260 Chapter 259: Battle-automata Reinforcements (2/2)
Shaking his head, he sighed in an exaggerated manner. Dodging another plasma blast from the Darkfire cannons and weaving through the slow and clumsy punches from the robots' power fists, Sha Chen then conjured a fireball of qi in his hands. Spinning around, he slammed the fireball into the armored chest of the closest Castellax battle-automata, causing it to stagger.
The fireball exploded furiously across the armor plating welded across its chest, scorching the two-heaed Aquila emblazoned upon it. The atomantic shielding sparkled, the robot's generators whining in protest as they struggled to cope with the abrupt strain they were placed under. They held for now, but a blackened plating showed signs of damage.
Its servos grinding, the Castellax battle-automata swung its devastating power fist at the ducking Sha Chen, the power field wreathing its mechanical arm singing his white hair and leaving soot on his wrinkled face. Sha Chen coiled his iron whips around his arms as if to create pseudo gauntlets and punched the slow and cumbersome battle-automata in the chest again, causing sparks to fly from the abused plating.
The Castellax battle-automata looked as if it was about to fall.
However, before the Dark Sage could finish the job, its brethren stepped in. the second Castellax battle-automata swung its fist toward Sha Chen's back, forcing him to abort his attack and retreat. Despite his advanced age, Sha Chen continued to move with a speed and fluidity that surpassed even my schoolmates who were several times younger than him. He threw a palm that was wrapped in his whips up, striking what served as the head of the Castellax battle-automata, only for the weapon to grind uselessly against the atomantic shielding.
The Castellax battle-automata retaliated with a punch from its other power fist, and Sha Chen had to parry this time, crossing his whip-wrapped arms in front of him. Even though the iron whips absorbed most of the damage, he was still thrown back several meters, his legs kicking restlessly as they sought to dig into the ground.
”Hah!”
Sha Chen threw an arm out, and his whip snaked out once again, lashing at the shoulder joint of the second Castellax battle-automata. Its protector protocols kicked in and it swatted the whip away, only for the flexible weapon to wrap around its mechanical arm and held on tightly in an effort to entangle its movements.
The Dark Sage's triumph didn't last long. Before he could yank and bring the Castellax battle-automata down, another Castellax battle-automata fired into him from behind, its explosive bolts from its Mauler bolt cannon pounding into his body and sending him tumbling forward. Sha Chen's grip on the second Castellax battle-automata loosened and it pulled its arm free. The Heavenly Venom King raised his head to glare at the third offending robot, but the second one took revenge by bathing him in superheated plasma from its shoulder-mounted Darkfire cannon.
”AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
Immolated, Sha Chen hit the ground and rolled about in an attempt to extinguish the flames. The first Castellax battle-automata stepped forward and kicked him, sending his curled body hurting through the air. A trail of blood seemed to hang suspended for a moment before splashing downward onto the ground.
Sss…
I watched weakly in horror as Sha Chen's corrosive blood began eating away at the soil like acid. What was he, some sort of parasitic alien or something?
Nonetheless, that sort of cheap tricks wasn't enough to take down an opponent of Sha Chen's caliber. Sensing his strong, steady life-signs unabating, the four battle-automata closed in to finish him off, firing relentlessly with their shoulder-mounted guns. Even the boltguns and flamers in their arms began unleashing a hail of rounds or a torrent of flames, washing over Sha Chen's prone body and concealing him from my sight.
Suddenly, I frowned, realizing that something was amiss.
Wasn't Sha Chen an expert formerly from the Incendiary Ifrit Sect or some similar sect that practiced fire techniques? If that was the case, shouldn't he haave a lot more resistant to fire attacks or something? Plasma was one thing, since it was superheated to the degree that it would still do significant amount of damage to someone with resistant to fire techniques. But the weaker flames from the battle-automata's flamers shouldn't do much to someone of Sha Chen's strength.
”Stop annoying me!”
With a roar, Sha Chen exploded…not literally, but by releasing his own flames. An Incendiary Blast or something to that effect. The eruption of flames was enough to knock my robots back, sending them reeling.
The old monster was slowly rising to his feet, his whips blazing with unnatural, demonic flames. With a howl, he lashed out at the four battle-automata, knocking them off their feet. The first one seemed to have lost its arm electricity crackling from its severed joint. A second one had its inner calbings exposed when Sha Chen's attack penetrated and melted through its thick adamantium armor. A third was bowled off its feet, and was slowly rising back to its feet.
”Do you really think you can beat me with such toys?” Sha Chen snarled.
Barely conscious as I was right now, I couldn't answer him. I was watching the battle through my battle-automata's sensors, and while I was directing them, it wasn't as if I was doing it consciously.
I should probably explain that better. When I said control, I didn't mean I was literally controlling them, as a puppeteer would pull the strings of his puppet and direct its each and every movement. No, my robots had a semblance of intelligence of their own, crude artificial intelligence that mechanically calculated the best tactics and optimum vectors of attacks and obtusely carrying them out in the most efficient manner possible.
In a way, they were like soldiers. I gave them a simple command – for example, earlier, I had instructed them to ”defeat” Sha Chen. That was all. Once I had input the command, my Castellax battle-automata would act on their own initiative on how best to achieve their goals. The goals set by me, of course, but I didn't micromanage them. I didn't plot and control their each and every move to the slightest detail.
They could act on their own initiative, following my orders and fighting using whatever means they deemed most efficient and had the highest probability of success.
Therefore I was only vaguely aware of what was happening at best. My mind was stil befuddled, beset by unconsciousness and pain. I so wanted to sink into the darkness, and let all the pain disappear for now…
Swoosh!
Sha Chen's flying whips streaked through the air vengefully, smacking my Castellax robots aside and incinerating them. Despite the horrendous injuries they sustained, the battle-automata continued fighting on emotionlessly and coldly, not registering the immense damage inflicted upon them. Or perhaps they merely recognized them as drastic reductions in their combat inefficiency, but merely formulated new battle tactics to cope with the sudden loss of firepower. Their shoulder-mounted turret guns continued to spew hot death, but Sha Chen flicked both bolt and plasma away with his iron whips, which now formed an impregnable barrier that was supplemented by fire.
The battle-automata couldn't feel pain. They couldn't feel fear. They would continue to fight until they were destroyed, driven by the single directive I had input into their programming. They were the ultimate loyal soldiers, having no qualms to give up their lives to protect me or achieve my objective.
But they were not invincible.
”Get destroyed already!”
Snarling, Sha Chen lashed out and cracked open the armor plating of yet another Castellax battle-automata, sending it staggering. The barbed tip of his whip stabbed into the head of a fourth Castellax battle-automata, cracking the dome-shaped metal and trying to force its way into the precious circuits within.
Above, my hovering mobile turrets fired another lance of qi beams, which sliced through the whip and caused it to pull out of the battle-automata's head in reflex. The robot cooly raised its remaining arm and unleashed a hail of lower caliber bolt rounds from its arm-mounted boltgun. Its shoulder-mounted turret spun about and locked onto the struggling Sha Chen, and began to hammer him with larger, high-caliber rounds.
The Dark Sage spun away, his whips erecting a wall of fire as he sought to protect himself. Throwing out his palm, he launched a Mass Incendiary Blast that sent all four Castellax battle-automata flying in different directions, their armor plating scorched.
Even so, they unfeelingly clambered back to their feet once more, their weapons revolving and tracking their target. They were going to fight to the death, and as long as I don't stop them, they would halt at nothing to achieve their objective.
Unfortunately, at this rate they were going to be destroyed before they could get close to accomplishing the mission I had subconsciously assigned them.
”...”
Quite some distance away from the ferocious skirmish, I continued to lie face-down in the dirt, my eyes rolled up in their sockets. My body was totally unmoving, having suffered far too much damage for any human to move after being stabbed in so many places.
”Oi.”
Trapped deep within my unconsciousness, I heard a familiar voice. Even though a thread of nervousness stirred inside my heart, I was far too enmeshed within the comfort of darkness to try and wake up.
”Fei Wu!”
The voice was sharp, cutting through the hazy fog of unconsciousness that clouded my mind. Again, something pushed to the distant back of my mind perked up at the familiar voice, but it was still unable to jolt the majority of my consciousness back into action.
”What are you doing?”
The voice was clearer now, louder. Almost as if whoever was speaking was directly in front of me, delivering a sharp rebuke to my downed figure.
”I'm talking to you, Wu!”
My eyes rolled up and I blinked. In the overwhelming darkness, I could see a slight flicker of light. No, not a light.
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Flames.
Ghostly flames that was dancing about. The more I looked, the closer I inspected it, the more eerie they became. Mentally I was raising my head, though I knew outwardly, physically, my head was buried in the dirt.
The flames coalesced and took the shape of a familiar figure. The silhouette and features of someone I knew well…not very well, as we hadn't really met for long. A few minutes when I saved him from the truck, a few minutes in the hospital, and then about a week during my stint in the underworld. Obviously I would be lying if I claimed to have known him very well after such brief periods of contact with him throughout my life.
It was the ghostly face of my master. And he was looking very furious. A vengeful spirit. Heh. Wasn't that the topic I used to study back during my undergraduate days as a major in Japanese literature and history…?
”Get up right now!” the ghostly visage of Master bellowed in rage.
The light began to return to my eyes, and I was starting to become physically aware of the muddy soil around me. My hand flinched, my fingers flexing ever so slightly as my synapses struggled to reestablish the connections between my brain and my limbs.
And then I began to awake from my slumber.