He fell to his knees and began to weep as he said, "Please, spare me."
He thought that he had accepted the inevitable, but when he actually came face to face with it, he realized that he didn’t want to die. Apparently, his courage to face death had fled and left him to face death alone.
As he cried and wept like a child, the woman cocked her head to the side with confusion on her face. She looked like she didn’t understand why he was behaving the way he was.
She even asked, saying, "What is the problem, my child? What has beset you? Tell me, and I might be able to help."
But Greg didn’t reply. He continued to cry with tears streaming down his face like a waterfall. Even mucus had begun running down his nose. Apparently, he truly didn’t want to die.
As if she understood him, she nodded and said, "I am no stranger to problems so great that I can’t articulate them. I have seen many such problems over my many lifetimes. And sometimes, I have been the one to have those problems. It is truly a pity."
Then she turned away from him and looked into the distance.
After gazing at the world barrier one last time, she sighed and said, "This world is merciless, and problems abound at every turn."
"Take me for instance, I have been stuck for so many years. I am talented and hardworking, but I can’t go forward no matter how hard I try. This is because I am being blocked by a great force of nature. It is truly unfair."
Then she turned back to him with a smile and said, "Look at my handiwork. What do you think of it?"
As she said this, she took the ball of fire in her hand and brought it to Greg’s face. The proximity to the ball of fire caused Greg to experience a sudden surge in heat. The heat was so great that his eyebrow and hair melted onto his body.
This time, he felt pain, not just a minor inconvenience due to the heat. But the pain only made him cry even harder. He had become so distraught that his body was now shaking.
He didn’t answer her question, but she didn’t seem to mind. She continued to present the ball of fire with pride as she said, "Is it wonderful? Isn’t it great?"
When he didn’t reply, she sighed again and said, "Unfortunately, it is not perfect. It falls a little short of becoming divine."
Then she stared intensely at him and said, "You will help me make it divine if you could, right? Tell me that you would help me."
But Greg didn’t reply. Instead of assuring her that he would help her, he turned to run.
He stood up to run, but the ball of fire flared and lashed at his legs with a whip of fire. His legs didn’t resist at all. They were cleaved through as if they were sticks, not metal rods of great strength.
Without his legs, Greg fell to the ground. But he refused to give up.
With a thought, he used his mechanical arm to summon his mech. So the great silver mech in the hull of the ship activated its thrusters and broke out of the hull of the ship to save its master.
But the lady threw the ball of fire at the silver mech. The ball went through its chest and came out of the other side, leaving a tunnel of molten slag behind.
The injury to the silver mech put it out of commission instantly. Its eyes dimmed, and it slumped to the ground. Meanwhile, the ball of fire flew around like a boomerang towards its master.
As the ball of fire flew back into the waiting hand of the lady, she frowned and said, "What a selfish fellow. What do you want? Do you want me to beg you? Do you want me to get down on my knees and beg you to help me?"
As she spoke, Greg crawled away from her. So she had to walk towards him to keep up with him.
This made her say, "This is going to happen whether you like it or not. I have tried to be reasonable about this. I asked you for it instead of taking it outright. You could have asked me for something in exchange for your sacrifice, and I would have tried my best to fulfill it."
"But since you find helping me so abhorrent, I will forgo the courtesy, starting by telling you how I found you."
Greg was still walking away from her, which frustrated her. So she leapt to catch up to him. As she was descending from her jump, she smashed her small foot against his thigh.
The small foot immediately flattened Greg’s thigh. This was very painful to Greg as he screamed in pain, and he continued to scream at the top of his lungs because her foot remained pressing down on his thigh.
While this scream of pain was irritating to her, she had successfully pinned him to the ground, so he couldn’t continue to crawl away from her. So she found the cost of enduring his screams to be worth the sacrifice.
As he was screaming, she smirked and said, "Where are you rushing to with such urgency? Don’t you want to know how I found you? Don’t you want to know who sold you off?"
Greg didn’t answer and continued to scream in pain, but this only encouraged her to inflict more pain on him, both physical and psychological pain.
So she said, "It was your commander who told me your whereabouts. She said that you would be leaving the battlefield in 24 hours. So I stayed outside waiting for you."
"Imagine my happiness when I got her message. I didn’t even know that you existed. I thought I would die this lifetime without achieving anything more. But here we are."