In one smooth move, Rachel jumped from her rooftop, landing in front of Ollie and punching to release a massive wave of flas that exploded in front of her. Fire and the laser clashed mid air, creating a small sun that lit up the plaza. The beam split around her, cutting into the roof on both sides, but completely missing Ollie.
Lily used the distraction. She braced against a broken wall, put her deagles away and focused on one of the smaller chs wrestling with Gale.
Blue energy gathered between her hands, forming a bright lance of light. The air rippled as the energy built up.
"Gale!" she called.
Gale twisted, positioning the smaller ch between himself and Lily. He flattened himself against the larger machine's surface.
Lily fired the blue lance. It shot across the plaza and hit the smaller ch on Gale. The energy went through its tal shell, blasting the arm away and freeing him from the wrestling match.
He jumped off the surface toward the six-legged giant's head. In mid-air, he activated Phase Touch, applying it to the edge of the blade. Alter activated as well, stretching Weber into a spear.
Moving past the spider ch's head, reflection shot out from the blade of the spear. Phase Touch spread along the reflection's edge, hitting what probably was its neck joint. The reflection t no resistance, cutting cleanly through tal and whatever it had inside.
The six legged ch's head fell off, hitting the plaza floor with a loud crash. The rest of the machine stood still for three seconds, then collapsed, legs spreading outward as it crashed down.
[Max Load breached: 200/150]
A sharp pain hit Gale's head. Not as bad as before, but still there.
[S6CH felled.]
[Extracting Origin from Prey…]
[Origin Grain: 2]
The remaining smaller chs didn't run. Instead, they attacked harder.
Ollie held both hands toward the smaller ch that had been chasing Gale. A blue outline spread from his fingers as he grabbed the ch with telekinesis. The ch fought against the force, legs scratching at nothing.
"Got this one!" Ollie called, teeth clenched as he focused. Sweat ford on his forehead while he held the ch in the air. "Sobody finish it!"
Kyle pulled himself out from under the fallen leg of the large ch. He flipped his dagger once, then threw it perfectly. The blade stuck in the bottom of the floating ch.
In a blue flash, Kyle appeared where the dagger hit, hanging from the suspended machine. He pulled out his Glock and shot up into the ch's exposed parts, hitting critical components.
The machine's legs curled inward as systems failed. Ollie kept his telekinetic hold, letting Kyle keep shooting until his gun was empty. Sparks and fluid sprayed from the holes as the ch's lights went out.
Across the plaza, Lily tracked the last remaining ch. It moved between buildings, trying to hide after being hit by her first lance.
She raised both hands again, whispering as blue energy ford between her palms. This ti it was brighter, focused to a small point.
"Last one," she said, following the ch's movent.
The blue lance shot from her hands, hitting the ch dead centre. The lance burned through its main body, lting through the tal. It twitched before dropping.
Gale landed on the tal floor, allowing Breath of the Void to recede.
Kyle slid down from the hanging ch as Ollie let go, dropping the empty shell to the ground.
"Okay," Kyle holstered his pistol and picked up his dagger. "That was pretty good. For a rookie, I an."
Clyde joined them. "Bet you I would've done more damage if my shot landed."
Rachel vaulted from the roof, landing beside Ollie as heat emanated from her still glowing red hot gauntlets. She asked, "Everyone okay?"
Lily walked toward them, putting her Deagles away. "I'm fine. Those things fought smarter than I expected."
"Typical robots. Very coordinated," Ollie said, rolling his shoulder where he'd hit the ventilation unit.
Gale knelt beside the fallen head of the six-legged ch, checking how it was built. The cut was clean where his Alter augnted by Phase Touch had separated it. Inside, he saw complex circuits and what looked like computer parts sliced in half.
"Ti to grab so loot?" Kyle said, already moving towards one of the lesser spider chs.
Ollie put a hand on his chin as he looked at the fallen chas. "Kyle's right. Can't miss this chance to loot and run. Hopefully, so parts still work after what we did to them."
Kyle sifted through the fallen ch. "Now you're talking sense, boss."
"Finally, so return on investnt. Those were expensive rounds I just used." Clyde joined in on the sifting through.
"Are you serious right now?" Rachel sighed.
"Why is it that the idiot trio always think with their wallets?" Lily said.
"Idiot trio?" Kyle looked up from examining a damaged laser barrel. "That's a new one."
"You just had a life and death fight," Rachel said, "and the first thing you thought is 'let's take souvenirs'?"
"More importantly, the noise might've attracted other things. You know, like things that want to throw missiles at you or laser you to death." Lily stepped closer to a building's wall.
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Kyle pulled a small component from the ch's body, turning it over in his hands. "Co on, Rachel. Live a little. This tech could fund my retirent."
"Your retirent from what? Being an asshole?" Rachel said.
Clyde laughed, "don't forget the 'rich' part of the asshole."
Ollie looked between Kyle and Clyde, then shrugged. "Hey, I tried."
"Won. No fun at all," Kyle muttered.
"Stuck up too," Clyde said, not looking up from his hacking away at the fallen head. "It's in their nature."
"For being won?" Kyle said.
Rachel's combat gauntlets flashed briefly with heat, but she took a deep breath and ignored the twins. She turned to check the group. "Who needs dical?"
Kyle raised his free hand without stopping his scavenging. "I could use so. Hit that wall pretty hard when the big bastard threw ."
"Sa," Rachel massaged her shoulders. "Absorbing that laser beam wasn't exactly gentle on the joints."
Gale took out two syringe guns from the space storage and tossed one each to Kyle and Rachel.
Kyle caught it with one hand while the other was pulling sothing out from the insides of a ch's head. "Thanks, porter."
Rachel used her syringe gun on her neck right away. The device hissed as green light went through her body. She straightened, rolling her shoulders as they relaxed.
Kyle finished pulling out what looked like a processing unit before using his syringe gun. The green glow spread across his face as he leaned against the dead ch.
"Much better," Kyle said, putting the empty syringe gun in his pocket. He went back to his scavenging with new energy.
Rachel turned to Gale. "What about you? Need one?"
Gale checked himself, moving his arms and shoulders. "No. Surprisingly, I don't feel any pain."
True, but kind of scary how sturdy his body had beco. Even wrestling with bears back then gave him so bruises here and there. Wrestling a fifteen foot spider ch didn't take out much from him.
"Perks of advancent," Ollie said.
"Are entities within rifts usually this difficult?" Gale asked.
Kyle looked up from his work, holding a twisted piece of tal. "Not usually. This is the first ti rift entities have been this difficult to deal with."
Clyde stood up from the garbage. "Smart and coordinated is more dangerous than just being strong."
"At least with brute force, you know what you're getting," Kyle said. "These things plan. Adapted. That's not normal."
"I felt sothing when we were fighting it. Sothing inside these guys before they died, but can't put my finger on it," Clyde said.
"I noticed it too. Sothing familiar but wrong," Lily said. "Usually the strength of rift entities matches the class of the rift. I'd call this a Class 4 rift, but sohow the beings inside are stronger than normal."
"Class 4?" Gale asked.
"Rifts are classified by danger level and how strong the entities inside are," Lily explained. "Class 1 is weakest, Class 6 is the most dangerous we know about. Class 4 should have entities that can match Resonants in strength."
"But these felt stronger," Rachel said.
Kyle stood up, brushing tal bits from his jacket. "Plus they had tech we've never seen before. Those lasers cut through everything like it was paper."
"The construction is completely foreign. Nothing I've ever seen before, especially not in other rifts," Clyde said.
Lily looked to one of the laser barrels that Clyde had rummaged through. "The weapons systems fit into their bodies perfectly. Like they were built specifically for combat."
"Built or grown?" Rachel asked. "So of those components looked organic."
Ollie turned his head to the tower beyond. "That's enough lesson for now. We need to move."
Kyle and Clyde threw the components to Gale, who put them in his space storage imdiately.
"Form up. Sa positions as before," Ollie said.
The group moved into formation without talking. Lily went ahead, disappearing between the spires and buildings along their path. Gale took his position with the main group, Weber gripped tightly on his right hand while watching left and right for any sign of movent.
Rachel moved to her rear guard position, watching behind them as they left the plaza. Kyle flanked left, staying close enough to help Gale if needed. Clyde and Ollie kept their backline positions, weapons ready.
The group continued moving through the streets. Soon enough, the buildings grew more dense. Less open space, less light coming into the streets from the moons. The tal buildings took on a different shape, curves that created shadows that looked more like trees than skyscrapers.
Behind them, Gale felt and heard the distant rumbling that grew louder by the second. The sound of tal legs hitting the street, multiple sets moving together. More spider chs were heading to the plaza they'd just left.
"Told you the noise would bring company," Lily's voice ca from her position ahead.
"At least they're not chasing us," Kyle said.
"They're checking the damage," Clyde said. "Probably trying to figure out what happened to their friends."
Rachel glared at Kyle. "This is exactly why I said we shouldn't stop to loot everything."
Kyle shrugged. "We got what we ca for. No harm done. Look on the bright side, our loot is with our storage specialist space thingy. No burden on our movent. No harm on us."
"No harm?" Rachel whispered harshly. "We could have had a much worse ti because you wanted to loot for your vacation."
"But we weren't," Kyle whispered back. "And now we're rich. Win-win."
Clyde laughed softly. "Bro, I don't think our resident sheltered rich Ann family daughter appreciates the small things in life."
"She'll appreciate it when we're counting our profits back on Earth," Kyle said.
Rachel's combat gauntlets flashed briefly with heat.
"Chiiiill," Kyle grinned. "What's the worst that could happen?"
Gale's heart dropped as he heard what Kyle just said. In every book he read before, that question always ant disaster for the characters. Sothing really bad was about to happen.
Ollie cleared his throat from his position at the rear. "Save the argunts for later. We need to focus."
The group continued through the empty streets.
Gale noticed how the buildings got more detailed as they got closer to the central tower. The simple shapes changed to flowing designs that looked almost grown instead of built.
The tower itself looked bigger now, filling their view ahead to the point that it hurt to even look up.
After twenty minutes of careful walking, the street opened into another plaza. This one was smaller than the battlefield they'd left behind but showed signs of recent activity. tal had been lted and reshaped into strange art across the ground.
Lily appeared at the plaza's edge, hand raised to signal stop. The group froze in place, weapons ready.
Gale felt it before he saw it. Sothing that made his skin crawl, a signature that sent warnings through his tendrils. Sothing powerful waited ahead.
A huge spider ch ca out from behind a spire, making everyone's jaws drop. It was way larger than anything they'd t before. It had eight legs, not six nor four. Its body structure looked different too. Rather than looking like a robot, it had organic curves and threads that held up its massive weight.
Weapons covered its surface, but they looked like part of its organic tal-like body rather than attachnts. Laser cannons pulsed readily. Missile racks rotated systematically as if it was scanning the floor below. A consistent sharp whine of familiar laser weaponry filled the air.
But what really bothered Gale wasn't the size or the weapons. It was the ether signature that ca from the giant spider ch. It was at the level of a Resonant. Clear as day, like that thing was an organic being.
It was supposed to be impossible for machines to have any kind of signature at all.
"What the hell is that?" Kyle whispered, his earlier confidence gone.
Analyze.
[S8ch]
[Description: A loyal citizen of the Architect's Tomb.]
[Physical attributes: 24 laser systems. 48 gatling guns. 16 missile pads. No weaknesses.]
A citizen of this place? That gave Gale more questions than answers. Were they really not clankers as he thought they were? This whole place scread of a fallen civilization.
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