What the h.e.l.l is going on?”

Dawn reached out her ma.s.sive gauntleted hand and grabbed the messenger by the front of his s.h.i.+rt .

“A scouting party was out on a mission and saw a large number of the robots gathering . They were different from usual and attacked the scouts when they got close . Most of our men were killed or badly wounded .

Dawn didn’t have time to press for more information . A shrill alarm rose through the camp, warning against an impending attack .

All of a sudden the clattering of metal sounded from all directions . A horde of robotic beasts came charging at them . They came in all manner of shapes and sizes; some were like snakes lizards or other reptiles while others were as large as jaguars . They came from the air, on land and underground . No two were exactly the same but all were made entirely from metal . Some were rusty or covered in moss, and a couple even sprouted small shrubs .

Although they were entirely mechanical, they still gave the impression of being real living things . The way they moved was just like the creatures they were modeled after . To Cloudhawk, it reminded him of the time he was caught in the monster wave way back in Blackflag Outpost .

Only these were definitely not the same sort of monsters . Being made from metal, normal weapons were ineffective against them . Bullets and blades glanced off their hides, which was composed of a st.u.r.dy high-grade alloy .

The mechanical beasts began their attack . A pack of two-headed robot wolves led the charge .

Running fast as lightning, the construction of their bodies – from the most complex joint to the smallest detail – was incredibly coordinated . The science behind their making was impeccable, like works of art .

“Fast!”

Dawn recognized that these creatures were much faster than their organic counterparts . Their inner working were filled with servos and hydraulics and other strange systems . The wolves, for instance, had small jets affixed to either flank to give it a boost of speed .

The wolves kicked off the ground, jets of flame erupted from underneath it, catapulting the robot into the air . In a blink they were a dozen meters above the settlers . Wings of woven metal feathers stretched from their backs which flashed under the harsh light of the sun . Beautiful and terrifying . As they swept by overhead their four eyes came alive, and beams of condensed energy fires onto the camp .

Zgggt! Shhhhggt!

Lasers powerful enough to slice through iron plates were dragged through the area . Several wastelanders were too slow and were sliced in half .

Other robots were not idle while the wolves attacked . One critter in the shape of a spider skittered to the top of a nearby dune still some distance from the camp . It dug its eight legs into the dirt and stone as an anchor while energy coalesced in front of it in the shape of an arm . A few moments later it released it toward the camp, a condensed energy cannonball .

It sored far overhead, traveling thousands of meters before cras.h.i.+ng into the wastelanders with pin-point accuracy!

None of these robots were typical machines . They all had powerful and deadly weapons, could fly or burrow and attacked in an endless stream . Once again it proved how superior their construction was . Their destructive capabilities were degrees of magnitude greater than typical mutant creatures .  

Cloudhawk raised his hand and a pale white light sprang to life . It spread until it covered him and those close by . The lasers and orbs of energy that came cras.h.i.+ng toward him dissipated against the s.h.i.+eld .

While Cloudhawk bought them time Dawn capitalized on it . With both hands wrapped around Terrangelica’s hilt she jabbed it toward the sky . One of the robotic wolves above was caught in an invisible field of gravity . As though caught off guard by some unseen giant hand, it plummeted from the air and was driven into the stony ground . A crater emerged from within a plume of dust as the unyielding earth gave way . The wolf was smashed into a heap of twisted metal and sparkling circuitry .

Dawn’s Dawnbreaker Armor began to glow . With her sword held high she shouted at her soldiers . “Chaaaarge!”

Her words were like thunder through the air, and hung there as her armor’s helm closed up . She was a towering steel fortress leading the Wendigo King, Coal and the wasteland soldiers to battle . A capable answer to the robotic threat was finally mustered .

Dawn was immediately recognized as a core of the settlers’ defense and quickly became the focus of the machines . All at once their lasers and energy weapons were turned on her, but the Dawnbreaker Armor proved to be especially resistant to energy attacks . Despite the deluge of attacks her defenses were impenetrable .

Terrangelica sang as it whipped through the air .

Stone broke and dirt s.h.i.+fted . Stony Plains looked more like an ocean as the ground rolled before Dawn’s charge . The turret spiders were obliterated . The waves of earth were followed by crus.h.i.+ng gravitational flux that either flattened the robotic threat or lifting them high into the air .

The Wendigo King dashed across the stony ground like a fatal shadow . He streaked by and any robot in his wake exploded into shrapnel . Coal trundled after him, pounding more of the creature flat or smas.h.i.+ng them to pieces .

The other wasteland warriors had armed themselves with prototype eboncrys rifles . Their beams of energy were fired back at the machines, strong enough to blast through their st.u.r.dy armor . If the shot was well aimed they could drop one of the creatures with a single shot .

Dawn leaned on her overwhelming defense, ignoring the attacks levied at her and pus.h.i.+ng forward .

She ran through a number of the creatures like a freight train and soon found herself in the thick of them . She hacked her sword at the head of the closest one . Before Terrangelica reached its target a field of gravity emerged . It was reduced to sc.r.a.p iron without her even touching it . Dawn wasn’t cutting them apart so much as using Terrangelica to wield gravity as a weapon .

In her time Dawn had achieved impressive martial ability . After Terrangelica’s transformation she was stronger than ever . With this incredible relic no average enemy was a threat to her . By this point there was probably only a handful of people who were willing to stand toe to toe against the Lady Polaris .

Now it was time for Cloudhawk to get involved . When he did, no one was able to see his movements clearly .

With every second he appeared in a dozen different places . Just a flash, a simple movement, and then he was gone . The machines he appeared before were nudged by a field of pale light and half a breath later blew to pieces . None of the creatures lasted more than a fraction of a second .

The surprise attack was small in scale . Though there were casualties, they were few in number and order was quickly restored .

Once it was safe Cloudhawk called for h.e.l.lflower to join them .

Small though this attack was it did not bode well . These robotic creatures had shown no interest in the settlers until today . Now suddenly they were gathering into groups and attacking his camp . There had to be a reason, it was h.e.l.lflower’s job to figure out what that was .

“There are two possibilities . ”

“One . The amount of energy being acc.u.mulated in the camp has attracted their attention . The eboncrys factors have only recently been completed and the materials brought over . Since these creatures require pure energy to survive, it would make sense for them to sense and be drawn to our caches . ”

“Second . There is someone or something commanding them from behind the scenes . After all, these robots cannot procreate so someone had to have built them . What’s more, they had to have been produced and maintained here on this world which means something is out there . We can make attempts to find out what that mysterious power is . ”

Two worlds with two very different scientific accomplishments .

h.e.l.lflower couldn’t decipher the secrets of these machines because she lacked the foundation . There was no way to tell if these machines could really think for themselves . If they did have a way to learn and evolve, then it was possible there was some sort of hyper-intelligent machine out there controlling the others .

If, on the other hand, they were just machines then their actions and reactions all had to be the result of programming . That meant there had to be a programmer . Whoever or whatever advanced intelligence that was controlled these things from afar .

Cloudhawk felt that h.e.l.lflower’s estimations made sense . Whichever turned out to be true, there would need to be more investigation into the matter .

One thing was certain . If this world could produce machines like this, there had to be a factory somewhere, a factory that was capable of producing incredibly advanced technology . If they could use this world's resources, the Green Alliance would be able to rapidly improve its production levels . That would make their war on Arcturus easier .

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