Under the clear night sky, the group arrived at the bottom of a large canyon and took a defensive stance while Willheim began his search for a hidden path back to the facility.

"God fucking damn it! It should be around here. I swear I left a fucking rock around somewhere." Cussed Whillheim as he threw the rocks to the side while moving a particular card around the ground.

"It appears the secret back entrance to the laboratory of that facility is so extra fucking secret even you can't find it," said Ash while wondering if something happened to his head.

"Captain, do we really have to follow that maniac's plan?" said Kintoki, skeptical of Willheim's 'plan'.

"We have no choice. Remember, we all tested his word back in the forest. Our current weapons can't even scratch that thing's skin. The things' only weakness is the conductivity of its skin and faulty brain, which we all lack ways to take advantage of." Pierce spoke while remembering the test shots they made to the thing's kin back in the forest.

At first, all of them thought there was a limit to how far tech could go, but the child-like smooth white skin l after emptying an entire mag proved how wrong they were. And they understood their only way out was to take the gamble.

*Ding*

"Found it!"

"Shit!" But it doesn't mean they have to like it.

Eventually, they heard the clear sound of something getting moved by machinery. Following behind Wilheim, Ash and his team went down the ladder leading into a hidden lab.

Following the sound of their feet hitting the floor tiles, the long corridor began to light up to show their way but only revealed even more stomach-turning visions in front of them.

*Thump, thump, thump!*

With each sound of lights turning on, it showed part of a long metallic corridor covered with blood and organs of people who were ripped apart piece by piece or splattered into a million pieces like a ripe tomato by the high caliber bullet of rogue Bandersnaches.

"Great, yet another PTSD trigger."

"Tell me they killed themselves like this."

"No, they didn't! Now hurry! We need to get the arm-"

Trait Legacy Stash Effect Start with a generous amount of resources and one completed research of choice.

"No, let's go to the control room before those fucking nightmares come to us!"

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

*Beep*

"Insufficient authorization level!"

"Oh, wrong one."

*Ding*

With a sound, a sizeable mechanical door made of unknown metal opened in front of them, showing a lab full of corpses with a lab coats. Walking past them, the group arrived in front of a large vat covered with a protective curtain, and in front of it lay the corpses of two people, one old and a teenager.

"So this is The Patriot?" Jaesang spoke in wonder while walking toward the central control desk. He noticed a word carved in gold.

"Sylvesris?"

"Yeah, that is the name those maniacs gave to their walking weapon. That old coot you see on the ground? That creep even began to call it his child." mocked Willheim as he began to work on the controls; meanwhile, the others began to look around the lab, searching for a specific container.

"So, how will we use this thing ?"

"It's easy. I need to use this two-stage code." With a smile, Willheim took out two small boxes from his coat, and under their curious gazes, he opened the box. Inside those boxes, they saw a long string of codes carved on a clear jade-like slate.

"This is the activation code for The Patriot. One is for the US president, and the other one is for the Chinese President. It is supposed to allow the user to be recognized as a special controller by The Patriot. So I only need to use one of them." with a smirk, Willheim closed the lid of the US box and began the sequence to wake The Patriot up.

"Hey, Willheim, is this the container you spoke of ?"

Shen and Pierce showed the container that they were handling from both sides.

"Oh, HEY! HEY! HEY! DO YOU WANT US TO DISINTEGRATE INTO NOTHING!" Wilhelm almost shat his pants, seeing they were about to drop it on the ground as if they were handling a sack of potatoes.

"Okay, okay." both gently lowered the container to the ground, even though they got angry at his sudden freakout. Their life was more important.

"Calm down, okay." Seeing Whillheim freaking out like a rabid dog, they all stopped what they were doing and switched their sight to the container.

Noticing others giving him weird eyes, Willheim calmed himself down and began to speak when they gathered around him. "Sorry, sorry, I got a bit freaked out. Let me explain," he said, opening the lid of the container and showing six casings with a particular color about the size of their thumb. Each is arranged and tightly secured in neat lines with a generous amount of space between them.

"Those things are concentrated chaos energy. A sample the size of a fingernail of this thing contains enough energy to destroy this entire room. Also, it may be covered with an air-tight non-reactive cover, but it is so reactive that it explodes just by leaving it on the ground. Do you know why? Cause this thing reacts to anything that contains mana and other fantasy energy or elements on this whole atmosphere."

By the time Wilheim finished his explanation, the protective cover of the vat had begun to retract as a sign that the subject was ready for deployment. Now the only thing left was to upload the mission to its brain through the console.

The Patriot slowly emerged behind the protective cover. It appeared as a pale giant young woman with large hips and breasts but a small waist and shoulders. One of the most noticeable features besides it's size was two large deer-like antlers growing from the sides of its head, giving off faint but beautiful rainbow-colored light. Clad in thin scale-like armor, various wires and tubes connected to its armor.

It was certainly beautiful, but there was something discomforting about it. They couldn't figure out how to describe it, but there was definitely something wrong with it. It may be too perfect. Nothing was visually out of the ordinary about it, but its entire body exuded an odd aura—like staring at the doll.