The rest of the group, both victims and instigators, stared at the abomination in front of them. such a horrifying creature lurking under that mask and armor can't be human. Each of the thugs alone could easily face up to ten armed street rats unarmed and kill them within minutes. They can even face the guards, which was why the guards formed an alliance with them. But it had killed one of the thugs in less than ten seconds and done so even in its equipment in obvious disrepair, and possibly in an injured state.

  How could they, the low-lives of Al'Annerth, stand up to such as powerful figure?

  In instinct, the three thugs ran away with this single thought. The pickpocket cursed under his breath. "Mama's tits, they really are cowards."

  Maybe they thought that fleeing would allow them to live. Too bad for them that he knew better. He had met individuals much stronger than him, fighters and brawlers in taverns who had too much alcohol to drink and wanted to pick a fight when he scraped enough money up to buy some food. They always started with the weak-looking people, such as him, for example. Or that other drunkard in the corner of the tavern. Over time, and many bar-brawls later, he had realized that they respected (or feared) those who would stand up for themselves and their friends (although he had none), and would then stop picking on them. But it had to be done subtly, otherwise, it would be taken as overconfidence. A straightening in posture. A well-formed battle stance. Vigilance at any and all circumstances. And looking them straight in the eye. Such a strategy could come in handy right now in his current situation, but only if the thing in front of him had the same morals or if it respected those who could fight back. But what else could he do? Run like them and get killed immediately? That would only guarantee his death, like them.

  Then the mass of metal looked at him in the eyes. He had a plan, but it would most likely result in his death. Then again, if he failed, at least he would go down fighting. Unlike the wimps who ran away.

  He looked at the murderer in front of him, defiance in his eyes while straightening his posture into a frontal stance of boxing: arms up, protecting the chest and head, with slightly spread out, bent legs for a lower center of gravity and balance. His outer appearance was a facade; in his mind, he was hoping and praying that this would work. He had forsaken the gods when the bandits killed his family, and he would forsake them even now, facing almost certain death.

  Maybe it decided that he was too troublesome to handle, or maybe it would simply leave him around as a plaything, before killing him anyways. Monsters did that in the wild, so why not this thing? To his utter surprise, his threatening posture worked; the monster in front of him walked right by without another glance. 

  To his utter surprise, his plan worked; the monster in front of him walked right by without another glance. He did not dare to allow his appearance to crumble minutes after the thing went around the corner and listened attentively for any tell-tale sign of the moving metal armor. When he heard nothing, he fled with all of his might from the creature, past the torch, past the corpse of the thug, his blood leaking out of his still beating body out of his crushed neck into the skin that still connected the head to the body, making it bulge like some sort of giant, ghastly tumor. Out of this nightmare into the uncertain, gritty world again. With the pouch of money that he stole, of course. Without it, he would face another situation where he would get killed, and he would like some sort of self-reward for surviving this mess.

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  The three thugs were still running away from the abomination behind them, their footsteps rapid slaps against the rough stone floor. None slipped, but all were tired. They all sat down on the floor. With bated breaths, even in their exhausted condition, they listened for the monster. None was heard, and all breathed a sigh of relief. They lost their original target, the pickpocket, but after that thing killed one of them, they had fled, but they had gotten away with their lives.

  While looking at each other in the eyes, without words, they all agreed on the same thoughts: They had to continue on. Sure, their boss could kill them. Lives were a dime a dozen in the slums, after all. But they survived that grisly and horrifying encounter. They had the obligation to tell the rest of the slums about this creature that was stalking them in the night. Without this news, the slums would fall into anarchy, gang bosses unable to wrangle control out of the chaos that would ensue. This meant no money earnt, and no power to control. The city might even lose the upper levels above it, and control of the highway. This information simply ranked above their lives. That was all they cared about right now. After all, who cared about power when the capital could potentially be cut off from its only line of supply and communication, and possible be wiped out?

  They struggled to their feet in the darkness. They lost the torch back when they ran, but they didn't care. You didn't survive in the slums without learning how to see things in the dark.

  All chanted under their breath. "Darkness falls, no one sees, push the limits, Dark Sight!"

  They felt their pupils expand as large as they could, in order to absorb the maximum amount of light possible. It was the equivalent of being high on drugs, without the mental conditions and other side effects. Everyone held some sort of mana control, ranging from slightly quicker feet and slightly better balance to legendary blasts of lightning and fire. These people were the ones with better amounts of mana control, who learned the chant for better night vision. Spells weren't formed by words. The words instead conjured up certain ideas of what to do in the head. But it also required intense control and the understanding of the individual's targeted biological functions and environment to successfully pull it off and contain its effects. Otherwise, it went haywire or simply didn't do anything.

  With the newfound power in hand, the three rushed deeper into the warehouse section of the slums, around the slum guards in the residence section, with the goal of slipping into a patrol of bribed guards, who would then let them in. They would let the guard know, too, of this terrifying life form if they could. They were brutal, but both the guards and thugs had a sort of moral code: no man should go down without a fight, and without knowing what would kill them. This didn't apply to assassins and other, more shady figures, though.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Then a bright blue light reached them. That was what they saw with their hyperextended pupils. They shrieked and immediately covered their eyes. But they realized that this most likely wasn't the guard patrol, for they did not travel into the warehouse district at night and did not have torches of blue light. They were too far from the residential district. Adventurers who could possibly have a blue light did not make it as steady and constant as this, even if it was a magically conjured flame. But they could guess what it could be: the being with the bright blue, glowing circles as eyes. The murderer of their comrade. And their death. This broke their minds, and they gave up in despair. They did a variety of actions. They got onto their knees and pleaded, face down, to the creature, to forgive them and to let them live. Then they prayed to the gods that they believed in to save them from this nightmare of theirs that had come to life. None of them ever realized that the monster in front of them lacked any empathy or pity for them. Sure, they gave protection to people and kept criminal actions to a minimum, but in truth, they were thugs, pure and simple. No one would miss them if they died. No one cared about them.

  In their despair, they constantly prayed and pleaded to the creature, even as one by one they were killed in the same fashion and manner as the first until none of them were left. Then the creature got to work, setting out for what he intended to do originally: looting the corpses.

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  The robot felt as though he had hit a treasure trove: because he killed all four of them, he could now choose what he wanted! Now he would no longer look like a monster in people's eyes, or a rag-tag creature with random clothes, but simply a covered stranger. Good thing that these were common here in the slums. But first, to erase the evidence, so as to not arouse suspicion. At least until the corpses rot, but by then he would hopefully be out of this place. Carefully, he hefted the corpses over his shoulder one by one into a small ditch next to a warehouse that was a bit darker than its surroundings, including the one that he first killed. He then began pulling whatever he could off from the bodies: pants, shirts, cloaks, some coins, a dagger and its sheath, and some replacement clothes, too. The dagger wasn't flashy, more of a shiv with a grip than anything else, but it was surprisingly durable. To test it out, he stabbed the warehouse wall with it. It punctured a hole in the wall without a scratch. Too bad all of the clothes he got were grimy and covered in sweat. He couldn't smell, but others certainly would, so that would become a new objective. He listed this in his objectives list. He put clothes on carefully. He was first covered by a rough, brown woolen cloak, under which was a dirty, blue long-sleeved shirt, and another brown shirt underneath that, which hid part of his metal covering under the V-neck of the blue shirt. He then found the torch that one of the men dropped, extinguishing it by covering the burning bit with his hands. Then he fashioned a crude-carrying bag by using a cloak to bundle up the clothing and trying it to the torch, which served as a stick. Now he looked like a refugee, which perfectly fit his guise.

  He decided to hole up in the warehouse district until the people resumed their work in the day. Yes, the city was mostly in a cavern, but clocks and communication made the city operate on a day-to-day basis, not every hour. Plus, the robot reasoned that there was something that was blocking the way to the residential district of the slums since the three were all running in the opposite direction from the residences.

So he slowly climbed on the rungs of a warehouse ladder up to a warehouse roof, and then sat on the roof. Deliberately away from the bodies to prevent suspicion. And he waited. Waited until he could be certain that he could slip through back into the residential district.

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  The waiting took an extremely long time. With his internal clock, the robot judged it to be about four to five Earth hours. He didn't know anything about this planet's rotation and seasons. During that time, although he was on alert, he was bored out of his mind. Entering sleep mode as not an option, as he would be defenseless against any intrusions and attacks made towards him. He spent the time to make a series of preparations and adjustments, specifically with the cloak that he was wearing. This would be his make-shift version of a military vest.

  First, underneath his cloak, he added a series of pockets on the underlining. The robot found out about the cloak's double lining when he picked up the cloak, and part of it sagged to the floor, which was not supposed to happen. Stupid him spent half an hour in the dark trying to find out what the hell was wrong with it until it was actually two cloaks sewn together on the fringes. This gave him an idea. He found a wooden splinter from a warehouse wall and carefully removed one of the strings on his replacement clothes, and used the dagger that he looted to cut a few holes in this cloak. After a while (and lots of thread) he finished his cloak. It had numerous pockets, from those at the hand levels to the chest, and even some on the lower hem of the cloak. All were in inconspicuous spots, including one at the back, at the crook of his neck, where he placed the now-sheathed dagger in. He couldn't pad it with cloth, otherwise, it would suspicious. He didn't want to like some amateur thief. As a side note, he hoped that he would have more stuff to out in these pockets. Right now, he wasn't packing any firepower.

  Even with all these preparations, the robot was sure that he would not be ready for any fights or brawls anytime soon. Sure, he had a dagger, but pretty much everyone in the slums would have a weapon. And he had no clue how to use it. Yes, it was made for stabbing, but it probably had more uses. The one who had the dagger, the leader, went in some kind of stance to use the dagger, but that was all that the robot could see in that situation. Another thing to learn: how to use weapons.

  He sighed to himself and packed up his looted items, before carefully creeping down the warehouse roof onto the street below. By this time, a few people were up and walking around on the warehouse district's streets and alleys, in similar inconspicuous brown cloaks like his. All had their heads down to the ground to conceal their identity and walked around in periodic routes. None talked to each other or even threw a glance at each other. This was good for him because he could blend into the darkness and pretend to be one of them if things went south. The robot surmised that these were bodyguards of sorts. Using his information of their routes, he managed to get out of the warehouse districts into the clear border between the residential and warehouse districts of the slums. This was even with the loud steps of his feet against the stone. This was nothing but a street. However, there were only warehouses on one side and ramshackle houses on the other. He didn't know why they separated it like they did, but he saw the light of a torch flickering in the darkness along the border.

Another patrol, he thought.

  Each patrol consisted of three guards, with one holding the torch and the other two on the lookout. This one was different. Compared to their usual, brisk pace, this one patrol's slow, lazy patrol along their route allowed him the opportunity to quickly scramble across while they bickered with each other in their strange language, which was formed out of some garble of syllables, tones, and different pitches, strangely with a constant volume. So far, he could not understand anything that anyone said, and could not form any sort of structure out of the sounds that they made, except for a few basic gestures, such as the "get over here" waving that Lorst did. Anything else was utterly alien to him.

  He was back in the slums. Well, the part that people constantly lived in anyway. He didn't actually leave the slums since all the warehouses were sturdy, but in poor condition, so they could still be considered part of the slums. Still, he completed his most pressing objective, but he just added loads more.