Akazuha rushed up a nearby building, smoke and dust billowing, flames continuously erupting from the charred houses.
"Who could have done this?"
He observed for a moment longer; the area was completely a slum, seemingly sparsely populated because there were no corpses in the rubble of the destroyed houses.
"Looking at all this wreckage, and yet no one died?"
Akazuha jumped straight down to the ground and began walking.
"This area is sparsely populated, but if there are so few people, what are these houses for?"
"They look rather rudimentary, but they're not much different from the houses of the nobles."
He looked up at the darkening sky, then pondered something.
"It feels like that satellite is connected to this place."
Suddenly, Akazuha encountered several patrolling robots.
The robots seemed to have spotted him as well.
"Identified, a living subject," a Golem said.
"Armed, requesting capture."
Hearing this, Akazuha raised his hands in surrender.
But they still pointed their weapons at him and prepared to fire.
Akazuha delivered precise kicks to eight of the robots, sending them flying, crashing into a house and through several others.
He kicked away a pile of fallen wood blocking his path.
"Shall we have some fun?"
One robot extended its arm from the rubble, four small launchers springing out, its fists hurtling towards him at supersonic speed.
He nimbly dodged all the attacks.
"Is that what you call punching?"
"My senior sister punches much harder than you."
He punched through its chest and pulled out a purple energy core.
He looked at the energy core in his hand for a moment, then immediately ate it.
"Wow, I just ate it randomly and got a boost of magic power."
"Finally, my bad habit of stuffing whatever I see into my mouth has finally come in handy."
The other robots also emerged from the rubble.
They all simultaneously extended their hands towards him, and their hands transformed into machine guns.
He whistled in admiration.
He heard the sounds coming from inside those guns, and immediately afterward, several small sparks appeared, and iron pellets, traveling at 1200 meters per second, were fired from the barrels.
The bullets, traveling at supersonic speed, simultaneously collided with his body, but all were deflected and distorted.
"That tickles a little."
He said, then lunged towards the robots.
BOOM!
A massive explosion rang out, knocking Akazuha far away and destroying a large area, several houses collapsing.
He sprang up from the rubble, conveniently causing a sonic boom behind him to blow a cloud of dust around him.
"A missile enchanted with tracking and durability-denying magic, impressive."
The silhouettes of those robots emerged from behind the dust, their reflections showing something perched on their shoulders.
His magic eyes lit up behind his blindfold, revealing a high-tech system enveloped in a dense amount of magic.
It contained six tubes, one of which was missing. Inside were long cylinders with a flattened iron head, and to the right of the tubes was a square block pointing a laser beam at his head. The others were similar.
"Alright... this is getting serious."
Those tubes continuously fired those cylindrical projectiles at him.
Akazuha punched one of the cylindrical projectiles, and it exploded, sending his punch flying backward.
Several other projectiles also struck his body and exploded.
The explosions ended, and he emerged with his clothes scorched but not destroyed.
He looked at his hand, and it was clear that the cylindrical projectile had inflicted some damage on him.
"That's pretty good."
"What are these things called?"
"I was taught about them in school, but I've forgotten."
He looked at the seven robots and tried to remember.
"Hmm, now I remember, that's a missile and that's a missile launcher."
"It seems technology has advanced significantly; they can now attach weapons to these things."
"I think I should applaud, shouldn't I?"
After firing all the missiles, a magic circle appeared and recharged them.
A barrage of missiles then hurtled forward.
""Zektar"."
The missiles, heading towards him, suddenly stopped in mid-air.
""Zektar", a magic that allows me to control inanimate objects."
He pointed his finger at the seven robots.
"Bang."
The missiles immediately turned around, heading straight towards the robots and simultaneously flying towards them.
The explosion created a column of smoke and fire dozens of meters high, with a radius of damage reaching several hundred meters. Many houses were destroyed, many belongings were blown away, and the civilians were teleported out of the explosion radius, with no one killed.
But, despite enduring such an explosion, they were all able to stand up, suffering only minor injuries.
"You're still alive after an explosion of that magnitude?"
"Impressive, what material are you made of?"
They said nothing, or rather, they were incapable of speaking.
"Oh, I forgot you don't have souls."
Behind the robots, launch platforms appeared, propelling them upwards. The platforms activated, smoke billowed, and all the robots flew straight towards Akazuha.
He stomped his foot on the ground and pulled up a large rock. Aiming carefully, he threw it at them.
One robot punched through the rock, but it was just a trap, as Akazuha immediately kicked the robot away.
Three others surrounded him, but he only smiled and mocked them.
"Do you think that overwhelming numbers will kill me?"
The robots didn't answer and they all charged at him.
"Come on, that's a million-yen question."
He bent down and spun like a dancer, his feet moving so fast they left only afterimages. Three of the robots were destroyed after taking a kick from him.
"Haya!"
He leaped into the air, flipping over the building and landing safely.
"Only four more to go. Once I've dealt with them, I can go over there."
Bang!
One robot shot out from the rubble with a rocket punch.
Akazuha tried to dodge, but another robot burrowed into the ground beneath him, extending its arm out of the earth and holding him back.
"Hey, that's cheating!"
Slap!
The punch landed squarely on him, sending his head reeling back.
Bang!
Another punch landed squarely on his stomach, and he spat out a mouthful of saliva mixed with blood.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
More punches landed on his body, each blow, each shock reverberating. He couldn't resist because he was waiting for something.
Bang!
The final punch was thrown, but he managed to block it with his hand. The shockwave blew everything away within a 10-meter radius.
"You know..."
He raised his leg, and the right arm holding his leg was instantly ripped off.
"Your creator needs to upgrade you."
He yanked his other leg up, severing the robot's last arm. He punched the robot away and plunged his hand into the ground, pulling the robot out from under the earth and extracting its core.
A "crunching" sound echoed as he devoured its core.
"Not very tasty, though."
The gun barrel was pointed at Akazuha. The robot he had kicked away was hiding atop a tall building in the distance. Its left arm had transformed into a sniper rifle, aimed directly at his head as he prepared to leave.
He was walking when he suddenly tripped over something. When he pulled it out, it was a robot. It was still functional, but severely damaged, looking like a broken toy.
"You look quite battered, don't you?"
"How about I take you as a companion? I'm so bored traveling alone anyway."
Suddenly feeling something, he raised his hand to his head and discovered a hole had appeared there.
Blood slowly dripped down for a while and then stopped. The wound immediately healed, and the bullet hole disappeared.
He looked in the direction the bullet had come from and saw the robot in the distance.
Seeing this, the robot activated its propulsion system and flew away, but a missile flew straight towards it, causing an explosion. The destructive power wasn't as great as the previous blast, but the heat was hundreds of thousands of times greater, so the robot was reduced to dust. It was a rock Akazuha had thrown, the friction turning it into a rocket.
"The most useless thing is trying to dodge my attack."
"Don't sneak attack someone while they're talking."
He hoisted the robot onto his shoulder and prepared to head to a distant location.
But just as he was about to leave, the robot appeared behind him and embraced him.
He was quite surprised.
"Let me guess."
"Self-destruction, right?"
Akazuha's answer was correct; the robot's core flared up and exploded. The explosion blew everything away; it was more powerful than the blast of three atomic bombs.
Even those far away were affected, the shockwave sending several people flying into the air.
Sakura, however, was hundreds of kilometers away from where Akazuha was fighting, so the explosion didn't affect her much.
A column of smoke rose high into the sky. Akazuha emerged, half his shirt charred, his body so badly burned that his bones were exposed, but the robot was unharmed.
"This is terrible."
"All the houses around here are destroyed."
His wounds slowly healed.
He looked towards a place hundreds of kilometers away.
"That must be where it all started."
He lowered his head, looking at the robot in his hand.
"Are you alright, new partner?"
The robot was trying to activate its self-destruct mechanism.
"It's useless, I deactivated that thing earlier."
"Well, then, shall we go over there now?"
With that, he sped off at supersonic speed towards the battle in the distance.
End of Chapter 3