Hax stared at the display screen. The sky had turned dark, and even the bots were sleeping. Black bags dangled under his eyes, and his coffee had long turned cold. He couldn't afford to sleep. He only had a few weeks of time before the operation. In war, every minutes matter.

He stood and stretched his body for a few seconds and returned on his chair to continue the work. For a moment he felt like an average office worker under pressure to fill a certain quota, but he removed that thought immediately and focused on his work. The helmet were finished, now he worked on the shoulders. He draw a lot of mechanical parts on the shoulder and the amount made his head dizzy. It was required for the range of motion and it was very important. Punching and swinging were the main advantage of having a high range of motion.

With this his army could swing a 200 Kilogram sword with great force.

His men wouldn't be vulnerable in close-combat anymore. The cultivators were trained to kill, but the armor would absorb all the blow for his men. The cultivator might stood a better chance considering their experience, magical power, and techniques, but if he swarmed them with people in power armor, the enemy would die sooner or later.

This power suit was truly a game changer. With motion sensor, great flexibility, and high maximum load, his men would be considered as superhuman. The load it could bring was double the amount of Weler-150. He could armed his men with much powerful weapon than the BC-75. Maybe he could make a smaller version of a Gatling cannon. This weapon was usually installed in a plane or a bar according to his fuzzy memories.

Guess the aliens weren't the only problems.

When the Hexagonal moon hovered straight above his head, Hax finished designing the shoulders and now had to work on its chest. The chest were simple enough. It didn't need any electronic parts inside it as it would receive the most amount of damage in combat scenario. Installing a fragile parts inside it meant that it would break most of the time, rendering it useless.

Goras approached him with a mug of coffee and a plate of roasted spiky eel. "Please take of your body, sir. Working under the moon is not good for your health."

"Why?" Hax asked as he received both the food and coffee.

Goras shrugged. "I'm not really sure why, but Balmar always told me that. This is why we always hunt during the day. Though that might need to change considering we're in a war."

Hax smiled. "We all need to change. If we don't adapt to our situation then the situation will kill us without mercy."

"Can we win this battle, sir?"

"We have to," Hax said. "There's no other choice. Have you heard the phrase 'failure is not an option'?"

"I think I have, Sir. From a wandering philosopher I met a few years back."

"Wandering philosopher?"

"I don't know who they are, but I know what they do. From what I know, they traveled around places and spread the word of wisdom to people. They also give advices if you ask them."

"Do they ask for payment?"

"No, they will not receive anything that we give them. Every time someone tried to give them something, they will reply: All I ask is for you to listen."

"Have their action resulted in anything?"

"Well, not really, but people considered that meeting one of them as a sign of luck."

"I see. Thanks for the coffee and the eel. I'll eat them as I work."

"Please do, sir. You need to prioritize your health. The burden of our sin rest on your shoulder, sir."

"Sin?"

"Our weakness is a sin, sir." He walked away, leaving Hax in deep thoughts.

Then he chuckled. "Weakness is a sin. These backwards place are really interesting."

Hax called one of the bots to wake up. He ordered it to feed him the food and tilt the mug if he wanted to drink his coffee as he worked on the power armor.

Hax opened his mouth and the bot sliced the meal before stabbing it with a fork and fed it to Hax. This was very convenient as he just had to open his mouth and the bot would feed him.

Drinking the coffee was quite a challenge though. The bot failed to make the perfect tilt where Hax could drink the coffee comfortably. But he had not time to complain.

Quickly finishing the chest parts, Hax leaned on his chair took a breath and started working on the legs. The legs were slim and slender. The overall look of the armor were like that which made it more amazing as it could lift 300 KG of weight. His Weler-150 looked bulky as an elephant foot and it could only lift 150 KG of weight. The technology disparity was all clear to see.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Hax drew the artificial musculature within the legs, using his physics knowledge to change the location and form a bit to reduce the amount of force it received when taking a hit. The armor became much stronger just from that little change. Knowledge was useful.

The inner thigh of the power armor was much thinner than the knee and shin. This meant that it was the glaring weakness of the armor. He tried to fix it by drawing a thicker armor on that part, but then the system simulation screen popped in front of his face and showed him the effect of the change. It was bad.

By thickening the armor on the inner thigh, he made it harder for the armor to move in harsh landscape such as hills, mountains, and forest. The form also became unbalanced, making it hard for the armor to set its footing and stabilized any shock or to create kinetic force for swinging.

He tried a few solution such as covering some part of the inner thigh instead of fully covering it, but the result was terrible.

"Thankfully the system helped me. It would be terrible if he already produced thousands of them and made this mistake."

He hadn't touched the simulation menu since the beginning since he didn't want to rely on it too much. It was just simulation. Sometimes reality didn't work as intended.

"I should use that feature a lot as long as it is effective."

Hax stretched his neck left and right and drew the arms. This one was interesting. There were many artificial musculatures inside despite its lean appearance. The biceps parts were bulged a bit. He failed a couple of times when installing the artificial muscle, but he succeeded in the end.

Hax opened his mouth again. The bot quickly cut a piece of the eel and fed it to Hax. Wonderful.

After a tasty reward, Hax worked on the last part of the power armor. The back. This was where the battery would be, so it had a thicker armor than the rest. A direct hit to it still be fatal, though. So his army must not turn their back against the enemy when they wore this.

He should tell his army about this weakness. It would make them reluctant to retreat even when the situation turned for the worse. It would be bad for the morale too if they saw their strongest unit running from the enemy. Only when his army charge without hesitation or doubt would morale be high.

Luckily, even though the battery was very vulnerable, there were more than one battery. So if one shut down, the other could still power the armor.

"Alright. It's finished."

He pressed the 'produce' button and fell on the grass, closing his eyes. Bodin had put the necessary materials inside the printer. Everything was prepared and now he could fall asleep.

Hax opened his eyes. He was sitting on an iron throne with cyborg men standing as guards in some kind of a throne hall. Where am I?

Suddenly, the tall gate of the throne hall dematerialized, and phased out of existence. A squad of weird looking creatures appeared. They had a form of a human with green scales and wore weird technologies all over their bodies.

They raised their sharp tails like how a warrior brandished their swords. "Bulug gulug galag gagag golog gagg. You humans take everything from me. If so, I will take all of yours!"

Suddenly, the cyborg guards flashed and clashed against the aliens. The shock wave of their fight peeled the hall layers by layers. They moved so fast that sonic boom occurred every second, but Hax could see their movement. He saw how they moved with great detail and even found a pattern.

Zip!

An electric current surged from his mind and seemingly transmitted something to the cyborg guardsmen. After a fourth of a second, the cyborgs gained a great advantage. They dodged every attack from the aliens like they could see the future. And every counter-attack was lethal as it downed the aliens in one strike.

One aliens burst with power. A shock wave came from its body that pushed the cyborg away. It then disappeared and all of a sudden appeared right in front of his face. The giant sharp tail were on its way to impale him. But he didn't felt any adrenaline. He didn't panic. It was like watching a boring movie where he couldn't wait to get up and leave.

He felt nothing at all.

Brrmmm!

A sound of engine blared and a transparent force field enveloped him. It blocked the tail from reaching his face.

He studied the alien's expression. The alien always seemed to have the same face. But they all had their own unique identity just like human.

Wait, where did this voice come from? Who's there in my head?

This one had revenge in mind. Yet now that expression turned into despair. There was nothing it could do to reach its goal. From the moment it stepped into the hall, it was already dead.

Who said that? It wasn't me. Who? Why are you inside my head?

How many alien races had seek my life for vengeance? With millions of races within each galaxy, a single universe was too many to count.

Tell who are you. Why are you saying all of this?

I had lost count. But it doesn't matter.

Are you me?

"The aliens must be eradicated. Humanity must prevail."

Hax's body moved by itself. His left hand pierced through the alien's belly where its hearts was. Pulling it out, he watched as it pumped out a sticky, blue liquid.

No, this one had another heart. His arm moved again. It pierced—phased through the scale and took another heart.

"So, you're a puppet," Hax's lips moved.

"I'm no puppet. Not to you or anything else."

Hax squeezed and a golden ring came out of the heart. "This ring controls your emotion. Emotion controls your minds Your mind controls you. You let them plant this within your hearts. For power. For revenge. They always know how to play with emotion. You wouldn't believe how much trouble humanity had from fighting them."

The alien fell to the ground.

So it already dead. What a waste of breath.

Hax flicked his fingers and the fallen cyborg guards floated above the ground as its parts gathered and fixed themselves. They returned to their position, leaving the dead aliens as another decoration among other dead aliens in the halls.

"Humanity must prevail."

Hax opened his eyes and sat up immediately. He looked around and then tried to moved his hands left and right, up and down.

"What was that? A dream?"

It felt so real. Like he was there. Was it a dream or not? Was it his memories?

Was the one in the dream him? He sounded different…

Hax sighed. He didn't know what just happened. He was about to sleep again, but the sun already rose with splendor and basked his face with a morning shine. Then he recalled what the man in his dream said.

"Humanity must prevail. But why?"