Just as Yue predicted, once the first diversion explosion went off the people here at the top of the Dragon Tower went into a bit of a panic, but the staff, surprisingly, helped calm them down and led them out. Going as we planned, I bent the light around me during the initial panic and watched as both the visitors and the Tower staff left, leaving only a few security guards behind. These guards weren't anything special and were simply hired muscle, so it didn't take much time or effort to get rid of them, finishing just moments after the second explosion.
With all the obstacles on the rooftop out of the way, the last thing I do before moving into position is to blockade the entrances. With that being taken care of I move towards a viewpoint where I can see both the Cheng residence and Hong residence, but after the third explosion, I still didn't see any movements. Then I some Burning Metal Dragons in the corner of my eye and realise I was looking at the wrong place... oops, good thing no one saw that.
Over at the Cheng residence, I see Aurelia blasting people with that weird beam of hers while Yin and Xu Kang are keeping what looks to be the Cheng's top fighters busy. From the looks of it, they seem to be having a really easy time, to the point where I don't even know if they needed even a single Burning Metal Dragon to help them. With the situation on the battlefield over there I can just leave the Burning Metal Dragons on autopilot and focus on the Hong situation which looks to be significantly more difficult.
The Hong's side of things isn't nearly as easy as the Cheng's. Yue looks like she's fighting two old-timers, but the two of them are keeping her busy for a while, considering I sent two Burning Metal Dragons to assist her. But that doesn't mean she's losing or in a stalemate, on the contrary, she's beating them up, just, really slowly compared to how quickly I thought she would have been able to.
As for the third Burning Metal Dragon, I directed it to protect Lia. Lia is just following Wanjing around without a care while the cat in question is being danced around by a bunch of crossbowmen. Using our Soul Connection, I dropped in on their conversation since it looked like they were saying something... and it was kinda pointless. Wanjing wants Lia to help while she just puts forward some nonsense to rile Wanjing up, but she does retaliate against the crossbowmen. She also noticed that I had been using the Burning Metal Dragon near her to block any of the incoming crossbow bolts that had been aimed at her.
After around fifteen minutes, both areas reach their climax. Over with Yin and Aurelia, they had wrecked the entire place and are just beating up some old man until they see the signal flare for success and begin their retreat. But Yue, Lia, and Wanjing don't have it as easy. While they too mostly finished their battles with only some nameless grunts of no importance left and the important ones missing a leg, it looks like the person Yue told me about has arrived, Hong... Hong... something with another H, I don't remember his name, but he should be the Hong patriarch.
I can hear from our Soul Connection that Yue wants Lia to call me over, but she is hesitant to do so because of how dangerous the Patriarch is with his apparent stats being around 3 million. But I already had a discussion with Yue about this about a week ago. She had come to ask specifically about the Patriarch and I put forward the idea of using the Blazing Metal Dragon. Yue had initially thought I just wanted an excuse to use it, and she was right, that was the biggest reason for me putting the idea forward. But she actually went along with and wanted to test out the limits of the Blazing Metal Dragon.
In my eyes, if the Burning Metal Dragons are like destroyers while the Blazing Metal Dragon is like a battleship, the difference in ability is honestly a lot bigger than I had first thought it to be. Needless to say, it passed the tests and Yue was confident that she and the Blazing Metal Dragon could take on the Hong Patriarch.
Right now, Yue is keeping the Hong Patriarch busy while Lia and Wanjing, along with Yue's other subordinates, are continuing to clear out the cannon fodder whose had their morale restored. Yue won't last long on her own so I spit out the Blazing Metal Dragon from my storage and open the cockpit. Getting comfortable in the chair I made inside, I close the cockpit and activate the sensors as the view around my shifts from the dark cockpit to everything surrounding my mech.
Much like myself, the Blazing Metal Dragon is too heavy to truly fly, even with my command over the air. But using a combination of my Metal and Air Manipulation, I can simulate an effect similar to gliding. On my command, the Blazing Metal Dragon leaps from the rooftop of the Dragon Tower and begins to descend towards the position of the Hong residence where Yue is fighting.
It only takes a minute for me to get close to the battlefield, but the situation has taken a turn for the worse since I left the Tower. Yue is struggling on her own, even with the help of two Burning Metal Dragons, and just before the Hong Patriarch can send a wave of flames towards her, I release my Elemental Manipulation and come crashing down between the two of them, raising my shield arm and absorbing the wave of flames. I channel a bit of Divine Energy into the shield, causing it to expel the absorbed fire in a concentrated beam back towards the Patriarch, causing him to raise his brow.
"This one is different from the other oversized scraps of metal," the Patriarch says as he sidesteps the beam.
"I think I'm a bit late, but I'm still here in time to kick some old chicken ass!"