Episode-1050
Chapter : 2099
It was a prototype. It didn't have the paint job. It didn't have the smooth armor plating. It looked like an engine with legs. Exposed wires sparked and hissed. The hydraulic pistons were visible, pumping furiously. The Golem Heart in its chest was glowing with a dangerous, unstable red light. It was a machine built for one thing: violence.
Inside the cockpit, Lloyd Ferrum was sweating. The suit was running hot. It wasn't finished, and the neural link was jagged, sending spikes of pain into his brain every time he moved. But he didn't care.
"Sorry I'm late," Lloyd’s voice boomed from the external speakers. "Traffic was murder."
"Just handle the liquid guy," Liam said without looking back. "I've got the rest."
Lloyd looked at Viper. The nanite soldier stood up fully. He was sleek, chrome, and featureless. He didn't have a face, just a smooth silver surface.
"A mech," Viper’s synthesized voice said. "Big. Slow. Clumsy. You cannot hit what you cannot grab."
Viper lunged. He didn't swing a fist. He threw his arm forward, and it extended like a whip of liquid metal. It wrapped around the leg of Lloyd’s suit.
"Corrupting," Viper said.
The nanites began to eat into the Aegis’s armor. They worked like acid, disassembling the metal at a molecular level.
"Warning," Lloyd’s computer buzzed. "Hull breach detected. Nanite intrusion imminent."
Lloyd tried to shake him off, but Viper just flowed with the movement. He was sticky. He was everywhere. He began to spread up the leg of the suit, heading for the cockpit.
"I'm going to get inside," Viper taunted. "I'm going to fill that cockpit. I'm going to drown you in metal."
Lloyd gritted his teeth. Physical attacks wouldn't work. If he punched Viper, his fist would just go through the liquid. If he used a sword, it would just splash. He needed to change the state of matter.
"You like being liquid?" Lloyd asked. "Fine. Let's see how you handle gas."
Lloyd didn't try to pull away. He activated his [Steel Blood] power. Usually, he used this to create chains or harden his skin. But today, he used it differently. He pushed his mana into the very armor of his suit.
He didn't make it harder. He made it vibrate.
He channeled the energy of friction. He overclocked the suit’s internal heating coils, the ones usually used to keep the pilot warm in high altitudes. He pushed them to 500% capacity. He turned the Aegis Mark IV-Beta into a giant heating element.
The black metal of the suit began to glow. First dull red, then bright orange.
"Thermal Purge," Lloyd commanded.
The temperature on the surface of the suit skyrocketed. It went from ambient temperature to over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit in a second.
Viper screamed.
It wasn't a human scream. It was the sound of a tea kettle whistling as the water boils.
The nanites were microscopic machines. They operated well in solid or liquid states. But they had delicate internal circuitry. They couldn't handle extreme heat.
The liquid metal that was wrapping around Lloyd’s leg began to bubble. It hissed violently. The silver shine turned dull gray.
"Too hot!" Viper shrieked, trying to detach himself. "Systems failing! Viscosity breaking down!"
He tried to pull away, but Lloyd reached down. His hand, glowing white-hot, grabbed the liquid soldier.
"You wanted to stick around," Lloyd said. "So stick."
Lloyd activated the thrusters on his suit, not to fly, but to vent the engine exhaust directly onto the enemy. A jet of blue flame engulfed Viper.
The liquid metal didn't just melt; it boiled.
The nanites reached their boiling point. The cohesion of the swarm failed. Viper’s form lost its shape completely. He turned into a cloud of silver steam. The microscopic robots popped and fizzled, their tiny brains cooking instantly.
The scream faded into a hiss of escaping gas.
Lloyd stood up, steam rising from his armor. There was no enemy left. Just a scorch mark on the ground and a metallic smell in the air.
"Target neutralized," Lloyd said, checking his heat gauges. "Phase change complete."
He looked over his shoulder. King Liam was still standing calmly in the center of the ridge, his dragon Singularity waiting for the next command. The Heavy Gunner and Shield-Bearer were gone. Viper was gone.
Only three enemies remained: the Sniper, the Demolitionist, and Commander Marcus.
"One down on my side," Lloyd called out. "I'm moving to intercept the Sniper."
"Go ahead," Liam replied, watching the Demolitionist load a rocket. "I'll handle the loud one."
Date/Time: Year 2513, Month of Sun, Day 18 – 06:48 AM
Location: The Ridge
Chapter : 2100
The dust from Lloyd’s battle with the liquid assassin, Viper, had barely settled when the next threat made its move. King Liam stood near the edge of the cliff, wiping grease from his hands with a rag he had pulled from his pocket. He looked bored. He looked like a mechanic who had just finished fixing a car engine, not a king fighting for the survival of the planet.
Across from him stood one of the last remaining Fire Fly Praetorians. This soldier was different from the others. He wasn't bulky like the heavy gunner or sleek like the assassin. His armor was covered in spinning copper rings and glowing blue dials. The air around him shimmered and twitched, like a heat mirage on a hot road, but the air was cold.
This was the "Chrono-Trooper."
"You deleted Viper," the Trooper said. His voice echoed, sounding like two people speaking at the exact same time but slightly out of sync. "That was an expensive asset. You are costing the company a lot of money, Mister Khan."
"I aim to please," Liam replied, tossing the dirty rag aside. "But I think your company has bigger problems than the budget. Like the fact that your boss is currently trapped in a box made of diamonds."
The Chrono-Trooper didn't laugh. He raised his left arm. Mounted on his wrist was a device that looked like a complex watch with too many hands.
"Subject: James Khan," the Trooper announced. "Threat Level: Maximum. Protocol: Temporal Lock."
The Trooper twisted the dial on his wrist.
Suddenly, the world around Liam went wrong. A bubble of distorted light expanded from the Trooper, surrounding Liam. Inside the bubble, the sound of the wind vanished. The dust motes floating in the air stopped moving.
Liam raised his heavy pistol and fired. Bang.
The bullet flew straight and true. It hit the Trooper right in the chest plate. Sparks flew. The Trooper stumbled back.
But then, a blue light flashed from the device on his wrist. There was a sound like a tape recording being rewound at high speed.
Zzzzzzip.
Liam blinked. The Trooper was standing upright again. The bullet hole in his chest was gone. The sparks hadn't happened yet. The Trooper was back in the exact position he had been in three seconds ago.
"A time loop," Liam said, his voice flat. "How original."
"You cannot hit me," the Trooper said, his voice smug. "If I take damage, my suit automatically rewinds my personal timeline by five seconds. I am immortal. I have infinite tries to kill you. You have one life."
The Trooper raised his rifle and fired. A beam of blue energy scorched the air next to Liam’s ear.
Liam didn't dodge. He just sighed. "You guys always think technology is the answer to everything. You think because you can bend time, you own it."
Liam fired again. Bang.
The bullet hit the Trooper’s visor this time. Ideally, that would be a kill shot.
Zzzzzzip.
The blue light flashed. The Trooper was standing there again, unharmed. The bullet was back in Liam’s gun. The moment had never happened.
"See?" the Trooper taunted. "I can do this all day. Eventually, you will get tired. Eventually, you will miss. And I will put a hole in your head."
The Trooper began to walk forward. He fired again. Liam stepped to the side, the laser burning a hole in his mechanic’s jumpsuit.
"You're annoying," Liam said. "You're like a video game player who keeps reloading his save file because he's bad at the game."
"It's called tactical superiority," the Trooper said, closing the distance. "Surrender. Or die tired."
Liam stopped moving. He stood his ground, letting the Trooper get closer. The bubble of distorted time pressed against his skin, making his hair stand up.
"You know," Liam said quietly, "time isn't just about moving backward and forward. Time is also about breaking down. It’s about things falling apart. It’s about the end."
Liam reached into his soul. He didn't reach for a weapon. He reached for a concept.
"System," Liam whispered. "Deploy Super Spirit Number Two."
The ground beneath Liam’s feet turned gray. The grass died instantly, turning to dust. The color drained out of the world.
Behind Liam, a shadow rose up. It wasn't a dragon this time. It was something much more frightening.
It was a giant. It stood twenty feet tall, hovering silently in the air. It looked like an angel, but it had no face. Its wings were not made of feathers; they were made of rusted, broken clock gears that spun with a horrible, grinding sound. Its robes were made of decaying grey light that looked like old cobwebs.
This was "Epoch, the Seraph of Entropy."
The Chrono-Trooper stopped. His sensors were screaming. The time-loop device on his wrist started to spin wildly, the hands moving so fast they were a blur.
"What... what is that?" the Trooper stammered.