Chapter 500: Intense Battle with Seven Automatons

Chapter 500: Intense Battle with Seven Automatons

  Upon hearing the voice, everyone immediately turned around.

  They saw a dryad goblin in a white lab coat standing about a dozen meters away, staring at them.

  The dense chains and suspended mechanical parts in front of it had blocked their view, preventing them from noticing it earlier.

  However, what was most shocking wasn't just its appearance, but the fact that it could still speak.

  This implied that, on some level, its consciousness still existed, despite this being a thousands-of-years-old ruin!

  "Can this thing actually talk?" Swordsaint Tyrion frowned, his face filled with surprise.

  "It can't possibly still be alive, right?"

  "But shouldn't it be controlled by those black grubs?" Hernandez also frowned.

  "Is it some kind of necromancer?"

  Unlike the others, Ren wasn't too surprised.

  When Helm mentioned that the strange whispering sound was in goblin language, Ren had a hunch.

  Perhaps the goblins didn't transform into undead due to an evil god or necromancer, as initially suspected. Instead, they did it voluntarily to combat those strange black grubs!

  This explained why there were no residents here, yet these elite mechanical operators and engineers remained.

  Of course, this was still just Ren's hypothesis, lacking sufficient evidence to prove it. However, it seemed plausible.

  "Thud! Thud!"

  At that moment, the heavy and swift footsteps of automatons interrupted Ren's thoughts.

  Two gigantic automatons quickly emerged from behind the dryad goblin. They looked very similar to the prototype machines Ren had seen before.

  However, one automaton's original triple-barreled cannons had been replaced with dual swords, while the other had been equipped with a pair of massive steel fists. Both automatons were much faster than the prototypes they had encountered earlier.

  Clearly, these modifications were made for close combat.

  It seemed that the Federation's designation of the first automaton as a prototype was not without reason. These two automatons could be considered improved versions of the prototype.

  "Divine Cross Slash!"

  Facing the two rapidly approaching automatons, Swordsaint Tyrion roared and immediately unleashed his signature move.

  This made Ren slightly taken aback.

  After all, using such a powerful move at the start of a fight wasn't wise. Generally, it was better to test the unknown enemy first. As a Swordsaint, Tyrion should have known this.

  However, Ren might not have realized the impact of his recent series of analyses, judgments, and the use of domain magic to break through the ground. It had deeply impressed veteran epic-level warriors like Tyrion and Hernandez.

  So, Tyrion seemed to be showcasing his strength, unleashing his full power from the start like a tiger out of its cage.

  Two massive silver sword beams, resembling lightning bolts, shot forward.

  However, the dual-sword automaton reacted extremely quickly. The cannon on its chest, resembling an enlarged Gatling gun, fired a barrage of energy pellets. Meanwhile, two bursts of plasma emerged from its shoulders, forming a blue plasma shield that protected it.

  "Boom!"

  But Swordsaint Tyrion's move wasn't so easily countered.

  The silver cross-shaped sword beams penetrated the energy pellets and the plasma shield, clashing fiercely with the automaton's dual swords before exploding with a thunderous boom!

  Instantly, a dazzling shockwave of silver and blue spread out in all directions.

  The dual-sword automaton was sent flying over ten meters, crashing into the dual-hammer automaton behind it. On Ren's side, Helm was knocked off his feet by the powerful blast.

  However, Ren wasn't focused on Helm. He narrowed his eyes, frowning as he watched the scene before him.

  "Huh?"

  Swordsaint Tyrion's expression turned serious as he muttered.

  Although the dual-sword automaton had been knocked back, it managed to cross its swords at the last moment, blocking the remaining force of Tyrion's Divine Cross Slash.

  In other words, the move that had cost him a significant portion of his stamina had failed to achieve any substantial combat effect, merely making a loud noise.

  Sure enough, the dual-hammer automaton helped the dual-sword automaton to its feet, and both rushed toward Ren and his companions again.

  However, Ren noticed something even more troubling out of the corner of his eye.

  The dryad goblin in the white lab coat had run to a large automaton lying on the ground nearby. It extended its hand and aimed it at the automaton's head.

  A green energy beam shot from its palm, entering the automaton's head.

  "Get up. Eliminate the intruders!" The dryad goblin's hoarse voice echoed again.

  "Screech!"

  The black-gray automaton, holding a massive metal sword and shield, suddenly sat up, then quickly stood to its feet.

It was another prototype automaton.

The others also followed Ren’s gaze and noticed the dryad goblin’s actions. Helm immediately shouted in a flustered manner, "Three of them!"

At this moment, apart from Ren, the other three all changed color in alarm!

But it wasn’t over yet!

The dryad goblin in the white coat, after activating the sword and shield automaton lying on the ground, ran to its right and raised its hand toward another giant automaton with a metal grip on the ground.

"Damn! We have to stop him!" Helm’s voice trembled!

"Sir Ren, you handle these three, I’ll kill that dryad goblin!" Sword Saint Tyrion’s face turned grim as he said.

Just as Ren was about to say something, he saw Tyrion dart forward like an arrow from a bow.

Sword Saint Tyrion was the fastest among them. If Ren didn’t use his Bloodline Transformation, Tyrion was indeed the most suitable for a sudden attack.

But Ren had a bad feeling because the sword and shield automaton had a strange shape, with a slight protrusion on its abdomen, as if it were equipped with some kind of device.

"Whoosh!"

Tyrion’s figure moved like lightning, dodging left and right. In less than two seconds, he broke through the first dual-sword prototype’s defense.

At this moment, the dual-hammer prototype seemed to sense Tyrion’s purpose. The enlarged six-barreled Gatling energy cannon on its chest immediately roared to life, firing at Tyrion.

"Rat-tat-tat!"

Pale blue energy pellets rained down on Tyrion like a storm.

However, as a Sword Saint, Tyrion’s agility was unparalleled. In a flash, he dodged to the right, and the blue barrage of energy pellets followed him like a high-pressure water gun, but couldn’t catch up.

"Hmph! Is that all?"

Tyrion accelerated again, breaking through the dual-hammer prototype’s blockade.

However, in the next instant, just as the joy in his heart hadn’t yet turned into a smile on his face, his body suddenly froze!

"Gravity Field?!"

It turned out that the third activated prototype, in addition to holding a sword and shield, had a gravity influence device installed on its abdomen.

With this brief pause, the energy barrage from the dual-hammer prototype behind him roared toward him.

This forced Tyrion to immediately turn and block.

At the same time, the six-barreled Gatling cannon on the chest of the sword and shield prototype, which was generating the gravity field, also roared to life.

"Rat-tat-tat!"

Instantly, Sword Saint Tyrion, caught between two enemies, was hit by several energy blasts.

"Bang!"

Tyrion grunted, forced to retreat to the side.

Although he was protected by Hernandez’s defensive magic and wasn’t injured, the look on his face turned grim when he saw that the white-coated dryad goblin had now activated a fourth giant automaton.

"Damn!"

Even the well-mannered Sword Saint Tyrion couldn’t help but curse.

After missing such a good opportunity, the situation had become even more dire!

Now, he was in a difficult position, unsure whether to go back and help his teammates by killing an automaton first or to continue trying to break through.

But the problem was that with two automatons attacking from both sides, especially with the influence of the gravity field, it was very difficult to break through. Now that another one had been activated, the chances of success were even lower.

"Sir Tyrion, come back!" At this moment, Ren’s voice sounded in Tyrion’s ear.

For some reason, when Tyrion heard Ren’s steady voice, he didn’t have the slightest doubt and immediately turned back.

Ren had already cast the Domain-esque Dawn Finishing Move ‘Steel Forest’ again. This time, he softened the metal floor near the dual-sword and dual-hammer prototypes into a metallic swamp.

The two heavy prototypes were now deeply mired, their movement speed greatly reduced.

This allowed Tyrion to easily return to the team.

"Sir Tyrion, let me handle it!"

Once Tyrion returned to the team, Ren said and immediately charged forward.

"Sir Ren, you..." Tyrion was about to ask Ren what he planned to do when he saw Ren’s figure dart out quickly.

"Could Sir Ren be planning to use his Dragon Bloodline Transformation? But once he becomes larger, it will be even less possible to break through the automaton’s defenses," Helm murmured.

After using Shadow Step, Ren left a series of afterimages, his speed not much slower than Sword Saint Tyrion’s.

However, including Sword Saint Tyrion, the three of them were not optimistic about Ren’s surprise attack.

Because in terms of speed alone, Ren was still slightly slower than Tyrion. More importantly, the other side had now awakened a fifth prototype. Even if they excluded the two they were dealing with, the defenses of the remaining three were even harder to break through than when Tyrion tried earlier.

As for Ren, after passing the two automatons, he cleverly positioned himself in a way that the sword and shield automaton could shield him from the other two.

This way, for a short time, the dense energy pellets he faced would only come from the sword and shield automaton in front of him.

But to Tyrion and the others, this wouldn’t solve the ultimate problem, because once Ren tried to bypass the enemy, he would face the concentrated barrage of the two automatons behind.

At that point, with the influence of the gravity field, Ren would most likely return empty-handed!

"Shard Tooth Vortex!"

Suddenly, a dark silver circular disk, several meters in diameter, with fine serrated edges, appeared floating above Ren’s right palm, held aloft. It was rotating at an incredibly high speed.

The rotation was so fast that the fine serrated edges around the disk were barely visible, only a bright halo of light could be seen circling the disk.

Before deciding to launch a surprise attack, Ren had naturally anticipated how to deal with this situation.

The solution was his newly mastered Dawn Kill move—‘Shard Tooth Vortex’!

At this moment, with more and more dense pellets being fired, smoke and dust filled the air, providing cover for Ren to release this move without too much concern.

Actually, the battle behind them was also quite intense. After breaking free, the two prototype machines were quite formidable, and Tyrion and the others were fully focused on their own battles.

Ren’s figure quickly swayed left and right, and his right hand, supporting the Shard Tooth Vortex, extended and retracted like lightning.

"Swish!"

The rapidly spinning dark silver disk instantly cut into the plasma shield of the sword-shield prototype machine in front of him, bypassing the shield, and flashed past the metal ankle of the opponent’s lower limb!

Immediately, the dark silver disk followed Ren’s leftward movement, returning to hover above his raised right palm.

At this point, the two prototype machines behind, seeing Ren finally emerge, immediately opened fire with the six-barreled Gatling cannons in their chests. Dense energy pellets formed two blue streams, creating a crisscrossing fire net that covered Ren.

The prototype machine that Ren had just dodged immediately turned and aimed, preparing to fire again.

However, it found that the dense pellets it fired were uncontrollably heading toward its companion automaton, sweeping upward at a ninety-degree angle toward the ceiling. It immediately destroyed a row of emergency lights, and even the metal ceiling was riddled with a dense line of holes.

"Boom!"

The sword-shield prototype machine lost its balance and fell backward!

It turned out that its right metal lower limb ankle had been instantly severed by Ren’s Shard Tooth Vortex, which was why the energy cannon attack had mistakenly hit the other prototype machine.

Taking advantage of the confusion, Ren flashed to the fifth automaton.

"Go!!!"

He quickly raised his hand, and the dark silver disk shot through the waist of the fifth giant automaton, rejoining Ren as he circled around the automaton.

Ren had just executed a man-disk split move!

As the dark silver disk returned to its original position, the sixth giant automaton was awakened by the white-coated Dryad Goblin.

The Dryad Goblin, while muttering something, ran to another automaton beside it, indicating that if it wasn’t stopped, a seventh automaton would soon appear.

"Buzz!"

The weapon in the sixth automaton’s hand was a giant chainsaw, resembling a logging machine. Facing the high-speed charging Ren, it immediately swung horizontally!

Ren’s foot slammed heavily into the metal floor, causing it to suddenly indent. Ren leaped over the approaching giant chainsaw, soaring more than ten meters into the air. In mid-air, he swung his right hand forcefully, and the dark silver metal disk sped past the automaton’s upper limbs.

"Swish!"

When Ren landed, the sound of a heavy object hitting the ground followed!

If someone were to check, they would find that it was the metal right limb of the sixth automaton, which had been holding the giant chainsaw.

"Ha!!!"

Ren, just touching the ground, quickly made a throwing frisbee motion. The dark silver disk above his right palm shot toward the Dryad Goblin, which was emitting a green energy beam to activate the seventh automaton.

The white-coated Dryad Goblin seemed to sense the danger and raised its hand to block.

But in the next instant, the dark silver disk, flying horizontally in mid-air, suddenly made a ninety-degree turn, becoming vertical. It instantly cut through the midline of the Dryad Goblin’s body!

"Swish!"

The Dryad Goblin was immediately split in half, and a pool of dark, viscous fluid splattered onto the ground.

Ren also noticed a black grub that flashed in the Dryad Goblin’s head, which was instantly killed by the Shard Disk, leaving only a faint wisp of black smoke drifting upward.

Just as Ren exhaled a breath, adjusted his stance, and was about to turn back to help the other three in his team, a series of urgent beeping sounds came from behind, and there were more than one.

He quickly turned around and saw that the chainsaw automaton, which had lost its limb, was emitting a red glow, and the other automata in his line of sight were doing the same!

"Oh no!" Ren’s expression changed instantly!

With his heart pounding, he swiftly sidestepped.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

The next second, a series of earth-shattering explosions echoed around them!

(End of Chapter)

Chapter end