The road had a crater from where the explosion occurred. Cars were flipped over and destroyed. People were either fleeing, crying or dead.
The explosion was powerful enough to have reached the buildings. Halo was one of those affected. However, unlike most buildings, Halo received the full benefits of housing the greatest minds of the mana engineering industry.
Its walls and foundations were naturally reinforced by the best materials they had or could synthesize. Yet even they had casualties.
Several injured were retreating further into the building's first floor. They were mostly the security force of Halo made up of Chosen. Caelum found their leader carrying the injured pedestrians to safety.
"Reynor!"
"My lord?! You're here!"
"What happened?!"
"We found multiple unknown mana signatures around this area. I called you immediately, but we got cut off. Every piece of electronics in this area had malfunctioned. And then a person with a tremendous amount of mana exploded right in the middle of the road."
"That's the enemy! There should be a gate somewhere. Did no one see?"
"No, my lord. We've been monitoring Aegon closely the past week after the series of attacks recently, but there wasn't a single thing that caught our attention except for the ones today."
"They must have found a way to hide the gate as well. Cal, we should assume that the gate is already closed. A trick like that would likely use up a lot of mana. Let's focus on finding the simulacra before the rest destroy the city."
"Right. Reynor, where's Ceres?"
"She should be in her room. We can't get to her since the elevators aren't working."
With that, Caelum flew to the top floor from outside the building and broke in through the glass. Erta followed right after him. Everything in the building has shut down including the lights and the electronic locks on the doors. Caelum had to break the locks just to enter Ceres's room.
"Brother?! What's happening outside?!"
Ceres, who was trembling in fear on her bed, ran to him the moment he appeared in her vision. Caelum sighed in relief after confirming that she was safe and uninjured.
"It's alright, Ceres. You'll be safe up here."
"Go, Cal. I'll keep her safe. You need to bring me a core so we can find the rest."
"Understood. Ceres, don't fight and just listen to Erta."
Caelum separated from Ceres who still looked scared. There was no time to lose so he left the explanation to Erta instead. He kissed Erta before leaving through the window. Immediately after, a golden barrier surrounded Ceres's room.
Caelum returned to the ground and scanned the area around the crater. He was hoping to find anything, perhaps a trace of mana to follow. But then he realised that there was no way for him to find the simulacra.
[Erta, how the hell do I find one of them?]
[I don't know either. That's why I didn't want you to drain the first one.]
[Okay. I'm sorry.]
[Residual mana detected. Beginning assimilation…]
[Assimilation complete. Resuming awakening process. Current progress: 1.6%]
[Similar mana signature detected. Please approach and assimilate to advance the awakening process.]
At that moment, a mechanical voice joined in their conversation. Caelum could feel something pulling his attention to somewhere nearby. He was slowly beginning to understand what the voice was talking about as he exclaimed excitedly.
"Yes!"
[What do you mean yes? Don't drain it, you idiot! You need to bring back the core!]
Caelum ignored Erta's misunderstanding as he flew forward. He was like a piece of metal being pulled toward a large magnet.
It was a regular working day for most people and it was definitely the worst time for such an attack to happen. He reached an area where many people were still crowding the streets, scared and confused by the distant explosion they heard.
Although it was distant, it was still quite near the area of the explosion so the people were panicking. However, even in the midst of all the chaos, Caelum could somehow detect his target.
It was not exactly him who was detecting it, but something within him that was also producing that mechanical voice in his head. The feeling was indescribable he could lock onto the target immediately without even seeing them.
He melded with the surroundings in precaution and shot forward like an arrow. He crashed on top of the simulacrum who had mixed in among the panicking people, acting like another scared pedestrian.
The moment Caelum pinned it down, he ripped apart its limbs to prevent it from attacking. The people around finally saw him and screamed as they witnessed him butchering a human in public.
Caelum paid them no mind as he ripped apart the simulacrum's chest with his burning hands and took the core. He was careful not to destroy it as he immediately flew back to Erta.
"For a second, I really thought you were going to drain it again."
"Come on, just forgive me already. Do you have everything ready for the spell?"
"Yes. I'll begin now so go kill more of them. It will take a while so you need to protect the city in the meantime."
"Alright. I can drain them this time, right?"
"Yes. Be careful, Honey."
Caelum rushed out again, flying blindly to find any of the simulacra hiding in the city. Assuming that they were really connected to each other through a server, he knew that they would likely be detonating more as a response to him hunting them down.
There was the possibility of them retreating, but considering the fact that they chose to attack now when no one would have discovered them otherwise suggests that they had already accomplished their initial goal of scouting.
This was further reinforced by the fact that the simulacra's first two targets had been Halo and Avalon, both of which were connected to Caelum. Thinking this, Caelum deduced that the simulacra must have invaded around the same time as the demons.
It was the only way they would have been able to successfully guarantee that their gate would remain unknown.
They must have been gathering information since then, beginning from the Battle of Sylven all the way to the clearing of Morgan le Fay's dungeon, marking Caelum and Erta as the greatest threats.
The mechanical voice in his head was silent for a while. It was not a very reliable means of locating the enemies, but it was the only means he had.
He flew around the city, determined to scour every nook and cranny of it until it found another simulacrum. Its detection ability was not omnipotent and required Caelum to be in close proximity with the simulacra to detect them.
They understood that limitation, which was why their only option was to buy time until Erta's spell found the server controlling the simulacra.
[Assimilation complete. Resuming awakening process. Current progress: 2.6%]
After destroying one simulacrum, Caelum moved on in search for another. Many people witnessed his actions and word spread fast. Not all of Aegon had been affected by the sudden loss of electronic functions and many were still able to communicate through the internet.
Videos of him brutally dismembering an android spread widely and swiftly. Some people criticised him out of fear, but they were drowned out by those who realised that the androids were a kind of monster.
But Caelum did not even realise what the people were talking about. His only goal was to find and destroy more simulacrum before they could reduce the entirety of Aegon City to dust. And as a bonus, the mechanical voice seemed to be getting clearer.
[Assimilation complete. Resuming awakening process. Current progress: 36.6%]
Hearing its voice again after settling into a steady rhythm of searching and destroying, Caelum fell into thought. What exactly was this voice? What exactly was it assimilating? What exactly was growing within him that was being taken directly from the simulacra?
It may be his first time encountering simulacra, but Caelum was not ignorant as to what faction they came from. They hailed from a world called Akasha, one of the worlds that still remains in this Great War.
And very much as one would expect from the inhabitants of Akasha, they were all similar to the simulacra in that they were all machines so to speak. They were a mysterious race whose structure was difficult to decipher merely by comparing to other races from other worlds.
As far as Caelum knew, the Avatars of the Akashic Record were few, but each of them were a terrifying force. That meant that the simulacra he was hunting down right now were just foot soldiers who did not even possess true power in their army.
What could he possibly be obtaining from them that would be powerful enough to create such a glaring change within him? Even now, as he scanned his body from within, he could not identify anything out of the ordinary.
Perplexed, Caelum could only continue his hunt while being wary of this growing power within him that he could not find.