I Became a Witch and Started an Industrial Revolution

The white, simulated flame arrow swiftly shot toward the two. The brown-haired man inside the mech turned pale. “Don’t block it head-on! Dodge quickly!!!”

The brawny man who had been raising his shield froze for a moment at those words, but chose to listen to his teammate. However, by now the arrow was already near. Instinctively, he threw away the four-meter-high magic-resistant alloy shield in his hands and retreated to dodge.

Only the sound of two sharp ‘chi-chi’ rang out.

The shield, which had fallen naturally due to gravity, was pierced through by the arrow.

The shield showed no pause in midair and continued to fall smoothly, as though a blade had slipped into water.

“Damn! That was close!”

The brawny man looked at the two holes dripping molten iron on the shield with lingering fear. If that heat had struck his body, wouldn’t he have been burned away completely?

A violent wind swept the steam, engulfing the dozen-odd spies who had been firing along the road.

After a series of miserable screams, faint wafts of roasted flesh drifted through the air.

With phoenix-like eyes full of killing intent, Mitia stepped out of the palace hall and looked at the two.

Seeing her signature silver hair, the two men could not help but show bitter smiles.

They had miscalculated.

This was no ordinary ninth-level. In the classification of the main continent, the power of this flame already approached the Prince-tier of a quasi-saint.

“Can we run now?”

“No! The captain hasn’t given the signal yet. Don’t worry, flames of that temperature—she can’t use them many times. Exceeding her rank consumes too much. Just avoid them as much as possible.”

If they had the choice, they truly did not want to face such a monster. Just recalling that milky-white, ultra-high-temperature flame made the brown-haired man want to shriek like an explosion.

“Damn brat with that cursed talent!”

The rumble of engines grew louder from the distance, making the two inside the massive mechs look even gloomier.

It seemed they had underestimated the Seris Federation Army’s response speed.

It was simply their bad luck. Mitia’s military reforms had not been in place for long, and so far, only two Guards Divisions in the Federation’s capital had completed mechanization.

One belonged to the Ministry of National Defense, responsible for safeguarding the capital.

The other was directly under Mitia’s command—the Party Guard Division.

It was precisely them who had reacted so quickly.

The moment the alarm was raised, the vanguard unit completed a rapid assembly and immediately deployed.

However, moving so quickly meant they had not brought many heavy weapons.

Aside from a few wheeled armored vehicles, there were mostly Cat-type all-terrain jeeps.

But mounted on those jeeps were either single machine guns fixed to the roofs, or large-caliber recoilless cannons in the rear compartments. Their firepower was still formidable.

Seeing a mass of soldiers converge while also aiming their weapons toward them, the brawny man quickly controlled his mech to pick up the damaged shield from the ground to defend.

Although most of the inscribed defensive magic arrays on it had already been destroyed, having it was still better than nothing.

Against large-scale forces, this was where the long-range mage—the brown-haired man—excelled.

With the elemental amplification of his mech, he waved his palm toward the convoy, and fire elements began gathering around in large numbers again.

But as the recoilless cannons on the jeeps fired, the brawny man holding the shield was forced to retreat again and again under the barrage.

The dense rain of shells directly interrupted the mage’s spellcasting.

Helpless, the man had no choice but to resort to instant-cast magic.

A wall of fire rose in front of the brawny man. Bullets and shells aimed at him were either melted by the intense heat or detonated prematurely, giving the two a brief chance to breathe.

“This won’t do! We can’t get pinned down by concentrated fire. Fall back, we have to stay mobile.”

They needed to block the artillery ahead, guard against the predatory Mitia at the center, and consider the ever-increasing number of soldiers behind.

The brown-haired man decided to first disengage.

“I said—you think you can leave?”

A cold female voice rang in their ears. Mitia’s figure appeared at the brawny man’s side.

Just as he tried to swing his giant sword, her dainty foot pressed on the massive blade’s hilt. Ice elements spread from her toes, freezing solid, cutting off the mech’s exertion of power.

Magic condensed into a longsword, spun midair, and slashed toward the man behind the brawny one.

It was obvious these two were a close-range and long-range pair—the brawny man defended while the brown-haired man cast magic.

Naturally, the enemy targeted the one they deemed more critical.

Before he could react, a faint white flame flared on the sword, slicing through the mech’s shield with ease, cutting its upper half cleanly in two.

With Mitia closing in, facing such a nimble and petite opponent, the two massive mechs could not fully maneuver their bulk.

Luckily, the brawny man seized the moment when Mitia, midair, lacked footing.

He swung his giant sword upward. Mitia’s longsword morphed into a spear to parry, but the immense force sent her flying.

Just as the brown-haired mage prepared to release a spell at Mitia, a fierce barrage of artillery swallowed the two of them whole.

As the three clashed, tracked self-propelled artillery thundered onto the battlefield.

Seeing Mitia disengage, the commander decisively ordered a saturation bombardment.

The sudden increase in firepower density caught the two completely off guard.

The brown-haired man barely managed to overload his magic engine to generate a protective barrier before both were engulfed in the violent bombardment.

Such commotion in the capital naturally reached Miwei, who sensed it while en route. Just as she was about to turn back halfway, a massive golden spear shot straight toward her.

‘Boom!’

The violent explosion flung her, despite her mana shield, sending her skidding. Her surrounding escorts were annihilated instantly.

“Puh!”

Miwei coughed up a mouthful of blood as holy light rapidly worked to heal her internal injuries. Forcing herself up, she pulled out the weapon Mitia had given her.

“Tap! Tap...”

Heavy footsteps echoed in her ears, the ground trembling with each step.

Before long, she saw a towering steel giant charging rapidly toward her. Every stomp churned up clouds of dust and vibrations.

She raised her spear level, pointing it straight at the oncoming giant:

【O Holy Light~】

Radiant white light shone from her body, flowing through her hands into the spear. The platinum bullet in its chamber absorbed the mana, its tip shifting from gold, to white, to red.

【Forgive us foolish sinners of our grave misdeeds...】

Before the spear’s muzzle, a square traced in white lines appeared in the void.

Still fuming at being ambushed, Miwei poured more than half her mana into it.

The array flashed, splitting into four and spreading to the corners, forming a larger square.

Each smaller square extended one corner to the center, together creating a reticle:

【We pray for mercy, to guide the lost lambs back to Your side!】

Unica saw the void array and let out a confused sound. “Ah?”

“Bang! Boom!”

As the white radiance around Miwei flickered violently, an intense flame burst from the spear’s muzzle. When it passed through the reticle in the void, a second explosion roared.

Before Unica could react, her mech—still charging forward—was suddenly halted as though by an invisible force.

The next moment, an explosion erupted before her eyes. The oval, eggshell-like shield around her mech shattered into fragments of light. The six-meter steel giant was hurled back even faster than it had come.

On the hundred-meter stretch of road between Miwei and Unica, the cement had vanished, replaced by a deep trench stretching to the blast point.

Miwei stared in shock, her mouth slightly agape, frozen in place by the terrifying power she had just unleashed.

Only after a long while did she see, in the distance, the steel giant struggling to its feet—its chest pierced by a one-meter-wide hole—before it turned and fled swiftly.