A strange warrior stood in front of me. He was taller than me by about double my size, and carried a sword that matched mine, only that his was golden instead of black, and had a coat of Holy Power. I couldn’t be certain what kind of being this was, since no normal human could look like that, and I couldn’t believe there was a demon willingly working for the Holy Gods like this.

And yet, there was the possibility that this demon, or whatever it was, was being controlled by something, be that via a strange magic, or by the desire to get something out of what he was doing, like Gruul and that other skeleton I met in the previous base.

Still, I wasn’t given any word, nor a chance to change this person’s mind, as the first act of this warrior was to dash over to me and attack me, so I did as always and raised my sword to meet his.

The golden sword in his hands fell down on me in one powerful vertical swing, and I parried it away with my own. There was an explosion of both darkness and holy light, but it wasn’t the same as when I faced Eletha. I could feel some form of Holy Power from within the warrior, but it was mostly just normal Holy Magic, like a strange mix of both… Though, it was too much for the size of the warrior, almost as if there was nothing else inside besides just that.

The warrior quickly reacted to the parry and in one quick horizontal swing, he attacked me once more with his sword. It wasn’t hard to block his movements, since despite being fast and powerful, they were rather predictable. Almost like this warrior was trained from watching and copying the most common swings there were, so with every attack that he did, I was able to easily maneuver around it.

I parried another swing by slashing in a horizontal way from left to right to push away his sword, and followed it up with a blast of darkness with my left hand, causing the strange warrior to slide back on the floor, his feet creating sparkles.

“You won’t be able to get through me with that kind of technique,” I said, as the warrior regained his balance and turned his glowing helmet my way. “If you surrender, you shall be spared.”

“Why are you talking to the robot?” Super-Demon immediately answered instead.

I couldn’t help but half-turn my head to raise an eyebrow at him. “Robot?”

“I mean, it’s obvious, isn’t it?” he answered with a slight tilt of his head.

I turned once more to focus on the so-called robot. I wasn’t sure about what that was, so I tried to remember from anything I’ve seen in this world. Could it be like a car? Or a computer?

But I didn’t have time to ponder about it as the ‘robot’ bursted once more with some propulsion magic coming out of his soles and back, the sword to the side and ready to slash me once more; and like every time, the movements were predictable. Is that what would make him a robot?

With every swing that I parried and every attack that I blocked, I couldn’t help but feel curious about what would make him so special, since despite there being a lot of power, I couldn’t find anything else that could possibly make this robot warrior a threat to me or an experienced warrior.

“Ah… I see you’re underestimating my creation…” the old man said, and right after, the robot warrior jumped back and away from me. “How about we increase the pressure?”

From the robot warrior’s legs, a couple of plates opened and steam came out of them. The same thing happened at the arms, and then at the back. I looked at it with curiosity and noticed that there was no flesh under the openings once the steam was clearing, as there was just a tube. Immediately after, a loud rumbling noise—just like a car’s engine—came out of the robot warrior followed by golden fire bursting out of the openings in the armor.

So it was indeed just like a car… then where was the driver? I turned my attention back to the glass window higher in the room. It had to be the old man that so far had just been taunting us. Then the best course of action would be to get to him and this robot would be destroyed.

“Thinking about getting to me again?” he mocked, almost as if he could hear what I was thinking from the glance I threw up there. “It’s not going to be easy to get past my creation, but do try it if you can!”

The robot moved from the spot once more, but this time, it was much faster than before, so I was nearly caught off guard when the blade was coming for my neck. I was forced to dodge down, and the blade passed by the tips of my darkened hair, cutting it off and turning the hair back to brown.

Immediately after, the robot’s arm unnaturally turned, as if something else twisted it, and the blade was once more pointed my way, but since it was on the same side as my blade, I was able to raise up my arm and block. The attack this time was more powerful than the ones before, so once our blades made contact, a shockwave was produced and I was pushed to my left side.

Super-Demon was sent flying away from the shockwave, causing him to crash with the closed door of the room. I worried that the robot would turn to finish him off, but with the same burst of magic from the soles, the robot chased after me.

It was moving faster, but that could be exploited if the enemy wasn’t used to that movement, so I summoned a spike of darkness from the floor, right in the robot’s way. Somehow, it was able to notice it, even when its head was turned my way, and with its left hand, it grabbed the spike. A golden light of Holy Power illuminated its hand, and the spike exploded into just a mist of darkness. This thing was able to properly react to things despite the speed at which it was moving… Or was the old man up there really that much of a capable fighter?

No matter. I just had to crush his tool. So before the robot could rush to me, I created a dome of darkness all around it. It tried to move out of the dome as it was being created, but right after taking the first step, it crashed into a wall. It then tried to jump out of it, but crashed with the upper part of the dome.

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My plan wasn’t to just trap it, so with my left hand open, I created a field of hellfire right under the dome. I couldn’t see what was going on, but I knew that the inside of the darkness dome was turned into an oven.

I sustained it for as long as I could, but somehow, I could still feel the Holy Power within the robot getting stronger and stronger. Eventually, the dome cracked with golden light pouring out of it, before the whole thing exploded in a light of golden power.

The robot remained undamaged with the armor glowing golden, and by its feet, the red hellfire burning. It once more bursted to me, and I braced myself for the impact. The blade crashed with mine, and this time, the fire burning under its feet and at its back got more intense, causing the force with which it crashed with me to increase.

I was dragged back by it, unable to stop it or push it back before I hit a wall. The metallic walls bent under both my armor and the strength of this robot, crushing the inactive weapons that still remained under it until we hit a concrete wall, where rocks and dust exploded in every direction.

The robot felt heavy, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t push back, so now that it couldn’t force me back anymore, I used my Darkness and Hellfire-empowered body to kick back at it.

It wasn’t enough, and all my boot did was create sparks on top of the robot’s armor. That didn’t mean that I couldn’t keep pushing, so with trembling legs, I slowly moved the robot away from me. Then, unexpectedly, from the robot’s long shoulders, a new tube popped out. I urgently looked at it, and in the next moment, a golden light was blasted from it.

I was hit in my head by a golden bullet, just like the ones that I had been dodging so far. It was Holy Magic, so my aura was spread thin as it passed through, and my head bounced back to the wall. I wasn’t harmed beyond just the bruise it was going to leave, but the ground I had gained was immediately lost, and my blade was pushed back into me under the pressure of the robot.

“Ha!” I heard Super-Demon shout as I struggled to keep the robot at bay.

It could only mean one thing.

A beam of Soul Magic washed over the robot from behind, and the robot was pressured even more on top of me. I couldn’t tell who Super-Demon wanted to help with that attack, since I was still under the way of his attack, but the robot’s size was so large that the beam didn’t reach me.

“Gh!” I exclaimed once my blade touched my face.

However, the pressure was immediately lessened when Super-Demon’s beam was over. I took the opportunity and kicked back the robot. It flew into the air with almost no resistance, so I followed it up with a slash of my blade, causing it to immediately fly away with a booming shockwave that sent it crashing with the walls of the other side of the room.

“Are you okay?!” shouted Super-Demon, still in the same pose that he took whenever he used Soul Magic.

With a nod, I replied, but I refused to say anything as my focus was on the place where the robot crashed. Its legs were spread out outside of the hole, with both arms sticking up as if they wanted to be embraced by something. However, the robot wasn’t moving anymore, and if it wasn’t from the Holy Power I could still sense from within it, I would say that it was dead.

“Hm? What is this?” the old man said. “Why aren’t you moving? Come on, you stupid machine!”

I could hear from the room’s speakers the old man pressing and slamming things on his side of the glass window, and yet, the robot remained unmoving. But it couldn’t be dead, I could still sense it.

Sure enough, the golden bit at the middle of its head shone golden once more.

“Ah, there we go!” the old man placidly said, “Now finish this off. Power isn’t going to last forever and I can’t get the generator until everything that’s going on here is dealt with!”

I readied my sword on my right hand and darkness in my left hand, but the robot remained unmoving, its golden light pointed this way. After a moment, it slowly turned to look over at the glass window where the old man was supposed to be. I couldn’t understand why it was doing that, since this was supposed to be controlled by the old man.

Still, if it was damaged somehow, then it was the perfect opportunity to finish it off. With the same power already gathered over my left hand, I created a rock spike in the air, about as big as I was, and then infused it with both darkness and hellfire, making it a dark, red-flaming rock. I launched the spike with one swift movement, just like throwing a spear.

It broke the air as it approached the robot, but it still remained with its head turned over to the glass. In no time, the spike crashed with the robot, and an explosion of both darkness and hellfire ensued. I focused my senses over the robot, and I could finally properly feel Holy Power, even if it was fading away.

Just to make sure that it wouldn’t stand back up, I created a beam of Hellfire with my left hand, burning the air with the blood-red fire as it tore into the mess where the robot was supposed to be, and sustained it until no more Holy Power or Holy Magic could be felt.

“No! God damn it! Stupid machine!” shouted the old man, hitting a table over at his side. “This was supposed to be the perfect prototype for an army! Now I’ll have to beg for more materials!”

“The only thing you should be begging for is your life,” I said with a glare directed at the glass.

“Ugh!” the old man replied in frustration.

“Oh shit!” Super-Demon exclaimed before I could fly up to the glass window.

I turned over to look at him, but his white glowing eyes were set on the place where the robot was destroyed.

The Darkness and Hellfire of my spells was already disappearing, and the destroyed robot could be seen. The head was half-blasted, and the chest area was completely exposed. I widened my eyes in surprise. There was someone inside the robot, however… there wasn’t much of this person to save.

In the robot’s chest area appeared to be a man’s torso, with the places where the limbs should’ve been replaced with cables and tubes that connected to them. Around the chest area were as many broken, cut and destroyed cables and tubes; and at the head, over the part that could be seen, this man was covered by a mouth mask with as many cables coming out of it as the rest of the body.

There was no more life left in him… but his eyes were still looking over at the glass window. He couldn’t speak, nor say what he wanted or how he ended up like that, but just the fact that in that last moment he refused to move and only looked up at the glass window was all I needed to know that whoever was up there was responsible for what happened to him.

So I did as the corpse and turned a glare at the glass window. There was nothing else stopping me anymore, so with a burst of flying magic and my sword empowered to my side, I boomed straight to it.

There was no golden barrier stopping me this time, so the glass window was destroyed in one swing of my weapon, and I landed inside the room. The old man yelped in surprise as he fell to the ground next to me and I was finally able to have a good look at him.

He had a ghostly pale complexion, with his face full of wrinkles and a half-balding head of completely white hair. He was scrawny, with almost no muscle on his body, and the clothes that he was wearing were nothing more than a long white coat over this world’s common people's clothes.

I pointed the tip of my weapon to him, and while looking down on him, I asked, “Where is Eletha?”