In truth, General Baltro didn’t even know if this was a Machina or not! In all his years as a General, General Baltro had never seen a Machina with black mechanical augmentation, and he had never even heard about a Machina that fit the description of the one in front of him! Was this Machina part of some secret organisation within the army? General Baltro wouldn’t be surprised by that! The General knew that there were many secret experiments that took place in the military laboratory away from prying eyes, and the scientists were permitted to carry out these experiments by the Overlord! The soldiers knew better than to interfere with the Overlord’s orders, and that was why they didn’t bother trying to know what the secret experiments were.
But General Baltro couldn’t overlook the strange Machina right in front of him! This Machina had come to the same world as General Baltro’s soldiers and had done something strange up here before trying to escape! That was just too much of a coincidence for General Baltro to ignore!
The Shadow Machina suddenly raised its right hand, and General Baltro’s cannon blaster began to whirl as it prepared to fire! General Baltro spoke in a threatening voice!
"I will not warn you again. Turn off your blaster and turn around immediately! If you do not comply in the next five seconds, I will see you as an enemy and kill you. Five... four... three—"
The Shadow Machina immediately turned around and unleashed a blast on General Baltro, and General Baltro quickly brought up a defensive shield that blocked the blast! That one attack showed General Baltro that there was no reasoning with this Machina, and he immediately returned fire!
TWOON!
TWEON!
TWOON!
The Shadow Machina turned and blasted away as General Baltro began to fire at it, and General Baltro quickly turned on his comms and spoke to the soldiers on the ground while following behind the Shadow Machina!
"All units come in! We have an intruder attempting escape! He is headed north-north-west, and he is to be regarded as extremely dangerous! You have orders to incapacitate and capture! If he resists, you are permitted to use deadly force!"
General Baltro heard the soldiers respond immediately, and hundreds of Machina immediately began to fly off the ground as they began to chase down the Shadow Machina! The Shadow Machina looked around and saw the hundreds of Machina soldiers coming for it, and it felt a surge of anger rising from deep inside it! If these soldiers apprehended it, then it wouldn’t be able to complete its mission! Not completing your mission was the greatest crime a Shadow Machina could commit since it would mean that you were useless to your master! The Shadow Machina knew that it had miscalculated during the start of this mission! When the Shadow Machina first arrived at this world, it thought that the Machina soldiers were all busy trying to find Atlantis in the ocean, and it picked a window of opportunity when the Machina were all exhausted to quickly move in and analyse the rune before leaving! The Shadow Machina honestly thought it would be able to finish everything without anyone noticing it in the sky! But apparently, it had been wrong!
The Shadow Machina was a secret agent developed by the Grand General to carry out any mission that the Grand General didn’t want the rest of the army to know about! Its entire existence was dependent on the singular fact that the other soldiers didn’t know about it, and the Shadow Machina knew that being found out by these many soldiers would make it lose its purpose! That was something that could not happen, no matter what! And that meant the Shadow Machina only had one option in this moment! It had to kill all the Machina that had seen it! The Shadow Machina put its hand to the side, and a long, sharp blade suddenly shot out from its mechanical wrist! The blade started to spin like a chainsaw, and the edges turned bright red from the intense heat caused by the rotation! The Machina’s other hand transformed into a large Cannon blaster, and the Shadow Machina narrowed its eyes as it stopped running and quickly dashed to the side faster than any of the Machina could follow!
Slash! Slash! Slash! Slash!
One movement was enough for more than ten Machina soldiers to be cut down easily! General Baltro watched in shock as his men fell to the ground, and his eyes widened when he saw the Shadow Machina moving to attack another group of Machina! The General immediately shouted!
"Shift to defensive formation! The Rogue is stronger than expected!"
General Baltro immediately opened fire on the rogue Machina and tried to draw its attention towards him! General Baltro was an SSS Rank in the early stages, and the only reason he had been given this mission, even though he didn’t have the same raw strength as most other generals, was because he was one of the best when it came to underwater missions in the army! But from what General Baltro could see, it was obvious that the Shadow Machina was far stronger than he! It wasn’t a TITAN yet, but it was close to breaking through!
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
"Argh! Wait, I didn’t – Urk!"
Slash! Slash!
"Kill him! Kill him now!"
"Everybody open fire!"
Boom! Boom!
The sky above Riyad was suddenly filled with the screams and shouts of the Machina army as they fought desperately against the Shadow Machina! Massive explosions echoed through the sky as the Machina tried to kill the Shadow Machina, but the Shadow Machina was just far too quick for them to hit it, and even if they could hit it, their firepower was nowhere near enough to take down someone who was already on the edge of TITAN Rank! The Shadow Machina cut the soldiers down like weeds and tore through their numbers! There were many times when the Shadow Machina found an opening when it could escape, but its duty prevented it from doing that! The soldiers here had seen it, and they knew it existed, so that was enough reason for the Shadow Machina to kill all of them! But somewhere, deep inside the Shadow Machina’s heart, there was a feeling of grief and agony that surged through its body every time it cut down one of its own people!
The Shadow Machina deflected an attack from one of the Machina, and it grabbed the Machina by the face and put it in the path of a Cannon Blast from another Machina! The Machina died easily, and the Shadow Machina raised its hand and unleashed an attack that killed three more Machina beside it! The Shadow Machina raised its sword and was about to decapitate a female Machina at the side, and she screamed!
"Please don’t kill me! Wait!"
That scream did something to the Shadow Machina that forced it to hesitate for a moment! The Shadow Machina looked at the terrified face of the female Machina, and it felt a pained expression slowly forming on its face as it brought its sword down!
Squelch!
But another Machina suddenly appeared from behind and stabbed the Shadow Machina in the back while it was distracted, and the Shadow Machina whirled around sharply and cut off the Machina’s head!
Boom! Boom! Boom!
More cannon blasts came from around the Shadow Machina and slammed into it, and the Shadow Machina had to protect its chest as it felt sparks flying from the injury it had gotten!
’Why did I allow myself to be seen?’
The Shadow Machina suddenly found this thought running through its mind as it fought desperately against the soldiers all around it! The cannon blasts and magical attacks increased even more as the Machina soldiers began to gain the upper hand, and the Shadow Machina continued to fight even as it lost its strength more and more!
’Why am I even fighting anymore?’
The Shadow Machina deflected another sword from the Machina as it began to be pushed back, and the Shadow Machina failed to see General Baltro as he dashed forward and slashed down with a Magical Artefact!
Slash!