Fear? ha! Zan dismissed his ‘twinge of fear’ as nothing more than nerves. Of course, he knew, in truth, why he felt the fear: tiredness.

It was his first battle, after all. He had worked nearly a full day before the battle started. The weight of the world already hung at his shoulders.

Indomitable thought he felt, he kept in his mind’s light the tiredness of his body and how he was not actually invincible. "I will die like any other man if the enemy lands a strike," he reminded himself.

Pushing through, Zan continued to fight. Using fewer flourishes — like that fancy downward slash of his, which consumed a lot of stamina and usually involved a jump — Zan managed to eke out more combat efficiency. Power-slash, sidestep, breathe, hack-one-hack-two-hack-three. Repeat. Group killed. Next — Hack. Repeat.

“Any update about the village? What the heck’s taking them so long?!” he yelled to anyone who was within earshot.

Near to him but busily engaged with the vile machines, he saw Jiehong. Even from his distance, Zan saw how his friend was being worn down.

Looking to the field, he saw more groups of enemies appear… a lot more.

‘Holy shet,’ Zan muttered. ‘I didn’t realize how many there were. It’s like an army.’

Well, makes sense there is an army here. It’s an invasion, is it not? Regardless, he thought, he did not consider the Expanse sending what appeared to be a whole army. He assumed this was a splinter from the main force, not the main force itself! Yet maybe I am right: maybe, even as large as the force looks, it is nothing more than a splinter? The idea that a force of this size could be a splinter terrified him.

Though tired, his will to fight refused shuddering nonesuch. Until he saw a new enemy golem, that is.

It looked like all the other golems, but this enemy had its upper body painted red.

What did that mean?

He soon found out.

----------

Zan fought steadily through the approaching groups of golem-automotrons. But with so many in their number and his indomitability gradually chipping away, the normally short battle duration for each group swelled to grotesque proportions. He took several times as long to do away with a group. By the time he diced his way to the group led by the red-half golem, he had broken more than a sweat. He nearly had broken his bones while taking some blows by the wayward axes of some of his misshapen foes.

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Focusing more on the red golem at first, Zan switched tactics. He destroyed the regular golems once he saw the new golems had been none different in terms of speed or battle style. He slew its compatriots, swelling with newfound energy, short-lived as he knew it would be, then focused on the new red-painted automotron.

Dishing out his power-attacks once again, Zan saw himself shocked for how he felt upon hearing how the new golem withstood the mighty blows from his blade; a blade, he reluctantly recognized, might have dulled with the use he had been putting it through over the last few hours.

Slashing at the golem while holding his ground, Zan finally figured out why the new golem was so impervious. ‘It had a protective coating!’ Zan realized.

What did that mean for him? The answer came to him as plainly as possible — it meant he had to devise a new battle strategy and in a hurry!

He could do nothing, though! If the coating was over its whole body, then — ‘wait!’ Zan shouted to himself. ‘I don’t know it’s over the whole body. I have only been attacking the upper-chest area since it is the easiest to hit normally. What if I attack its lesser parts?’

Doing just that, he brought his blade swiftly across the golem’s top, decapitating the ugly red painted drone.

As with the previous time he beheaded a golem, though, the attack did not, by itself, disable the automotron. So Zan had to dish out more damage; he drawed from deep within himself to continue the fight and from the fact he damaged the new foe. But what next? ‘The legs!’ he thought. Circling around the golem too fast for it to respond, and therefore react to his attack, Zan crouched low and brought his blade clean across the golem’s one-step, two-step mockery of legs.

His intuition had been right! The legs, flimsy, wooden, for some reason, not reinforced, buckled, and allowed his blade to slice clean through.

Collapsing, Zan moved out of the way by a dodging roll. With aplomb, the golem fell to the earth, lifeless. He raised himself to a standing position and wiped the sweat from his brow. He did it! He killed the tough, new golem!

“Behind you!” a voice yelled. Jiehong?

He turned and saw another red golem upon him. Not just the one golem, he realized, but a whole group of them!

CRAP!

Zan tripped over himself and fell as he attempted to get himself into a proper defensive position. Being momentarily frozen in panic, he watched helplessly as Jiehong came to the rescue. He slammed and hurled the golems about like they were nothing, crushing even the red golem’s reinforced hull like it was nothing more than a tin can from a merchant cart.

Helping Zan up, Jiehong embraced him, and gave his buddy a friendly pat on the back, encouraging him to keep his guard up. “You were so focused on fighting that one group, you didn’t realize others were on you!” Jiehong explained, unnecessarily, Zan thought. He knew his mistake: “Sorry,” Zan replied. “I am getting tired…”

“We all are…” Jiehong lamented. But with nothing more needing to be said, Jiehong gave a pained expression, then barreled on back to his own position along the town's perimeter. "Duty calls!"

Seeing another enemy squad approach, and another, and another, Zan thought of anything he could do to turn the battle to his favor. Nothing came to mind. The arena was barren. It was just a field without any intriguing qualities.

Gritting his teeth, he raised his sword arm, wobbly as though it be, and prepared to fight despite the unwelcome state of his weapon. Dulled, bent, even, the sword would not be providing anymore quality service. Which meant he would have to try twice — nay — three times as hard for the same effect.

Huffing, Zan wondered if it could get any worse.

Of course, the answer was ‘yes,’ much worse, in fact.