The fact that all the robots looked so different struck Lex as unusual, but he quickly noticed a pattern in their bodies despite the varying shapes. First, regardless of whether they were shaped like humanoids, tetrapods, floating orbs, small jets or whatever else, they all boasted a large torso, or central body.
It was not so evident when they were shaped like humans or animals, but the feature became more prominent when they took other shapes. Still, Lex would not have noticed this if it weren't for the fact that his soul sense could detect wisps of souls exactly in those spots. He did not know how significant this discovery was, but it could prove to be useful.
The second, more obvious thing that he noticed was that despite whatever form they took, they all seemed to be using laser weapons. Sure, the weapons had various forms, but all of them shot lasers - regardless of whether they were in the visible spectrum or not.
None of that mattered to Lex, who was not only impervious to their damage, but would punch through their bodies regardless of their shape or size. But before he left the Inn, Velma had sent forward a request to all workers dealing with the refugees to collect as much information about the invaders as possible.
Lex narrowed his eyes. The robots were finally reacting to his arrival, which was fine with him. The police would not have been able to hold them off much longer, especially since they had no weapons with which to shoot back! The only reason they had survived so long was because some of them turned out to be cultivators and were blocking the attacks with some spirit tech!
"Go get them," he said to Fenrir as he jumped off its back. He wanted to see how it handled being outnumbered so that he could understand what its capabilities were.
Fenrir only growled for a moment before leaping towards the robots, completely unafraid of their superior numbers.
Lex deployed an Imperial Shield in front of the underground entrance so they wouldn't suffer any collateral damage during the fight. The police, however, did not realize that.
They were desperately holding off the aliens, completely unable to divert their attention anywhere else, when they heard a loud growl. Before they could make sense of where that sound came from, a gray shield appeared in front of them, blocking their view of the outside world.
That did not reassure them, however, because while the shield blocked their view, and even trapped them inside, it did not block sounds.
The nerve-wracking sounds of metal literally being ripped into pieces echoed in the air, along with a symphony of crashing, explosions and deep, spine-chilling growls. An excruciating 10 minutes later, the shield disappeared. Revealed to them was a battleground littered with the scrapped remains of the aliens that had been attacking them just a few minutes prior.
There was no indication ofโฆ of the creature that had been growling earlier, as if it had vanished into the darkness.
"Is it safe?" one civilian asked, slowly approaching the stairs leading up.
"No!" the policeman exclaimed and hurriedly signaled everyone to retreat, with no desire to find out what actually happened. He didn't know why his life had become a horror story, but he knew not to tempt fate. Curiosity could kill a lot more than just a cat!
Lex was feeling pretty good about himself as he rode Fenrir away. Fenrir had taken care of all the robots completely on its own, completely surpassing Lex's expectations. In fact, it had done so without suffering a single hit! In that regard, it surpassed Lex!
His own evasive maneuvers weren't that great, though previously he used the excuse that he could not dodge lasers moving at the speed of light as his justification. But this little pup of his had brought out some kind of interference field as soon as it attacked, making it so the robots movements became slow and imprecise. Even as he completely ripped them apart with its claws, they remained unable to actually target him.
Lex even took his time observing their remains once the battle was over to see if he could learn anything new about them, before eventually returning.
So far, fighting the robots had been super easy. Marlo's original assessment of the robots may not have been wrong, the nearly indestructible owner of a universal establishment, riding a beast with the bloodline of a god thought to himself.
But the good feeling didn't last. With his sharp senses, it wasn't long before he identified another group of people struggling with the robots. This time, they weren't fighting. They had been tied up and detained.
Lex could 'hear' the robots speaking in their low frequencies, talking about the new slaves.
His stomach lurched, but as much as it killed him, he didn't divert his direction this time. If he had to stop every time he encountered such a situation, he'd never reach the facility. The best help he could provide, he was already giving through his Inn.
For now, he had to prioritize his own objectives. He had to.
As if sensing his distress, Fenrir sped up. They were heading away from the city, so soon Lex stopped detecting both the robots and the groups of people.
Far in the distance, towards the main city, Lex could see faint sparks of light filling the sky, as if fireworks. But he knew that they weren't fireworks. They were most likely guns, or other weapons since guns weren't as common here.
But soon, Lex could not see even those.
Riding Fenrir across the English countryside, feeling the cool winter wind in his face, Lex almost felt pleasant.
But Lex didn't allow himself to wallow in guilt for too long. He took control of his emotions and fixed his mindset.
It was alright to feel bad when he saw people in distress, but he couldn't let those emotions take hold. The universe was full of strife, and he wasn't responsible for fixing it all.
If enemies came his way, he wouldn't spare them. But that didn't mean his mind could be swayed into fighting every villain that someone encountered. It was difficult, but he had to be firm.
Lex was lost in his thoughts, reaffirming his resolution as Fenrir ran through the wild. Maybe the decision he was making wasn't the morally correct one, but it was the best one for himself and his dependents.
His mindset was undergoing a subtle change as he contemplated the philosophy behind maturing, and if it counted as maturing if he didn't like the decisions he had to make. Or perhaps, that is what maturity was to begin with.
Alas, his dramatic internal monologue was interrupted by his intuition. He looked up but saw nothing due to the absolute darkness that had enveloped the sky, yet his eyes seemed to be fixed on a moving target.
While his eyes were dependent on light, his other senses were not. His spirit sense had a vague range of about 100 feet (30 meters), where sometimes it could go a little beyond and sometimes is just below. His intuition, however, had no clear limit for how close or far an object had to be before it could detect it.
That is why, in the darkness, even though the approaching aliens' ships were so far that Lex could not hear them yet, his intuition informed him that he had been locked on to by them.
Lex did not ask Fenrir to slow down, however. They continued to run through the wilderness as Lex prepared to face them.
What he really wanted to try was Evisceration, but he wasn't sure it would work. He had no idea what that wisp in their bodies was. If it was a small part of their souls, then the technique would be absolutely fatal. If, however, it was something like a projection of a soul, or maybe even something else that Lex was unaware of at the moment, then the technique might not work.
To prepare for such an eventuality, he began picking out a long distance array to use. He did not believe that these robots would be as resilient as the ones in the pagoda, for right from the get go they had given him much more trouble.
The next few minutes were spent in silence until, even in the darkness, his eyes could pick out the shapes of the incoming ship. His eyes were already sharper than normal, let alone the strange advancements his left eye underwent, so seeing in the dark was not such a big issue.
There were four ships heading his way, and they did not bother being subtle about their approach. From the moment Lex saw them, it only took a couple more minutes till even Fenrir picked up on their arrival. A minute later, the sound of jets rushing through the air could be heard from the distance.
Fenrir growled, but Lex rubbed him behind the ears. The little pup wanted to attack, but as much as Lex trusted him, there was a difference between going up against a robot and going against a ship. It was like fighting against an armed soldier and a fighter jet - they were not in the same league!
In the time that it took Lex to calm his pup down, the four ships had arrived. They did not bother surrounding him, or trying to communicate. They attacked the moment they were in range!
As he put up the strongest version of Imperial Shield that he could manage, he wondered if the invaders were always so aggressive or if it was just him they were specifically targeting. After all, if their objective was to gather slaves, killing everyone they came across would be counter-productive.
Just as Lex suspected, these ships were specifically targeting him. As soon as their scanners captured his image, it flagged him as a war criminal for interfering in an execution and resisting punishment.
๐ก๐๐ซ๐๐๐๐ญ.๐ฌ๐๐ถ
They attacked immediately, their laser weapons shooting off short orange blasts that immediately slammed into the Imperial Shield. A large, fiery explosion shook the earth. Orange flames licked everything around them black, turning what could not survive its heat to ash.
Yet behind his shield, Lex was untouched even by a warm wind. It was a good idea to upgrade his techniques.
He looked up in the sky, but did not retaliate yet. The ships were too far for even his array, let alone evisceration. So, he patiently waited for them to come closer.
But that is not what the ships detected. As soon as they scanned the explosion site, they picked up an image of a lone man sitting comfortably on his war mount, looking up at them mockingly.
The massive fangs displayed on the mask had changed into a sneer, as if the ships were unworthy opponents. His eyes looked placid, as if there was no pressure that the incoming ships put on him.
A mistake that Lex made, due to the kind of exposure he had, was that the ships were piloted by the robots who were invading. That was wrong. In fact, the ships themselves were sentient as well. They were just as much invaders as the robots on the ground, and they took great offense to Lex's dismissive attitude!
The ships, now closer since they never stopped moving during this entire ordeal, opened a hull at their base, and brought out a laser cannon. The identical cannons on all four ships began to glow, ?charging up for their attack.
"Oh?" Lex felt a tingle, as if warning him his shield wouldn't be enough for the upcoming attack.
All four lasers shot, but not at Lex. The four lasers converged midair, and began combining their might, turning into a massive orb of orange light.
"Look Fenrir, the little aliens are trying really hard," said Lex mockingly, this time on purpose.
Though Lex had not spoken aloud, the sensors on the ships detected every word he said! Not only that, since the ships were constantly connected to the mother-ship, his words were broadcast back to their main command!
Unable to contain their anger, the ships launched their attack prematurely!
The massive orange orb, despite its size, hurled at Lex at the speed of light, crashing through the Imperial Shield. Thenโฆ then nothing.
The orange ball seemed to freeze in space, right in front of Lex. The ships scanned again, and received an image of Lex casually holding the massive ball off destructive energy in a single extended hand. It looked like a toy.
Lex naturally could not catch the orange orb at the speed of light. Yet his intuition could predict its trajectory and path even before it launched, giving Lex plenty of time to prepare.
Although the orb was quite a bit larger than his hand, on a whim he felt like testing out Impervious hands.
Using the technique cost a lot of spirit energy, but Lex was not in his flow state, where he always did the most efficient action. In normal life, it was okay to be wasteful sometimes.
The technique's appearance was very lackluster, in that nothing special appeared on his hands. It was as if a technique wasn't being used at all.
Just as he held out his hand in place, the aliens launched the attack. While the orange orb had no trouble breaking through the Imperial shield, the moment it touched Lex's hand, it lost all of its momentum.
Lex experienced something strange. According to the original technique, his hands should have been impervious to damage, and that is all. Yet now, from the moment the ball touched his hand, he felt in complete control of it. That was not supposed to happen as there was no aspect of the technique which extended to control, but that's what happened.
He could feel that the energy propelling it forward had not disappeared, but was simply contained. If he wished, he could use that energy to propel the ball anywhere he wished. If he so wanted, the orange orb could fizzle out, or suddenly explode.
He tried out his control, and the massive orange orb shrunk down until it fit perfectly into his palm.
"Look Fenrir, the aliens want to play catch."
He didn't try to throw the orb back, he didn't trust his aim enough. He just used its existing kinetic energy, and sent it back exactly from the path through which it came!
On the mother-ship, or rather, the mother-ship, which was its own sentient being as well, stuttered for a moment when it received a projection of a laser orb being caught with bare hands.
When it heard Lex's words, it did the robot equivalent of screaming in the air before the feed was immediately cut off. The sensors on the ships near Lex were not advanced enough to track the orb traveling at the speed of light, and so they were unable to record how Lex sent the orb back. But the mothership guessed what happened nonetheless.
"New additional objective," she sent out to all deployed robots in the region. "Anomalous subject identified. Subject has shown capability to physically interact with energy. Securing the anomalous subject is now priority number 31! Objective title: anomalous subject securing. Objective short form: A.S.S. I repeat, A.S.S. is now priority number 31!"
๐๐๐๐ป๐๐๐ญ.๐๐ค๐ข
*****
Back on earth, Lex was admiring the massive explosion in the air. It was a shame that he didn't get to try evisceration, but he would get more opportunities no doubt. Moreover, he learned something interesting about Impervious hands.
Fenrir released a low whine, attracting Lex's attention.
"What do you mean that I insulted the tradition of the hunt? I'm the one who taught you about hunting! Besides, I'm learning that it's a little fun to tease your prey."
"Grrr."
"Don't be ridiculous! It's not more fun to immediately kill the prey. Sometimes, when you have full control of the situation, it's a lot of fun to tease your prey a little. Honestly. Try it next time."
Instead of replying to Lex, Fenrir began running towards the facility once again.
"Oh, you're ignoring me now?" Lex asked while laughing.
"Grrr."
"Me? Embarrass you? Are you serious?"
Lex and Fenrir continued to argue with one another as they continued on their path, completely unaware that various robots and ships had diverted their path to locate them. Yet, despite their advanced technology, they were unable to find them!
Whether they scanned the area from the air, or checked their last known location for tracks, there was nothing to find.
Though Fenrir was young and inexperienced, its instincts were strong. After the previous fight, it had immediately deployed one of its bloodline abilities, creating an interference field around them and hiding all their tracks.
The abilities bestowed by a god-bloodline could not so easily be countered, and so thousands of ships flew in the area, searching for them to no avail.
The mothership grew increasingly frustrated at the lack of results, and couldn't help but picture the uninterested look on the mask when it faced those ships. It understood now that the whole reason they even located him the first time around was because he was teasing them. Whoever he was, he never took them seriously for a single moment.
In her anger, the mothership activated a single infantry regiment. All the units it had sent on the ground so far were naught more than scouts. Their true soldiers were very different, and much stronger. In truth, even the mothership could get into trouble if it was detected she deployed troops unnecessarily and wastefully. But that was easy to solve. She just needed to provide a legitimate reason for their deployment.
"Reassigning planet threat level from 1 to 2. Redistribution of deployed units required. Deployment of additional troops required. Reevaluation of danger zones required."
Silently, a change started to occur as more troops approached earth, but this time in camouflage.
At the Midnight Inn, the three nascent cultivators and the devils were finishing up their deal, and shaking hands. The council had just about finished their proposal and were almost ready to request a meeting with the Innkeeper.
Down on earth, Lex finally neared the facility. But while it was protected under a defensive formation, it had also been surrounded by hundreds of robots laying siege.
Even though Lex had it pretty easy so far, he did not dare underestimate hundreds of robots. Even if they couldn't hurt him, they might hurt Fenrir of the facility. Moreover, he didn't know if killing too many would attract attention.
He had to progress with caution.
Lex was observing the facility, considering how he could enter without attracting attention. The surrounding area was pitch dark, but the facility was still well lit. They probably had spirit energy powered lanterns or something similar. But instead of helping them, the light acted as a beacon for the robotic invaders, attracting their attention and resulting in this siege.
Their defensive formation was like a transparent bubble around the entire building, only rippling when struck by the invaders - so that meant it was constantly rippling. He didn't know how much longer the formation could last.
Before Lex could formulate a plan on how to proceed, Mary called out to him.
"Hey Lex, before you do anything else, I just learned something I thought I should share with you."
"What's up?" he asked without removing his gaze from the facility.
"While the council was temporarily crippled due to the sudden shutdown of all electronics, surprisingly, they actually had contingencies in place for such an occasion! They've finally got a communication network based on spirit tech up and running, and have successfully mobilized a response force."
"Alright. What does that have to do with my current situation?"
๐๐ช๐ท๐ณโฏ๐ข๐.๐ธ๐ฐ๐
"According to their latest reports, the invaders have not attacked all places equally. They are first mobilizing towards high value resources, some of which the council had actually hidden from the world. Moreover, there are a few special zones on your planet termed as danger zones where people don't casually venture in, because anyone who goes in rarely comes out. The invaders are all targeting those areas first, as if they want to make sure they get everything precious or valuable before they do anything else.
"This information was corroborated by Marlo, who recently just returned to the Inn. According to him, his wife's family's sacred ground was also attacked. Unable to hold them off, she opted to dig out their most valuable tree, and brought it to the Inn's greenhouse for safekeeping."
Lex recalled hearing about that tree, if they were talking about the same one. They had used it to keep Rafael alive despite his horrible condition.
"So what you're suggesting isโฆ the reason there are a lot of robots laying siege to this facility is because it is probably storing something valuable?"
"That is a possibility. There's one more thing. Although he was not clear about the details, Marlo suggested that this invasion might not be so simple. He suggested that it might have been instigated by someone. He said he would not elaborate more until they were able to contact Fernanda, but there's been no progress on that yet."
Lex frowned. Before the invasion happened, Marlo was supposed to be heading towards the 'prison' to deal with whoever had been instigating wars on earth. Considering his history, it might not be a stretch that the same person would be responsible for starting something like this, if he was able.
Suppressing his urge to personally beat up that scum, Lex narrowed his eyes as he looked at the facility. What could the facility be hiding that was so valuable? Miranda didn't mention anything, and he doubted the aliens were interested in the servers.
Just because he had access to the whole universe it did not mean he underestimated the value of things he could find on earth. After all, if earth was so insignificant then the robots themselves would not be interested in them.
More importantly, that meant that as soon as he fought any of these robots, they would likely attract reinforcements. After all, if this was one of their main objectives, they would not treat it lightly.
Lex groaned. The truth was, he had already thought of a way to circumvent the blockade, but he'd been having so much fun crushing robots lately that he wanted to continue.
He sent Fenrir back to the Inn, promising to summon it back if any fighting started. He closed his eyes and started to use the technique he had learnt so long ago back in the Crystal realm, called In-Law effect!
The original purpose of the technique was a sort of last minute escape to save one's life. It allowed the user to teleport their soul away, but due to the fact that Lex's soul was fused to his body, for him it became a teleportation technique.
This was far from simple, as Lex had looked at actual teleportation techniques for Golden core cultivators, and they were incredibly convoluted and difficult to master. They were a lot more reliable and versatile, sure, but it would take Lex months of dedicated focus to master the technique. Without exaggeration, it was one of the most difficult techniques he had seen.
But using the power of loopholes, Lex found a much easier solution. The original technique required Lex to stay still for 3 hours, but now powered by his energy which was a better fuel source than anything a Foundation realm expert could supply, it took him barely a minute.
One moment, he was standing in the distance, looking at the facility from far away. The next, he had teleported inside.
Large concrete walls had surrounded the facility, not only protecting it but also hiding it from view. Now that Lex had crossed those walls he could finally see that it wasโฆ a very plain and unimpressive looking gray, rectangular building.
While Lex observed the unremarkable building, his arrival had not gone unnoticed, prompting soldiers to instantly surround him. They pointed their weapons at him and screamed at him to get down on his knees, but Lex wasn't really in the mood for all this drama.
He would not have called it drama if he could see the intimidating appearance of the mask he was wearing, but that was besides the point. He spread out his spirit sense and firmly held all the soldiers, freezing them where they stood, further scaring everyone in view.
"I have a letter here for Major Gilbert. Can someone go find him? I don't want to spend too much time on this."