Isaac Dominance VIII 

A figure charges ahead through the desert, unconcerned as the dust whirls so thick in the air it’s near impossible to see. Their dark gray body, illuminated by the moonlight, must have been easily over two meters tall.

It appeared humanoid at first glance—but the silhouette was undoubtedly inhuman. Their shoulders were wide like swollen mountains, and a second pair of arms were sprouting underneath the first.

The sound of its drive system echoes faintly in the distance—a clear sign that it was a machine modeled after the human form.

The dark gray Machine charges straight ahead towards something unseen.

At that moment, the sandstorm kicks up. It’s so powerful that it completely blocks out all visibility. Not even the moonlight could penetrate it. It was as if the Machine had been completely swallowed up.

—It’s faint, just barely audible—but the sound of something stirring emits from within the sandstorm. Slowly but surely it continues to move, maintaining a steady mechanical rhythm.

A faint red light flickers in the darkness of the sandstorm.

The repeated flickering seems irregular for a Machine that moved in a fixed manner.

It was as if… it had gained human consciousness.

“Gahaha… I won’t let you get away, Solo Monia. Your execution will be at the hands of me, Isaac!”

The moment he utters the name “Solo”, the red glow in his eyes shines brighter.

It resembled a surge of “anger”—as if he was human.

Under the management of the Machines, the earth, once inhospitable to humans, had been restored over the years to its natural state. It awaited the return of the new human race born within the electronic paradise—the “Returnees”.

However, all of that would be trampled underneath the “Paragons”, who had been tasked with restoring the earth in place of humanity. Having worked to heal the earth with their own hands, they couldn’t forgive the Returnees appearing to stay—acting as if they had the right to claim ownership of the world.

After the Returnees appeared in Ionia, the Paragons claimed “ownership” of the earth, and they launched their invasion of the Returnees base of operations—the Perses colony.

Meanwhile, a Returnee girl, Lena Ishmael, heads for Perses with the Moderates—a faction of Paragons that had risen up to protect her. Having lost companions at every turn, she arrives at Perses and is welcomed by Isaac—the city supervisor. There, Lena connects to the System that manages Paradise in order to relay the situation occurring on the surface.

However, Lena was unable to withstand the stress of connecting to the System and fell into a coma. It took several months for her to regain consciousness, and the Paragons began their march towards Perses under the guidance of Saint Bathsheba in the meantime.

Isaac, a merciful Supervisor, constructed a defensive line to protect both Lena and the city and sought to negotiate with Saint Bathsheba.

…But negotiation only works if the other party is willing to engage in a dialogue. For Bathsheba, whose plan had been total destruction from the very beginning, Isaac’s proposals of harmony and relief measures for the Paragons were meaningless.

“—Why? Even if we destroy you, the Paragons have no future. Surely you understand…”

Isaac didn’t understand. He couldn’t fathom Bathsheba’s idea that death was salvation. Her being was far too warped. She trampled the rehabilitated earth, making no attempts to accept an offered hand. All she did was distribute “death” equally.

“Was I mistaken? There must be plenty of ways we can walk alongside one another. But why– I don’t– I can’t understand that woman’s way of thinking—”

The sight of Paragon corpses and wreckage of weapons piled up in the beautiful city that Isaac had meant to protect were like blood sloppily smeared across a painting.

“I– I don’t understand—”

For Isaac, who had been constructed with the ideals of harmony and coexistence, the sight was incomprehensible. A small ripple becomes total distortion, and it brings about a transformation within Isaac.

Perses, which Isaac had managed for over one hundred years, was on the brink of collapse from the destruction brought upon by the Paragon’s led by Bathsheba. Isaac continued to resist, using the mobile weapons the city was equipped with, but he knew it would be impossible to protect the city in a battlefield so chaotic.

Isaac fled Perses with Lena, making her protection his top priority, alongside Lena’s guardian, Yonah Reise. Using one of the few remaining combat ships, Isaac evades his pursuers and reaches Kandal, a city east of Perses. In order to protect Lena’s life, Isaac suggested setting up a defense line there, but this was rejected by Kandal’s Supervisor—Eva Dominance XII.

Eva was a female Machine with a pure white complexion and cold eyes. Her very being felt entirely inorganic.

“They’re right on our heels. We can’t just sit on the sidelines, can we?”

“Naturally, we shall silence all Paragons foolish enough to pursue an invasion. However, I am unable to allow you to take command.”

“What?”

“Isaac Dominance VIII, the System has stripped you of your command authority. None here shall follow your orders.”

“...Why did the System make that judgment?”

Eva stated the facts indifferently, “Isaac Dominance VIII has lost Perses, an essential base for surface restoration efforts. As such, it has been determined that the eighth generation management program, headed by you, is incapable of resolving the matter at hand. From this point forward, we, the twelfth generation management program, will be handling the situation.”

Eva quiets Issac, his emotions getting the better of him as he tries to argue. Eva continues, speaking bluntly, “You are free. You need not concern yourself with the outcome of this conflict.”

“I… What should I do?”

“You are no longer a Supervisor. Defend this city under my command, or throw yourself to Perses. The choice is yours.”

“...I see.”

“You are under no obligation to protect anything, so you may exert as much force as you wish, correct?”

Her superficial kindness was devoid of empathy. Isaac accepts it wordlessly and leaves Kandal, his retreating figure carrying the weight of grief.

“Mr. Isaac…”

“I entrust Lena Ishmael to you, Yonah Reise.”

Yonah lowers her eyes, regretting she couldn’t do anything more to help, and clutches Lena’s hand as she remains unconscious. That was the last Yonah ever saw of the kind-hearted Machine, Isaac.

He headed alone to Perses and threw himself into the flames of war—his ideology becoming more and more distorted in the midst of battle. Before long comes to regard each Paragon the same. Hardliner, Moderate, it didn’t matter. All who threatened the Returnees were to be eliminated.

The figure of an immortal soldier would start to be spotted again and again across war torn areas teeming with death—a berserker loudly clamoring for the extinction of the Paragons. Just as these rumors began to be whispered in Kandal, Isaac appeared before Eva.

His appearance had changed drastically. His skin had peeled away, and his body, made in humanity’s image for the sake of communication, now had four horns and four dark gray arms. In each of his hands is a gun. His gentle aura had disappeared, and a red light harboring anger was shining brightly in his eyes.

There wasn’t a single trace of his former self left.

Time had passed, and now Isaac was in charge of the guerrilla forces. He’d caught word that a ship of unknown affiliation had been spotted in a region they were monitoring, and so he headed to the Caspian Rift Valley with Nia Judith. There, they encounter Mithra Tercera, a Returnee girl who Nia had once gotten along with—and three Paragons.

One of them was Solo Monia, the orphan of Saint Bathsheba and rightful Paragon prince. Enraged the second he lays eyes on Solo, Isaac launches a full on assault against the combat ship he’s aboard. Isaac’s mobile weapon, the Viamaris, had incredible fighting power, but it was still easily shot down by the combined efforts of Solo and Mithra.

As the now powerless Viamaris burned, Isaac barely managed to escape. He set Nia’s unconscious body on the sandy ground and turned to the sky, watching Solo’s ship vanish into the distance.

“Damn you… Don’t you think for even a second this is over…” Isaac roars, his large frame trembling.

Using the transmission equipment he was installed with, Isaac makes a call.

“—Commander Isaac?” On the other end of the call was his subordinate, Anshar.

Isaac briefs him on the situation and issues an order to immediately retrieve the injured Nia.

“Where are you, Commander?”

“I’m going to pursue the Paragons.”

“Proceeding to the Caspian Rift Valley alone is reckless, even if you are the commander…”

“Destruction of the Paragons is our righteous cause! I will not overlook a child of Bathsheba after my colony was razed to the ground!”

“But–”

Isaac cut the transmission short as Nia called out to him in her hazy consciousness, and then he began to pursue the combat ship. The ship was heading north, avoiding the monitored area.

The vast chasm of the Caspian Rift Valley stretched out below. It was an inviolable region, the scars of pollution and destruction still clearly pronounced. At some point, Machines and Paragon vagrants settled down there together, and no one knew exactly what the current situation was.

It would take time to carefully navigate such surroundings, wouldn’t it? If that was the case, there was a good chance he would be able to catch up.

Driven by his self imposed mission, Isaac headed north.

The Caspian Rift Valley. In the old days, it was known as the largest lake in the world. However, due to worsening environmental pollution and increasingly frequent conflicts for resources, the beautiful lake had dried up. All that remained was the deep, dark chasm—with no visible bottom. Peering into the valley was like watching the devil with its mouth wide open in wait.

This place was different from others, and it could never be restored to the way it once was. Contaminated water had seeped into the earth, leaving behind deep scars. If one were to slip and fall into the valley, the contaminated sludge of water and soil would claim them as a corpse before they even had the chance to crawl back out.

Time passed by fruitlessly, with neither Paragons nor Machines approaching the valley. It was a place far too dangerous, meant to be avoided at all costs. This meant it was “safe” for people with special circumstances, like Solo and his companions.

After confirming that the small reconnaissance ship he had dragged from the wreckage from the Viamaris was still functional, Isaac mounted the craft and began to make his way north to the Caspian Rift Valley. The sun was beginning to set, and dusk was fast approaching.

Conditions gradually became worse, but Isaac paid it no mind and continued at the ship’s maximum speed.

“Gyahaha, I won’t let you get away, Solo Monia. When I catch up, I’m going to blow your brains out… Gh!?”

Isaac noticed a small light flashing in the valley below. He quickly leans to change his trajectory, a laser just barely grazing his side. It was an attack that had been aimed right at him, and Isaac wondered if Solo had been lying in wait for his pursuit—but this theory crumbled as more lasers fired off one after another. The barrage increases in intensity, as if to tell him he could go no further.

But Isaac wasn’t afraid.

“Isaac isn’t the type of guy to cower and turn tail over something like this!”

As he continues north, skillfully evading attacks from the unknown force, he suddenly notices something within the valley that catches his attention. He adjusts his visual function and enhances his view of the target, quickly convinced he was seeing the combat ship Solo and his companions were aboard.

“Gyahaha! I’ve found you, Solo Monia! Prepare to be shot down!”

Isaac goes on the offensive, but a laser from below takes advantage of the opening, cutting him off from his attack and damaging his ship’s power unit.

“Tch…!”

Isaac loses control of the ship, and it crashes into the vast desert spread out to the west of the valley. He abandoned his ship, just narrowly avoiding being caught up in the explosion, and quickly assessed his situation as he regained his balance.

“...”

He monitored his surroundings, but there was no sign of any attackers or pursuers. It seemed that there were no unidentified forces here. Isaac checks his location, seeing the valley in the distance, and quickly decides to continue his pursuit.

—In the Caspian Rift Valley, northeast from Isaac’s location, a vast and misshapen structure pierces the valley floor, towering over its surroundings

Isaac headed for the Caspian Rift Valley, ignoring the violent sandstorm around him. The storm would have immobilized any human, but it was nothing in the face of Isaac’s mechanical body.

Without stopping even a single time, he found himself at Caspian Rift Valley. But as if they had been waiting for his arrival, he was ambushed by a barrage of attacks. None of them were fired with consistency, and they consisted of both bullets and lasers. Each shot seemed to be made with different skill levels, with some flying in random directions while others were aimed precisely.

“Gahaha! You’re weak! I’m Isaac, there’s no way you can stop me!” Isaac roared fiercely as he dodged the incoming attacks. He lowered his body, and in the next moment he leapt high into the sky.

“Huh…!?”

Perhaps startled by the figure soaring through the desert air, or maybe just having lost their target, the assailants stopped their attack. Isaac takes advantage of the situation, landing among them, and the impact kicks up a whirlwind of sand. As he rises, he draws all four of his guns, and a bright red light flickered in the darkness and leaves behind a trailing afterimage.

“Ready?”

“D-Damn it, o-open fire!!”

“Too slow!

Isaac had already made his move. He dodged every attack so smoothly it was hard to fathom with his massive frame. At the same time, flashes of gunfire dance around him, and the bullets pierce the skulls of each attacker with perfect precision. 

The scales of battle had tilted in Isaac’s favor, and the fight came to an abrupt end.

“This wasn’t even worth my time! The likes of you never even stood a chance of taking me down!”

Isaac examines the bodies of the assailants scattered around him. He’d noticed something strange about the firearms they’d been using. None of them were models in current use, they were all considerably old.

Even more puzzling was the fact that the group had been a mixture of both Paragons and Machines. It was a different story back when the Paragons were divided among the Moderates and Hardliners, but now almost all of them were hostile towards the Machines and Returnees.

“Probably a lot that abandoned their responsibilities… Let’s move on.”

There was something in the Caspian Rift Valley. Isaac’s judgment had led him to this conclusion.

By the time he had reached a place overlooking the center of the valley, the sandstorm had subsided. The moon was peeking between the clouds, and the light illuminated the depths of the Caspian Rift Valley. Gradually, a structure that seemed to have been long abandoned revealed itself.  Judging from the somewhat antiquated design, it must have been a factory built in a bygone era to process resources mined from the seabed. Large, pillar-like structures are lined up around it, but they’re in a pathetic state, half broken or partially collapsed.

As he takes in the desolate sight, cold words slip from Isaac’s mouth, “An emblem of the old era’s foolishness. Truly worthy of being called an iron casket.”

Isaac searches his database for information on the structure, but there wasn’t a single match. Just as he prepares to make his way towards it, several combat ships rise from the valley. They were all old models, and, as he expected, no sense of uniformity.

“You can’t defeat me with sheer numbers alone. Your skill is nothing compared to mine!”

As Isaac reaches for his gun to fire his counterattack, a red light flashed in the sky far behind him. The light came down directly on a combat ship, instantly reducing it to nothing but scrap iron.

It was a light similar to one Isaac knew well.

“...So much for following orders. They really don’t listen.” Isaac grumbles without looking over his shoulder.

In the sky above, there’s a faint outline of a ship—the Viamaris— against the moonlight.

The Viamaris appeared to support Isaac, and several combat ships were waiting behind it. Isaac sighed as he caught sight of the familiar aircraft, shouting at the crew he knew must have been piloting it.

“You idiots…!”

Soon after, the ship landed in front of Isaac. Just as he expected, Nia, Anshar, and Marduk were on board—as well as other members of the guerilla force.

“So, not a single one of you decided to participate in Eva’s operation, huh?”

“Yes sir. Lord Isaac is our only commander.”

The girl who stepped forward in front of Isaac—Nia Judith—had a slightly stiff expression, likely due to the pain she was still enduring from the previous battle.

“You think you can fight in that condition?”

“This is nothing, I can handle it.”

“I figured you’d say as much… Alright then. If you’ve decided to fight, I won’t accept any complaints!”

“Yes sir!”

After Nia salutes him, Isaac turns to face the rest of the guerilla force.

“It’s highly likely that Solo Monia, the son of our sworn enemy Bathsheba, is hiding out in the Caspian Rift Valley. You’ve all come this far by fighting through hardship, and all the blood you’ve shed has been for this moment. Devote yourself to reclaiming our pure earth!”

With Isaac’s encouragement, the fighting spirit surges through Nia and the others, uniting their ambition. Isaac nods in satisfaction and then looks down at the structure standing at the bottom of the valley, his voice booming as he shouts.

“Kill him on sight!” 

“Hyaaaa!!!”

――

――――

A vehicle was parked on top of a hill overlooking the depths of the Caspian Rift Valley. Inside, a man was watching the silver mobile weapon displayed on the monitor as he twirled red hair around his finger.

“Isn’t this great, aren’t things getting interesting?”

His eye curved upward into a crescent shape, and the man chuckled. He looked down at a photo of a Returnee girl, though he didn't know when he'd acquired it, and then spoke to a person on another monitor.

“What you wished for waaaas~ a Returnee, was it?”

“————”

“Roger that. Well then, let’s work for Mom’s sake too!”

The red-haired man ended the call and excitedly leaned out the window. He raised his right arm, jingling his bracelet. Behind him was the group he was spearheading, a large unit equipped with vehicles carrying massive cannons.

“Come on, now! Let's ring the bell with a big bang!”

As soon as he gave the order, the unit silently vanished in the dead of night.

The bombardment from Isaac's troops seemed as if it would destroy the very bones within the body of the structure, but then an unpleasant sound, like something rubbing against glass, echoed throughout their surroundings. Much like the Viamaris, the structure was covered in several layers of defensive shielding. 

Isaac muttered with amusement as he watched sparks fly from the structure, “Oh, so you’ve got defenses, do you? No matter…!”

Regardless of how strong the barrier was, it would only be a matter of time before it crumbled from the onslaught of attacks from the Viarmaris and other combat ships. Cracks had already started to appear on the wall of violently flickering light, and, eventually, it shattered. Through the gap was something much different than the structure they had been seeing until then.

“What… is that?”

Displayed on the monitor was a dazzling city with three gigantic cone-shaped megastructures. The entire city is softly illuminated by blue and purple lights, with sparkling decorative red lights crammed into the spaces they bounced around. The stark contrast between the scene they had just been witnessing would be bound to confuse some of the observers.

The boundary between fantasy and reality became blurry in the city spread out before them.

“A city camouflaged behind the barrier? There’s something here you want to protect that badly? Hmm… Looks like we have no choice but to investigate.”

Under Isaac’s orders, the combat ships enter the sky above the city in sequence. Their internal defenses must have been weak, as they had encountered no signs of resistance so far. All he could see below him were Paragons and Machines frantically trying to escape.

The sudden lack of anything to strike his fist against filled Isaac with a sense of frustration.

“How boring… It won’t take long to subdue them. Everyone, the central structure–”

Just as Isaac was about to give his command, a combat ship headed towards the megastructure suddenly exploded.

“What?”

The combat ships begin to fall one after the other, and Isaac instantly pieces together the situation. They had gained air superiority, so if the city was going to make their counterattack, it was going to be from the ground. However, each of the crashed airships had been attacked from either the top or the side.

“All units, disperse!” Isaac immediately issued orders, but the number of combat ships continued to decrease.

The precision with which they were shot down indicated that the unseen force behind the attacks was highly skilled.

“Lord Isaac! We need to regroup immediately and plan our counterattack… Lord Isaac!?”

As Nia called out to him, Isaac was gazing at the enemy signals displayed on the monitor. His massive frame seemed to be trembling slightly.

“Gahaha! Now this is what a battle should be!”

Despite being put in a difficult situation, Isaac was laughing as if we were enjoying himself. With an anxious expression as the unexpected situation begins to unfold, Nia intercepts the enemy airships that appear one after another.

――

――――

“Ahaha! This here! It’s this sound! No matter how many times I hear it, the sound of a one-sided trampling always feels good!”

“Captain Lotto, it looks like they’ve launched a counterattack.”

“Oh? They recovered faster than I thought. O–kay, in that case, attack them again and again! Let’s destroy more and more!”

The soldiers under his command silently saluted the red-haired man known as Lotto, then resumed their attack on the Machine forces.

“...Hehe, our goals are the same, anyhow. We have to completely crush our rivals here. Besides, if we don't descend while they're distracted, we won't make it to the party in time!”

Standing amongst the flock of warships, Lotto Looked down on the burning city and Viamaris and chuckled.

“Things are getting exciting, aren’t they, Solo-kuuuun! I can’t wait to meet you!”

With multiple factions now involved, the battle becomes even more chaotic. As the city is engulfed in flames, its inhabitants flee and only a dreary electronic sign reading "New Nemea" lights up the surrounding area as it crackles and sparks.