Chapter 503 - 491: Trapped

Chapter 503: Chapter 491: Trapped

Allen’s body slammed into a cold, broken metal wall, and he slid down the rusted surface to the ground.

He propped himself up with one hand. Waves of intense pain crashed against his skull, as if countless steel needles were churning his brain.

This was the aftereffect of his spiritual link being invaded and forcibly severed. It felt like something had been ripped out of his brain by the roots, leaving behind a bloody, gaping void.

He had lost the "Sky Throne," ten legions and countless Golems, Gabriel, Cyclops, and... No. 18.

All gone.

An investment of hundreds of millions of Magic Stones had become fuel for the enemy in just one minute.

Allen took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the searing pain in his mind. He tried to send a distress signal to the outside world through his personal terminal as an Association investigator.

[Signal transmission failed...]

[Wide-area spatial interference Force Field detected... Cross-Plane communication protocol disabled.]

The cold words on the terminal’s light screen were like the final lock, completely sealing off his escape route.

He was trapped.

Allen tried twice more, with the same result. A communication jam that could cover an entire Plane was undoubtedly the work of the Mechanical Realm.

’Should I contact Jarvis? Ask the Association for help through Cybertron?’

The thought appeared for only a moment before he extinguished it.

He didn’t dare take the gamble. He couldn’t risk that all-pervasive logic virus following the intangible connection and infecting his last foundation.

Once Cybertron fell, he would truly have nothing left.

That was why he had recalled Cybertron the instant he sensed something was wrong, issuing a top-level physical isolation command.

The remaining twenty full legions, all the automated production lines, and the massive stores of materials were all locked away inside Cybertron.

He didn’t even dare to communicate with Jarvis anymore.

Now, besides the Wizard Robe on his back and a few personal Witchcraft Tools, he had nothing.

The entire Lost Plane X-7734 was now completely sealed off by the Golems and some unknown power.

He had become an island unto himself.

’How pathetic. The last time I felt like this was back when I was an apprentice, being chased by a Magical Beast.’

Fortunately, he still had a consciousness backup, so it wasn’t a completely hopeless situation.

Allen pushed himself up, leaning against the cold metal bulkhead.

He raised his head and looked around.

He was in a massive canyon formed by the wreckage of two crashed Floating Ships.

On both sides were sheer, dark metal cliffs rising seven to eight hundred meters high. The sky above was obscured by a thick layer of radiation clouds, allowing not a single sliver of light to pass through.

Suddenly, a faint tremor ran through the ground.

Allen’s eyes sharpened. He quickly ducked into the shadow of a huge armor plate.

The vibrations grew closer. The sound of metal limbs tapping against the ground was dense and rhythmic—he was all too familiar with this frequency.

Ten "Spider Slayer Mk. II" units appeared around the canyon corner.

Their six sharp mechanical legs moved over the complex terrain as if it were flat ground. The sniper modules on their backs were already preheating, emitting a dangerous, faint glow.

His traitorous legion, along with the mechanical bodies awakened in this graveyard, was now conducting a carpet search for their creator.

Allen’s gaze turned icy as he watched these war machines—which he had personally designed and assembled on Cybertron’s production lines—draw ever closer.

The Spider Slayers’ detection radar swept over the area where Allen was hiding, and a red light locked on.

"Target found."

"Executing termination command."

The ten machines opened fire simultaneously.

Allen blinked out of the way of the barrage, raising his right hand as Magic Power gathered in his palm.

This time, there were no subtle commands issued through a spiritual network, no complex tactical coordination.

He unleashed a Witchcraft he hadn’t used in a long time.

"[Magic Energy Burst]."

A torrent of violent energy erupted from his palm, instantly engulfing the patrol squad.

The intense heat and explosion melted and twisted their shells, finally turning them into a puddle of molten iron.

After wiping out the squad, Allen stared at the pile of what was once his "property," a stifling feeling welling up in his chest.

’Those were my children.’

For the first time, he was experiencing so profoundly what Master Mercer had spoken of: the nemesis of the Alchemy School—a "Creator Rebellion" event.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The ground began to tremble slightly.

Sounds came from all directions, as if the Golems were starting to converge on his location.

Allen’s expression changed. He instantly understood that the controlled Golems could still communicate with each other.

The Spider Slayer squad he had just destroyed had exposed his position.

Allen looked up. At the edge of the canyon, several massive figures had already appeared.

Enduring the intense pain, he deployed the Allen Network, his Spiritual Power radiating outward to scan the area.

Seven or eight powerful Magic Sources were closing in on him at speeds breaking the sound barrier.

One was "Gabriel," its holy aura tinged with a strange red glow. It was already approaching rapidly.

On another side, there were several dilapidated Golems he had never seen before. Some floated in mid-air, dragging shattered lower bodies, while others shouldered giant cannons three meters wide. But without exception, they all emanated Magic Power fluctuations comparable to a Second-level Wizard.

And among all the pursuers, a golden figure was the fastest.

She moved at speeds far exceeding sound, leaping and pushing off the broken steel structures. Each landing was accompanied by a tremendous noise. Deep within her eyes, a crimson light shone brighter and more... persistent... than that of any other Golem.

Android No. 18.

Allen’s pupils contracted. He didn’t dare to linger for even a second.

He knew very well that No. 18 was designed for close-quarters assassination, with a body strength equivalent to a Level 2 Bloodline Wizard, a peak energy output of 6,500, and implanted combat instincts.

If she caught up to his frail body and slow reaction speed, death was certain. There would be no other outcome.

The [Ring of Instant Shadow] on his left hand lit up again.

Spatial fluctuations enveloped him. Just before Gabriel’s light cannon and No. 18 arrived, his figure vanished from the spot.

...

「The next few days.」

Allen wandered through the vast iron graveyard like a child who had run away from home.

The [Ring of Instant Shadow] only had three charges per day. To save it as a trump card, he had to rely on Witchcraft like [Shadow Walk] and [Short-Range Teleportation] to evade his pursuers.

He hid in the severed engine nozzle of a giant warship, listening to the orderly footsteps of the Peacekeeper legion marching overhead.

He crept through the bottomless caverns of an energy bombardment crater, using [Directional Magic Pulse] to silently disable one or two patrolling Demon Eyes.

Fortunately, his Space Ring was well-stocked with supplies, so he wasn’t completely out of resources.

However, during these repeated, thrilling evasions and counterattacks, Allen keenly noticed a strange phenomenon.

These Golems, infected by the Mechanical Realm’s logic virus, were not rampaging blindly across the Plane.

They displayed an extremely strict hierarchical order.

Besides hunting him, they seemed to be carrying out another mission.

Low-level servants and Engineering Golems were responsible for excavating and sorting specific high-grade alloy wreckage from the ruins.

The Spider Slayers and Peacekeepers were in charge of escorting the materials and guarding the perimeter.

Meanwhile, the core Level 2 combat units, such as No. 18, Gabriel, and the Ancient Golems, guarded several key nodes and coordinated the entire transport network.

All the resources, all the metal wreckage, were converging on a single coordinate.

The center of the Plane.

「Day Five.」

Allen stood atop a towering metal spire, looking down at the plains below.

On the plains, tens of thousands of Engineering Golems were dragging massive chunks of Star Gold and Earth Vein Tempered Steel, forming a steel dragon dozens of kilometers long as they advanced toward the distant horizon.

The spectacle was just like ants moving house, except they were moving top-tier materials capable of building warships, and the ants were his Golem Legion, worth hundreds of millions of Magic Stones.

Allen’s gaze followed the direction of the steel dragon.

At the end of the horizon, countless traitorous Golems and awakened ancient machines had gathered into a dark, dense ocean of steel.

They were as busy as worker ants, piecing together and stacking precisely cut metal components layer by layer, according to some design blueprint he couldn’t comprehend.

The outline of the thing was already faintly discernible—some kind of factory-like structure, probably several kilometers in diameter, its inner walls densely covered with inscribed patterns he couldn’t understand.

"What in the world are they planning to build?" Allen narrowed his eyes.

The wind howled through the metal canyons, like a drawn-out sob.

No one answered him.