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“No one leaves without permission from Mother,” Rayner spoke coldly, prompting the two other humans to start firing as well. One of the humans had a shoulder-mounted grenade launcher – the same one that blasted him when he first exited.

Kyle rushed the trio, firing everything in his current magazine as he weaved from tree to tree, the pellets screeching through the bark and torn leaves as they fizzled out on the personal energy shields.

“Feldon, take everyone and run!” Kyle turned to command Feldon, but Feldon was already way ahead of him, ordering the hunters to pull back.

Feldon had not seen Rayner before, but he got an inkling that it was related to the transcendent that Kyle had fought in the dungeon.

Rayner motioned with his hands, prompting one of the drones to give chase but was immediately fired upon by Kyle. “You’re fighting with me now.”

“The sequence does not matter. You die, they die.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Kyle hid behind the tree trunk, but he knew Rayner could see him as clearly as day. Galactic Era drone. He was not about to assume that Rayner was lacking certain equipment, instead operating under the worst-case scenario that he was fighting a fully military-geared A-class drone or drone.

He was not even sure that Rayner was human in any way. If the Council knew about this, they would have glassed the entire world immediately.

The drones were equally armed as well, save for a different loadout, such as the grenade launcher. In a practiced movement, the trio converged on Kyle, weapons ready with Drone A and Rayner at the front, Drone B hanging behind with the grenade launcher.

“Mother would like to see you. Do not resist.” Rayner spoke clearly with a monotone accent.

Kyle didn’t reply, instead taking stock of his surroundings. The stealth hornet had already been blown to bits, its mushy innards strewn across the forest floor. The camp was in slight ruins, but there were still a few pieces of equipment and items lying around.

He had even brought along a few of the mortar projectiles, intending to use them as crowd control in case things got a bit too difficult. And here I was, planning to make multiple trips.

“Come out with your hands up.”

“Not here today with your friend?” Kyle tried to buy time.

“He is no longer fit.”

Fit? Kyle was confused, but before he could respond, a devastating axe chop from a morphed arm of Drone A sliced through the tree with a fearsome vibration, nearly cleaving Kyle’s neck.

Rolling out onto the floor, Drone A and Rayner fired precise bullets, but they failed to penetrate Kyle’s armour, earning only point defence projectiles. It did not deter them, as Rayner immediately swapped out a magazine on the rifle, firing again.

This time, the outgoing pellet burst into multiple fragments before reaching Kyle, prompting the point defence engravings to work overtime, depleting their charges rapidly.

I only have a limited number of times before the engraving skill has to cool down! Kyle fired back his own shots, attempting to break through the personal defence shield. However, despite the rapid-fire of the Heavy Variant Rifle, the penetrating power was far from enough.

“Weak,” Rayner muttered before firing another dispersal pellet. This time, Kyle voluntarily disabled the point defence system, preventing the engraving in the armour from overheating. By swapping to manual control, he could ensure that he still had a point defence system for the grenade launcher that Drone B was still aiming at him.

The fragmented pieces of the pellets slammed against the Version 0 exosuit directly, prompting Drone B to fire a grenade at him immediately. The sheer speed of it was akin to a rocket-propelled grenade, with Kyle immediately kicking into action.

Penchant for Violence! Aero Shoes!

His speed and strength increased, allowing him to dodge the incoming grenade, which exploded in fragments as well that rasped on the back of his armour.

“Heavy armour detected – switching combat mode.” Rayner stowed his rifle, which was proving to have no effect on Kyle’s armour, instead brandishing a spiked mace and charging right at Kyle. Drone A swapped as well to twin-bladed arms, lunging at Kyle from a flank.

Kyle parried the incoming hits with his pulveriser, using the handle and his vambraces to block incoming damage. The twin-bladed arms screeched as they carved surface gashes on the armour, though it was unable to penetrate through immediately. Kyle however, did not parry the spiked mace, instead choosing to dodge it lest it crushes his armour.

The physical brawl had them change positions rapidly, with Kyle continuously angling his body such that Drone B was not able to shoot at him while Rayner and Drone A had him pinned down. Kyle swung horizontally with the pulveriser, forcing Rayner to leap back while Drone A attempted to pierce his joint through.

Vibrations from the tip of the blades sent sparks flying as it grated against the chinks in the armour for a brief moment. As if on instinct, Drone A rolled out of the way, avoiding a downward strike from Kyle’s pulveriser.

Before Kyle could lift the pulveriser back up, Rayner was already back in the fray, swinging the spiked mace aimed at Kyle’s helmet. Instead of still trying to lift his weapon, Kyle immediately dropped it and side-stepped the swing, grabbing Rayner’s outstretched arm and twisting it hard. The hydraulic liquids flooded out in a burst as the pressure valve and motors were all crushed.

The cybernetic arm creaked and flashed with electrical shorts as Kyle ripped it off in one fell swoop, kicking Rayner in the waist and sending him sprawling back. Just as Kyle turned to engage Drone A, who was attempting to stab him from the back, a grenade launched by Drone B smacked right into his chest, exploding at close range and sending him flying.

He toppled onto Drone A, who was behind him, also knocked off its feet due to the strong explosion. Kyle’s front half of his chest piece was now damaged, slightly exposing the inbuilt engraving within as the first layer of armour was stripped away.

Drone A was being crushed from above as Kyle laid on top of him, but instead of trying to wriggle free, Drone A wrapped his legs and arms around Kyle’s body, locking him down and preventing him from getting up.

Drone B fired yet another grenade, uncaring if Drone A died from the ensuring impact and only focused on incapacitating Kyle right now.

This is My Turf!

The grenade exploded against the invisible barrier, while at the same time, Drone A was completely crushed down by the expanding zone, its electronics, metals and wires snapping and twisted into a deformed shape as it struggled to get up.

Kyle used the reaction force of the ground against his barrier to prop himself up, but Penchant for Violence was beginning to taper off, the status effects diminishing. Instead of fighting Drone B, he turned around to ensure that Drone A had been finished off, grabbing the mangled limbs of Drone A and ripping them off.

Another grenade was launched towards Kyle, ineffective against the solid barrier conjured by his skill. He continued to punch Drone A rapidly, aiming and crushing where he expected the drone’s main functionality to be.

Following Galactic Era conventions, a drone’s main processor would always be well protected in its chest rather than on its head. Creating a robot in human likeness doesn’t mean the creators had to copy over the same inefficiencies.

He stabbed his hand into the deformed chest armour plate that guarded the drone’s internals, tearing them off barehanded before reaching to grab whatever chips and wires he could get his hands out, crushing them with a strong squeeze.

Drone A’s body began to glow red hot, signalling to Kyle of an imminent self-destruct sequence. The explosion was even fiercer than the grenades, using all of the remaining Drone’s energy to completely disintegrate the Drone into small unsalvageable fragments. The blast was strong enough to uproot the tree right next to it, flinging dirt and soil up into the air in a large plume of smoke that soared beyond the treeline.

While the wind buffeted against Kyle’s armour, the explosion did not affect Kyle at all, the barrier skill able to withstand the hit, though Kyle was aware that the duration was about to run out.

Just as the This is My Turf skill began to falter, Kyle suddenly felt a piercing burning sensation from behind, with Rayner having already swapped to his other good arm and slamming a spiked mace against his back armour. The spikes on the mace that had pierced through the armour suddenly ejected before blowing apart and cracking the Version 0 exosuit from within like a bunker buster.

At the same time, Kyle’s flesh was scorched by the bunker buster spike, a gaping hole appearing near his waist towards his spine as blood gushed out in copious amounts, streaming down the cracks of the Version 0 exosuit.

Necklace of Healing! Kyle quickly healed himself, but it was barely enough to regain his same range of motion; Rayner continued to smack him with the mace, blowing apart more chunks of the armour with each successive hit.

Before another swing could hit Kyle, Kyle quickly rolled out of the way, ignoring the screaming pain in his nerves and muscles as the adrenaline pumped loudly through his veins. His eyes darted around as he limped from tree to tree, fending off the attacks of Rayner while trying to retreat to the camp. Buy time! Buy time for Penchant of Violence again!

Instead, just as he took another step back, a grenade shot at him, prompting him to activate whatever point defence system he had left. A large green arcia bolt lanced forwards, causing the grenade to explode in mid-air. Distracted by the attack, Kyle could not react in time to the spiked mace slamming against his helmet, sending his head ringing as he collapsed to the floor, his body struggling to get up.

“You have fought well,” Rayner stated without a tinge of emotions before reaching down to place a restraining mechanism on Kyle’s arms, grabbing them tightly and trying to pull them together.

Penchant for Violence!

The sudden boost in intelligence helped to clear his mind while he forced his way out, twisting his body and breaking off Rayner’s wrist cleanly as he faced upwards. Before he could deliver a kick to Rayner’s groin, Rayner suddenly leapt backwards before grabbing his fallen cybernetic arm.

“Retreat.” Rayner wasn’t planning to hang around, cutting his losses immediately.

Kyle grunted, trying to get back up and chase them, but Rayner and the remaining Drone B were far too fast, already disappearing into the forest in a completely opposite direction. He winced as he slumped against the tree trunk, his heart beating fast while he breathed heavily, continuously channelling the Necklace of Healing to heal himself.

He used the artificial hive core to send a signal back to the mineral ants, getting the hunters to come back. Kyle stood at his full height, putting on a strong front as they returned to him, witnessing the utter carnage that had been wrecked around the campsite.

The self-destruction explosion had caused a sizeable crater to be formed in the ground while trees around were blackened. Kyle limped onto a mineral ant, taking it over and giving chase himself with the rest of his men, confident he could beat Rayner and Clone B now.

However, despite travelling for more than ten minutes, Kyle was unable to find any trace of them. It was as though they had suddenly disappeared from the forest, either hiding in a tunnel or a secret cave.

Or they have something similar to a stealth hovercraft… Now that Kyle knew that there was a faction of system users who had clear access to Galactic Era tech, he was even far warier about what was to come next. He recalled he had already damaged Rayner’s arm once during the fight in the dungeon. If so, it means that there is a factory or a workshop capable of producing cybernetic prosthetics.

As they returned to base, Kyle’s exosuit was seen to be shattered and stained with blood and flesh as they carried the dead body of the first hunter who was killed, giving him a funeral. Kyle did not look down on the procession, instead giving a few good words about the hunter despite only knowing him for less than a month.

While other fellow hunters mourned about the loss of their colleague, Kyle’s mind was plagued with issues. What if they come back with even more? How strong is this faction?

However, as far as he could tell, it was a pure coincidence that he and Rayner met in the Keru Forest. Desham was extremely far from the dungeon exit, which meant that Rayner might not know exactly where he was operating from.

Even if he knew, I have no choice but to strengthen myself and my force as much as possible. To Kyle, that meant gathering enough resources and money to fund such a military force to deter any potential attack. I must step up my game.

But he would need to gather enough money first. For now, Kyle had solved the energy issue of the hovercrafts, obtaining more than thirty crystals. This would allow the steel factory in Desham to begin production of other prototypes, though the Intermediate Arcia Crystal would be inferior in terms of energy usage.

“We have to increase the amount of money that we are earning, as well as the number of resources that we are generating,” Kyle explained to Feldon. “If the aggressors come back, we need a well-trained military force to defend against them. Until then, we cannot hunt too far into the Keru Forest.”

“Boss, about that. We’ve been selling food and potions to Ocra, but Desham itself needs them too. If we can’t expand our hunting grounds, how are we going to cope? Transporting mammoth hog meat to Ocra has diminished our food supply!”

Kyle pulled out a map of the route from Raktor to Ocra. “We’re not the only ones around here with a food supply chain.”