Legacy of the Dark Sage

Breira's relentless kick sent Mo upward.

Others would have been hard-pressed to regain their bearings in such a situation, but Mo was the most powerful aide to the King of Armakea. All his battle experiences were ingrained into his bones to the point that even when under attack, his body would instinctively move accordingly.

"BREIRA!" Mo growled in anger, his magic energy exploding out.

Removing the force of attraction in his body coming from the plane's gravity, Mo's weight suddenly turned light as a feather and broke the momentum from Breira's relentless kicks.

"Ngh...!" Breira ground his teeth and braced himself for Mo's counterattack.

Mo's decision to turn himself weightless might appear to be his way to stop Breira's momentum before escaping and regaining his bearing, but Breira knew better. Mo was not called the most powerful aide to the King for nothing. Thus, Breira was positive that Mo would start his counterattack right after breaking out of his attack.

Breira's guess was on point. Mo indeed planned to launch his counterattack.

The moment Mo gained an additional few feet of distance from Breira while in midair, his eyes flashed as he prepared to summon his Divine Armament.

But.

BAM!

"—GUAH!"

Just before Mo's Divine Armament manifested, the automaton who had been silently observing from below jumped. With Mo quite a distance above, he stepped on Breira, who was in the motion of falling to the floor and propelled himself further up.

The automaton raised his shield over his head before ramming it straight down Mo's head.

Mo's brain was rattled, and his vision blurred from the impact of getting hit by the shield. He then plummeted to the floor faster than Breira did.

Breira initially wore a helpless look on his face as the automaton stepped on him. But after seeing what the latter did to Mo, he could only watch wide eye as the latter fell before him. The first thing that crossed his mind was the question of how he hit Mo with his shield when the latter had yet to cancel his weightless state.

BAM!

Mo crashed with such intensity that the floor was destroyed, creating a human-shaped crater.

The Legendary-level Knights nearby, who saw this, were momentarily stunned. To them, Mo was the embodiment of invincibility, and though it was said that Filren could rival him at times, the fact that Mo still emerged as the victor was a testament to his title as the most powerful aide to the King.

Yet, Mo was smashed by the black armored soldier they had initially thought to be only good at defending. Of course, Breira was the one who created the opportunity for the black armored soldier, but his contribution in landing a solid hit on Mo paled in comparison to what the latter did.

"It's not over yet!"

The automaton's warning came right after he landed on the floor beside Breira.

Even without the automaton's warning, Breira was already looking toward the human-shaped crater that Mo landed in.

BOOM!

A surge of powerful magic energy erupted from within the crater, sending ripples of magic waves in every direction.

"You have indeed found a good helper. Good!"

RUMBLE! BOOM!

From within the crater, a gigantic dual-blade battle axe emerged and fell straight toward Breira and the automaton's spot.

Breira's eyes widened as he looked at the gigantic dual-blade battle axe. He knew what Mo's Divine Armament was but never had the chance to see it in person. This was because Mo never had a chance to use it. Even when Mo and Filren fought, the two never used their Divine Armament, and they still managed to determine a victor between them.

But that was not the cause for Breira's incredulous reaction. It was because of the battle axe's size.

Still, Breira's shock was only momentarily. As soon as the gigantic dual-blade battle axe descended toward their spot, he rolled to the side to dodge.

The automaton, however, did not do the same.

As soon as Breira was out of the way, he looked at the automaton in disbelief and shouted, "Oi! Don't brave it! Mo's innate magic is Gravity! There is no telling how much that battle axe weighed after infusing it with Gravity magic—!"

Before Breira could finish what he was saying, the gigantic dual-blade battle axe already completed its descent and smashed down onto the automaton.

The automaton raised its shield just a few seconds before the battle axe cleaved down at him.

BOOM! RUMBLE! BOOM!

The collision caused the room's floor to cave in completely, sending everyone down a level. However, the battle axe's momentum did not stop after destroying the floor. It continued to cleave down the next few levels, taking everyone down with it.

At that exact moment, Kyran was relentlessly aiming at the energy cores of the attacking automatons while also engaging in a cat-and-mouse chase with the gigantic automaton.

After a while of fighting, Kyran determined the gigantic automaton indeed had a way to counter his Void magic. Unless he used his Draconic magic to deal with the latter, he could not properly land a hit. He did, however, notice that the gigantic automaton avoided stepping on the other automatons, regardless of whether they were still active or inactive.

As much as possible, Kyran wanted to avoid using his Draconic magic. This was because he knew he attracted the being who recently beat the hell out of him because of the appearance of the silver humanoid dragon. Though he had yet to figure out how that being knew he was the silver humanoid dragon, he did not want to take a risk and attract him again.

While the Shaiha was still concealing his presence, that in itself was trouble already because that being seemed to be looking for it.

Considering all this, Kyran wanted to exhaust the gigantic's reserved magic energy. After all, their energy core was different from the energy core he could make, wherein it could absorb magic energies in the surroundings by itself. Besides that, he also took advantage of its weakness of not wanting to step on the other automatons.

Alas, Kyran did not expect the gigantic automaton to realize what he was trying to do so soon and refused to release another one of its concentrated magic energy attacks in fear of exhausting its magic energy reserves.

Ultimately, the number of moving automatons went down with each passing second. This speed at which Kyran took them down could be attributed to their limited processing capability. If their program was working properly at the same time, their sentient awake, they would have adjusted their battle approach when dealing with him. Kyran's target had been their energy cores all along, and from this, any automaton with a semblance to what a genuine automaton should act would have already done their best to protect their energy cores.

Thus far, the gigantic automaton was the only one that seemed to have its processing capability working at a higher percentage; as for whether its sentient was awake or not, to be honest, Kyran did not know for sure. He had a strange inkling that rather than its sentient being awake, the gigantic automaton's mind seemed a little off.

What made Kyran think this was, first and foremost, its voice. The gigantic automaton's voice sounded metallic— as if its voice was artificial, yet not entirely.

The programming of Kyran's puppets was far inferior to that of automatons, yet they sounded very human-like already. How come this gigantic automaton was any different?

Another point Kyran noticed was its behavior. It kept avoiding the other automatons as if it could not bear to destroy such priceless treasures. Besides that, it continued to ramble on about vanquishing traitors.

Kyran was not even part of Armakea. How did he become a traitor? It felt as if the gigantic automaton only wanted to do one thing, and that was to vanquish traitors. Thus, all it deemed as an enemy was recognized as traitors.

On the other hand, the female spirit that had been following Kyran around had long accepted his quirky character of jumping right into trouble rather than escaping from it. Thus, she stopped wasting her breath complaining and settled on top of his head and enjoyed the feeling of witnessing him fight up close.

The way the female spirit was acting, it was not a stretch to say that she had already forgotten why she came there.

If Chrysanthemum had known about it, she would probably have fainted in anger. 

Kyran rolled to the side, avoiding the gigantic automaton's punch.

BOOM!

The gigantic automaton's fist smashed on the ground, leaving behind a huge fist-sized crater.

After escaping from the gigantic automaton's punch, Kyran did not stop his movement. After rolling twice and coming down on all fours, he shifted his weight and rolled backward in a reverse somersault to avoid several arrows thrown at him in succession. After coming back on all fours, he jumped once more to dodge another automaton, aiming to pierce its spear through his head.

But Kyran did not only dodge the incoming spear. He raised his arms while reversing his grip on his swords before cleaving them upward, forming an X, and aimed at the automaton's energy core.

Crackle! Boom!

The automaton's energy core exploded, and soon after, it dropped its spear and fell to its knees before falling head-first to the ground.

More automatons came from behind while Kyran was still in midair. But before any of them could attack, the high ceiling above rumbled and collapsed directly at them.

As the ceiling collapsed, debris was not the only thing that came crashing down; several figures were among them.