How do I describe this thing? It's...spider legs, imagine a big mechanical spider with long spindly legs, now remove the "torso" that connects all the legs together. Now add a few more legs than the 8 a normal spider starts with. About 50 of them, now connect all those legs to each other in a weird tangled mess that should, for all intents and purposes, fall apart the very moment it tries to take a single "step".
And yet...
tick,tack,CRASH
This thing moves with efficiency and accuracy I do not understand, the legs constantly detach and reattach themselves to each other. And worst of all, it's FAST. It tried to skewer me multiple times, but every time I dodge, I realize I just threw myself into another one of its many limbs, like it's setting up some kind of invisible labyrinth and every step I take reveals more of its body.
Of course, what is actually happening is that it is contorting itself so fast that I can't really predict what its next move will be, it's trying to block every single method of escape at my disposal, and it is very much succeeding.
"I wish this scavenger found me before you." The sphere states. "I doubt you will find it possible to reason with it, scavengers like this tend to sacrifice awareness for more raw processing power. You will not be able to outspeed it too, it is better to accept your fate than struggle uselessly."
I have to admit, it is VERY tempting to drop this suicidal ball to make my life easier, but I've made my choice to keep him around, and I don't like changing my mind later just because things get a little hard.
Now, I could use brute strength to beat this thing, the issue is that blowing it up would be counterproductive.
Which is why I'll...
CURRENT MODE : PRECISE COMBAT MANEUVER (TIMED)
STAT MEASUREMENT : ORIGINAL BODY STR : BELOW SUPERHUMAN
END : SUPERHUMAN
INT : ABOVE SUPERHUMAN
CHA : AVERAGE
PER : SUPERHUMAN
SPEED : SUPERHUMAN
Need to sacrifice some awareness of my own to catch up with it.
This machine's body has two massive advantage, flexibility and unpredictability. Because there is no "core". That means there is no glaring weak point. Even if a leg was to be chopped off, it could easily be reattached, and it's possible the leg could even function without being attached to the others. If I want to do real damage, I need to aim at the one glaring flaw in this thing's design, the fact it entirely depends on having legs connect to each other for it to move properly.
tick
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Multiple legs start merging into each other as I jump from limb to limb, I can't do anything in its current state but...
tack
For a split second, the alloy of the beast opens to allow one leg to slide and take its place, revealing a complex mechanism inside.
All I need to do now is:
Material Solidification Solidify anything using soul surgery. Making something "too" solid might turn it into a truly immovable object. Sometimes messes with the universe's physics in ways that shouldn't be possible.
CRASH
The leg can still move, but its movements are awkward, inaccurate. It's something to lose a limb, it's another to have it not work as intended. The best part is that this leg was deep enough into the tangled mass that detaching it naturally is now near impossible without losing everything it's attached to. Solidifying the entire leg would've just made it get rid of it, but disabling what allows the machine to swap one leg for another is much more crippling. Now its only option is to forcefully rip it off. But it won't, because it knows I'll do the same thing as it reveals more and more of itself. So all it can do now is move with its current shape without swapping any legs.
It is still very dangerous in this form, but I can at least keep up with it. I throw the sphere in my hand into the air, then let my hand rest on the leg I am currently on top of. I can feel the heat getting stronger at some parts of the leg, meaning that the energy must come from...
I rip off the metal plating and find a glimpse of what I assume is a battery inside. I try to carefully take it off without doing too much damage to it. Of course, the machine tries to stop me, but I'm fast enough to dodge most of its attack at this point. The leg stops moving with no energy to keep it running, it seems the legs have their own battery and don't share energy between each other. Convenient for me.
It seems to catch on to what I'm doing and rips off the powerless legs from itself, figuring out that if I'm going to cripple it either way, it might as well fight me in a state it's comfortable fighting in. The sphere falls down from the sky, I catch it and throw it again. The legs realize that the ball is of importance to me, and try to rush it to get a reaction out of me, it unfortunately succeeds. I jump to catch it before it gets skewered, as I take the hit instead.
Even with superhuman endurance, that hit was enough to severely disorient me as I slam into the ground and cough up some blood. I force myself back up as I leave the sphere behind me before rushing to the fight again, Material Solidification, rip off a metal plate and take another battery. Material Solidification, repeat, repeat until it stops moving, it gets a few hits in, my vision is getting blurry, but I can't stop now. Having to protect something puts me at a disadvantage as I can't move as freely as I want to, but it doesn't matter. It's getting slower, clunkier, more and more legs fall off until eventually, only three are left.
It's a pathetic state. It's barely functional as the legs awkwardly try to keep each other standing, and yet it refuses to flee, it knows I have its batteries, if it was capable of having emotions, I am sure it would be pure hatred.
It only takes me a few seconds to disable what is left of it. I won.
I look at my bloodied hands and wonder, would it not have been easier to simply use bigger stats? With more speed, intelligence and endurance, I could've gone through this without so much as a scratch.
Why even go through the trouble of getting the batteries at all, if this place and the machines inhabiting it are doomed? Using this place to get rid of soul bloat is much more effici-
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Timer over, resetting to : BYSTANDER MODE
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