Chapter 238 Volume IV - Chapter 83: Two Days on the Battlefield
"Aiden! Get yerself over a hundred fifty meters northwest! You're the closest one!"
I squinted my eyes at the voice echoing in my skull, quickly turned to my left, and started running.
Our eyes met on the road with a soldier, his muzzle turned toward me, but he didn't have time to pull the trigger.
My sword first sliced his weapon in two, then his head separated from his torso, keeping the shocked expression on his face.
I didn't stop, I ignored him as his body was just beginning to fall to the ground, and I kept running toward my target.
Countless bullets rained down on me, as usual, and again, as usual, they were blocked by the winds created by Sith.
It was normal, I was getting used to it. After all, for the last two days, I had been in and out of this battlefield.
Finally, my target, a dwarf wearing armor like ours, came into my line of sight and I saw him aiming at a trench in our ranks.
His rifle was heavily loaded, he could pull the trigger at any moment. I had no time to reach him.
I drew my sword back, then swiftly swung it to him as a flash of teal and a warm, orange glow slowly surrounded it.
The two colors separated from my sword in a slash as it flew at the dwarf, right into his rifle. It sliced it smoothly in two. The dwarf pulled the trigger at that very moment.
The energy charged in the rifle expanded and exploded, raising a huge plume of dust around it.
With the help of AVRES, I made sure that the dwarf was dead despite the dust cloud, and then I immediately noticed another group not far from me.
This group of several soldiers was slowly moving across the battlefield, protecting an almost three-meter-long robot standing in the middle of them.
When I saw the group, I didn't even think about it, I quickly ran toward them, all the while activating Spiritual Ascension, which I hadn't used until now.
I had a feeling that this robot and its pilot would not be easy to defeat. Learning to trust my intuition was something that definitely helped me in the last two days.
The group didn't even notice me as I approached them at full speed, and it was only when the distance between us was reduced to a few meters that the robot started to turn toward me.
I ignored the robot, it had already spotted me and was about to open its barriers. The opportunity for a surprise attack was already gone. So I focused on the regular soldiers, who would be annoying during the actual battle.
I sliced the first soldier in half and then, without losing momentum, moved on to the next one, bursting another one into flames and killing another one with an ice spike that shot out of the ground just as he was about to fire his weapon.
Half of the group died in just a second, and the other half, realizing they could do nothing, pissed off their pants and ran away.
Now it was just me and the robot.
"Oh...! A- Aiden Denebra!"
The robot raised its hand in the air.
I squinted my eyes as the countless runes that suddenly surrounded me in a dome suddenly swirled and shimmered in the air.
The runes all discharged at the same time, beams of energy aimed at me.
I jumped with the mana provided by Spiritual Ascension, pushed myself into the robot's cockpit with the wind, and brought my sword into a position to pierce its barrier.
"Eheheh!"
The pilot's chuckle echoed in my ears, sounding like he was having fun, which was annoying, but I ignored it and plunged my sword into the barrier.
The barrier shattered instantly, but I couldn't finish it. I jumped over the cockpit, dodged the fingers that were about to grab my foot, got behind the robot, and wasted no time in using the enormous amount of mana to create a wind blade that would damage the mechanism behind it.
If I could, I would be done with this robot and its pilot. He was not one to go down so easily, however, as a bright rune suddenly appeared on his back.
I clicked my tongue, quickly withdrew the mana I would have used to create the wind blade, and instead threw myself as far back as I could.
The rune that had formed on the robot's back exploded just then, sending a wave of flames around it.
When I regained my balance and stood on my two feet, I didn't attack it this time, but instead let out a deep sigh. If I had been only a second late, I would have been engulfed in those waves of flames. And now... was not the time to attack.
"Eheheh... I'll kill you, no one but I...!"
When the pilot's voice echoed through the area again, I finally frowned and tilted my head slightly to the side.
I focused on his face, but nothing was coming back in my memory.
"Have we met?"
"O' course... O' course we're! Ya took me arm, I'll take yer life! Ehehehe!"
I focused on the cockpit window, so I could see that the pilot's left arm was indeed missing from the elbow. He was controlling the robot with his right hand and his mind.
"Sorry, I don't remember."
I tried to tease him, all the while slowly getting into position to counter any of his attacks.
"O' course ya wouldn't remember... o' course! Just die, with the greatest pain ya can bear!"
He lost himself completely, a blue glow appearing on his robot as he swung at me with claws that replaced his fingers.
He was unstable, and that was why he was actually predictable. He was... like an old computer that could only execute simple commands.
Calmly, I dodged the first claw with a small step to the right, and as the second came at me, I ducked, my hair slipping between his pointed fingers as I drew my sword back slightly and thrust it into his belly.
A barrier quickly took shape where I had aimed, yet I did not stop.
The teal-colored mana surrounding my sword, like a bullet that separated from it and shot forward, touched the barrier and made a hole in it.
I thrust my sword through this hole, then stabbed it hard into the robot's belly, and the ear-splitting sound of metal entered my ears.
I quickly drew my sword back, knowing that the pilot would attack again, so I turned sideways and passed between his legs.
From behind me, I felt the ground tremble, I heard the sound of something stabbing into the ground. He was doing exactly what I had expected him to do, like a simple children's book to read.
Without thinking, I twirled my sword and swung it behind me.
I didn't stop there, I raised the Ice Thorns from where I had just been standing and directed it right into the hole I had made in its belly.
As my sword sliced through the robot's back, I felt it graze the pilot's soft flesh. Ice Thorns penetrated through the hole I had already made, adding to the damage.
When my sword was finally detached from the robot's back, I quickly drew it back, this time trying to thrust it into the gash I had made, pushing it into the place where I felt the pilot's body.
My sword pierced through the pilot's body, made a hole in his torso, and came out the other side.
"Ehghe... Eheghegh..."
He chuckled again in a growling voice, and as I withdrew my sword, the robot he was controlling slowly fell face down on the ground.
The pilot closed his eyes, his last words a mad laugh.
I squinted, looked at the bloody battlefield behind me, and let out a deep sigh.
It was probably when I was running away from Caleuche. All I was doing at the time was mowing down anyone who came my way. It's not easy to lose an arm on a battlefield like that and live... That's why it must have happened this way.
Anyway, no more unnecessary thoughts. I'm on the battlefield, and he's the enemy. I shouldn't pity anyone, I shouldn't stop.
So I spotted another enemy, gripped my sword tightly, and started running toward them.
That's how I spent the last two days. Fighting soldiers non-stop, taking tasks from AVRES or the communication line, and coming back for a short rest.
Hanging out with the dwarves in my company was my only source of entertainment, and talking to Sith before going to sleep helped me recover before the next battle.
And now, I was still in the middle of it.
What I had to do was keep fighting, and most importantly, keep improving myself, honing my techniques and instincts.
In short, I had to keep killing.
Non-stop, until I was ordered to go back.
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