“How much have you been slaving for the Rats?!” Moloch exclaimed at Weslie after he heard that the castle was able to still move and of all things, assume a humanoid form.
“Ehh heheh. I had tried to resist at first, but they had ways to make me comply. Eventually, I discovered that as long as I had results ready for whenever they came to collect it, they would leave me alone with lots of demands. This one is actually originating from some thought experiments I did to relieve my boredom.” Weslie gave a forced out smile.
“You lay the groundworks for it when you were bored?!… This is one freaking mechanical bot if what you say is true! And here I thought we could just reroute the C-130 Artillery Planes and bombard the castle to kingdom come.” Moloch felt like hitting Weslie’s head for being way too hard-working for the enemy.
“I never meant for it to be used. As I said, it was just some doodling… Since we have already damaged the fortress beforehand, it might not be as dangerous as it should be… probably… I THINK!” Weslie emphasised that the large laser cannon was ruined and the flying fortress had been damaged at multiple areas which should prevent it from making effective use of its humanoid form.
Just like the Scholar of the West had said, the castle suddenly revealed a large mechanical arm with steam venting out at its joints from a portion of the fortress. With an impending slap to the ground, the Demon Rats and Demon Soldiers had started fleeing from the scene.
A number of Wights, particularly the Soldiers of Jade had mass cast wind-related spells on the run to boost their allies soldiers to escape the attack. Others even got on their comrade’s horses, hoping to survive while a minority gave up and went into the castle instead. They were too close to the castle and might as well try their luck hiding within the castle grounds. (But if they had to fight with overwhelming rats than so be it.)
Many managed to escape the ‘slap’ attack, but the live arm was not done as it retracted itself and attempted to pick up the Gauntlet Vepar had left stuck within the castle. “Geh, the enemy is trying to use that Gauntlet as a possible projectile. System, some help would be much appreciated right now.” Moloch wanted it removed as soon as possible.
“Request denied. System is currently swarmed with requests for teleportation and unable to process that particular demand. Please wait or have User overwrite System’s priority queue. In addition, the owner of the Gauntlet, Duke Vepar is currently out of commission which would hinder the teleportation of the Gauntlet.” The System stated.
“Then where is Jin?” Moloch yelled at the invisible entity. He couldn’t fathom why the System clearly would want to see the Gauntlet used against them by the large Mechanical Castle Arm.
“User is currently unconscious after the fight in his world.” The System replied before adding an extra clause out of nowhere. “Sub System Users cannot override priority queue.”
“In short, the minions do not have too much of a say, huh?” Moloch grumbled as he knew that the minions were indeed at the mercy of the System. The only reason the System was saving them via teleportation was because of the cost they incurred would be more than the profit they earn. Other than that, the hierarchy still remained.
The only redeeming factor was that Jin was benevolent enough to treat his minions as near equals instead of reigning over them as a controlling master. The same was true for the Sub System. Moloch didn’t even want to imagine how bad his life would be if any of them would act tyrannically… the world didn’t need any more King Baals.
“System will review the situation as needed.” The System answered, making it sounds like it would compromise for Moloch but he knew all the better it wasn’t. However, to Moloch’s relief, the Mechanical Castle Arm had difficulty removing the Gauntlet that was etched deep into the ground after Vepar’s magnificent glorious impact preventing the laser cannon from firing.
“Well, at the very least, the legends hold some speck of truth about Vepar’s family heirloom.” Moloch took a breather and started to reroute nine C-130 Artillery Planes back to the Town of Wecha in order to aid the destruction of the large Mechanical Castle Arm.
However, instead of continuously attempting to take the Gauntlet out of the ground, the Mechanical Castle Arm seemed to have had enough and instead shifted to target Wecha’s shield barrier by opening its palm and revealing a hidden weapon from within.
“Another freaking laser?” Moloch hoofpalmed his head and looked at Weslie, who tried to look the other way and whistle innocently. (But failed terribly at it.)
“Then I have no other choice. Here I thought we could keep this as a surprise from the Users. Well, at least Jin is knocked unconscious…” Moloch sighed as he picked up the phone in the Dungeon Maker. “Niu Lang, are you there?”
“Ah! Lord Moloch! How are you? I heard there’s some crazy commotion happening in the Farming World.” It took a long time for Niu Lang to pick the phone up because he was fixing something. With that amount of time lost, the Mechanical Castle Arm had already fired its first laser beam at Wecha’s Shield Barrier.
Thankfully, Ayse’s products were top notch, and they were able to withstand the first attack with ease. However, judging by the cracks in the shield, it would not stay that way for long. Thankfully, with it being a part of the Steam Technology, the laser cannon needed some time to cool down and that caused the arm to remain stationary.
The Wyvern Goblin Knights who had dealt with the steampunk helicopters and planes began trying their luck to damage the arm during this time. At a closer look, they found out that the entire arm was filled with rats hastily trying to fix the internal machinery so it could fire the next round of energy beams at the town once more.
“Yes, we need you to get ready. Is he already operational?” Moloch asked directly without any greetings.
“Ehh, Teacher Rei said that it should be able to work, but the energy battery pack still needs to be revised after all the improvements we made.” Niu Lang replied as he took a look at the chalkboard which Rei had left behind for him with all the information scattered.
“Yeah, there’s enough juice for fifteen minutes or so but if you want me to be operating him at max performance, I think two to three minutes are more of a conservative estimate.” Niu Lang calculated within his head.
“Two to three minutes is all I need. Get it up and running, I will get the System to teleport you soon. And I need you to hit it as hard as possible and make sure it goes down.” Moloch said as he quickly gave orders to the C-130 Artillery Planes to attack Mechanical Castle Arm before it had any chance to recover, hoping to weaken it so that his old pal could make his renewed debut.
Mechataur.
