Azrak had rarely been forced to fight humans before. For him, fighting was a means of escaping harsh conditions. Relic hunting demanded it… You would venture into the most dangerous and mystery-shrouded relic zones of this wretched galaxy. With nothing but the modules integrated into your body and your own wisdom, you would chase after damned alien technologies.
Mud, dust, toxic gases, sudden deaths, terrifying robots, and many other horrors awaited a member of the Exosanguis. That was why Azrak had learned to smell the scent of war. The human instinct that had withered after becoming a cybernetic had resurfaced after joining the Exosanguis and constantly pursuing alien tech. Why? Because fear was what gave birth to human instinct. And the only thing cybernetics feared—where death was seen as a certainty—was relic hunting. Now, that fighting instinct was being carried through the cables that wound around his body, originating from the motor pumping his heart.
A drizzle had begun to fall. He had fallen to his knees behind a rock on a hill, waiting for the war he smelled to reveal itself. His drone companion, Jul, was charging one last time on his back. If the impending battle was as grand as his instincts warned, he might even need Jul.
Then they appeared… They emerged from a small valley, the light rain wetting their metallic bodies. They scanned the surroundings with their visors, which flickered with hologram lasers. Their main target was the road… or rather, the transport vehicle they expected to be on that road. There were thirty-two of them. Each resembled a mechanical monster, yet the humans lying within were visible. These men, smelling of war and reminiscent of hell's knightly legions, were descending the hill with heavy steps.
The hill was muddy… the rain was soaking the earth. As they descended, they moved with the utmost caution. They were wary… As the last one emerged from that small valley and began the descent, the team at the very front had already started scanning the road with a light emitted from their hands. The man in mechanical armor, likely their leader, wiped the rain from his visor while heatedly trying to tell his men that the tracks had vanished there.
Yes… finally, war had reached the doorstep. All Azrak had to do was open that door and greet the battle.
When the armored men failed to find what they hoped for, they began glancing at one another. Some drew their weapons and took up guards, but none considered the direction they had come from as a threat. Guns would be insufficient because their armor was far too thick. So, he reached for his back. A metal capsule leaped from his spine into his hand. When he grasped it, the capsule transformed into a hilt. The specialized, sharp metal emerging from the tip of the capsule became a sword blade. This was it… A hunter's true weapon had always been a cutting tool. Now, that blade would be used to break metallic bones, shred plastic veins, and take mechanical lives.
He increased his heart rate. The fluids and electricity in his plastic veins spread through his entire body at several times his normal speed. In fact, so much electricity was surging through him that sparks occasionally arced from his frame. Although the rain falling from the sky destabilized the electrification, Azrak filled his body with as much power as possible.
He gripped his sword. He thought of praying to a god for luck in his hunt, like the hunters of old. But there was no prayer he knew, no god he recognized. Whether he emerged victorious or died here, it wouldn't be the work of a god. Neither outcome would be a matter of luck. It would be his skills.
One of the soldiers turned around. He looked back toward the hill they had descended. A human instinct sprouted once more. Just because he was human, he wanted to look back at where they came from… But that brief glance caused him to notice something. Behind the rocks, something moved. In seconds, a man appeared, sparks of electricity striking the ground with every step he took…
He arrived incredibly fast… While mud splashed and electricity surged, he appeared before the armored man before a single breath could be taken. First, he severed the arm holding the weapon with his sword, then opened a gash in the man's abdomen. The other robots stared at the robot that had suddenly exploded.
The cybernetic hunter had already torn three or four robots to pieces. But his instantaneous speed was dropping; the power he drew from the hill was beginning to fade. As bullets converged on him one after another, he ran and dove into the midst of the robots. Some of the robots fired at each other. Others, instead of firing, tried to land mechanical punches.
Evading the strikes, he used his sword with great mastery, riddling the robots with holes. But the robots continued to stand as long as their vital points remained unsevered. Azrak put all his strength into his legs and lunged onto the shoulders of the mechanical robot in front of him. He plunged his blade like a dagger through the edge of the metal helmet and down into the neck. As the man writhed in agony, Azrak continued to spill all his blood.
An armored man trying to catch the intruder on his comrade's shoulder lunged forward; as Azrak leaped off the shoulder, he slashed a long gash across the back of the man trying to grab him. At that moment, he dodged a punch thrown at his stomach by another mechanical man. He slashed the extended hand, shredding it… As he took a step back while shredding it, someone else swung a punch from the left. A backstep to the right, he plunged the blade into the fist and pulled it out. A man appearing behind him landed a punch on his back. The punch was so violent that he felt the entire tremor of the impact's force throughout his body.
As he fell to the ground from the impact, he made sure to turn onto his back. Most of the mechanical components representing his ribs and the skeletal system near them must have been severely damaged by that blow because when he tried to stand up immediately after falling, his body glitched for a second.
Taking advantage of that split-second error, the armored man crushed Azrak's right arm—the one holding the sword—under his massive foot. The armored man reached for his back, about to pull out a massive rifle, but Azrak acted faster. He reached for the metal plate on his leg with his left hand and grabbed the crescent-shaped weapon behind the plate. That weapon was a rather weak ballistic firearm. But it was more than enough to hurt a target this close.
He fired repeatedly at the visor. As the glass of the visor began to crack, the panicked armored man pulled back. With electricity surging through his body, Azrak righted himself with a backward flip. This war was just beginning, and he could not afford to lose it so easily.
He gripped the sword tightly and began to run. He knew that if he moved into the open, he would become a target for bullets. Leaping, he threw himself onto one of the mechanical men and plunged his sword into the chest of the unprepared soldier. For the first time, when he pulled his sword back, there was blood on it. As the lifeless body of the armored man collapsed to the ground, his enraged comrade tried to crush Azrak with his foot. Azrak performed a backflip and landed on the robot behind him, plunging his blade into the man's helmet while firing wildly with the gun in his other hand. If the battle continued like this, it would take hours.
A sense of despair began to envelop Azrak's body because he had to struggle for minutes just to bring down one armored man. How many had he taken down so far… at most, one or two… because when he looked up, he could see the armored men walking toward him despite their mangled limbs.
He pulled his sword and noticed there was no blood on the tip. Yet he had just driven his sword through the very top of the robot's head. He had expected the sword to pierce the body of the man inside the armor and for the blood to coat the inside of the suit up to the visor upon extraction. At that moment, the mechanical armor slowly leaned over. As the armor tilted, he came face to face with the man who had thrown himself onto the ground on his back in military fatigues.
These men were highly trained. The moment Azrak had climbed onto the robot, this man must have ejected himself from the suit. As the soldier lying on his back began firing at Azrak with the gun from his pocket, Azrak realized he couldn't dodge the bullets. As the bullets landed on his body one after another, he wondered how much his frame could endure when the mechanical armor beneath him suddenly exploded.
Azrak was hurled meters away by the force of the explosion. First, he flew off the road, then bounced several times on the sand. He continued rolling in the sand until his head touched the water.
"Damn it!" Azrak said. "I'm severely underestimating them!"
Many points in his body were giving red alerts. He needed a few seconds for his body to recover before he could jump back up and rejoin them. First, he rose to his knees, then stood up, drawing strength from his arm. His head was spinning, or rather, his balance modules must have been damaged. As he took his sword and assumed a guard position, he locked eyes with Hikmar.
Hikmar stood beneath the road with an air of absolute confidence. He had driven his staff into the ground directly in front of him and was clinging to it in a kneeling position.
"Curse it!" Azrak groaned. "Come on, body! Get it together!"
Because the damned armored men leaped off the road. As soon as they jumped, they noticed Hikmar beneath the road. The moment they saw the transport vehicle behind Hikmar, they began firing at him. Hikmar activated his energy shield; while bullets struck the shield one after another and fell, one of the armored soldiers stepped forward with a rocket launcher on his shoulder.
The moment he aimed the rocket launcher at Azrak and fired, Azrak's body had already recovered. With a burst of speed, he ran and dove into the midst of the robots trying to fire at Hikmar. He severed the leg of one mechanical man and the arm of another, but then he realized the rocket he had dodged had changed direction and was coming back for him. As he ran to escape the rocket, it followed him at full speed.
He ran across the sand, jumped onto the road, and sprinted along it. While his body emitted electricity, that cursed missile continued to pursue him. At that moment, an idea struck him. He dove into the crowd of armored men at full speed and used one of them as a barricade. When the armored man was struck by the missile, many others were scattered by the force of the explosion.
Azrak fell once more, skipping meters away. Dark smoke surrounded the area; many suits had been shattered by the blast. The men emerging from their armor were righting themselves with the help of their comrades. They searched for Azrak through the black smoke with their weapons in hand.
Azrak counted out of the corner of his eye and realized at that moment that those he had killed were only a few men. This war… this war was more difficult than he had imagined. If he wanted to win this battle, he had to exceed his own limits. If he pushed past his boundaries, if he set his humanity aside, he could win this war.
He tried to stand up but couldn't because of his severed leg. "My leg? No! All my speed comes from there! Damn it!" He took his leg in his hand and began slowly crawling on the ground.
At that moment, one of the armored men spotted Azrak through the smoke. He alerted his friends while aiming his massive rifle at Azrak.
"He's here! The damned cybernetic is here!" "Kill him already, man!" "Commander! He looks pretty wounded! If you want to interrogate him…" "No!" a voice came from somewhere. "Just kill him!"
Just as the armored man was about to pull the trigger, a violent electrical current began to strike his armor. While the suit trembled violently from the current, Jul appeared behind the falling armor.
"Jul! Get me out of here!"
Jul fired a massive hook. The hook embedded itself in Azrak's arm. As Jul suddenly began to ascend into the air, Azrak followed behind him. While Azrak flew toward the hill and into the rocks, only a few of the armored men trying to tend to their wounded realized what was happening and opened fire in that direction.
Jul was a very small target. Most of the bullets missed him, but they inflicted even more damage on Azrak's already ravaged body. Finally, Jul found a rock where he could hide Azrak. As Azrak removed the bullets embedded in his body, Jul had already begun welding Azrak's severed leg.
"Damn it, Jul! They're incredibly strong…" he said, glancing down from the hill. A group of soldiers was firing repeatedly at Hikmar's energy shield. Other armored soldiers were trying to prepare a large bomb. Containers were being moved, ammunition was being dismantled, and much more… "…I can't defeat them normally. And I don't know how long Hikmar's energy shield will last. You have to hurry…"
Jul fixed his bright blue eye on Azrak. Azrak ran his hand over the drone's head. "Don't worry, friend… I'll be fine… I have to do this. I have to take a risk. For you… For me…"
At that moment, the soldiers were carefully placing metal barricades they had taken from their bags. They must have been aiming to turn that area into a fully equipped front for themselves.
"These soldiers are highly trained… but they're definitely not experienced. They know what they need to do, but they don't know how to do it. They must have never fought a cybernetic before. A cybernetic should never be left just like that. Because I can repair myself and come back."
Jul pushed against Azrak's chest with his head as if worried. Azrak gave a light laugh, pushed the drone back with his hand, and said:
"Don't worry… nothing's going to happen to me, you silly thing. I definitely won't leave you alone. Besides, my first attack wasn't that bad. Even if it seems like I didn't accomplish much, I've left many of their suits in ruins… This time, I'm going to be truly ferocious. To drive the nail in, first you hit it lightly, then with all your strength, Jul."
Then he handed the sword in his hand to Jul. "Use this for my leg, Jul. If you melt this down, you'll make a very strong joint. As for me… I'll use my fists now," he said, clenching his hands.