Crimson Guardian

Kraynnor scrutinized his surroundings with narrowed eyes, making sure there was no trace of nearby presence. He was acutely aware that any interruption at this moment would be catastrophic.

Sweat began to gradually bead on his forehead, his breath fluctuated, and his heart raced in his chest.

What he was about to undertake might very well be his final act in this world. The mere possibility of a laser hitting him sent a shiver of nervousness down his spine. He was fully aware that in a matter of seconds, his existence would vanish into ashes. If that happened, any hope of humanity's revenge would disappear, fading into the dark pages of the universe's history...

"To hell with it, those who dare not risk will never reap anything!" he muttered, and without hesitation, he reached into his inventory space.

Screech...

He pulled out the Biomimetic Cube. As soon as he did, he sensed a faint vibration that instantly intensified like a surge of energy running beneath the ground beneath his feet.

"...?"

He turned his gaze toward the mothership in the center of the city. His eyes widened in astonishment as he witnessed intensely red metallic fingers emerging from the side of the monumental ship, twisting and contorting.

Kraynnor harbored no doubt; he was fully aware that it was only a matter of seconds before a colossal robot, capable of shooting lasers over kilometers, materialized from the ship!

With surprising speed, Kraynnor extracted three strands of liquid biomatter, activating this form by pressing the cube's corners seven times. The green substance flowed in a way that seemed to come to life, sliding toward the hatch openings. His eyes remained fixed on every step of the process as he continued pressing the cube's corners, controlling the biomatter strands.

With meticulous precision, he traced the path to the power source, following his own logic about the internal structure of the hatch.

Facing the complexity of this task blindly, with an impending time limit, was a daunting feat. However, he wasn't deterred by the situation. Barely ten seconds had passed, and more than half of the robot's body had been freed from the wall. Its appearance was simply terrifying, with a red hue as intense as blood, and it was covered in silver cables that were soon concealed under a metal layer of the same shade.

However, what drew the most attention was the eye on its head, which gradually began to glow in a deep red tone, as if it were accumulating an immense amount of energy.

No, that was undoubtedly what was happening!

Screeeek!

An even more powerful tremor shook the city, and the Astrylite soldiers, surprised and bewildered, ceased their idleness.

Their expressions turned serious, and they shared their concerns in whispers about the strange occurrence of a Crimson Guardian being activated twice in less than an hour. The previous time, though it had taken them by surprise, they had considered it an isolated incident, but the repetition of such an event could no longer be ignored!

Within seconds, the entire base was on high alert, as if preparing for an impending war.

Bzzz!

Biomass energy flowed through the conduits, lighting up intermittent lights around the hatch. It took twenty tense seconds for the biomatter strands to finally reach the power source. At that point, they merged with the existing electrical systems.

Energy began to flow, and the electric motor came to life, initiating the hatch's opening!

Creeeeeeeek...

As it slid to the side, the ominous hum of the giant robot resonated in his ears, announcing an imminent energy discharge. Without a hint of hesitation, Kraynnor quickly stored the Cube in his inventory and slipped through the barely opened hatch.

Zaas!

When the energy ran out, the hatch slammed shut instead of continuing to open.

The Crimson Guardian suddenly came to a halt; its bright eye gradually dimmed and returned to its original position on the ship's surface.

"...?"

This left the onlookers completely baffled.

"What's going on? Why did you activate a Crimson Guardian and then deactivate it for no apparent reason!?" Eldran roared loudly, directing his words not to a soldier but to a small golden holographic sphere floating in silence.

[An unregistered object was detected in the database and marked for removal, but it suddenly disappeared.]

The words came from an AI belonging to the Astrylite civilization. It typically wouldn't have communicated with the Base Captain, as Astrylites held AIs in low regard, treating them worse than low-ranking soldiers. However, the sudden incident with the Crimson Guardian had pushed Eldran to the limit of his patience, forcing the primary responsible party to speak with him.

"It appeared and disappeared suddenly... Are you kidding me? This is why I hate working with AIs; they always do senseless things on their own!" he longed for the days when he was part of the main army, where everything was in the hands of highly trained soldiers.

Not like the soldiers in this small battalion, who seemed to have been thrown onto this planet due to their sheer incompetence.

Unfortunately, he had been demoted due to a conflict with a Lieutenant Colonel, leading to this degrading assignment as a subordinate to a Major who seemed to serve no purpose other than satisfying his insatiable appetite.

"An important mission for the royals? Honor? It's all lies! I've wasted five hundred years of my life in this hole!"

Eldran fixed his gaze on the sphere and spoke with authority: "Listen, I'm already in big trouble over what happened in sector M-039. If you start causing me more complications, I won't hesitate to deactivate you and replace you with another AI. Do you understand!?"

Each word sounded cold and full of threats, as if he were venting all his anger on this AI.

[Understood. I will configure the Crimson Guardians not to activate so quickly in response to unusual detections. First, a couple of soldiers will be sent to check if it's an error or not.]

...

Crunch! Craack!

"Phew, that was too close!" Kraynnor exclaimed, his body covered in cold sweat.

Lately, he had been making decisions that put his life at risk, which was unusual for someone who had spent his entire existence as something of a hermit, without friends, without a spouse, without children, no one close to worry about.

But did he regret what he had done or was doing? Never! He lived life his way, regardless of others' opinions!

"Still, I expected the fall to be more painful, but I didn't feel a thing..." Kraynnor scrutinized his surroundings and noticed small fragments that crumbled easily upon contact. He continued to explore the area where he had landed with his hands and realized there were countless of these fragile objects.

The problem arose in complete darkness, where any action became extraordinarily complicated. Luckily, his exoskeleton automatically responded to the environment. Like the last time, he felt as if millions of tiny ants covered his face and eyes.

Gradually, the world around him took shape and became visible thanks to a technology that Kraynnor identified as residual infrared radiation detection.

This gave him the ability to see in the dark, even in the absence of obvious heat sources.

Nevertheless, everything appeared in shades of indigo...

Crunch! Crunch!

He stood up, accompanied by the sound of crunching beneath his feet. Finally, Kraynnor glimpsed the source of that noise and was left speechless.

"These sons of bitches..."

What stretched before him were countless bones and skulls, all belonging to human beings. He had noticed earlier that on the surface, there was no trace of the bones of those who had perished during the invasion; now he understood that they had all been disposed of in these underground facilities.

"The Astrylites deserve no mercy; such a ruthless race should not continue to sow chaos in the universe..." his words were filled with deep intentions to kill.

His aversion towards those aliens didn't decrease, but rather grew over time.

However, this feeling also drove him to seek any means to strengthen himself, and, above all, to do so as quickly as possible. The last thing he wanted was to be discovered without the necessary resources to defend himself.

Sigh...

Unfortunately, he couldn't do anything for those who had already passed away. He continued his journey among the remains of those who had once shared the same world as him.

Kraynnor meticulously inspected his surroundings. The metal and concrete hallways, which had once echoed with the activity of a thriving civilization, were now buried under a thick layer of dust. The control panels and screens, victims of the relentless passage of time, had likely lost their ability to power on even if there were available energy.

The air, cold and damp, carried with it the unmistakable smell of moisture and decay.

Every step of Kraynnor reverberated in the walls, creating an echo that seemed to evoke the lament of all the lives lost in that desolate corner of the world.

"Well, the distance to the storage facility is quite substantial..." he muttered.

Kraynnor was in one of the underground facilities in the southern part of the city, near the Aurora Underground Station. Just a hundred meters away stood one of the thousands of laboratories on this level.