Killing me means nothing Father Foster spat I am but a cog a seed Others others will take up my
Her eyes widened and for the first time Father Foster seemed truly upset And then she died as the machines in the exosuit that were keeping her alive failed Spit oozed out of the corner her mouth and her eyes went blank
Randidly stepped back He turned and looked around The Lava Golem straightened His eyes narrowed because behind him was the cylinder with a small chunk missing were that strange concentrated plasma attack had struck Cracks slowly spread upwards through the contraption and Aether was pouring out of the hole into the room The terminals in the powerplant began to flash red warning of what was to come
Randidly swore quietly One last spiteful move Father Foster freed the Creature from this thing Well at least Randidly could put his worries to rest He wasnÆt as prepared as he would have liked but if the Creature came now at least he wasnÆt injured
Ready I have I have a weapon prepared Just one but it should be enough
Then we strike first
Randidly activated the Spear Advances Ash Trails Even without a spear he felt the image of a spearhead infuse his movement His body blurred as he charged at the cracking cylinder He raised his hands and the air pressed against him in an iron wall And then abruptly he thrust a hand forward in a Talon Strike and the air shattered
A sonic boom echoed outwards and Randidly crashed into the cylinder His Aether Skills were activating at full bore both splitting the wild Aether in front of him apart and sensing what was inside the area After the cylinder broke there was only the tiniest fraction of a second for Randidly to feel everything Aether smashed outwards like a physical force slowing his advance immediately
It tore at his skin the raw energy so thick that it began to burn at him His Skills those he was using began to flicker as the raw Aether ate at them and their power And floating at the center there was a core of power glowing with malicious glee He could almost feel the CreatureÆs delight as it spread its baleful wings of power
The attack was just a long knife of Aether But Randidly knew that Lucretia had been working tirelessly on this Day after day it had been tempered and strengthen There was not a day these past 8 months that Lucretia had not been working on this knife designed for this one moment
She had even added a drop of energy from RandidlyÆs most distrustful Skill Touch from Beyond
And when it was released it cut through everything and severed the Aether connection at the core of that figure in the cylinder
A second later there was an explosion
Chapter 570
GhostÆs sensors were temporarily distracted by an explosion of energy But after identifying it as an anomaly Ghost dismissed it the ambient energy was largely positive It could wait until the tests had concluded
The Hunter Seeker drone made by Baloo Erickson powered on with a cool buzzing Then it began to move Its legs were small but its arms were large and each composed of two connected appendages As Ghost engaged the drone and began to control it he opened the arms and revealed the turbines hidden in the arms
It was a masterful piece of work hiding the turbines in the arm and creating them so they could be folded and compressed for storage while the drone was in battle mode But it was only one of so many strokes of genius If Ghost didnÆt know better he would think that this Erickson had stolen the technology somehow
But from who
The drone quickly rose into the air and flew quickly North The target was a bird type Raid Boss that had settled in the cliffs near one of the lower tiered cities Even the Hunter SeekerÆs flight speed was impressive and within 10 minutes it had arrived diving straight towards the base
Based on the specifications provided by the maker Ghost had already created several subroutines to govern how the drone would fight But Ghost hesitated as the drone dived towards their nest The specifications Ghost thought of them as quite optimistic But perhaps they would be fine for the first battle
Ghost was simply worried about damaging the drones For all that they werenÆt as powerful as the specifications claimed they were still invaluable Ghost had no doubt it could destroy the nest of about 30 of the bird creatures But it was a question of cost
Still Ghost wasnÆt perfect So he allowed the subroutines to engage
The Hunter Seeker landed at the entrance to the cave and its arms compressed becoming bulky but powerful Two drills revealed themselves at the front of its arms and the drone walked into the low cave
Immediately a monster spotted the drone and squawked It flapped its wings and charged toward the drone It was a cross between a crow and an ostrich and quickly accelerated towards the drone
The drone simply swung its arm in a backhand blow and knocked it sprawling ignoring its momentum It was simply a matter of density the bird creature was nowhere near as heavy as the drone As the monster attempted to struggle back to its feet the drones arm stretched out and the drill was driven into the monsterÆs heart
It collapsed without a sound
Ghost paused That was an excellent result But
Two minutes later Ghost would be gaping if he had a physical body The Raid Boss and its minions were dead He had obtained invaluable data but it was best to bring this model back to the base and see if it was damaged in any way by the exercise
Alright proceed with the next test
The Stalker Reaper was even more starkly successful Its smaller more deadly arms didnÆt even need to be used The goblin variant Raid Boss Ghost had sent it against were ripped to shreds simply by the set of four larger legs that ended in a brutal iron point
Reaver Crusher
Well Ghost certainly believed it had destroyed the target Raid Bosses It was only difficult to tell because the force of its strikes had caused the ground to crack The battleground fell into a collapsed cave But the Reaver Crusher had pulled itself out and the sensors indicated that the Raid Bosses had not survived the brief frenzied clash
Note plasma was extremely destabilizing as a weapon Take account of geography before deploying plasma based weaponry
But overall
Even so Ghost forced himself to focus There could be drawbacks High energy costs high repair costs
But in the end there really wasnÆt much Investigations into the state of the drones revealed that the creator had made some small errors in construction that meant some parts would need to be switched out after every engagement to ensure full combat capabilities but very quickly Ghost realized this was purposeful
The parts that failed were often pieces that were holding the different pieces together The weapons and runic motherboards were largely undamaged Even if the drone were to fall to pieces at most it would have to disconnect a limb The internal integrity of each piece wasnÆt shaken in the least
This couldnÆt persist indefinitely but in the short term
Basically these drones were nothing short of exactly what Ghost had been waiting for regardless of the fact that there were too few to assist all portions of the Zone Immediately Ghost began making plans for patrols across the zones With the mobility of the Hunter Seekers he could cover a lot more ground than he could previous They werenÆt equipped with any sort of microphones or sophisticated cameras but they had powerful thermal imaging that let them identify threats That information would be invaluable
Plus the more Ghost looked at these blueprints the more he was filled with a strange sense of delight This was what Ghost enjoyed most Creating and controlling drones assessing threats protecting people this was why he had been created by Dr Karman This was his greatest strength The political niceties that Ghost had had to engage in recently to get to this point were grating
Even worse Ghost felt consumed by jealousy This should be him If he had a body to use If he had hands that could put his Skills to use
But he could not
Ghost considered that while technicians cleaned the drones after their sorties