From the broken ceiling, a giant bulky mechanical figure crashed down right in front of me, blocking my vision of the other sentry and the beast golem. This new automaton had a humanoid body shape, but nothing else about it seemed anything like a human. It was entirely made of a shining metal that had a faint red luster, and some parts of this metal were a darker shade of red than others, likely from the dried blood of those who had failed to kill this thing. The chest of this mechanoid glowed with a dim blue light, which drastically stood out from the general red scheme of the rest of the metal. Moving my gaze upwards, I saw a single red gem where the eyes would usually be found glistening with an eerie crimson color.

‘Another one? How many of these robots do I have to defeat before I can finish this dungeon?’ I sighed. ‘Oh well, I’m already this close to the end, so I’ll just have to deal with anything that this dungeon throws at me… At the very least, this thing is probably the boss entity that the book mentioned as this certainly better fits the image I had of a boss entity than the combination of two sentries and the beast golem.’ I strengthened my resolution to defeat the remaining opponents and clear this room.

I simply hovered in the air a few feet away from the giant metal golem and appraised my new opponent with a defiant gaze, all the while keeping my eye sharp for any sudden movements from any of my adversaries. The metal golem did not move from its location, but the sentry and beast automaton suddenly emerged in my vision, lunging toward me while readying their attacks. In response to that, I flapped my wings to propel me backward. However, that was not enough to get me out of their range as I saw the beast leap into the air as it rapidly approached me. The leap put the beast in a good place to attack me, as it had reached the apex of its jump a few feet away from me and was now descending straight toward where I was. Now slightly above me, It tried to powerfully swipe its claws down at my wings, hoping to cripple my movement.

I calmly and easily dodged the attack by simply tilting my wings downward, causing me to rapidly descend out of the way of the swipe. It was easy to dodge because I had seen the attack before and because my body was no longer being weighed down by the beam emitted by the sentry that I had already defeated. As such, the beast’s metallic claws passed harmlessly above me. Now, the beast was in a semi-vulnerable state as it was still in the air and could not do anything but prepare to land.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, I flew to the beast while it was still midair and tried to rake my claws across the underbelly of the beast automaton. Before I could, I felt a menacing aura from behind me and quickly performed a roll to my left in the air. Just after I completed the roll, I saw a sword swinging down right where I had flown a few seconds ago. I immediately turned around and saw the sentry in the middle of unleashing another swing with its other sword arm. This time, it was a horizontal swing, so I dodged by dropping the altitude at which I flew, causing the attack to wizz harmlessly above me, cutting nothing but air.

Without being surprised that I had managed to dodge its attacks, the sentry simply followed up its attack with another swing of its sword arms, more specifically, a diagonal slash aimed at my talons. Seeing this, I dodged out of the way and dove toward the gem in the center of the automaton’s chest. At first, the sentry simply continued swinging at me, but once I got closer to it, it crossed its sword arms above its chest in an attempt to prevent me from fracturing its core. This did not deter me from following through with my attack and I barreled into the crossed swords. Sparks flew as my beak clashed with the swords. I was a bit confused about why sparks flew even though a crow’s beak was not made of any sort of metal, but I had no time to ruminate about this as I was locked in a fierce battle of life and death.

Shaking off my confusion, I saw that the force behind my attack was causing the sentry’s arms to tremble. It looked like I was pushing the sentry back, but suddenly, its arm stopped trembling as it pushed its crossed swords outward in a burst of strength, thereby deflecting my attack and forcing me slightly backward. Now a few feet away from the sentry, I sized up the condition of the sentry after my attack. I noticed that my attack had left a considerable dent on the surface of one of the sentry’s sword arms and that it seemed to be moving slower than it was before. Somehow, it was like the automaton was feeling tired after blocking my attack despite it being a mechanoid.

‘Perfect, an opportunity has arisen. With this, I can reduce the numbers by one by taking down this weakened sentry. There shouldn’t be anything that the other two can do to prevent me from doing so, at least I hope. I still don’t know exactly what that metal golem can do, but I doubt that it will be able to reach me given its large size and distance from me. The beast golem should have just landed if I am calculating the time correctly, and it is impossible to reach me before I am able to finish off the sentry. Even if it ran at full speed, it would still need at least 4 seconds to reorient itself and get in range to attack me. I am confident that I will be able to finish off this weakened sentry in that span of time as I’m used to working in time constraints that are occasionally even narrower than right now due to my previous occupation in my past life.’

With a newfound sense of confidence, I rushed at the sentry adjusting my trajectory to directly collide with the gem in the sentry’s head. The sentry, as if reading my flight path and intentions, crossed its sword arms above the gem in its head, taking another defensive stance. This time, the sentry even planted one of its legs behind the other to allow it to put more force into repelling a clash. However, this attack was all a feint as my main intention was still to altogether disable the sentry rather than incapacitate it by inhibiting one of its methods of attacking me. I stretched out my wings and performed a spiral in the air to put me in an optimal position to attack the gem with my talon whilst avoiding a collision with the sentry.

The sentry realized my true intention and hurriedly attempted to lower its swords to protect its real core, but it was too slow at doing this. When I got into range of attacking the core with my talons, its swords were still crossed above the neck area of the sentry. I raised my talons prepared to slice the core into pieces, but just before my talons touched the core, I felt an immense aura of danger coming from somewhere beside me. I hastily rolled to the side in response to the feeling of dread I was feeling. Almost immediately after I performed the roll, a metal ball whistled past where I was flying before, narrowly missing me. Although the ball had missed me, it still was able to cause a few feathers from my wing to fall, showing just how close that ball was to hitting me.

When I turned to see what had shot that attack, I saw the beast golem standing in a spot I did not expect it to be at, partially because it had no way of reaching that spot in the span of time I spent rushing at the sentry. Instead of standing directly behind me when I was facing the sentry, it stood to the left of me if I was facing the sentry. What surprised me even more was that the beast now had some kind of cannon attached to its back. I saw another metal ball appear from inside the beast golem’s body, and soon the cannonball was automatically loaded into the barrel of the cannon. A few seconds later, I saw another metal ball flying straight at me and the barrel of the cannon smoking in the distance. Weirdly enough, the cannon did not resound with a thunderous roar when it was fired, in fact, it was completely silent somehow.

‘Great… This battle just got much harder now that I have an opponent who can fire off devastating attacks at me from a safe distance. At the very least, if this golem stays back to provide ranged support, I will only have to deal with one opponent in close-range combat. Additionally, I could use the sentry as a sort of shield by allowing it to take the cannonballs for me, which would be killing two birds with one stone… Now that I’m a bird myself, saying that phrase makes me feel a mild chilling sensation. Anyways, back to the battle, if I hide behind this sentry when the beast shoots that cannon, I would be able to both dodge the attack and damage the sentry. Let’s make a plan revolving around that idea then.’

As I was coming up with a plan, the beast golem fired another metal ball at me, which I dodged by rolling slightly to the left, causing the cannonball to rocket past me and deeply lodge itself into one of the few bookshelves left standing in the room. When I had dodged out of the way of the projectile I felt a strong premonition originating from behind me. I instinctually beat my wings once to ascend higher in the air, dodging a diagonal swing that would have easily cleaved me in two if I had connected with me.

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From that attack, I knew that although the sentry was already severely weakened, it still had the ability to fight, by that I mean the capacity to initiate attacks. Now once again with 2 enemies working together to defeat me, I flew backward to finish the formulation of a strategy for defeating the two opponents in front of me. There was still the golem that I had to beat, but I could deal with it after I finished off its 2 allies. Never once taking my eyes off of my opponents, I slowly increased the distance between the beast golem and the sentry. For some reason, they did not chase after me or even attack me with their long-distance attacks; instead, they simply watched me without taking even a single step forward. I felt a bit suspicious of their actions, but I decided to capitalize on this brief moment of tense respite and finish drafting up a plan.

‘The easiest one to eliminate right now is by far the sentry, but it’ll be hard to land a conclusive blow with the ranged support of the beast golem. Sure there is always the option to hide behind the sentry to prevent the beast automaton from firing its cannon, but that is assuming that it will stop firing its cannon if it realizes that the cannonball will have a chance to hit its teammate. Of course, if it doesn’t stop firing, I could always just dodge out of the way and force the sentry to get hit. On paper, this plan seems pretty good, but it lacks considerations for some other important details that could cause this plan to completely fail.’ I reflected on my original ideas for this battle and analyzed the weaknesses of it.

‘For one, it assumes that the beast golem will keep its distance and rely solely on its cannon, but it is entirely possible that the beast automaton will return back to its usual pattern of rushing at me and attempting to attack with its sharp claws again. Additionally, this plan does not take into account the enhanced agility of the beast. Going off my previous calculations and observations, the beast is at least 25% faster than before, meaning it would be able to reach positions that are able to attack me without having to worry about hitting the sentry if I dodge the attack. When it does reach these positions, it would be extremely disadvantageous for me in terms of dodging the attacks. To dodge the cannonballs, I have to take action immediately, but if my movements are limited by the flurry of attacks that the sentry is capable of performing or by the beam it can use, then there is a high chance that I would get hit and killed by the cannon balls.’ I thought about these limitations whilst keeping a steady gaze on the three robots in front of me until I finally gained a realization.

‘The cannon does not look like it has any way of changing the angle at which it fires, meaning that I’ll be safe from attacks if I just ascend to where the ceiling used to be. What can I do from there though? I can’t risk initiating another dive bomb, as I’m nearly certain that the beast would be able to intercept me midway through my dive. This could be a fatal mistake as I would not be able to dodge both swords of the sentry and the claws of the beast due to the predictable trajectory of my dive. If I can’t attack the sentry, the only other option is to attack the beast, but how could I damage it in the first place? My talons and beak barely have any effect on metal, and I don’t see an obvious weak point like the sentries.’

I continued my deliberations when suddenly, the beast and the sentry both leaped into action again. The beast fired another cannonball that rocketed directly at me, while the sentry began running to me. I dodged the cannonball like I had done before; in response to this, the beast followed the sentry in running toward me, trying to engage me in close combat. Without many options, I was forced to prepare myself for the next clash between me and my opponents. I did not back away; instead, I just hovered in the air and cautiously watched as the two quickly approached me.

Unlike before, both of them reached me at the same time despite the beast being considerably faster than the sentry. In a few seconds, both of them were right in front of me and unleashing their respective attacks. The sentry crossed both its sword-arms and swung them downward, while the beast sliced at me with both pairs of its front claws. The attacks simultaneously reached where I was, making them particularly hard to dodge, but luckily, I had a lot of experience with making use of a small body to dodge attacks from my previous life. I weaved through the gaps in their attacks and managed to come out of that onslaught unscathed.

Not allowing me any time to rest, the two immediately started up their next chain of attacks, forcing me to take evasive maneuvers again. I once again went between the small gaps in their attacks and completely avoided all damage. Now finished with the second round of their attack, the two were left in an awkward stance as a result of their last attacks, giving me precious seconds to retaliate and deal some damage. I rushed at the sentry, trying to piece its core with my sharp beak. The sentry, whose swords were still down because it had unleashed two swings downward as its last attacks, was unable to bring its swords up quick enough to block my attacks. The beast was also unable to defend the sentry as it was still recovering its balance after having missed two attacks.

As such, my beak was able to break the core of the sentry into thousands of pieces and the sentry fell over forward, no longer capable of any actions. Now there were only two opponents left, one whose capabilities I had a general sense of, yet not a single clue about how to defeat it, and another whose capability or weaknesses I am clueless about. The beast stopped trying to rush me and distanced itself from me. For a few moments, all we did was silently watch the other’s movements. After around 30 seconds of just staring at each other, I heard a deep voice echo around the tattered room.

Time limit reached. Activating Annihilation Protocol. Commencing Program.

Following that voice that appeared to come from the large metal golem standing quite far away from me, the gem in its eye socket glowed with an even more luminous light, and a large red laser came from the gem before landing directly on my body. When the laser reached me, it formed a large target circle on the spot on my body that it was aimed at. The target circle grew smaller and smaller the longer the dot remained on my body, reminding me of the lock-on mechanical that was commonplace in wartime vehicles back in my past life. As soon as the circle had gotten to the size of a ping-pong ball, blue energy gathered around the gem and started circling around it, forming a vortex of this strange blue substance that was being gathered by the metal golem.

I was absolutely certain that it was charging up for a devastating attack that would be aimed at the target circle, so I tried to dodge out of the way of that pointer, which was completely unsuccessful as the laser managed to be attached to my body, no matter how high or low I flew. I continued trying to dodge the beam aimed at me, but it was an impossible task, and pretty soon, the blue energy vortex began to disperse while the gem glowed even brighter than before. I focused nearly all my attention on the metal golem and the attack that it was charging up, but I kept a bit of my attention on the beast in care it did anything. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the beast retreating to an area that was very far from where I was.

Suddenly, the room was filled with a bright white light that blinded me for a fraction of a second. When my vision recovered, I saw a large glowing beam of energy heading directly at me. The size of the beam was immense, as it covered nearly half the entire room. I tried to stay calm and flap my wings to move me to the side, out of the way of the beam, but when I flapped my wings, an intense pain flooded my senses.

The injury to my wings that the beast had inflicted on me from the beginning of the fight was resurfacing, preventing me from moving them again because of the acute pain. I let out a pained caw and crashed to the floor, worsening the pain that I felt. Looking up, I felt despair taking over my body as the beam was still heading directly at me ready to engulf me and extinguish any vestiges of life remaining in this body.

‘Is this the end? My second life will have ended after only a few days… I never even got to get my revenge in the end. Was my life really for naught? What even was my purpose? Why did I want to live so badly despite everything I had done before? It’s ironic, in the past, I completely disregarded other’s pleas to spare their lives, thinking of them as pathetic fools who are scared of death, yet here I am, miserable in the face of death…’

The beam got closer, and closer, and closer, and I closed my teary eyes, accepting my inevitable demise… I felt one last tear falling down my crow face for all the regrets I still had yet to resolve, and moments later, I felt the beam of energy engulfing me…