Golderon ran across the street as his fellow soldiers sprinted along with him. The airborne enemies continued their pursuit as a stomping sound could be heard from a distance. Suddenly several beams were seen in the sky which blasted the three zooming Exoskeletons straight to the ground. Golderon couldn't see where the enemy landed but only saw a large explosion erupting from behind.
"What was that?" A soldier asked.
"That was probably the Colonel." Golderon sighed in relief.
A vehicle then turned from the corner and sped towards the soldiers and took a sudden stop.
Suddenly several gunshots could be heard and as Golderon turned and witnessed a giant metallic soldier firing reddish rounds of explosive bullets toward them.
"Take cover!" Golderon cried but it seemed too late.
A laser blast shot through the explosive rounds and it exploded in midair.
The silver convertible was now seen turning from the corner. It sped fast towards the Dawn soldier.
The Dawn lifted its arms and took aim but Arthur's barrage of beams kept on striking the arms of the Dawn soldier inhibiting his aim. Each blast drove the Dawn soldier further back.
As Arthur approached, Arthur blasted a long powerful blast right in the center of the armor and the Dawn soldiers blasted through a building. Arthur kept on blasting the enemy as he drove towards the team.
"I got rid of the air support. But I have to hurry towards the underground area or all the civilians we just rescued will be killed."
"Colonel, that route should be full of those metal monsters and Exoskeletons!" Golderon exclaimed.
"I know. But I need to keep them busy until the Exodus completes."
"How can we help?"
"If you manage to kill one of those Golems, that would be extremely helpful."
"How do we kill those things? We'd need a canon like yours to be able to kill it!"
"No. My cannon didn't kill it. I just damage it. That golem's still alive. Benteriallyon armor as thick as that should require more than 15 seconds of a concentrated blast from my Solarium Eradicator. Not to mention their armor has a strange… structure. Solarium Eradicator heats up metal and causes a unique eradicating reaction to all metals. My shot should have burnt and whatever circuits or gadgets that are associated in that armor. But my blasts didn't seem to have done that. It's as if that armor doesn't have a skeletal frame or a power source.
"No power source? Then what's making it move?"
"The pilot." Arthur shrugged.
"What?! That's impossible!"
"Observe the facts once more, soldier. Every single metal that that soldier is wearing is purely made with Benteriallyon steel. And that metal is highly conductible and easily heatable. Any small shock of electricity or heat could kill the pilot along with any electrical or magnetic technology it may be using. Why would Australia deploy such a weapon if it has such an obvious weakness?"
"But… Colonel, that's over a ton of metal! How can a human bear that weight?!" A soldier countered
"Calm down, Private. The Colonel's right. Remember what we saw. That same Golem met the entire barrage of one of our platoons. Each of our platoons has a Shocker. The pilot would have been fried from one blast." Golderon gave a grim look towards the ruins of
"These are modified, humans. This was exactly why Meryl gave you a session. A pre-taste of the horrors you will face tonight. It would be better to assume that they are immune to shock attacks, burning attacks, and of course if Australia managed to go this far, whiplash attacks."
"Then how do we kill it?"
"I've weakened the integrity of the armor. You should be able to disrobe that armor. Try to kill it then. Piercing it with bullets might."
"How can we take off that armor?"
"I haven't seen the armor up close Sargent. So you just have to play it by ear." Arthur shook his head.
"But here's my advice, that things quite slow and seem to have limited sight. The best way to kill it would be through close-range combat."
"That's crazy! Who would go near that thing?!" The soldier cried once more.
"That's exactly what the Australian's were thinking when they made these golems. And therein lies its weakness. For your eyes only, Sargent. Additional instructions if you manage to kill that one." Arthur handed Golderon a piece of paper.
"I can't afford to waste any more time. Looks like that beast is back on its feet. You guys take care of him. I hope you all survive this."
Arthur then sped through straight and went right towards the main highway.
The tongue-tied team looked back at the rubble to which the Dawn blasted out off. The slow crunching sound of metal could be heard as the arm of the Dawn soldier was seen climbing up from the hole on the wall that it blasted out of.
"Sa-Sargent…" The soldier gave a grim cry.
Golderon looked at the piece of paper and gripped it.
"We have our orders, Private. Follow me." Golderon then dashed towards the ruins of the building the Dawn soldier's blasted through from. The hand of the Dawn soldier could be seen reaching upwards to rise from its fallen rubble.
"We're going to die!" A soldier squealed as he charged towards the battle.
"Calm down, dude." Another soldier finally spoke up with a giggle.
"That things way slower compared to Master Meryl." The soldier smiled as she recalled their battle with Meryl.
"She's right. We've faced a speeding devil. We've had faced the fastest thing that could kill us. This one's moving in slow-motion compared to her." Golderon smirked as they approached.
"Barrage!" Goldenrod ordered as his soldiers unloaded several grenade launchers at the climbing monster.
As Arthur took the sharp curve and reached the main road, a warzone presented itself before him.
The skies looked chaotic as Exoskeletons could be seen zooming to and fro the areas. Buildings were being shot down as some of the poor Pangean platoons tried to fight back from the onslaught brought by the metal monsters aided by the deathly strikes from the sky.
Arthur even saw several metallic monsters crashing on specified locations within the city. Meteors came crashing on buildings and some on homes. Arthur, who helped Lowengren formulate the plan, knew that the golems came crashing right on top of where most of the soldiers were assigned.
Arthur took a deep breath as his perception started to see and think faster. The loud sounds of explosions and screams died out as one second became several.
The Believers of the future weren't simply classified by the quick rate of speed which they manage to push their Unlocking. Seeker Carlean always had the fastest speed and even reached higher Unlocking rank than most of his peers. He was one of the few who reached Surmounting stage of Ranked Hero. But the one thing that he failed at was to make his own Path.
The Believers were actually identified by the development of a set of strange and unique Skills which either aided in their speed of Unlocking or allowed them to develop super-powers. When a skill or a combination of skills reached a certain level of power or usefulness, it would then be classified as having a "Path."
Although a single skill could be a Path, the general trend among Believers was that a Path was always a collection of several skills. The best way to identify if an Unlocked have manifested their own Path is if they managed to defeat an enemy country, or a force of equal value, in a single clash and end it within 48 hours.
But there is always an exception to the rule.
The Selective Unlocking of Arthur was originally deemed to be ineffective and poor. But the United Nations Army's was shocked as the wars ragged and found that Arthur Humphrey really lived up to his name. Several battles concluded in victory as the Atomic Thresher manifested his own miracles. These miracles were made possible through his previously looked down upon "Instant Calculation".
It wasn't technically a Skill. Any Unlocked individual could do Instant Calculation in theory but none but his father could ever compare to Arthur's mastery.
Soon, his status and prestige slowly lived up to his heritage. Being the son of an Overcomer, it was expected that Arthur would follow on the footsteps of his father in being his own Overcomer or at least reach the World Champion level.
Alas, Arthur's great potential died out just before it ever manifested.
"So this is my Path? A pathless one? I just have to maintain and improve Instant Calculation?" Arthur asked Seeker.
"I wouldn't call it Pathless, Arthy. In fact, you never called it that. I always remember you calling it a Path rather than a Pseudo-Path. You would actually constantly correct those who would refer to it as a Pseudo-Path." Seeker laughed.
"That may have been true for the future me. But isn't it possible that the 'me' of the future pursued that path in pride as I found myself being overshadowed by other Paths? After all, we both haven't manifested a Path of our own. If time was a problem then, it would be better for me to improve Instant Calculation rather than build a new path. But right now, I have time to figure out or create a new Path."
"Probably. But creating one's path isn't as simple as you think it is. We aren't Believers. That's the issue. We don't have that level of faith they have. And besides, I didn't get that impression from you."
"You seem confident of my own opinions even though you aren't me."
"You were just that confident! And besides, we wouldn't have survived as far as we had if it weren't for you. So trust that your Path is the right one. Just don't try to do the Threshing Floor. You'd need to be at the Surmounting rank of the Inhuman stage to pull that off. Focus on your calculations for now. And let's get back to training." Seeker then went to the weapon racked and dropped the massive hammer and picked up a huge two-handed sword.
"Wouldn't it be more efficient to start me off with some smaller weapons?" Arthur frowned at Seeker's selection.
Arthur continued zooming through high speeds, he took out the glass cannon he held in his hand.
Arthur's reflexes have long evolved to a speed that can outmatch his previous calculating skills. With the slowing of time, Arthur now could even think and calculate properly and not make any split-second calculation. A single swipe of the Solarium Eradicator brought out twelve split second shots. These small bursts of attacks would do very little damage and wouldn't even be enough to kill an Exoskeleton.
But what a man like Arthur needed was not pure destructive power but accurate and sufficient power.
An Exoskeleton was shot at the booster, the sudden redirection caused him to collide to another and a chain effect of collisions occurred.
Another Exoskeleton about to fire his weapon was shot by the arm and its new target was the head of his fellow Exoskeleton. The headshot immediately killed the pilot as this soldier went spiraling downwards shooting everywhere and causing all forms of friendly fire and finally crashing down on a Dawn soldier. The impact caused threw the Dawn soldier off the window saving the Pangean soldiers in the building.
All that was caused by two simple shots. Arthur sent twelve shots in one wave of the cannon. And in a span of ten seconds, he did three waves averaging 10 to 12 shots.
The chaos he created was accurate chaos. Accidents after accidents fell unto the enemy.
"Get that vehicle!" An Exoskeleton cried after seeing the havoc that the passing convertible did.
"Soldiers! Heed your Colonel!" Arthur announced as he tried to sound like Lowengren while making a complete 180º turn.
"It's Lowengren!" A well-informed Evening exclaimed.
"Fight and shoot as much as you can. I'll be here to support you." Arthur revved his engine and a small smile appeared on his face.
"Well, whatever. This may or may not be a path, but this is my path. Let's see... I guess the future me, would have named this path…Chaos Order."
Now equipped with the unique Pseudo-Path known as "Chaos Order", Arthur Arthinar Humphrey, the Atomic Thresher has awakened.