Duke did not see the next attack coming until it was upon him. His DUNGEON SENSE picked up on something an instant before he was hit by a missile of some kind. Over 15 million Health vanished in a single blast, leaving Duke’s body shredded and planted in a large crater. He was missing most of his skin and he wasn’t sure if he still had any limbs left. All he could feel was pain as exposed nerves fired off continually. However, with his current stats, his REGENERATION replenished his Health and repaired his body at a phenomenal rate – nearly 600,000 Health a second.
By the time his attacker came to follow-up on the attack and confirm Duke’s death, he was back to nearly full Health but was still buried in the crater. What approached was another armored suit. This one, however, was tremendous – standing over ten meters tall and bristling with weaponry. Duke did not recognize any of the weaponry specifically, but missile launchers and gatling guns were common fare from his past. There even seemed to be some sort of energy cannon mounted on the opposite shoulder from the missile launcher.
It's a fucking mech! I am totally stealing that bitch! Duke could not contain his excitement as he focused his DUNGEON SENSE deeper to see the interior of the mech through all the dirt covering him. What he saw inside shocked him briefly. The mech was piloted by a diminutive being that stood no more than a half-meter tall. The entire rest of the monstrosity was runic circuitry of some kind that Duke had no comprehension of but was now thoroughly interested in discovering.
The mech landed outside the crater and started emitting some sort of scanning beam that he could only barely detect as it had no physical substance. Duke didn’t hesitate to mount his own offensive. He locked on to the pilot and poured millions of Mana into an offensive TELEPORT, ripping through the mech’s magical defenses and removing the pilot completely. Duke TELEPORTED himself out of the crater, adding his customary CLEANSE and RESTORE to himself in time to catch the terrified pilot by the scruff of its bodysuit’s neck before it had fully reached terminal velocity from its ten-kilometer plunge.
Duke turned the creature to face himself and found it to appear to be an anthropomorphic teddy bear staring back at him with oversized glassy black eyes with a pleading look. He hesitated long enough for it to speak first.
“Please no kill. We go away and not come back.”
Duke stopped their descent with a flex of his FLIGHT ability and asked the first thing that came to mind. “Who is ‘we’?”
Duke received his answer when he was slammed into from below by the mech’s armored fist. It was the size of his entire torso and slammed into him hard enough to break his grip on the pilot. The blow did not do much damage through his ARMOR SKIN but carried enough momentum to separate him from his prize.
As he stabilized himself, Duke responded. “Oh, you’re both going away…in pieces.” He slammed bolts of FORCE into the pair in a rapid-fire sequence, increasing the Mana spent on each bolt. The first few bolts knocked the pilot away from the mech but it quickly moved to cover the pilot with its own bulk, not showing much damage from the bolts.
The pilot somehow managed to climb back into the mech under the barrage but was unable to engage Duke before the bolts of FORCE had started to slam into the mech with enough impact to start causing damage. As the gatling gun mounted in the left arm started to spin up, Duke focused more and more Mana into his bolts. He grinned as he saw parts start to be blasted from the mech’s body as the rapid-fire bolts completely spoiled the monstrosity’s aim.
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Just as Duke was ready to up the Mana going into the bolts of FORCE to a full hundred thousand each, the mech fired its thrusters and started burning for orbit at extreme speed. Duke considered letting them leave for a full second before he TELEPORTED into its path with a full million-Mana wall of FORCE. The mech slammed into the wall of FORCE with enough impact to completely collapse the Ability. Unfortunately for the mech, it collapsed as well, plummeting back towards the planet in an uncontrolled spiral.
Duke followed it down, keeping his distance as his Mana replenished. The mech impacted the ground with a tremendous boom that sent a cloud of debris flying hundreds of meters into the air. He simply watched it with his eyes and scanned it with his DUNGEON SENSE to make sure that neither was going to get back up. The experience notification told him everything he needed to know.
*** You have slain the Greater Golem, Gregorius and his Living Armor, Brutarcus. You receive 53,800 experience. ***
Duke frowned. Not even enough experience to level me. Disappointing. It was a hell of a first strike, but not following it up from a distance was a major mistake on their behalf. On my side, how the fuck do I deal with something that hits that fast from more than two hundred kilometers away? Don’t stand out in the open, perhaps? Yeah, dumbass, that might be a good idea.
***ELSEWHERE AGAIN ***
“You saw how he recovered from that hit, right, Arkmathus?”
“I did, but I bet I could hit him harder.”
“Don’t be an idiot. We both know how hard Gregorius and Brutarcus hit. Besides, he wiped them both out with little effort. The Throners put up even less of a fight. If he’s a Tier Four, I’m a lizard.”
Arkmanthus paused at his mate’s vehemence. She rarely resorted to such racial slurs, if ever. “What Tier do you think he actually is?”
“I’d say at least Sixth. Maybe Seventh. I don’t think that we’ve seen his true power yet and I am telling you this right now – we ARE NOT fighting him.”
“Then we are to leave? Like children, fleeing an angry drake?”
“No, remember that this is an open contract for any Tier Four. We did not have to accept the contract to fulfil it and receive the reward. So, our honor is intact if we do not attempt to kill him.”
“We did not sign the contract?”
“No, my thick-headed, strong-scaled mate. No one signed the contract so anyone who fits the Tier requirements can fulfil the terms by killing the target.”
“Then why do we not?”
“Because I seriously do not think we can kill him.”
“But what do we actually do now? I came to fight and I will not leave without a fight. My claws ache for blood.”
“Oh, we are going to fight for sure. Think of how many are going to come to fulfil this contract with that prize on the line. How many rivals could we eliminate if we joined forces with this man named Duke? How much experience could we bank for our clutches?”
“Do you think he would permit us to lay a clutch on his planet if we ally with him?”
“I don’t know but I feel it is likely. He seems naïve and uneducated about the wider cosmos. You saw how he thought separating the golem from its living armor would be enough to stop them both.”
Arkmantus’ next question made Drakmalorie’s entire line of thought pause. “If he is so naïve, what could he have done to anger an Entity so much? And would we not be placing ourselves in a place of enmity with that Entity by allying with him?”
She thought for several moments, working out the possibilities before continuing. “That is the wisdom of the ancients resonating in your soul. A good question and one I do not have a sure answer to, but I do believe that I have enough to believe we would be outside the enmity. The wording on the contract was fairly specific. It only names Duke as the target and lists any allies as acceptable casualties only in the direct pursuit of the quarry. That means that his allies are not to be targeted unless they get in the way. If we fight at his side, we are not going to gain enmity, but we will be legitimate targets only during the fight.”
“Are you certain in your reasoning?”
“Would you prefer to ask your clutch-father?”
“No, not that. His attention is not something I desire, even at my Tier.”
“Then we continue to observe and make ourselves known at the opportune time.”
“As you say, my mate. As you say.”
***