Reincarnated in a novel: I am the villain!-Chapter 275: Familar Name

Leaving the Corridor, Damien and his crew soon made their way to the Black bridge, as right now although curious about what was going on, Damien still wanted to find his parents as soon as possible

With every extra second spent, his worry went up, adding to the fact that the continent on the surface was in a state of constant turmoil, abyss politics was the least on his mind.

Fortunately, the black Bridge wasn’t too far of a journey

"Oh? It’s quite the sight to see" said Damien as he made his way over

The Black Bridge was less of a bridge and more of a scar stretched across an open wound.

Spanning a mile-wide chasm filled with bubbling, sulfurous magma, the structure was a marvel of brutalist engineering.

Thick iron cables anchored it to the obsidian cliffs, and the roadway was wide enough for ten carriages to ride abreast.

But right now, nothing was moving.

The Iron-Blood Clan had turned the far side of the bridge into a fortress.

Barricades made of scrap metal and jagged spikes blocked the path. Behind them, massive cannons, crude, ugly things belching black smoke, were aimed squarely at the Vane side.

"They’re dug in tight," Captain Vesper of the Vane house hissed, crouching behind a rock. He looked at Damien with a mixture of fear and skepticism.

"Baron, we can’t cross that. The moment we step onto the bridge, those cannons will turn us into mist. We need siege towers or at least we need blood-shields."

"No, what you need is to stop thinking like a target," Damien said calmly.

He stood up, adjusting the cuffs of his trench coat. The heat from the magma below burned him, but his **Will Armament** kept the dust and ash away from his clothes.

"Isabelle," Damien said. "You’re up."

Isabelle stepped forward.

At this movement, she wasn’t wearing her maid uniform anymore; she wore the sleek, leather armor she had purchased in Abysshaven, her demon horns curving proudly from her forehead.

"Ready, Master," she said, her eyes glowing with a violet light.

"Good. Captain Vesper, keep your men behind me. Unless you want to be collateral damage."

Damien began to walk.

He stepped out from the cover of the rocks and onto the black iron of the bridge. Isabelle walked a step behind him.

The reaction from the Iron-Blood Clan was immediate.

**BOOM. BOOM.**

Two massive cannons on the far side fired.

it was a condensed sphere of unstable, explosive mana wrapped in a shell of scrap iron.

The projectiles screamed through the air, aiming to vaporize the arrogant noble walking in the open.

Captain Vesper flinched, preparing for the explosion.

However Damien didn’t break stride. He didn’t even look up.

"Catch," he ordered softly.

Isabelle raised her hand.

**[Gravity Magic: Event Horizon – Reverse.]**

The air in front of them distorted. A wall of purple gravity manifested instantly.

The cannonballs hit the distortion field however they didn’t explode.

They stopped dead in mid-air, caught in a gravity well that nullified their momentum instantly.

They hung there, spinning harmlessly, vibrating with contained energy.

The Orcs on the barricade froze, their cheers dying in their throats.

Isabelle flicked her wrist.

"Return to sender."

**ZWOOM.**

The gravity reversed. The cannonballs shot back the way they came, accelerating at double the speed.

**CRASH!**

The barricade on the far side exploded. Metal shrapnel and stone flew into the air. One of the cannons was obliterated,

its barrel twisted into a pretzel. Screams of Orcs falling into the lava echoed up from the chasm.

"Advance," Damien said.

He drew the **Pantheon Sword**.

He calmly channeled his mana into the crystal blade.

The sword in turn began to hum with a strange energy.

"Kill him!" An Orc Warlord roared from the smoke. "Kill them all!"

A squad of Iron-Blood Berserkers charged across the bridge.

They were massive, their skin grey and rocky, wielding chain-axes that whirred with mechanical engines.

Damien met them in the middle.

The first Orc swung a chain-axe at Damien’s head.

Damien stepped inside the guard. He didn’t block.

He swung his sword in a clean, horizontal arc.

**SHING.**

There was no resistance.

The Orc’s axe, his armor, and his torso were severed in a single line.

The cut was so clean the Orc didn’t realize he was dead for a full second.

**[Will Art: Severance.]**

"Too crude," Damien whispered, stepping over the falling body.

He moved through the squad like a phantom. He didn’t use flashy spells. He used absolute, terrifying efficiency.

A flick of the wrist to deflect a blade. A thrust to pierce a heart. A step to dodge a hammer.

Every time his sword touched their weapons, the crude steel shattered. His Will overwrote the durability of their gear.

To the Vane soldiers watching from behind, it looked like a massacre.

"How is a wandering noble so strong," Captain Vesper whispered, his hand trembling on his rapier.

"He’s just... deleting them."

**CLANK. HISS.**

From the smoke of the destroyed barricade, a massive shape emerged.

It stood fifteen feet tall. A hulking monstrosity of riveted steel plates, hydraulic pistons, and hissing steam vents. It was a mech.

But it was ugly. It lacked the elegance of Hephaestus’s designs.

It was bulky, leaking oil, and welded together with jagged scars.

Sitting in the open cockpit cage was a massive Orc Warlord with a cybernetic eye.

"Gorr!" The Orc roared, his voice amplified by a loudspeaker.

The mech raised a multi-barreled Gatling gun attached to its right arm.

**VRRRRRR.**

The barrels spun.

"Demon! Eat lead!"

"Shields!" Isabelle shouted, stepping in front of Damien.

"No," Damien stopped her. He stared at the mech.

He recognized the design. The mana-combustion engine. The rotary cannon. The hydraulic stabilizers.

It was a bastardized copy of the **Ironclad Mark II**.

A cold fury ignited in Damien’s chest. This was his technology.

His legacy with the Dwarves. And these savages had butchered it.

"Copyright infringement," Damien muttered.

The gun fired.

**RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT.**

Bullets made of condensed magma sprayed toward him.

Damien moved.

**[Shadow Art: Flash Step.]**

He vanished.

The bullets chewed up the iron floor where he had been standing.

Damien reappeared in the air, directly above the mech.

Gorr looked up, his cybernetic eye widening. "What—?"

Damien flipped his sword backward and drove his free hand down onto the mech’s engine block located behind the cockpit.

"You don’t deserve this machine."

**[Will Art: King’s Authority.]**

He pushed his Will *into* the machine. He dominated the mana flow inside the engine.

**CLUNK.**

The massive machine seized up instantly. The Gatling gun stopped spinning.

The hydraulics locked. The steam vents hissed and died.

It turned into a statue.

Gorr frantically pulled the levers. "Move! Why won’t you move?!"

Damien landed on the hood of the mech. He grabbed the bars of the roll cage and ripped them open with his bare hand.

He grabbed Gorr by the throat and hauled the massive Orc out of the cockpit.

"Get out," Damien said, tossing the Warlord off the bridge.

"AAAAHHHH!"

Gorr plummeted into the magma river below. A brief splash, and then silence.

Damien stood on top of the disabled mech, looking down at the terrified Iron-Blood soldiers remaining.

"The toll has been paid," Damien announced, his voice cold. "Run."

They ran. They dropped their weapons and scrambled over the cliffs, terrified of the man who could kill a machine with a touch.

The Vane soldiers cheered, rushing forward to secure the bridge.

But Damie, he knelt down on the chassis of the mech. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

He wiped away a layer of grease and soot from the engine block, searching for something.

He found it.

Stamped into the metal, partially scratched out but still visible, was a serial number. And next to it, a seal.

It wasn’t the seal of the Iron-Blood Clan. And it wasn’t the seal of the Dwarves.

It was a jagged, stylized dragon.

**The Imperial Seal of the Dragon Empire.**

Damien’s grip on the metal tightened until it warped under his fingers.

"I knew it," Damien whispered to himself.

This wasn’t just stolen tech. This was much more than that.

The remnants of the Second Prince’s faction, or perhaps the Empire itself, were funding the war in the Abyss.

It seemed like his dealings with the second prince weren’t over just yet.

"Young Master?" Isabelle jumped up next to him.

"We secured the bridge. Are you okay?"

Damien stood up, his face grim behind the mask.

"We aren’t done, Isabelle," Damien said, looking toward the distant horizon of Layer 4.

"The enemy isn’t just Orcs. It seems that bastard prince has followed us down here."

He looked at the open path to the deeper layers.