"The D-1000... What are they doing here?!!!" Cissel’s voice was a jagged edge of disbelief. She skidded to a halt, her daggers dropping into a low, defensive guard.
In front of them, roughly a thousand tres away in the heart of the clearing, five humanoid machines had surrounded their two friends. These weren’t the clunky automatons of a primitive age; they were sleek, death-white shells of polished tal.
Each machine held a long-barreled laser rifle in its right hand, while the left held a pulsing, cage-like tallic device that humd with a low-frequency vibration.
The transition from the wild horror of the living Fog Seeker monsters to the cold, unliving technology was a whiplash that none of them expected.
"Do you know what these are?!!" Elena hissed, her knuckles white as she gripped her sledgehamrs.
John ignored her. His mind was already moving to fully grasp their current, sudden, and dangerous situation. He scanned the machines, yet they were too far for his Wirefra Sight to give detailed information. All he could tell was that they were made out of green code structure, and they weren’t here to talk!
Lacking any information from his ability, and no previous reference from his life on Earth in the past, he turned his sharp gaze toward Cissel.
"Tell ," John commanded, his voice a low growl of focus. "What’s the most important aspect of these things? What are their deadliest weapons, what are their weaknesses, and how do we kill them?"
He didn’t care, unlike the two girls, about how they were present in this world, or how they had bypassed the fog. He was already well aware of their presence, as his very first quest since coming to this world was related to the sound devices the machines planted around them.
He also recalled the bits and pieces of information his friends shared after they ca here. They spoke about how machines had access to the Source Code World, shielding it from humans.
All of that and more flashed fast in his mind, but nothing of that mattered now. What mattered was the laser guns these D-1000 had. John didn’t know how lethal these were, but cross-referencing these with Sci-fi blockbuster movies from his ti, he knew they weren’t toys for show.
"The only weak point is a charging port behind the nape of their necks," Cissel answered rapidly, ignoring Elena’s confusion. She spoke with the authority of soone who had studied these models in a textbook or had a long history of fighting them.
"Their movent speed is relatively slow because their bodies are extrely heavy, and their leg actuators are thin to save weight. But their lethality is in that laser gun. It fires pulses of high-temperature laser—near-instantaneous travel ti, high thermal yield. If you get hit, you’re get a hole in your body before even feeling the pain."
"Then...?" John looked at her, his eyes demanding a practical solution. He totally ignored how much she knew about them; it didn’t matter at all to him right now. Surviving this and saving Luke and Ricky did.
"They have so sort of delay," Cissel added after few monts of deep thinking, her eyes narrowing as she watched the machines getting closer to Ricky and Luke. "They are optimised for high-value, slow-moving targets. Their sensors have a hard ti locking onto high-velocity, erratic movent. If you stop moving, you die."
"Stay here, Elena," John ordered. He knew the girl was powerful, but she hadn’t unlocked her attributes yet. Her speed was still lower than his and Cissel’s. "Keep a close eye on the fog periter. Shout if anything else approaches. We can’t afford to be third-partied while dealing with these deadly tin cans."
"Wait..." Elena started, her voice trembling. The alien nature of the D-1000s terrified her. Yet there was no ti to waste to calm her; the machines were getting closer to the two captive friends every passing second, seemingly intending to use the cage-like devices on the two.
"What’s the plan?" Cissel asked as they began to run forward.
"It’s simple. We keep moving in circles," John said, his eyes fixed on the machines. He saw the torso of one of them begin to swivel toward them. "We move in tightening spiral circles at maximum velocity. We stay in their peripheral blind spots until we’re close enough to strike."
"Cool," Cissel whispered.
Their approach finally triggered the machines’ threat-assessnt sensors. Two of the D-1000s detached from the circle around Luke and Ricky, rotating their torsos 180 degrees with a whining sound of internal motors. The other three surrounded the two captives, but they stopped moving closer, ready to intervene and help the other two machines if needed.
"Get away!" Luke’s voice bood across the air, his face strained as he finally spotted John and Cissel running. "They’re deadly! Our attacks aren’t even scratching the paint!"
"Just get ready to run whenever we create an opening!" John shouted back. He gave Cissel a sharp nod, and the two of them suddenly broke in opposite directions, splitting the machines’ tracking sensors.
*Fwoosh!*
A searing line of white light sliced through the air exactly where John had been standing a second prior. The heat was so intense it left a gap at the ground with thin dancing line of smoke. John didn’t slow down; he knew he couldn’t survive a direct hit.
’Speed Lock!’
He activated his ability, further delaying the machines, plus adding more speed to Cissel and himself.
"Now?" Cissel shouted as they closed the distance to five tres, while the two D-1000 kept firing like they were shooting flies!
Ricky, who had been unnervingly silent, suddenly squeezed the hilts of his twin swords, his eyes glowing with anticipation. Luke tightened his grip on his massive wooden club, his muscles bulging as he prepared to capitalise on the distraction.
"Attack and kill!" John roared.
He saw the D-1000 in front of him, level its laser gun. Instead of jumping, John perford a high-speed slide, gliding across the dirt on his montum as the laser pulse humd inches above his head. Using his slide to bypass the machine’s front, he pushed off the ground, twisting his body in mid-air to reach for the nape.
’Object Lockdown! MP Absorption! Code Destruction!’
He threw the three abilities at the point of weakness, hoping to bypass the physical armour.
*Clang!* *Clang!* *Crack!*
Successive tallic strikes echoed through the air. Cissel had reached her target simultaneously, her daggers flashing like lightning. But they had underestimated the D-1000. A reinforced plate of titanium-alloy snapped shut over the nape weak spot the mont they got close.
Only John’s Code Destruction worked, leaving behind a small hole that seed to not greatly impact the D-1000 he attacked.
However, the distraction was perfect.
"HRAAAH!" Luke lunged forward, his massive club whistling through the air. He struck the closest machine with all the strength he had, sending the D-1000 flying ten tres through the air. Ricky moved like a shadow, his two swords flickering against the remaining two enemies in a series of sparks.
*Clang!* *Clang!* *Thud!*
One D-1000 crashed to the ground, struggling to get up after Luke’s blow. Ricky’s blades, however, t the sa resistance as John’s and Cissel’s. The white tal didn’t even dent.
"Told you! It’s pointless!" Luke yelled. He swung his club again, batting another machine away like a baseball.
"Their weak spot is reinforced!" Ricky gritted his teeth. "Their entire bodies are!"
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