In a Female-Dominant World with a 5:1 Gender Ratio, I Saved a Girl as a Kid, and She Said She Wanted to Be My Bride—Who Would’ve Thought She Was a Princess… - 42

Chapter 42: Roaring Thunder, Piercing the Iron Castle Gates

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(Alto’s POV)

Kiiiiiiiiin……!!

With an ear-splitting drive noise, a swarm of black shadows dove straight down from above. They were gargoyles, but they were not the stone-statue monsters I knew. They were clearly artificial flying weapon drones—sleek metallic bodies with jet-engine–like exhaust ports mounted on their backs.

“Eliminate. Eliminate. Eliminate—”

At the same moment the inorganic thought-voices echoed directly inside my brain, hundreds of gargoyles opened their mouths in unison. Deep inside them, dark red light converged.

“Here they come, Alto! Don’t get thrown off!!”

Gideon sharply tilted Sleipnir’s chassis. In the next instant, countless heat beams rained down onto the ice field.

Jjj—BOBOBOBOBO!!

The ice instantly vaporized, triggering explosive bursts of steam. The spot where we had been a fraction of a second earlier was riddled like a honeycomb.

“Damn! Their firepower’s insane!”

“But their aim is way too mechanical! Easy to predict!”

Gideon was laughing. He made fine throttle adjustments, zigzagging across the ice field while using the explosion smoke as a smokescreen. His driving technique was godlike, slipping through gaps in the barrage as if threading a needle.

“I’ll handle evasion up front! You clear the rear and sides!”

“Roger!”

I thrust out one hand and deployed “abyss” toward the oncoming swarm of gargoyles.

“Disappear!!”

The black wave I released swallowed the airborne drones whole. Magic barriers and armor didn’t matter. The instant they touched my mana, they were disassembled at the molecular level, scattering into black dust. But the enemy numbers didn’t decrease. From the tower’s hatches, fresh reinforcements were being spewed out one after another.

“There’s no end to this! At this rate, we’ll get worn down!”

“Then we punch straight through to the core! …We will blow that bastard apart!”

Gideon pointed ahead. At the base of the black tower stood a gigantic main gate. But layered in front of it were multiple pale-blue walls of light, stacked defensive shields.

And before them, like a gatekeeper, sat a “Metal Dragon,” dozens of meters long. The dragon, its entire body covered in black armor plating, recognized us and opened its massive jaws. Inside its mouth, colossal energy swelled like a miniature sun.

A breath attack. If we took that head-on, it would obliterate the surrounding terrain before I could even cancel it with magic.

“We can’t dodge that! Alto, use that!”

“That means… Don’t tell me…!”

Gideon slapped a red switch on the console. The Gungnir on my back clanked as it transformed, cooling pipes venting white steam.

“Gungnir connected! Target—forward, that lizard bastard and the barrier behind it!”

Gideon shouted.

“Alto! Dump all your magic power into the capacitor! Limiter off!”

“Yeah, fine! I’ll do it!”

I clenched Gungnir’s grip. My aim was a single point. The dragon’s throat, right before it fired its breath. I sent my internal magic power reactor into the runaway. Heat intense enough to burn out my veins surged through my arm and into the barrel.

Buuuuuun……!!

Between the twin-pronged barrels, violet lightning raged and crackled. This wasn’t magic. It converted my “magic power that ignored all laws” into electricity, accelerating a metal projectile to near-light speed via Lorentz force. A god-slaying thunderbolt born from the physical laws of another world.

Just as the metal dragon was about to unleash its breath…

“Get erased!!”

“FIIIRE!!!”

Our voices overlapped. I pulled the trigger.

ZDOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!

The firing sound wasn’t an explosion. It was the scream of the atmosphere being torn apart. The orange flash railgun shot from the muzzle, stretching in a straight line at speeds far beyond sound.

A dragon’s breath? It didn’t matter. The flash pierced straight through the very core of the breath torrent, instantly vaporized the metal dragon’s head, and slammed into the layered defensive shields behind it.

Crack.

The magic barriers—supposedly the hardest things in the world—shattered like thin ice. Then the black tower’s several-meter-thick superalloy main gate twisted apart from the center like paper craft, a massive hole torn open. The shockwave arrived a beat later. The surrounding gargoyles were blown away by the aftershock alone, spiraling down as they crashed.

“HYAHAHAHA! Serves you right! This is the power of science!”

Gideon shouted in manic glee and stomped the accelerator to the floor.

“The path’s open! We’re charging straight in!”

“Roger!”

I gritted my teeth, rubbing my arm numbed by the recoil. That single shot had taken thirty percent of my magic power. But the power was overwhelming. With this, I could reach the bastard’s true body.

Sleipnir tore through the smoke and dove into the gaping hole of the molten, red-hot gate.

Fwoosh.

The instant we crossed inside, sound vanished as if it had been an illusion. The howling blizzard, the gargoyles’ drive noises—everything was cut off. What spread before us was silence and cold. And an endlessly stretching, inorganic metal corridor.

Blue lines ran along the walls, and rhythmic mechanical sounds echoed. This was no longer a fantasy world. It was completely the interior of a spaceship or future city straight out of a science fiction movie.

“…So this is the Demon King’s Castle.”

“Yeah. Welcome to the backstage of this world.”

Gideon slowed the bike, letting it glide across the floor. I steadied my breathing and stayed alert. There was no enemy interception. If anything, it felt like we were being invited in.

“So you have come.”

Suddenly, that man’s voice reverberated throughout the entire corridor. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. It was as if the walls themselves were speaking.

“The insolence of trampling into my garden with filthy shoes… I will make you atone with your lives.”

Far above… Or deep underground. The presence thickened. We exchanged looks and nodded.

“No greetings needed. …Let’s go, Demon King!”

Sleipnir accelerated once more. The stage for the final battle lay within the inorganic tower. Whether Lilianna’s life would run out first or we would kill a god first.

The final countdown had begun.

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