Episode-837
Chapter : 1673
A harpy dropped out of the sky, a hole in its chest.
"Gotcha," Kaito said. "House wins."
And then there was Ren.
Ren, the clockmaker, the man who had spent his life working with microscopic gears in silence, fell in love with the noise. He fell in love with the recoil.
He didn't use the rifle. He dual-wielded the rotary cannons. He was the heavy weapons specialist. He stood his ground like a turret, bracing his massive metal legs, and unleashed hell.
"Hahahaha!" Ren’s laughter was a constant background noise on the comms. "Look at it shred! Look at the physics engine crumble! I am the god of bullets!"
He treated the battlefield like a clock that needed to be disassembled. The enemy formation was a mechanism, and he was the wrench thrown into the gears.
"Rook," Lloyd muttered, watching Ren hold off an entire wave of orcs by himself. "We'll call him Rook. He's a castle. He moves straight, and he hits hard."
The simulation shifted. Lloyd spawned a Boss Monster—a massive, armored Hydra with three heads.
"Boss fight!" Lloyd announced. "Pattern recognition. It has three heads. They attack in sequence. Fire, Ice, Acid. Figure it out or die."
The Hydra roared, shaking the digital ground.
"Scatter!" Vala ordered instantly. "Kaito, target the eyes! Ren, draw its aggro! Keep it looking at you! Support team, aim for the legs!"
"With pleasure!" Ren roared, stepping forward and unleashing a torrent of lead into the Hydra's chest. The monster roared and focused on him, spewing fire. Ren raised his arm shield, tanking the blast.
"Now!" Vala screamed. "Flank it!"
The other suits moved in. They didn't just hack at it. They targeted the joints. They targeted the necks.
It was messy. Two suits got melted by acid because they didn't dodge fast enough. One got frozen. But they brought it down.
As the Hydra dissolved into pixels, Lloyd finally relaxed his shoulders.
"Simulation End," he commanded.
The red world vanished. The pilots found themselves back in the dark hangars, staring at the inside of their helmets.
"Neural Link Disengaged."
The hiss of steam filled the room as the cockpits opened.
The pilots crawled out. They were soaked in sweat. Some vomited over the side of the catwalks. Some just lay on the metal grating, gasping for air.
Lloyd walked out onto the catwalk, looking down at them.
"You died forty-seven times today," Lloyd said. "You killed each other twelve times. You missed seventy percent of your shots."
He paused.
"But in the last run... you killed a Hydra. And only three of you died."
He smiled.
"That is acceptable. Get some food. Sleep. Tomorrow, we leave the basement."
"Where are we going?" Vala asked, wiping vomit from her chin.
"The Badlands," Lloyd said. "No more video games. Tomorrow, we use live ammo. And the targets shoot back."
________________________________________
The Badlands were a desolate scar on the face of the North. It was a region of jagged canyons, red dust, and howling winds that stripped the paint off metal. It was a place where nothing lived unless it was made of stone or spite.
Lloyd stood on a high ridge, the wind whipping his coat around him. He wore his white mask, the persona of the White Mask blending with the Commander. Below him, in the canyon floor, the ten Aegis suits stood in a loose formation. They looked small against the towering cliff walls. The wind howled through their sensors, creating a constant, eerie moan.
"Comms check," Lloyd said into his headset.
"Valkyrie, online," Vala’s voice crackled.
"Rook, online," Ren reported.
"Ghost, online," Kaito whispered.
The others checked in. They sounded nervous. This wasn't a simulation. The wind pushing against their sensors was real. The dust clogging their intakes was real. If they fell here, they would break something expensive.
"Today is the final exam," Lloyd announced. "You have learned how to walk. You have learned how to shoot. You have learned how to listen."
He raised his hand.
"Now, you learn how to survive against something that is faster, stronger, and smarter than you. You have fought goblins and hydras. Big, dumb targets. Today, you fight intelligence."
Lloyd activated his [Automated Harvesting Protocol]. But he didn't summon a harvester. He summoned the [Echoes of Will].
The air in the canyon shimmered. Ten figures materialized from the dust. They were spectral, translucent, glowing with a faint blue light. They were exact copies of Lloyd himself.
Chapter : 1674
But they weren't unarmed. Each Echo held a spectral steel chain. Each Echo moved with the fluid, predatory grace of a master assassin. Lloyd had programmed them with his own high-level combat algorithms. They were him, stripped of mercy.
"Targets acquired," Lloyd said. "Live fire authorized. Do not let them touch you. If an Echo touches your cockpit, you are dead."
"They're... they're small," one of the support pilots, Unit 5, said. "We can just step on them."
"Famous last words," Lloyd muttered. "Execute."
The Echoes moved.
They didn't run; they blurred. They exploded into motion, scattering like a pack of wolves.
"Contact!" Vala screamed. "Front! Left! Right! They're everywhere!"
Unit 5 raised his rotary cannon. "Eat lead, ghosts!"
He fired. The bullets chewed up the ground. But the Echo wasn't there. It had [Void Stepped]. It appeared on the shoulder of the Aegis suit in a flash of blue light. It wrapped a spectral chain around the suit's primary sensor array and pulled.
CRUNCH.
The pilot went blind. "I can't see! My sensors are down! Help!"
"Man down!" Vala yelled. "Defensive formation! Circle up!"
But the squad was panicking. The Echoes were too fast. They were weaving between the legs of the giants, slashing at hydraulic lines with chains that cut like vibro-blades.
Ren tried to track one, but his turret speed was too slow. "I can't get a lock! They're glitching! They move too fast!"
An Echo leaped off a canyon wall, landing on Ren's back. It began to tear at the power coupling.
"Get it off me!" Ren roared, spinning his torso.
It was a massacre. Within thirty seconds, the squad's formation was shattered. They were flailing, shooting at shadows, tripping over each other. They were giants fighting mosquitoes, and the mosquitoes were winning.
Lloyd watched from the cliff, his expression hidden by the mask. He didn't intervene. He needed them to feel the panic. He needed them to realize that size didn't matter.
"You are fighting individuals!" Lloyd’s voice cut through their comms, sharp as a whip. "You are big, clumsy giants fighting ninjas. If you fight alone, you die alone! Stop looking at the enemy and look at your squad!"
Vala heard him. She took a deep breath, forcing her heart rate down. She looked at the radar. It was a mess of red dots.
"Stop!" Vala commanded, her voice finding a frequency of authority that overrode the panic. "Stop moving! You're just giving them openings! Back-to-back! Phalanx formation! Now!"
Something in her voice snapped the others out of their terror. They scrambled backward, forming a tight circle, their backs to the center, their guns facing outward. A wall of steel.
"Rook!" Vala barked. "Don't aim! Suppression! Shred the ground! Deny them movement!"
"On it!" Ren roared. He lowered his cannons and didn't aim at the Echoes. He aimed at the floor.
BRRRRRRRRRRRRT.
The canyon floor exploded. Dust and rock shards filled the air. The smooth ground became a cratered hellscape.
The Echoes faltered. Their footing was gone. They couldn't dash. They had to jump.
"Ghost!" Vala yelled. "They're airborne! Pick them off!"
Kaito, safe in the center of the formation, looked up. He saw the patterns. He saw the arcs of the jumps.
"Calculating," Kaito whispered. "Trajectory locked."
BANG. BANG. BANG.
His rifle cracked three times. Three Echoes shattered into blue sparks in mid-air.
"Got 'em!" Kaito cheered.
"Hold the line!" Vala ordered. "They're regrouping!"
The battle shifted. The Echoes, realizing the direct assault had failed, changed tactics. They merged into a single group and charged one section of the phalanx, using their chains to create a combined shield.
"Concentrate fire on sector three!" Vala ordered.
The entire squad turned their guns. A wall of lead met the wall of spectral chains.
It was a stalemate. The Echoes were fast, but the volume of fire was overwhelming.
Ren was laughing maniacally. "Come and get some! I have infinite ammo!" (He didn't, but the Golem Heart regenerated mana-bullets quickly).
One Echo managed to slip through the barrage. It lunged for Vala.
Vala didn't shoot. She dropped her gun and activated her vibro-blade. She didn't try to block the chain. She stepped into the attack, letting the chain wrap around her armored arm.
"Got you," she hissed.
She twisted her torso, using the massive torque of the Aegis to yank the spectral figure off its feet. She slammed the Echo into the canyon wall with a force that shook the ground. The Echo dissipated.
"Five down!" Kaito reported. "Five remaining!"
The remaining Echoes paused. They seemed to communicate silently. Then, they did something unexpected. They vanished.