they did was establish a scar of destroyed enemy bases, a kind of safe zone for the forces that would follow them. It had its own value.

Because the only way to see them was to be part of the very same barrier they were inside, they were also protected against spies. Hopefully, the enemy would take this whole thing as an attack of the empire on the borders, rather than a deep strike, for just a little while longer.

“Huh, this is weird,” Ria said as she slid down the ladder and then tapped a part of the smooth wall that slid to the side in response. John had wondered before, but there was no way she wasn’t a Technomancer, a quick observe confirmed that but revealed no other interesting info.

She winked at him after checking a clock-like gadget on her wrist. Evidently his scrying hadn’t gone unnoticed. “What is so weird?” John asked to skip over the slight awkwardness that followed and enter into a nonchalant conversation with the option of a bit of flirting. He didn’t exactly aim to get this girl around, his harem was too big anyway, but he was still himself. “Need me to take a closer look?”

“Unless you have expertise in hyper-fluctuant earth-enriched elementium mana cores that only start operating at arcano-pressure of 12’000 Wirg, I don’t, no,” she shot him down and then vanished down the corridor. John took a peak after her nonetheless and saw her checking on the inner end of that blue circle (turning out to be a cylinder) that was visible in the giant’s chest.

John wondered whether or not having the mana core be exposed like that was a design flaw or something with purpose. Being ignorant on the matter, he decided not to comment. “So what is happening?” he repeated his question.

“We are losing more energy than we should,” Ria shouted back, putting a hand directly on the core and closing her eyes, “but I can’t… find any faults in the system… I think I need to do the math again.”

“Just feed me the numbers,” Momo offered, pushing herself past John before he could make the offer himself. Giving him a competitive glance on the way, she added, “I would be perfectly happy to help you, this robot is pretty cool.”

‘Did she… is she… are you butting into my flirting business?’ John stammered mentally. This was probably the last source of competition he would have anticipated.

‘You got enough girls already, shoo-shoo,’ Momo waved him off as she started up a rather lively conversation about the mathematical phenomenon of the internal fluctuation efficiency over time used and the transition paradox in regards to internal to mantle heat.

“I feel betrayed in so many ways right now,” John said when he returned to his girlfriend.

“Don’t be sad, tiger, ya still have me, and Aclysia and Undine and…” Rave stopped as she had made the point.

“Could you not try to get with my big sister? It’s creepy,” Maximillian announced. The dynamic duo of the nerd and the martial artists just gave him a deadpan look, glancing over at Nariko for a moment before continuing their vigilant stare.

Eventually, the two of them returned. “Oh wow, can I borrow her after all of this? She is good!” Ria requested. “I like math machines like that.” Well, the romantic interest obviously hadn’t quite landed yet.

“In a month or two, she will be her own girl, so knock yourself out,” John sighed in defeat but then smiled. Not like all of the world’s girls were for him, and Momo getting it on her own made him pretty confident that she had mastered pretty much all of the basic human interactions.

Maybe pushing her Libido to 25 was a thing she would want before she was leaving? How about higher Charisma? Questions for more peaceful times.

“Nice, anyway, we were leaking energy to somewhere. I would need to run a full-maintenance to find out what exactly is causing it, but I managed to fix it by increasing the outer mantel resistance factor,” Ria said. "Its not that bad, no reason to be concerned!"

“What does ‘not that bad’ mean?” Maximillian probed. He seemed very much concerned about this.

“Ah, you know, just about 20 Maybel per second average, no biggie,” Ria shrugged it off. “Only a problem if it keeps growing, which it won’t cause I slapped a band aid on it.”

“That’s 5000$ per second, Ria. My treasury is not something you can just throw around like sand at a children’s playground!” the king tapped his cane on the floor.

“Whatever, can’t find the exact reason right now. I am back above, don’t want Phil to be on autopilot when we hit Warsaw.” Ria rolled her eyes behind her giant, orange tinted goggles and vanished back up the shaft with a series of well-practiced movements.

She came back two more times to check on the issue, before it finally vanished once and for all. John couldn’t help but find that suspicious, it felt like something was with them. Something would awaken soon. He had no idea what gave him that feeling, but it didn’t feel dangerous. An inkling that something that was long overdue was finally coming to fruition, that’s what that impression he had was. Like fate, even if it didn’t exist, had something good in store for him for a change.

He pondered a while about where that feeling could come from; when he arrived at an answer, he smiled.

______________________________________________________________________

About half an hour later they finally hit Warsaw, capital of Poland. They only saw the real thing while closing in; once they stepped towards the city centre, they were immediately pulled in.

“This is a good sign,” Magoi announced as John watched the city that unveiled itself on the monitor in front of him. It clearly once had been beautiful, high houses with a rustic charm co-existed with fountains, statues and other impressive landmarks. However, save for one district, the city had been left to rot and was overseen by a hexagonal shaped block that towered above. “Well, at least it means no fateweaver of my strength level is around.”

John already had been briefed on that block, it was an outpost the Nazi’s had left there and that was now being occupied as the base of whoever held Warsaw. At the current time, that happened to be the Blood.

‘How ghastly,’ John thought; if it were him, he would have tried to tear that thing down as soon as possible. A sentiment, John realized, that the polish people most likely shared, but they hadn’t been in control of their own state in so long that they hadn’t gotten the chance too.

This whole war against the authoritarians seemed long overdue. Well, unlike the real-life cold war, they didn’t have to bother with mutually assured destruction, so that made things easier. That aside, it seemed as if the block had seen way better days, judging by the obvious amount of ash on its concrete walls and the blackened ring around it. John had no need to wonder where the endpoint of the portal had been anymore, nothing but the fire of a god or god-like creature could cause such devastation.

The intact district John hadn’t heard about. So, he decided to ask. “What is that good looking part of town?” The question was directed at whoever could answer it.

“That’s where the Tyralings live, an insectoid, eusocial people. They are one of the few reported races to do well under the Blood,” Magoi filled him.

‘Huh,’ John looked at the district more closely as he prepared himself for what had to happen next. ‘From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs. Guess that ethos would work rather well with people who already have it in their genetic structure.’

That was the last thought he had before the breastplate swung open and everyone, save Magoi and Ria, left the cavity. Rave just jumped straight down, sliding down a mid-motion, gargantuan leg as if it was a shortcut down a slope in a forest; Aclysia did the same, carrying John. “My hero,” the weaponized maid said in an unironic tone as she landed on the concrete below.

Parts of the city were already burning, civilians had either evacuated or were barricading themselves in their houses, and sounds of distant battles could be heard. The Knights of Teuton that had pushed here were already in full engagement, and the extra battalion that had come with John had vanished from his sights after they had put up their helmets. As per agreement, they would infiltrate the hexagon now to further deviate enemy attention from where John had to go.

Lydia wasn’t here; supposedly, she was being held in an underground facility that they couldn’t reach from here. “ALL WEAPON SYSTEMS ONLINE!” The iron giant raised its hands, which reshaped from the human model to giant cannons and then started barraging places where they knew enemy troop concentrations to be.

John started running, Rave and Nariko going somewhere else; this whole thing would get messy rather quickly. The problem was that they only knew that she was supposed to be down there, not where or how big it even was. They would need to spread out and push in while also keeping a minimum of control over the surface. Aclysia and Momo were quick behind him, as was Maximillian. Riding a stone slab like a hover disk, the Gravity King was actually much faster than them. “Jump on already, we have no time to waste,” he commanded them. The Gamer obeyed, and they flew over the pavement.

In a bombed house they found what they were searching for, a halfway collapsed tunnel that was fought over by a small contingent of knights against a mass of enemies. The knights once must have been a full ten, judging by the eight bodies on the floor.

This was the kind of situation Maximillian thrived in, crashing the hovering platform into the first guy, everyone jumping off shortly beforehand. The king, only landing successfully by relying on his cane so heavily it bent out of shape under the pressure for a moment, applied an amount of extra force to everyone in the area that caused most people to break down or at least slowed them to a crawl. Only his allies were exempted.

“Go!” Maximillian shouted as enemy reinforcements arrived in a heartbeat. They weren’t strong, not particularly, but the sheer mass would make this hard and drawn-out. “I am not as useful down there; I will be defending this position!”

“Thanks!” John said and ran into the collapsed corridor. It was dark, dark and dark, but it didn’t stay that way. He kept up the speed, trusting Siena’s guidance through the vast shadows that left him completely without orientation by the second corner. He could have illuminated his surroundings as well using Salamander, but for the moment, the nightmare elemental kept her promise.

‘It would be so easy to lead you astray right now.’ She did keep reminding him that she was in control though. Obviously, the rather sadistic woman revelled in that. Her mind was open as she guided John further; if she wanted to trick him, revealing all her thoughts to him as she did would have been a terrible strategy.

They hurried deeper and deeper into the tunnels. The walls were nothing but blank, grey concrete and simple lamps, broken in this segment. Occasionally, the earth trembled as the iron giant above did its thing. At least that is what John assumed; there could have been a lot of other reasons.

He went deeper and deeper into the belly of the base. Eventually, he was bound to find something, be it Lydia, despair or disappointment.