2 Broken Pillar

When Leo was about to open the door home, someone suddenly opened it for him. When Leo saw who it was, he stopped like his whole life depended on it. 

It was a female human, her eyes were as blue as ice and her hair was as red as pale roses. She sort of resembled Raven from a certain fantasy-farming game. However, unlike the bashful maiden, she was more developed and mature.

She was Leo's mother and she had told him not to leave home after ten o'clock. Leo thought that he got caught and was about to apologize, but his mom spoke first. 

She looked worried as she said, "Leo, your Dad is in the hospital."

At that moment, a silver-white car with blue stripes arrived in front of their house. The word, "Rover" was boldly written in blue on the hood. Its streamlined body was gorgeous to say the least, but for this era the car was rather mediocre in style.

When she noticed the car, she hurriedly grabbed Leo by the wrist and entered.

Apparently, Gerard—his father's energy center was broken which crippled his cultivation. Now he was weaker than an adult human. After all, every single adult human had at least reached the Leaping Dragon State.

Fortunately, although he had lost his cultivation base, his body was still as strong as before since he was an enhancer. If he was an elementalist, he would have been in an even worse situation.

Humans will naturally reach Leaping Dragon State at the age of 20, even if they did not cultivate. Although advancing from that realm is another matter. Another thing to take note of was that their cultivation will not be as refined and as stable as someone who actually did cultivation at an earlier age.

Energy Cultivation had four states as a whole, in ascending order they were; Leaping Dragon State, Energy Condensation State, Elemental Core State, and lastly Elemental Transformation State. Each state was further separated into ten levels.

That night, Leo's father went on a mission with his team. Four of them were at the Energy Condensation State, while one was at the Elemental Core State.

While they were on the mission, a pack of wind wolves ambushed them. Each wolf was at the Energy Condensation State, except for one which was the alpha. 

The alpha wolf had a cultivation base that reached Elemental Core State and it was at a higher level than his father's Captain.

What was more horrifying was that the pack of wolves numbered up to twenty, but his father only had a team of five.

Leo pondered aloud, "Then how did Dad reach the City?"

Cynthy—Leo's mom, answered, "That is something we should ask your father ourselves."

Once they reached the hospital, the mother and son duo went to Gerard's room. 

The hospital had an obvious resemblance to a modern hospital, save for the fact that the apparatuses they used were quite strange. Instead of monitors they had holograms which floated beside his bed, there were numbers and lines on them depicted in a variety of colors but most were in green indicating that he was in good condition.

The teen noticed that his dad was asleep, so they just stood beside the bed as they examined his condition.

Gerard had ruffled and long hair which were as red as pale roses. As for his eyes, well, they were closed. His face was chiseled and handsome, while his body was slim yet quite muscular.

His eyebrows furrowed and he groaned, "No... not again..."

When Cynthy saw this, she sat down and gently held his hands. Leo asked, with a hint of worry on his face, "Mom, is Dad going to be okay?"

His mother's eyes glowed brightly with hope as she reassured him, "Yes, yes he will."

Although Cynthy said that, Leo could not help but be pessimistic. He then left the room and walked towards something, covered in rune circuits, akin to a vending machine. 

He tapped the buttons on the keypad, then he took a can of soda from its pick-up box. The word "Loca" was imprinted on the red can, and it was refreshingly cold.

After finding a good seat, he took a sip of Loca and his taste buds were attacked by the sweetness. While his throat felt like it was being pierced by soft needles.

After he refreshed himself, he asked, 'I wonder what happened?'

A moment later he shook his head and inwardly said, 'I hope Dad will be okay.'

Leo sighed, he then tapped on his watch—which closely resembled the ultimatrix. However its color scheme was silver white and ocean blue, and scattered all over its body were light blue circuit patterns. It did not look like a watch at all, it was more like a futuristic bracer than anything. Its texture was smooth like glass, while the circuit patterns glowed every now and then.

The teen's star-link activated, displaying the home panel which was half transparent and blue. A few icons were visible, and he tapped on one red icon with a white triangle which was dubbed "Vstream".

Leo scrolled down for a few moments before he tapped on a certain livestream that piqued his interest. The thumbnail used for the stream had a girl with long snow white hair, icy blue eyes, and a pair of pointed ears similar to the ears of elves. Her skin was akin to white frozen jade, her body was well developed while her height was around five foot and five inches. Her beauty was almost comparable to a goddess, she looked stunning to say the least. Contrary to her appearance however, she gave off a very cheerful vibe.

Her hair and ears would make people think she was from the Frost Elf bloodline of the Elven race, well her avatar truly is one but no one really knows if she was one in real life too.

~~~~

On a broken city, which resembled that of a battlefield, a three-meter tall robot stood on the broken streets. 

Its form was not unlike a blonde haired female clad in golden light armor. It was wearing a mask and a helmet, while a glowing halo floated above its head. If only it had a pair of white wings, it could have been called an angel. However, rather than wings it had pairs of thrusters on its back, waist, and legs.

The angel was a holding a spear with its right hand, the metal used to forge it was similar to silver while the blade glowed yellow. At the other end of the spear was a thruster, unlike other spears that either had a smaller blade or none at all.

Facing the angelic mech, twenty meters away, was a mech that resembled a humanoid turtle. Which could detach its shell and use it as a shield. After he placed it down, the mech pulled the gatling gun on its back and held it.

While the turtle was still doing all those things, the angelic mech was already running towards it. 

Ratatatatatatat!

Of course once the turtle was done preparing, it pulled the trigger and started shooting at the lightly armored mech.

The blonde mech dodged the incoming barrage by running to her right. The bullets came crashing towards the road, not once hitting its target.

As the angelic mech got closer to the turtle mech, it became harder and harder to dodge. Still, the bullets never once hit it. In one moment the mech was in the middle of the street but at the next, it was already running along the walls of a building. It was almost as if the angelic mech was dancing around the battlefield.

As if acknowledging the decreasing distance, the turtle mech slowly retreated from its original spot. However, before it could even move two steps away from its last spot, the angelic mech burst with unbridled speed and dashed in front of the turtle mech.

The angelic mech jumped above and spun, while she extended her spear to slash at the turtle. The turtle mech blocked the attack with its Gatling gun, which was cut in half. However, it served its purpose and blocked the angel's attack. 

Once the angelic mech was about to descend, the turtle drew a knife out and slashed vertically. The female mech blocked it with her spear, while the turtle mech switched his grip with his knife in reverse and tried to stab her.

The halo, above the angel, immediately grew brighter. As if the angel was buffed, it was able to move with greater speed and dodged to the left. After dodging, it spun around the turtle mech and moved a step back.

The blade of the spear, like the halo, grew brighter. It made the blade hotter and sharper. The initially dead thrusters started bursting with life and spewing flames.

Without pause, the angelic mech stabbed the turtle mech's unprotected back. Which killed the pilot in the cockpit which was on the chest.

The eyes of the turtle mech, which were glowing bright red at first, dimmed and lost their brilliance.

The angel pulled her spear out, kicking the mech down in the process, before a voice suddenly reverberated throughout the whole battlefield.

"Victory!"

On Leo's star-link, a barrage of comments praised the angelic mech.

"The Valkyrie is too powerful, it can even penetrate through that heavily armored mech."

"Upstairs, you are clearly blind! Miss Eira stabbed the War Turtle in the back. It's the least protected spot after removing its shell after all."

"Wait, why did the pilot remove his shell?"

"The War Turtle's pilot was too arrogant, he thought that he could kill Miss Eira before she could reach her. So he removed his shell shield as a 'handicap'."

"Miss Eira is so awesome, I wouldn't have been able to react fast enough to dodge those attacks."

"I agree with you…"

Leo himself thought that the other pilot was not arrogant, it simply knew that his opponent had a weapon that could easily pierce his bulky ass.

Once the battle ended, both robots dematerialized. On a fluffy themed room, the figure of a frost elf slowly formed. 

The frost elf spoke, "Now that's enough Ironblood for today... I'll start reading your superchats now."

"Hey! Stop sending superchats without any words, this is not a donation. Nevertheless, thank you for the superchat mister 'Emergence, One-Seven-Seven-Zero-One-Three'…"

"Oh wow, thank you 'Starry Skies' for the superchat. Let's see, you wish to know what I do when I'm at my lowest?

I would calm myself down before reflecting and writing down the things I should be grateful for. Maybe even list down the things I can do to change..."

Leo, after hearing what Eira had to say, smiled. He now had an idea on what he needed to do, and realized something.

He mumbled, "Mister Dragon must have been a psychic. He knew that I would need it, so he chose me out of the hundreds of people that was on that street."

Leo stood up from his seat and went to his Dad's room, he looked at his Mom and said that he was going home.