Inside the clocktower, the air was warm and smelled of cedar, oil, and ozone. The walls were lined with thousands of ticking clocks, creating a rhythmic, hypnotic hum that seemed to mask any conversation from the outside world.

Grandmaster Brokk hobbled over to a workbench, wiping his hands on a greasy rag. He didn't offer them tea. He offered them a glare.

"So," Brokk grunted, his mechanical eye zooming in on Damien with a whir. "You're the human who made a scene at the gate."

"News travels fast," Damien noted, leaning against a stack of gears, his Will Armament humming faintly to shield him from the ambient mana pressure of the workshop.

"I have taps on the border gate scanners," Brokk tapped his metal temple. "I heard the audio log. The Prince asked if you could hold a wrench."

Brokk spat into a metal bucket.

"But holding a wrench doesn't make you an engineer, boy. Do you even know what an Artificer is?"

He picked up a small, lifeless mechanical bird from the table and held it up.

"In the human lands, you categorize power into Combat and Support. You think Blacksmiths just hit metal and Alchemists just mix potions. But the Dwarves know better."

Brokk's eyes gleamed with a fanatic pride.

"A Blacksmith forges the body. An Alchemist brews the fuel. But an Artificer? We breathe the soul."

He injected a tiny pulse of mana into the bird. It didn't just move; it snapped to life, chirping and fluttering its wings with a fluidity that looked alive.

"We bridge the gap between Mana and Machine," Brokk said reverently. "That is the Guardian Project."

He walked over to a massive schematic pinned to the wall. It was a blueprint of the Titan Mech, covered in red ink and complex equations.

"Hephaestus here," Brokk gestured to the Prince, "he didn't just build a big golem. He created the Neural Link. It allows a pilot to transfer their Intent into the machine. The machine becomes a second body. A suit of armor that hits with the force of a 6th Order Spell."

"But without the Prince to calibrate the link," Damien finished, looking at the blueprint. "The machine rejects the pilot. It becomes a tomb."

"Exactly," Brokk grunted. "That's why Thrain needs him. And that's why we're in deep shit."

Brokk slammed his hand on the table.

"I can help you open the back doors to the factory. I can help you hijack the Guardians. But I can't do it alone. I'm old, my hands shake, and I don't have the manpower."

"Fortunately, there's hope"

"Or do you think I'm the only one Thrain fired?" Brokk scoffed.

"Thrain is a politician. He doesn't know a piston from a privy. To build his 'Iron Legion' and those cursed Abyss-Steel weapons, he needs the Guild Masters."

Brokk's mechanical eye whirred angrily, projecting a hologram of three Dwarves onto the table.

"Master Orin of the Blast Furnace. Mistress Kida of the Rune Scribes. General Thorgar of the Heavy Infantry. None of them bowed to that damn Usurper. None of them agreed to put souls into metal."

"So he killed them?" Leona asked, her voice low.

"Worse," Brokk growled. "He buried them."

He pulled a lever on the wall. A map of the city descended from the ceiling. He pointed to a dark, isolated sector deep beneath the earth, far below even the Scrapyard.

"The Deep Iron Prison," Brokk said. "It's a maximum-security dungeon built into the magma vents. Thrain locked up thirty of the King's most loyal subjects there, the best smiths, the toughest soldiers, the smartest engineers."

Brokk turned to Damien, his gaze sharp.

"You want my help? You want to stop the Cultists? Then I have a condition. You help me break them out."

"If you get them back… if you break them out of that hellhole… then we don't just hack the project."

Brokk's grin revealed a row of gold teeth.

"We steal the whole damn factory. We use the loyalists to build an army right under Thrain's nose."

Damien looked at the map. A prison break in a hostile city, deep underground. It was high risk.

But the reward? An instant army of elite craftsmen and warriors loyal to the true King.

"And the timeline?" Damien asked.

"One month," Hephaestus spoke up, his face pale but determined. "My Uncle… he has scheduled his official Coronation in thirty days. He plans to unveil the Iron Legion and execute my father on the same day to 'symbolize the transition of power.'"

"As for the current search, even if they plan to launch the iron army in three days, as long as they don't find me, they'll have to wait!"

"Thirty days," Damien mused. "That's tight."

"But it's enough," Damien's eyes gleamed like a gamer accepting a hidden quest.

He looked at his team.

"We have one month to turn this scrapyard into a fortress."

"We break into the prison. We free the loyalists. We use Brokk's workshop to arm them, and us, with weapons the Regent has never seen."

Damien slammed his hand onto the map, right over the Royal Palace.

"And on the day of the Coronation, when Thrain puts that crown on his head… we'll knock it off."

Brokk laughed. It was a rusty, barking sound.

"I like this human! Like his father, he's quite bold!"

Brokk threw a heavy ring of keys to Hephaestus.

"Open up the back storage, boy. If we're going to start a revolution, we're going to need materials. And you…"

Brokk pointed a grease-stained finger at Damien.

"If you can get my friends out alive, I'll build you anything you want, Cannons. Airships. You name it."

"I'll hold you to that," Damien smirked.

He turned to Isabelle, Lyra, and Leona.

"Isabelle, you're on crowd control. Leona, you're the battering ram. Lyra, find us a vantage point."

Damien adjusted his cloak, his Will Armament shimmering invisibly around him.

"Guess it's time to test my new strength after breaking through!"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.