It’s unrelenting. Everywhere we go in this goddesses-forsaken dungeon, there are yet more guard robots waiting to attack. Every hallway, every side room, the elevator shafts themselves have more robots trying to claw their way into the cars whenever we seek a moment of respite within. I haven’t seen a ventilation shaft or a garbage chute yet, but I’d be surprised if there weren’t more nasty battles awaiting us there as well!

It seems that’s the gimmick for these floors. Endurance. Individually, these sentries are weak, succumbing to only a couple of attacks. But we’re never encountering just one of them at a time. There are always dozens of them, swarming us from all sides. I’m able to fight them off with my barriers and blaster, and Chloe is keeping us— Alexey especially— healed up at all times.

But though none of us is willing to voice the concern out loud, the fact is, our flesh is weak. We tire. Our [Health] diminishes. Our [Ether] depletes. Our muscles gradually wear down, the buildup of lactic acid causing soreness and even pain as we keep up the fight, adrenaline and other endorphins unable to completely block the sagging sensations beginning to creep up upon us. My mechanical arm still moves with precision, and my wings still flutter about, propelling me forward, into the eternal fray. But this body is still weak, made of flesh and blood. Flesh that can become worn down. Blood that can exhaust. Bone that can break.

I don’t care. As long as I can still draw breath, I will keep fighting. My [Indomitable Will] might not strictly work against the sort of exhaustion that comes from physical exertion the way it does against other effects that suppress this power I hold. But the Skill, flickering slightly in the corner of my eye, is a reminder of who and what I am. It’s a reminder of my promises. My promise to Chloe that I’d keep her safe, but more than that. My promise to Alicia that I’d protect Chloe to the best of my ability. And my unspoken promises to Madison and the others. Promises that… I must’ve broken. I couldn’t destroy the System in my previous timeline.

But I can’t be bogged down by regrets. I was given a second chance, an opportunity to set right what went wrong in a different timeline, one universe ago. I will not compound my failure.

I grit my own teeth and let out a wail of pain and anguish and echoes through the entire hallway. If I am the [Mechanical Angel], then let my scream cause all those who stand before me tremble in fear! With that in mind, my scream turns into the roar of my war cry, [Hearken] flaring out to a distance of one thousand feet.

Immediately, about a third of the sentries, including one in every eight or so of the elite guards, immediately start sprinting away from me at a frenzied pace, not caring who or what they knock into. And the others start hesitating. Just the briefest moment of indecision, yes. But in such a frenetic haze of pandemonium, the blink of an eye is eternity, and a moment’s pause is death.

Fury erupts from my body as I launch wave after wave of [Ether Bullet Barrage] at the unrelenting waves of enemies. I backflip and sidestep, strafing around the legions of soldiers, twisting my wings and arms and torso around to avoid the attacks they launch. And with Alexey reaffirming his [Rally Cry], the three of us are finally starting to turn the tide.

Minutes of constant hell passes, each second feeling like it should be an eternity. Droids make unintelligible noises, communicating with one another in a language I can’t fathom. I block it out of my mind, block all the unnecessary sensations. Just me, Alexey, Chloe, and a whole hell of a lot of automatons acting according to the will of some outside force, seeking our death. And I deny them!

Oil and slag covers the ground at my feet as I concentrate on my [Indomitable Will], my implacable need to overcome the obstacles before me. Even through the pain. Even when I’m told that it’s impossible. Even when the tide is inexorable, the storm unrelenting, the wind so roarous that it threatens to blow me away or grind me down into dust. Especially then. Because only in the crucible of the greatest challenges does our true will to endure and survive truly shine forth.

The battle rages on. I continue firing, watching my [Ether] deplete little by little as I take out even more enemies. Chloe isn’t able to buttress my recovery any further with our [Transference], as she’s using all of her own [Ether] to maintain her own skills and keep us alive. That’s okay— once I run low on [Ether], I’ll turn to my daggers, and if those get blunted or sundered, I’ll pound them onto the scrapheap like Alexey is doing. I don’t have his class or his monstrous base physicality, but a boosted [Strength] stat over 160 and the added strength of my left arm means that I won’t be wholly useless if it comes to that.

Thankfully, after five grueling minutes traversing these hallways, I can see that I won’t need to resort to such desperate measures. Slowly, too slowly, bit by bit, bot by bot, the autonomous guards, which previously seemed infinite, are gradually being winnowed down. With their numbers lessened, we’re all given crucial seconds to regroup and catch our breath before the next wave strikes. And they do continue, a new encounter every time we go down a new hallway or check another room for signs of treasure or the staircase to the next floor.

But in small groups of a dozen or two, these foes barely pose a challenge. Even Chloe seems bored by the fight against six non-elite soldier drones inside what appears to be a small lounge or other recreational facility. Several couches suggest that there are or were life forms on board this ship. Though I can’t say whether they died, abandoned ship, uploaded their consciousnesses into a computer mainframe, or were overthrown— either to shake off the yoke of their masters or in some sort of twisted, Zeroth Law rebellion.

Still, it gives my earlier thoughts about traveling the cosmos alongside Chloe pause. How will we traverse such impossibly, unfathomably large voids to reach new planets? And do so with our minds and bodies intact? Glyphs and the power they hold will get us most of the way there, assuming I can fully master them. But there will be no safeties in the interstellar void; I must be beyond certain that we are fully prepared on the day we finally do leave the Earth behind.

“Is something wrong, Sera?” Chloe asks. “You’ve been staring off into space for nearly a minute now.”

I take a deep breath. “I’m mostly fine. Just wondering about what happened here. Where everyone went. And how that bodes for my dreams of sailing the ocean of stars one day with you as my first mate.”

She slips her hand along the ventral side of my right wing, eventually wrapping it around my arm. “You’re worried something like this is going to happen?”

“I may be part machine, forged of an [Indomitable Will], but I’m just as flawed and imperfect as any human. And I fear I may make some critical error, like I did way back on the second floor.”

“But then you apologize, you course correct, and we work together and help avoid making that mistake again in the future.”

“I know. I just don’t like making such mistakes, not when the stakes are so high.”

“When push comes to shove, I know you’ll come through. You have every time until now, and I have absolute trust that you will continue to do so going forward.”

“Thanks, Chloe. And there’s no one else I trust to have my back every step of the way.”

“Are you two ready to get moving?” Alexey asks. “I’m starting to get an ominous feeling in the back of my neck. We need to find the exit, and soon.”

I nod. I don’t sense the presence of the Warden; usually it takes a couple of hours to arrive. But I do trust Alexey’s battle instincts, honed from decades of combat. If he thinks something bad is approaching, I’d not even think of betting against him.

Moreover, the System hasn’t given any Experience yet for the hundreds of robots we’ve scrapped, which means the encounter must not be over. I gulp. Sure enough, just as he finishes, the entire station shakes. A fierce aura fills the entire floor. The sterile white lights along the ceiling flicker for a moment. And the roar that follows sounds far too real, too guttural, to be caused by a machine.

I check my [Ether] levels. Down to just over 2,000. It’ll be enough. It’ll have to be enough. If not, I’ll make it be enough.

We sneak out of the room, doing our best to remain silent and nondescript; right now, forcing the encounter as soon as possible won’t be to our benefit. Alexey’s eyes dart back and forth, whether looking for enemies or a hiding place, I don’t know.

All three of us remain silent, only brief flickers of our eyes and subtle head tilts to communicate with Alexey. Chloe and I maintain our telepathic bond throughout it all, mostly to keep our nerves from getting the best of us.

“What do you think it is?”

Chloe asks.

I want to answer something clever and snarky, like ‘a barefoot clown with twin-tails and covered in coconut cream pie’, but I resist, knowing that this is absolutely the wrong time for joking and laughing.

Footsteps tap along the metal-paneled floor. The scent of… something difficult to describe fills the air. It’s fetid and acidic… venomous saliva? Some sort of toxic stinger? I cycle through the possibilities, each more foul and repulsive than the last. Ultimately, I decide to stop, reasoning that spiraling in panic isn’t what I need right now.

Alexey pokes his head in front of the next intersection, only to pull it back so quickly that I’m worried he gave himself a neck injury. He tiptoes back slowly; Chloe follows suit, while I hover just off the ground, floating back very slowly, and in a manner that minimizes the air disturbance my flight causes. From the cold sweat on his face and the sense of dread welling up from within me, I know that whatever is waiting on this floor is something we can’t hope to defeat. Our only options are stealth and escape, and if the creature is as fast as the surging aura of Ether about it suggests, the latter of those might not work out too well either.

Footsteps thud down the hallway, the creature almost seeming to relish in the sensations of terror that it causes with every step it takes. Despite that, its approach remains slow and menacing. It sniffs the air— if it really can navigate by scent, we are so totally and completely boned in the worst possible way.

Alexey points to a nearby closet. We sneak over and huddle inside, all three of us together in tight quarters. And just as the door closes shut, I get a glimpse of exactly what we’re dealing with. A quadrupedal body, as tall as Alexey vertically, and twice that in length. An absolutely ginormous mouth filled with hundreds of teeth, each nearly as large as my head, sharper than my daggers, and probably borderline indestructible. And a menacing grin to accompany the sound of its own heartbeat, a low, deep thumping that only adds to the feeling of terror it’s causing.

“Sera, can we fight that thing?”

“Not a chance. I don’t even know if the Warden of the Tower could fight that thing.”

“So… what do we do?”

“Hide. Wait for it to pass. Try to get to the exit. Hope it’s not as fast as it is strong. Pray to the goddesses.”

“You’re– You’re scaring me, Sera.”

I rub her back, trying to offer what comfort I can. “I’m sorry. But I’m sure we’ll find a way to get through this challenge, just like we have with everything else thus far.”

“I believe in you, Sera.”

I shake my head. “Don’t believe in me. Believe in us. All three of us.”

Chloe nods. “Right.”