Raizer leaned against a jagged slab of concrete, his breath coming in ragged, shallow hitches. He spat a thick glob of copper-tasting blood onto the asphalt and wiped his brow, only to smear more crimson across his vision.
"I think I broke a rib," he wheezed, pressing a hand against his right side. Every inhalation felt like a blade twisting in his chest.
The memory of the last exchange was a blur of violet light and screaming metal. In that split second of certain death, Raizer's instincts had bypassed his conscious mind. He had woven Haste Magic, a desperate, improvised overclocking of his internal circuits to stack dozens of translucent Mana Shields in the path of the oncoming Dragon Strike. Even with his Absolute Control diverting the kinetic energy across his entire skeletal structure to prevent total collapse, the sheer output of the machine had left him battered.
As for why he didn't use Slow Magic on X24, he simply thought that the robot would adapt to it, rendering it useless.
[Really?]
"I don't know," Raizer muttered, a grim, bloody smirk tugging at his lips. "But it sounded cool, didn't it?"
[... Good point. But what the hell is that thing? It copied your moves and threw them back at you!]
X24 was a mockery of martial perfection. It lacked the elegant efficiency of Raizer's Absolute Control, but it compensated with a terrifying, unhinged power management system. It didn't need to be graceful; it was a battery that refilled itself by absorbing the very impact of Raizer's blows.
"It's adapting," Raizer said, his voice dropping an octave. "Like a Sentinel. It's not just mimicking me; it's iterating now."
[Does that mean it can copy you infinitely?]
"Not until I put it down."
Raizer forced himself upright. The movement sent a fresh wave of agony through his torso, but his expression remained a mask of cold, predatory stillness.
A high-pitched 'CRACK' echoed through the devastated street. A nearby office building, its foundation pulverized by the previous blast, groaned and began to tilt. It was a slow-motion collapse, tons of glass and steel succumbing to gravity.
- THUMP!
The sound of the building's impact was swallowed whole. A rhythmic, bass-heavy vibration began to thrum through the air, vibrating the very marrow in Raizer's bones. It was the first beat of the King Engine, a sound so primal it physically swept the lingering dust and smoke from the street like a shockwave.
The post-apocalyptic ruins were laid bare. In the center of the wreckage, X24's optical sensors flickered and whirred. For the first time, the machine's internal processors began to spike into the red. It stared at Raizer, and Raizer stared back; their glares clashing with such intensity the air between them seemed to warp.
Under the crushing weight of the power Raizer was now emanating, the robot's advanced sensors began to spiderweb and crack.
- THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
[Trait: King Engine (EX) — ACTIVATED!]
- Your 'Engine' is beating with excitement! Time for war!
- Your Stats have been increased by 1000%!
Power erupted from Raizer's body, rising rapidly as he stepped forward.
In a single step, he arrived before X24, pulling his fist back. It was movement. It was a shift in space. The world itself moved to erase the distance between him and his enemy.
- Bang!
His punch struck X24, who was flung away. It wasn't a fist of magic or Chi. That was pure brute force.
X24 was sent skipping across the wreckage like a flat stone over water. The creature slammed through three concrete barricades before finally halting its momentum by digging its adamantium claws deep into the remains of the asphalt.
It stood up, its internal fans whirring at a deafening pitch. It didn't understand. Its sensors had adapted to Mana; they had adapted to Chi; they had even calculated the trajectory of Raizer's biological movements. But it could not calculate this. It could not adapt to such a drastic increase in his fundamental brute strength. At least, not so soon.
- THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
The King Engine was no longer just a sound; it was a physical law. Every beat sent ripples through the air, vibrating the very atoms of the surrounding ruins. Raizer's presence had expanded until he felt less like a man and more like a looming, celestial judgment.
In a blur that bypassed the concept of acceleration, Raizer was in front of X24. He didn't use a Winged Blade. He didn't use a Burst. He used 'Absolute Control' to synchronize every muscle fiber, every bone, and every ounce of his massive stat-boosted weight into a simple, overhead hammer-fist.
- BOOM!
X24 raised its arms to block. The sound was like two continents colliding. The ground beneath the clone turned into a crater ten meters deep. The Sentinel-mutant's knees buckled, the street beneath it vaporizing into fine white powder.
X24's golden eyes flickered violently. Its logic core screamed: [Analyzing blunt force... Analyzing physical peak... Attempting to replicate...]
The clone's muscles swelled, its Sentinel-enhanced fibers trying to mimic the terrifying density of Raizer's physique. But it fell short so it began to fill the empty with its own ideas, supplementing its strength with Chi. It roared, throwing a desperate counter-punch, coated in gold. Raizer didn't dodge. He met the fist with his own.
- KRA-KOOM!
The resulting shockwave was so powerful that the tilting building nearby was instantly reduced to dust, blown away as if it had never existed. The two stayed locked in a stalemate for a microsecond, their fists pressed together while the air between them turned into a localized vacuum.
X24 poured everything into the struggle. It was absorbing the kinetic force of Raizer's hits, siphoning that energy into its core, and channeling it back into its muscles. It was the perfect loop; the more Raizer hit it, the stronger it should have become. That's how it should have been. But its fist was being pushed back. Inch by inch, it could see the defeat before its eyes.
But its internal processors roared back, pushing the fist forward.
"You're a fast learner," Raizer remarked, his eyes cold and unwavering. "Just try to keep up!"
Raizer stepped forward, putting his entire weight into the press. He began to unleash a barrage of pure, unadulterated brute force. No techniques. No names. Just a relentless storm of fists.
- BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
As their fists clashed midair, X24 realized how outmatched it was. But it healed. When their fists met, it was pushed back slightly. Its adamantium bones felt the strain. It healed and struck back, continuously evolving and evolving and evolving.
- BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Each strike sent a thunderous boom echoing through the city. X24 was fighting back with everything it had, its fists striking Raizer's midair. They moved so fast that they created a dome of flickering light and violent pressure.
X24's body kept glowing brighter, all the force that Raizer threw at it was absorbed and converted into Chi, strengthening it.
Slowly, the tide began to shift.
X24's movements began to sharpen. Its adaptation was reaching its zenith. It began to predict Raizer's reach, its body humming with the stolen Chi and kinetic energy it had devoured. For a fleeting second, the machine felt it; victory.
X24 lunged, its arm cocked back for a strike that contained the cumulative power of every hit it had absorbed throughout the entire fight. It was a blow designed to touch the King. Not kill but at least, reach him.
But as its fist traveled halfway to Raizer's face, X24 faltered.
The golden light in its eyes glitched, turning a chaotic, flickering static. Its arm lost its tension. Its body, built to be the ultimate weapon, suddenly tilted. It fell forward, crashing into the dust at Raizer's feet.
"What's the matter?" Raizer asked, his voice cutting through the fading sound of the King Engine. "Can't keep up?"
X24's internal systems were a funeral pyre of scorched circuitry. It had successfully absorbed the kinetic force. It had successfully converted the Chi. It had adapted to the blunt force. But it had reached a limit that no Sentinel or mutant could bypass: Hardware.
To contain the energy Raizer was putting out, the X24's processor had been forced to run at a trillion percent capacity. While its cells were immortal, its mechanical brain was not. It had quite literally burned its own "soul" to keep up with the King.
X24 lay there, its mouth hanging open, a thin trail of black, oily smoke escaping its ears. It stared up at Raizer, its sensors finally seeing the truth: there was no formula for this power. Replication itself was the fault. This wasn't an existence to be copied, but to be revered.
Raizer looked down at the mangled, twitching creature. The King Engine slowed, returning to a deep, rhythmic thrum. He leaned down slowly, his right hand wrapping around X24's throat.
"You have every right to be proud," The man wiped his bloodied lips with his free arm, "You made the King bleed."
- Rip!
With a single, effortless jerk, Raizer ripped X24's head clean off its shoulders.
The glowing lights in the clone's eyes flickered once, twice, and then went dark forever. The immortal body stayed on the ground, finally silenced.
He flicked his wrist, and the mangled remains of X24 vanished into the void of his [Inventory], ensuring that Alkali-Transigen would find nothing but scorched earth.
"I almost died."
Contrary to the grim weight of those words, a cold, predatory smirk tugged at the corners of his lips. He looked absolutely proud, standing as the lone victor in the center of a city block that had been rearranged by his own hands. The silence of the ruins was his trophy.
He raised his head, his gaze piercing through the upper atmosphere to address the 'watchers.' He knew they were there—the Sorcerers in their sanctums, the Gods on their thrones, and the man-made 'eyes' of satellites currently burning out their sensors to track him. He didn't hide. He let them look. He let them record the image of the man who had broken the 'Perfect Weapon'.
"Huu~"
He exhaled a long, steady breath of air that shimmered with the fading heat of the King Engine. With the practiced grace of a man heading to a board meeting, he dusted off his torn shirt and stepped forward, his polished shoes crunching over the debris as he walked out of the crater his battle had dug.
.
.
.
"What was that?"
- Crack!
Donald Pierce stared at the monitors, his cybernetic grip tightening until the ceramic cup in his palm disintegrated. Shards of porcelain bit into his flesh, but he didn't flinch. He simply stood there, watching the blood drip from his palm and splatter onto the pristine lab floor.
"Th-that can't be possible! This isn't humanely possible! How can he do that!?"
Behind him, Bolivar Trask had collapsed. His legs had turned to water, refusing to obey the frantic commands of his brain. He sat on the floor, trembling, one shaking finger pointed at the main screen. The feed, transmitted through X24's primary optical sensor, was a dizzying mess of static and violence.
"HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE!?" Trask's voice climbed into a panicked shriek. "It was X24! It was the Perfect Machine! It had the genes of Wolverine and the logic of a Sentinel! How did it fail!?"
More than confusion, Trask felt a cold, primordial fear. On the screen, just before the feed cut to black, Raizer had leaned down. For a split second, it felt as if those glowing, dark eyes weren't looking at a dead clone; they were looking through the camera, through the satellite link, and directly into the souls of the men in the room.
"He-he's coming," Trask whimpered, scrambling backward on his hands and knees. "He saw us. He knows. We should go! Pierce, let's run!"
"Are you crazy!?" Pierce roared, spinning around, his face a mask of sweating, mechanical rage. "What about my company!? My deal!? We were seconds away from a breakthrough that would change the course of human evolution!"
"Does your company matter more than your life!?" Trask shouted back, his survival instinct finally overriding his scientific ego.
Trask lurched to his feet with sudden, desperate resolve. He ignored the consoles, instead snatching a stack of encrypted hard drives and the physical papers of the Sentinel-X project from the desk.
"If you wish to die for some chump change, Pierce, then die alone! I'm lea-"
- Bang!
The sound echoed through the sterile lab like a thunderclap. Trask didn't get the chance to finish his sentence. He blinked, a look of profound confusion crossing his face as he looked down at his chest. A jagged red patch was blooming across the front of his white doctor's coat, the fabric soaking up the warmth. He tried to speak, but only a thick, metallic spray of blood leaked through his lips.
- Thud!
Trask fell forward, the papers of his life's work scattering across the floor like autumn leaves. His eyes remained wide, fixed in a final, glassy stare of betrayal.
"No," Pierce whispered, his hand trembling as he lowered his smoking sidearm. His mind was fracturing, the cold logic of a cyborg war-lord melting away into pure, unadulterated hysteria. "No one leaves. We can still win. I know we can!"
He looked at the dead monitors, then at the door. He knew he couldn't escape. Not from the monster in human skin who was currently walking across New York.
"I need to call him!" Pierce's eyes darted around the room until they landed on a black, secure terminal in the corner. "Yea-yeah! If it's him... if I give him the data... he can save me!"
Donald Pierce stumbled out of the office, his metallic boots clattering against the metal floor. He was no longer a conqueror; he was a rat looking for a bigger predator to hide behind. He reached out for the terminal, desperate to make the one call that could stop the King.