Zeke and Fredric opened their eyes, climbing out of the rubble of the shattered tower. The moon stood full, laughing vividly at their failure as sirens echoed, marking a night to remember. "What the fuck was that?" Zeke groaned. "That crazy fucker blew us up!" Fredric coughed up blood, pulling out a piece of rebar lodged in his abdomen, before healing the wound with magic. Zeke got up, barely able to stand on his feet due to the concussion from the blast. His head rang, swinging his consciousness up and down the elevator of perception as he tried to get a grip on his surroundings. Dark char stained the ground around them, enclosed by towering stone walls. Fires raged all around, encasing them in an artificial tomb. Zeke could feel droplets hitting his face, washing the soot down to his neck. A sizzling sound began, slowly building up. As the light flickered and the fires extinguished, the two were left in absolute darkness, drowned by the pouring rain. "Do you think he's still alive?" Zeke wondered, looking down at the rubble. "I think so, but I think he escaped somehow," Fredric replied. "Are you injured anywhere?" Zeke asked. "Both of my eardrums appear to have burst," Zeke replied, touching the blood dripping down his neck. Fredric approached Zeke, placing his hands on his ears. He closed his eyes, and his hands lit up in a golden glow, reverting Zeke's eardrums to their normal state. "Thanks," Zeke sighed. "So what do we do now?" "Well, climbing up didn't work, so I think we should work our way down to the bottom. I'm guessing this place has some sort of vault hidden somewhere. I reckon that's the safest place here, so the odds are Maki is there," Fredric explained. "And what if she's not?" Zeke wondered. "Either way, we've still got half a casino to tear down," Fredric growled. Using most of his strength, Fredric slammed the floor beneath them, breaking it and sending them plummeting to a lower part of the building—a grand game room filled with visitors and guards alike. As thunder rumbled, the two charged forward, ducking behind slot machines for cover. Immediately, an array of guards opened fire, rushing towards them in a coordinated manner. The few remaining visitors in the casino, following the explosion, fled in panic as the shootout continued. As the elegant jazz music of the casino faded, replaced by the electronic hum of exploding machinery, a cold mechanical ticking took over. The bullets flew to the rhythm of a relentless, metaphorical drum, plastering everything around them with hot lead. Zeke and Fredric darted from cover to cover, firing back at their opponents. While Zeke aimed for the legs, preferring to get in close and knock the guards out, Fredric shot them right in the head, each bullet finding its mark with cold-hearted precision, leaving behind nothing but the chilling echo of his unerring aim. Thanks to their efficiency, along with the acceleration spell Fredric cast to quicken their movements, the two became almost unstoppable, smashing directly through enemy lines with little resistance. Fredric pulled out his sword as they made it out of the main hall, finding it far more effective in the narrow, winding hallways of the building, where the close quarters limited his ability to maneuver freely with ranged weapons. "I wish I could summon my soul right now," Fredric remarked, slashing through the seeming hordes of guards coming their way. A sea of white blood splattered all over the halls and dripped down the stairs as they continued deeper underground. Soon, the lavish golden-clad interiors of the casino were replaced by gray concrete chambers, lifeless and undecorated. Industrial crates and shelves filled these chambers, showcasing that they were mainly used for storage. As they proceeded even deeper, the resistance they faced dwindled almost entirely, encountering only a handful of guards on the way down. The chambers took on a cleaner appearance—most were painted white, filled with technological contraptions and surgical tables, with blue curtains sectioning the chambers into smaller segments. Eventually, the two reached a final room hidden behind a thick armored door—knight technology, designed to keep both humans and contractors out of places they shouldn't be. "What now?" Zeke wondered. "Yeah, no clue. She's almost certainly behind that door, but I'm positive I can't cut it down with this sword," Fredric explained. "Hey, didn't you find it odd that this place has no one guarding it?" Zeke asked. "Nope. Most of the time, this place is used by the guards themselves to augment. I'm guessing their collective intelligence sent out an order to go upstairs and guard the casino since it couldn't get a proper read on us." Fredric stabbed the blade into the ground. "Now that you mention it, they did rush directly at us. Was that also what their A.I. suggested?" Zeke asked. "I think because it couldn't devise any strategy to attack us, it kept sending the guards in as sacrifices to gather data. Since it never came up with a strategy to face us, it just sent them to their deaths," Fredric sighed. "What? Why did they listen to it? They should have just run away!" Zeke exclaimed.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. "Yeah, well, when that thing saves your life a few hundred times, even when the things it said didn't make much sense, you have a tendency to follow it—even to your death," Fredric explained. "The program was made with combat efficiency in mind. It doesn't see a reason between its users leaving the battlefield and committing suicide against an overwhelming foe." "Who?" Zeke paused. "Who designed such a thing?" "Maki Lin did," Fredric sighed, stretching his arms. "Okay, I think I've figured out a way for us to get in there." "Really? How?" Zeke asked. "I just have to concentrate really, really hard," Fredric smirked, placing his hand on the metal door. As he closed his eyes, a golden light enveloped the area he was touching. His glove and a portion of his jacket disappeared as the door started decomposing, twisting and turning, and becoming enveloped in rust. An orange tint first covered it, then completely absorbed it. As the door decomposed, mere grains of rust remained, staining the ground below. "Time erodes all, huh?" Maki Lin said, staring confidently at the two as they entered. The room appeared intricate, with red ornate wallpaper etched by golden wall trims. On the back wall, multiple shelves housed countless books from before the cataclysm. In the middle of the room stood a desk facing the entrance, with several chairs placed between it and the door. Maki appeared confident and calm. Her presence alone commanded attention. She wore a sleek swamp-green dress with a daring thigh-high slit running along the side. She was of medium height, with attractive facial features, visibly of Asian descent, complemented by several piercings adorning her nose, ears, and brow. Her blood-red hair, cut at her collarbone, accentuated her deep green eyes that held a strange, otherworldly allure—piercing those standing before her like two giant emeralds. Two cybernetic lines traced delicately down from her eyes to her chin, a testament to the fusion of human and machine. Yet, despite the metallic enhancements, there was a softness to her features, a hint of vulnerability that only served to enhance her overall appeal. "Did you enjoy your meeting with Jack Freddy? He's been wanting to talk to you for quite some time," Maki stood up, walking towards them. As she gestured, the intricate gold adornments on her prosthetic arms caught the light, casting shimmering reflections across the room. Partially revealed by the cut of her dress, a black tattoo of a ferocious dragon coiled on her back could be seen peeking through. "I'm here to return this," Fredric remarked, pointing the sword at her. Maki sighed, extending her arm. "Look—" In a flash, Fredric slashed, rushing forward with the sword, cutting off Maki's arm in one fell swoop. She moved back, transforming her other hand into an energy blade, but Fredric was too fast. He rushed forward, kicking her in the stomach and knocking her to the ground, slashing down on her other elbow as she fell. "This is what happens when you cross me," Fredric said, pointing the sword at her, a deep hatred in his eyes. However, this did not cause her heart to waver; she looked back at Fredric with the same determined, fearless expression as before. "She's done, let's stop the needless violence!" Zeke shouted. Fredric stood in silence. "I guess you don't know him well enough," Maki smiled with a strangely somber expression. "Isn't that right, Freddy?" "I warned you last time," Fredric growled, clenching his fist. "I warned you about what would happen if you betrayed me again." He raised his eyes, looking at her defenseless state before taking a heavy step forward. "Wait!" Zeke shouted. "We still need her to free the girls!" "The girls," Fredric sighed. "That's right, I totally forgot about the girls." "Maki," Zeke said, standing in front of Fredric, almost guarding her from his uncontrolled fury. "Free the girls you took from Artificial Love, and I will let you live," Zeke crouched down next to her face, speaking in an intimidating manner. But even that did not make her heart waver. Maki laughed, brushing back her hair. "Alright!" she screamed, her emerald eyes piercing deep into Zeke's essence, shaking him to his very core. In that moment, he felt that there was something he could not understand, no matter how hard he tried. He couldn't see why a defenseless woman on the verge of death would look at him with such confidence. How could someone so fragile not cower in the face of demise? None of it made sense to him. In this brief moment, he remembered his struggles before becoming a contractor. "Perhaps it was a quality I lost once I obtained a contract," he thought. "No, perhaps even earlier, perhaps when I chose to give up on my mother's life, I also gave up on something else." Fredric pulled Zeke back, pushing him away from Maki. In a single, clean movement, he thrust the sword, driving it into her right eye and out the back of her head as she screamed in agony. His shaking hands let go of the blade as his stoic voice muttered, "Here, you can have your sword back."

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