Chapter 46: Sealing Victory
Ryan stood his ground, his mind racing faster than his pounding heart. His initial plan, charge in and stab the shiny robot had failed spectacularly.
His best knife barely scratched it, and his brand-new force field was already broken. This Array Sentinel was a walking, regenerating fortress, and he was starting to feel like a very small, very squishy tourist who had wandered into the wrong part of town.
He needed a new plan. A better plan.
The Sentinel, for its part, wasn’t waiting around for him to think. It continued its relentless assault. A god Beam shot out, forcing Ryan to dive behind a massive, humming metal pillar.
The beam melted a hole right through the other side. Then came another Static Pulse, a wave of disruptive energy that made his hair stand on end and caused his gauntlet to spark nervously. He couldn’t stay on the defensive forever.
He decided to switch from attacking to observing. He used his "Lore Scanner," which was now supercharged by his Neural Symbiote Map, to analyze the Sentinel.
He didn’t just look at the robot; he looked at the energy flowing through it and around it. He dodged and weaved between its powerful attacks, his eyes constantly scanning, gathering data.
And then he saw it. It was a subtle detail, something he would have missed if he wasn’t looking for it. Every thirty seconds or so, just before the Sentinel repaired itself or launched a major attack, tiny, almost invisible tendrils of blue energy would snake out from the soles of its feet and connect to the glowing conduits on the floor.
It was only for a second, but it was there. The Sentinel was literally plugging itself into the Array to recharge. That was its "Energy Siphon" talent at work. It wasn’t just passively absorbing energy; it was actively drinking it through invisible straws.