The successful seizure of the grain silos and the imposition of the Standardized Inventory Protocol broke the Grand Merchant Guild's economic stranglehold on the capital. Head Minister Jihun, watching his influence crumble under the weight of quantifiable truth, was forced to retreat into the shadows to plan a far greater, more destructive financial maneuver.
But the silence did not last. The sudden, violent response came from the tactical antagonist: Marshal Gwang. Humiliated by the Censorate Plaza defeat and enraged by the Emperor's deployment of the Iron Standards (the very units that threatened his Black-Iron Guild suppliers), Gwang abandoned all pretense of political protocol.
TACTICAL ALERT: MARSHAL GWANG INITIATING HIGH-STAGE ASSAULT.Target: Imperial Palace Main Gate and Outer Perimeter.Force Composition: 150 Imperial City Watch Elites (Stage 5), 5 High-Stage Commanders (Stage 6), led by Marshal Gwang (Stage 6).Objective: Breach the palace, assassinate the Emperor, and destroy the Automated Production Line.
This was the main test. Gwang was bringing overwhelming, individual power, relying on the chaotic energy of the Black-Iron Guild's custom-forged weaponry and his superior cultivation stage. He believed his raw Stage 6 power could shatter Arion's nascent force of standardization.
Arion was ready. He had trained his fifty human guards (Captain Joon's unit) into a synchronized force capable of moving as a unit with the automatons. He now had 100 Iron Standard Automatons deployed.
Arion gathered his forces in the main palace courtyard. General Taeyong, fresh from securing the Censorate and Jade Repository, was placed in command of the reserves. Captain Joon and his elite squad were placed at the forefront.
"Marshal Gwang believes individual power defeats standardized order," Arion addressed them, standing before the silent, perfect ranks of the Iron Standards. "He believes chaos and brute force are superior to discipline. We will prove him mathematically, physically, and spiritually wrong."
Arion detailed the Phalanx of Perfect Order—a complex, layered defensive formation designed by the System to maximize the Stage 6 burst synchronization of the automatons while utilizing the human unit's flexibility to counter specific, high-stage threats.
The entire defensive formation was constructed with Logistical Certainty. Every unit's position, every energy discharge, every reload cycle for the Standardized Punch was calculated to the nanosecond.
The Siege of the Palace
Marshal Gwang arrived at the palace gates, mounted on a massive, snarling Stage 5 war-beast. His armor was custom-made, shining black steel covered in erratic, expensive runes designed by the Black-Iron Guild to maximize individual Qi flow—the ultimate expression of non-standardized vanity and power.
He drew a custom, twin-bladed war axe. "The weak Emperor hides behind his scrap metal toys! Tear down the gates! Find the boy and bring me the blueprints!"
Gwang's forces, the elite of the City Watch, charged. They did not attack as a unified army; they broke into individual cells and utilized personalized attack styles, relying on high-grade weapons and superior Stage 5 cultivation to shatter the defenses.
They met the Unwavering Line.
The Iron Standards did not move. They formed a tight, three-layer shield wall at the gate. As the enemy forces closed, Captain Joon's men executed the first maneuver: a sudden, synchronized lateral shift, opening three narrow firing lanes.
"Standardization Protocol Gamma! Fire on the highest concentration of non-standardized weaponry!" Joon bellowed.
Seventy-five Iron Standards simultaneously unleashed their Stage 6 Standardized Punch. The focused blasts did not target the Stage 6 Marshal Gwang, but the dense clusters of Stage 5 Elites that formed the bulk of his attacking force. The impact was catastrophic. The Stage 5 warriors, accustomed to shrugging off non-synchronized attacks, were slammed backward, their expensive custom armor deforming under the sheer, simultaneous pressure.
Marshal Gwang, enraged, attempted to bypass the line using a Stage 6 dash, aiming directly for the center of the formation where he assumed the human units would be vulnerable.
"Break the formation! Yield to my power!" Gwang roared, his twin axes crackling with chaotic Qi.
He was met by Captain Joon's small unit, moving not with their own Stage 2 strength, but with the perfect discipline enforced by the Drill Harnesses. They executed a precise, three-step counter-maneuver. Two of Joon's men fell back, clearing a space, while two Iron Standards instantly occupied the gap, their Dantian Coils already charged.
Before Gwang could land a blow, the four Iron Standards delivered a synchronized, localized burst, a concentrated Stage 6 double-punch aimed at Gwang's horse. The beast screamed and collapsed, its spine shattered by the perfectly focused force.
Gwang staggered to his feet, staring in disbelief at the flawless, unrelenting precision of the enemy. Every attack he threw, every gap he tried to exploit, was instantly and perfectly covered by a human guard seamlessly exchanging places with an Iron Standard.
The battle raged for an hour, but it was not a contest of power; it was a contest of efficiency. Gwang's forces were strong, but their power was wasted through chaotic movement, personalized attacks, and non-standardized energy expenditure. Arion's force wasted nothing. Every movement was a quantifiable, efficient action.
The Retreat of the Brute
As Gwang's Stage 5 units began to break, realizing they could not penetrate the unwavering line, Marshal Gwang made a final, desperate move. He focused his full Stage 6 power into a massive, concentrated strike at the gate itself, attempting to shatter the physical structure and demoralize the defenders.
Arion, watching from the System overlay, issued the final command.
"Target Marshal Gwang. Full defense saturation. Execution Protocol Sigma."
The command was instant and absolute. The entire force—both human and automaton—moved. Human units raised their standardized shields, and the Iron Standards delivered a synchronized full-field Stage 6 blast, aimed squarely at Gwang's position.
Gwang was hit by the equivalent of 100 Stage 6 focused strikes. His custom armor, though highly resilient, finally failed, shattering into hundreds of pieces of expensive, non-standardized scrap. Gwang was thrown twenty meters backward, slamming into the plaza pavement, his Stage 6 domain fractured and his body broken.
He was alive, but utterly defeated. The Imperial City Watch, seeing their Marshal lying broken by the gate, immediately broke ranks and fled, their will to fight shattered by the power of perfect order.
BATTLE REPORT: PALACE SIEGEOutcome: Decisive Tactical Victory (Dispersal and Neutralization).Marshal Gwang Status: Neutralized (Physical Integrity Compromised).Iron Standard Losses: 0.Joon's Unit Casualties: 2 wounded (minor, non-critical injuries).
The capital had witnessed an irreversible truth: Standardization defeats Brute Force. The victory was absolute. Gwang was defeated, and the Black-Iron Guild's primary military asset was neutralized.
Arion did not allow the celebration to last. He immediately issued a new decree via the Messenger Quill, targeting the source of the weapons.
"General Taeyong, you will secure the Imperial Forges. Captain Joon, you will seize the five largest workshops of the Black-Iron Guild. Their corruption lies not in their leaders, but in their manufacturing infrastructure. We must seize the tools they use to create custom, inefficient chaos."
The victory over Gwang meant Arion could now launch a massive, logistical offensive against the Black-Iron Guild's economic infrastructure in the next chapter, preparing for the inevitable transition to Tier 2 manufacturing.