“Self-exploding?” The alien figure fixated his eyes on Miles. Miles for the first time looked deep into those eyes. In those eyes, there was disdain, pride, bloodlust, the thrill of fighting, and many other emotions, but Miles failed to see any trace of fear nor scheme.

It was like an open book. The owner of those eyes lived to die an honorable death. Miles used to read warriors who aimed to die in battle so they could fly up to their heavens. Northern mythology was an example of that, but he never thought he would encounter one such an example.

“There is no honor in self-exploding while you are dying. I did my best and killed many of yours. Why would I resort to petty tricks? Why would I kill people who bested me just because I die? I am going to meet with my brothers to have endless feasts and drinks!”

With his last words, the alien died, with pride and honor. Merlin and Miles ran to the monster while Helez was keeping other Extol-Rank hunters in check, the spoil of war was theirs to take. Miles grabbed the necklace and brought it in front of Coin.

“What is this?” The previous voice of the necklace came again. The restrictions Coin put stopped it from self-destructing. Although the alien figure didn’t steep low to resort to these petty tricks, the AI necklace had a mind of its own.

“How is it?” Miles asked silently, while Extols were eying the alien's body like a pack of wolves looking at a sheep. Helez looked at the alien's pockets and failed to find a second orb. He had only one orb, and it got destroyed.

“It is bad. Before I could take control of it, because of its different language, it canceled the arena’s system.” Coin reported.

“What do you mean it canceled the arena system?” Miles asked in bewilderment.

“If I have to guess, this AI must have been the one created by the race that created the arenas. After it left the Portal World and found this seven-fingered alien race, it mentioned the existence of the arena and weapons lying in its armory. The Envoy must have come to declare war and see if he could take the weapons out, but probably didn’t know humans were already occupying this part before they set out.

This alien, Quk, killed other humans before on his way here and learned some of the stuff from them. That is why he joined in as one of the participants instead of barging in.

It is my conclusion, but it is safe to say aliens failed to open the armory, so AI shouldn’t be the master of the arena, just worked around it for a long time to be able to control it. The real creators of the armory should be of a different race. After all, the technology in the arena is beyond what Mother AI told us is possible. Even she shouldn’t be able to see through it.” Coin explained as he guessed.

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Miles thought about it for a while and asked, “Can you activate the arena once again now that you have the information of this necklace?”

“Not in a small time. Insufficient hardware power will delay it” Coin said. Seeing Miles’s shocked face, he explained, “Unlike us, separate AIs who cut ties with the Mother AI, the alien race uses one AI. The Main AI that helped the seven-fingered alien race hasn't created smaller AIs. Instead, it separated itself and is a part of a whole.

So this necklace is actually part of the main body. Although what is stored inside is minuscule at best, its abilities and technicality aren’t something I can crack hastily. The silver lining is, its computing abilities are close to mine, and my language is better so in the end, I will take over its system and will take out all the information stored inside it. And for now, I locked it up inside the necklace so it can't be left nor can it self-explode, but it also means we have to hold onto it.”

“I see, it is not going to be easy.” Miles shook his head. Although they took the necklace first, as soon as words got out, other families would bloodshed for the necklace. So Miles was hoping to take whatever he could then let other families settle with leftovers. But what Coin said gave him no other choice. “Overcharge the water sword orb.” Miles silently said.

“Are you sure?” Coin asked. It was Marooner’s last attack orb left, but he had to sacrifice it.

“Yeah,” Miles said as he removed the chain around the necklace and only kept the main part where AI was stored. He secretly placed the part in his sleeves while putting the chain around the blue orb. After it charged, the orb turned white and red, looking like it was going to explode.

“What is going on?” One of the Extol-Rank fighters looked at the light coming out of Miles's hands.

“The necklace is going to self-explode! You shouldn’t have taken it if you couldn’t handle it. In that necklace, there was critical information we could use!”

“Cross boy, you are responsible for it.” People looked at Merlin and accused him. After all, Merlin was a known figure while Miles was more low profile. E-Rank hunters there didn’t know who he was.

Miles threw the orb into the air, and it exploded with a great boom.

“Let’s go.” Miles ignored the angry mob of Extol-Rank fighters and walked away with Quinn, Helez, and Merlin with the alien's dead body carried by soldiers of the Cross faction.

“Where are we going? Teleporter is there, and our rewards—” Quinn started but Miles stopped her.

“Arena is not functioning anymore. The alien had the AI used to run this arena. His initial goal was to stop the arena from working so humanity wouldn’t get any more ancient weapons from here, also to declare war. I don’t know if both missions coincidentally overlapped in the arena or if the alien knew beforehand, but from today onward, the arena is no more.” Miles explained as much as he could.

“How do you know all this?” Helez asked. She had a surprise in her eyes, but she could accept the result. There were more pressing things to do at the moment than the arena and rewards.

“I was able to siphon some of the information before the necklace self-exploded.” Miles shook his head and didn’t explain more.

“Let’s go to one of the strongholds. I don’t know if we can carry the dead body through the dimensional device, but we can at least try.” Merlin said as he led the way. To prevent monsters from invading public places or houses with dimensional devices, there were security measures placed on them. Only humans were allowed to use the devices, so Merlin wasn’t sure if the alien’s dead body could be taken to Earth through the device.