Arlok's attacks were entirely suited for a human. They weren't at incredible speeds. Aria couldn't manage her suit and body so precisely without sufficient energy.
Dietrich evaded; he used Eden to speed up his body. His reactions were more than enough to track and deflect Aria's attacks. Meanwhile, she tried to assess the situation around her.
But Dietrich wasn't just evading; he was attacking too. After each of his attacks, there were traces on the ground, black as darkness itself. These were powerful electric strikes; he tried to make them more precise, but Arlok moved swiftly, not allowing any chance to think or concentrate.
"What the hell is this, is this even a human?!" The guy had faced many formidable individuals, but now he saw a "true" swordmaster in his eyes, although it was just Aria, calculating the battlefield within split seconds.
Some shots, some bullets hit Arlok's side. The nanosuit wasn't damaged, but Arlok's ribs felt the impact. It was Johannas shooting; he was an excellent marksman. After hitting the side, he immediately aimed for the head. He even managed to hit, but the bullet also didn't cause serious damage.
"Enemy is dangerous - eliminate immediately!" Aria began moving towards Johannas, not seeking combat with Dietrich.
"Watch out, Johannas!" Dietrich tried to chase after Arlok and strike him, but he merely turned abruptly and delivered a diagonal strike across the young man's chest.
It was a shallow wound. The strike tore his clothes and scratched his chest, but it didn't cleave or cause anything severe. The guy was alive and immediately regained his senses to continue the fight.
"Run, idiot, you're getting in my way!" He looked at Johannas, trying to block the path to his friend.
Aria assessed this and began attacking Dietrich because he was too good at protecting his friend from the attacks of this strange creature, one he didn't quite understand. Whether it was a human or a monster from the depths of hell. Where Arlok's eyes were, two glassy eyes glowed.
It was the Alliance uniform, a strange helmet with red eyes - it symbolized the might of the Alliance, yet the helmet itself had minimal details, made in a minimalist style.
In this dusky weather, it was those red eyes that frightened Dietrich. He had seen Arlok killing his people, and his rage was colored in even brighter shades than the simple embroideries on Arlok's clothes.
"Johannas!" He ordered his friend, but he saw that he, Dietrich, and this killer were left alone.
"Fool, I won't leave you!" He changed positions and shot at Arlok. Aria tried to minimize the damage by hiding, but Dietrich's attacks repeatedly forced her to expose herself.
"Johannas, take the rifle, this creature clearly doesn't know how to talk! It has no mouth, no ears, no nose!" That's how he saw the mask on Arlok's head.
But even when the rifle was in hand, Aria was still not defeated. She began evading rather than seeking confrontation, focusing on Johannas and calculating the trajectory of shots for a successful dodge.
But even the best calculation can make a mistake - one wrong move, one stone causing Arlok's body to stumble, gave Dietrich the chance to deliver the strongest whip strike of all.
A black trail remained on Carnage's form; his helmet opened, although Aria tried in every way to prevent it. Gray hairs swayed several times before the body fell to the ground. Aria lost control of the suit; the nanomachines were overloaded with the electricity from the whips and instantly malfunctioned without enough Eden for recovery.
The body fell with a rustle against the wind direction. Johannas quickly ran to his friend, Dietrich.
"Why are you hesitating, let's kill him!" He aimed the rifle at Arlok's head.
"Wait, I feel uneasy, I need to step back…" The latter was looking at the sky. His insides seemed to flip, creating not pain inside him but a strange feeling of danger.
"You're hesitating again; do you understand that waiting isn't always the right choice?" He began reaching for the trigger when suddenly his friend grabbed the rifle and redirected it.
"Let's run…" He kept his eyes fixed on space.
Perhaps it was his greatest mistake, but at the moment when Dietrich grabbed his friend's rifle and pointed it away, crimson eyes opened. Dietrich had seconds to feel, understand, and realize the amount of Eden that surged out with the opening of the eyes.
Arlok, awakened due to the shock, his heart beat faster, and his body forced his mind to awaken from a "minor" slumber. He was gasping; he seemed unable to breathe.
"What are you doing?" Johannas didn't feel that force, that Eden that made Dietrich feel his body to the core.
"I'm helping a person," he began genuinely trying to assist, seating Arlok so he could breathe calmly.
"Are you insane?" Johannas couldn't comprehend him.
Dietrich himself relied on his fear. He had grown up witnessing suffering, seeing the power he still couldn't overcome - his father's. And in Arlok, he saw a man much stronger than Wolfgang, stronger than anyone Dietrich had ever encountered. Killing him seemed the greatest mistake, one that couldn't be made at any cost.
"No, just trust me." Even Dietrich's hands were shaking, and his heart beat incredibly fast. "My father taught me who to follow…"
Johannas had nothing left but to silently agree; he saw the serious gaze of his friend. Johannas resolved to help his friend, not Arlok, and went for bandages hoping to wrap Dietrich's body with its many wounds.
"Aria, what happened here?" He coughed, looking around. Arlok poorly understood where he was and what had happened. More important thoughts occupied his mind, but he wanted to go from small problems to the great ones gradually.
"They tried to attack…" A hologram appeared in front of Arlok, displaying the entire battle from start to finish, from the arrival of people to the helmet's removal.
"You translated speech?" He spoke very quietly and very wearily.
"Yes…"
Dietrich's eyes widened as soon as he saw the hologram, but he was even more horrified by something else - the sky, where stars had already begun to appear, was completely obscured by some huge rhomboid object with dozens and hundreds of protrusions.
It was a battleship, and at that very moment, hundreds of titans were flying towards the Endoria's surface. They flew to different points, all seeking one person - Arlok.
Hundreds of burning titans descended to the planet, and among them, from the hangars, hundreds of Lefions pursued them - it was a spectacle of incredible beauty for some and horror for others. It was the Alliance fleet; even seeing a small part of it, Arlok realized that the Alliance was alive and thriving, still as magnificent in those crimson eyes.
Slowly but surely, the battle shifted in Aria's favor; her computational powers were many times greater, even though she was weakened by the absence of Eden.
It became easier to predict the attacks, and deeper wounds started appearing on Dietrich's body. Even Johannas didn't escape unharmed; once she managed to reach him and slice off half his ear. At that moment, miraculously, Dietrich managed to strike with his whip without hitting his friend but to drive the enemy away.
While Aria evaded quite frequently, she moved Arlok's body significantly less often than these two moved theirs. Analyzing battles throughout Arlok's life, she had learned the most efficient techniques for steps and strikes for her master.