Chapter 108 – I Shall Bring It Back as a Gift for Milea

In that instant, Letaria moved Arden in a sharp, reflexive burst.

Tremendous G-force crashed down from the abrupt maneuver, but Letaria forced the strain down through sheer will.

Something -- a huge, unidentified shape -- had torn through the very space Arden had been floating in, gone in an instant.

"Grain! Something's here!"

Letaria shouted, snapping the nose of her machine around at the same moment, moving to pursue the mysterious presence.

The unknown entity had apparently launched an attack as it passed, but after Letaria's superhuman reflexes dodged it clean, it showed no sign of pressing the attack further, instead accelerating away from the area with tremendous speed.

"I will not let you get away!"

Letaria shouted, snapping Arden into a hard burst of acceleration.

The mysterious machine was cutting through the sector at considerable speed, but Arden's own speed, enhanced through the Letariem Project, clearly outpaced it.

Arden accelerated furiously. The debris scattered around them streaked past in long, blurring lines.

Within Arden's pursuing field of view, the full shape of the mystery machine gradually came into focus. It was a slender Makina wrapped in deep navy-blue armor.

Holding its long, slender frame upright, it seemed to be attempting an all-out escape -- but Arden had already caught up from behind.

The navy-blue machine spun around, still holding its upright posture, and fired a black flash from a pitch-black muzzle.

It wasn't ordinary photon energy -- this was a silent, solid-round attack. A near-invisible strike that sensors could barely even register, an infinitesimally small round that would have been an unavoidable hit on an unsuspecting target -- but Letaria's honed magic had already read its trajectory completely.

"I can see your attack perfectly well!"

Sending Arden into a sharp barrel roll, she dodged the round's trajectory by the barest hair's breadth as she closed the remaining distance to the unknown machine.

"Photon Saber!"

She drew her blade of light in one swift motion and, carrying the momentum straight through, cut in with a single decisive stroke.

The stroke of light should have struck true, cutting straight through the unknown machine's torso. But instead -- a burst of fierce sparks scattered through the sector.

The unknown machine had thrust its left arm out at the last instant, taking the full force of the Photon Saber strike in a desperate, self-sacrificing block.

And then --

Sparks scattering from the stump of its severed left arm, the unknown machine, without so much as breaking its stance, immediately fired another black round from the muzzle still mounted on its remaining right arm.

"Ngh, again...!?"

Facing the point-blank counterattack, Letaria dodged Arden clear by the narrowest of margins.

And in that brief opening created by her evasion, the navy-blue unknown machine used its remaining thrust to fly off, vanishing into the pitch-black distance.

"Wait, you!"

Letaria shouted in frustration, but by the time the distance between them had opened up, the unknown machine had already vanished far into the darkness, still holding its astonishing top speed.

Arden stood motionless, still gripping the severed left arm of the unknown machine.

"No sense chasing any further than this, Letaria. Burn any more energy and you won't make it back to Seldia."

Riese's silhouette had closed in nearby before she'd even noticed. Grain's voice came through the comm.

"Whew... well, very well then, I shall let it off this easily."

Giving up the chase, Letaria let out a small breath and slumped back into her cockpit seat.

"Nothing but small machines without much in the way of weaponry, all told. ...In any case, I'll take back the least damaged of the drones we wrecked over there. You collect that severed arm and bring it back with you."

At Grain's brisk instructions, Letaria gave a small shrug.

"Very well, I suppose there's no helping it... I shall bring it back as a gift for Milea."

Saying so, Letaria set Arden in motion and began the withdrawal back to Seldia.