Inero-ie followed the Isoluid, aura firmly contained to ensure he was undetectable. Time passed and the first thing he observed was how it kept becoming more and more enraged over time, especially sometimes when it would suddenly erupt like a volcano and turn everything upside down. Its arms would smash anything that stuck out and its kicks would stomp anything that stuck out of the ground. Only craters and fractures were all that remained in its wake.

The ground trembled at Isoluid's every step, swaying around like water. It made him even more cautious as he wanted to avoid becoming the target of its anger.

Time flowed away like water and he became more and more familiar with its pattern all the while the artificial spirit of his armor suit analyzed and tried to grasp its movement pattern. Even though weeks had already passed by, it was difficult to accurately grasp how moved but there was one thing that became apparent during this time: Isoluid was searching for something.

'It appears to be targeting spots where someone can hide.'

Inero-ie stopped following it, instead sprinting towards the direction his armor indicated, the location it was most likely to go next.

***

On the top of a massive hill rivaling the size of Isoluid, the armor stood without any moment, around him floated dozens of raw cores, the smallest was the size of a fist, emitting a chilling aura that warped the space around them. They moved slowly, fixing themselves into the spots while he carved a formation on the hilltop.

‘What to do? The power of the bomb will be too scattered… I need to compress it to have any hopes of even damaging it… hmm’

From observing it for the past few weeks, he had understood the level of power it possessed. A simple bomb would be useless and even if it did damage some part of its body, that too would be useless. The monsters had most of their bodies made up of inorganic matter, that acted as a shell that hosted and protected their organic parts, and the only way to kill them was to damage those organic parts that were hidden deep inside of their bodies. The Isoluid was massive, and if the power of the explosion was scattered, it would not inflict any critical damage on it much less kill it.

Once the cores had been placed in their respective positions, he took out the rifle. It had been his primary weapon once when he was still a child, still inexperienced, still weak. For him of that time, it had provided him with power he sorely lacked but he had stopped using it because it was too conspicuous. It could be used inside the Grand Formation but outside, using it was the same as committing suicide.

The four-meter-long rifle was gradually dismantled, revealing the formations that gave it its deadly power.

He started at the formations engraved on the body, slowly replicating them on the hilltop while he changed them to meet his current needs. From the formation that would first extract energy from the raw cores, then one that would condense and compress it, then one that would further refine Qi and provide it with structure, then one that would allow it to lock on the target, then one that would trigger it, blasting forth a beam of condensed Qi that would end kill it in one strike.

He started refining the formation, making it so that the beam of Qi would not explode even when it struck the Isoluid. Containing energy equalling dozen upon dozens of cores, if it exploded, it would destroy everything, even the thing he had to harvest.

Time passed and he kept tinkering with the formation while waiting for the Isoluid to come here.

***

[ No change. ]

[ Send a message to the supervisor and tell him the situation. ]

Both of them were staring at their map that showed the movement of that dread-inducing creature. It had been unaffected even after months they had spent trying to bring it under control. Even the increased intervals of using brainwashing pulse only seemed to make it angry and nothing more but this only made them both more convinced. They had to bring it under control as something this powerful would help them in achieving their results.

‘Even if it means my death.’

After losing everything, the only thing they were truly afraid of was letting the perpetrators go without making them taste the despair they had felt.

***

It was almost unnoticeable but the ground had started trembling and the Qi in the air started moving in the direction Inero-ie was gazing at.

‘Just how much Qi does it possess?’

He had observed it for more than a month and during that, it had stopped not even once. It had been on a constant rampage for months at the very least but showed no signs of becoming exhausted.

‘Is it because it can absorb Qi so quickly from the air?’

Discarding the random thoughts, he controlled the armor, rushing down the slop, maneuvering through the sharp and rocky outcroppings that filled the hill, each time the metallic leg stomped the ground, thick ice shattered, and the sound of glass shattering filled the air. He headed towards a nearby hill. It was far smaller than the previous hill but this was where it would all happen.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

He quickly set up a surprise for it on this smaller hill.

In the metallic hand of his armor raw cores were vibrating intensely. It was pitch black but he knew where it was through Qi-location and so he controlled the armor and with full force, threw the core towards it.

Silence.

It was like nothing happened. Like they had been devoured by the ever-present darkness but he had seen the sudden bright spot that had flickered against it and the next moment he knew he was successful.

The ground started trembling like it had never before as the massive creature ran towards him.

***

[ What’s happening? Why did it suddenly change the path? ]

[ Already on it. ]

It was a slight divergence from the calculated path but even that should not be possible. Having spent months observing it, their model was so robust now that the path it calculated was never wrong so there had to be a reason for the sudden divergence.

[ There is nothing around it. ]

[ Expand the search area. ]

[ About 4 km ahead on a small hill there is a harvester. I think Isoluid sensed him so it going to kill him. ]

[ Let’s go. We need to get rid of him otherwise we will have to generate a new model from the scratch. ]

Storing the equipment, and equipping their weapons, they cut diagonally towards the left which was dotted with small hills. There they would have a clear vintage point to snipe the harvester.

Their nozzles chased after the target but the harvester never stopped making them unable to fire.

[ Dammit! Things keep getting worse. ]

[ Why not just use him as a distraction? While its attention is focused there, why not use a full-powered pulse? Maybe we will succeed. ]

[ Good idea. Get the things ready. ]

***

The threads made concentric spheres around him, while the inner spheres were relatively complete, those on the outside only maintained a basic shape due to the low number of threads he could use but even this much was enough as it gave him enough clarity about his surrounding that he could move in this little space at high speed.

Inero-ie dodged with all his might, putting a level of load on the prototype as he had never before. He zigzagged through the myriad outcroppings and obstacles that were present on the hill all the while he dodged the massive chunks of rocks that rained down from above. In just a few minutes since the Isoluid started throwing them, the hilltop had been covered with craters and broken chunks of rocks that had made those them.

The ground rumbled intensely the nearer it got and it got more and more difficult to keep his balance when solid ground started swaying like water.

The rocks crashed and exploded, and the surrounding was riddled due to the shrapnel that burst out on the impact. He kept dodging the unending downpour of rocks. The air was filled with sharp hisses and making sure he knew it would not end anytime soon.

Left with no other choice, he activated the thrusters and ran away. Now he was sure its attention was fixed on him, he could tell that much with the increasingly intense trembling of the ground.

***

Numerous like the water drops in the rain, rocks, big and small, spherical and rectangular, spikey and flat, rained down from above and he had to use the sensors of the armor along with the concentric sphere of threads to successfully evade the rocks. Their massive number and this small space on the hill made it much harder to dodge than it actually should have been.

It was like playing a game of whack a mole, but instead of whacker he was the mole, all it would take was a single hit and he would be dead.

At the start it had been difficult but just like with everything else, he slowly became used to it, dodging the rocks while striking down any that got near the surprise he had prepared from the Isoluid.

'She created something incredible again.'

Even though the armor was not up to the quality he was used to, it was because she had just added whatever came into her mind, irrespective of whether they would work well or not but while the physical aspects of the armor were lacking, the artificial spirit was many times better than before.

He opened Qi-location and it was already near.

'Five to six steps at most…!!'

Rumble~

Ground trembled intensely, almost throwing him to the ground. Thrusts pushed him to the side, then to the front, then back as he tried to escape the downpour that had almost crushed him in the moment of surprise.

He rushed and jumped down the hill, thrusts activated mid-air sending him further away. Gravity pulled him down into her embrace and he adjusted his position trying to get as far away from the hill as he could.

Suddenly a powerful wave of air struck him from behind, sending him flying even further. He tried readjusting his position, thrusts being used at full force to control his descent.

A thunderous crash filled the air then an explosion and even though it was pitch black, just the sound was enough to understand the terrible crash that had occurred. The armor quickly generated the model of his surroundings that had been turned upside down. Cracks were everywhere while an even stronger wave of air and sound tore everything that was in their way. Before he could even try to protect himself, he was sent flying, crashing into his destination, in no position to move.

He did not even try, instead forcing his senses to see whether his surprise had activated.

He immediately set the Isoluid as the target once he saw its legs had exploded. Its arms smashed the hill into smithereens, letting out all its anger at the sudden explosion that had cost it its legs.

Before Isoluid could even try to do anything, a beam of Qi, its design as beautiful as it was destructive, was upon it.

Suddenly an equally beautiful and powerful breath of Qi was emitted out of its body but it was too late, the beam his formation had created tore through its freezing breath, tearing a circular hole right through the center of its body, vaporizing the brain without leaving behind even a single tissue.

He quickly forced his body to move, uncaring of the pain. The alloy started cracking as the temperature started dropping but he could not stop. The armor had to endure while he harvested the material. He forced the refined core into overload, a shield formed around the armor allowing it to momentarily withstand the cold while he ran into the hole that had been carved into its body.