!!!
The axe cut through his flesh seamlessly, like a hot knife through butter. Worse still, hot blood burst from the stump of his shoulder, drenching both Caelan and the robot.
However, it would be a lie to say he hadn't been ready for this. Caelan knew that sacrificing his arm was a stupid, but it was also unavoidable. Not only could he die from blood loss, but his combat capability and mobility would also be significantly reduced without his greatest asset — his arm — attached to his body.
Even so, thanks to his accelerated thinking — a considerable boon from his time element — he had already calculated the loss and found a way to turn it to his advantage.
He barely screamed before drawing on what little mana Ren had managed to accumulate during their short rest, attempting to imitate Ren's use of time mana to reverse the wound.
...Only to fail pathetically.
It seemed he didn't share Ren's natural talent for the time element. In fact, the accelerated mental state he had been relying on this entire time was only possible because Ren had been silently assisting him throughout.
'Damn it.'
His already thin reserve of time mana was on the verge of running dry if he didn't act soon. Ignoring the wound for the moment, he watched in slow motion as one of the other robots sprinted toward him, intent on ending his life before extracting his cores — not that they knew he had two.
Caelan had no intention of letting that happen. He quickly scanned the area for anything that could pull him out of this bleak situation.
The front door had the doctor standing in front of it. Surprisingly, the man was looking directly into his eyes with a grim expression painted on his face.
'Doesn't matter right now.'
That path was too risky. The doctor could easily have another robot concealed nearby, or he might cut Caelan down himself if he got too close.
Above him, the humanoid robot's mirror-like eyes reflected his missing left arm back at him. The other two robots wore the same chilling reflection.
If there was any miracle to be found, it was that the one directly above him had its axe hand momentarily stuck in the floor — or at least appeared to in slow motion. The other two were roughly two to three meters away. A distance he could work with, if he was smart about it.
Taking a mental breath, he drew the last remaining mana from his lower core and spread it through his muscles, tightening and enhancing them to a degree that would never have been possible before his awakening. At the same moment, the slow-motion state — or enhanced thinking speed to be precise — reached its end, and the world snapped back to its natural speed.
The robot above him yanked its axe arm free instantly. The gap between him and the other two closed just as fast.
But Caelan was already moving — faster than any of them expected. Not because he was stronger or quicker. Quite the opposite, in fact. But because he had calculated it all beforehand.
From his laying position, he rolled backward. Right as he landed in a crouch, he clenched his core and calves before propelling himself up in one explosive motion and used his remaining hand to send a brutal punch at the robot that used to be above him, right on its solar plexus, sending it a few steps back.
However, that wasn't Caelan's only goal. In the same motion, he lowered his body to avoid a blade hissing past the space that used to be occupied by his head a split second ago and grabbed its arm before throwing the whole body into the other charging one, sending both of them tumbling on the ground.
'Ren, how do you connect both cores?'
Throughout the fight, Ren had been busy filling the heart core since Caelan was drawing from the lower core, making it impossible for either of them to fill both simultaneously. Even so, the heart core was already close to half capacity. The only thing standing between Caelan and that reserve was his own lack of understanding and the raw talent that Ren seemed to possess naturally.
"Focus on your fight. I will help you," Ren said coldly.
Instantly, he felt a strange sensation — not in his body, but somewhere deeper and more intangible than anything physical. It was where the actual cores resided.
The soul.
He didn't have time to ponder before he felt his emptied lower core being filled and emptied as he pushed mana inside his muscles in a strange but working cycle.
Even so, being able to fight longer didn't mean he would survive just as long. The robots were far stronger than him after all. The only reason he was still alive against opponents who were roughly on par with his father and the giant gang leader was that they were mindless for things that so closely resembled humans. Straightforward to the point of being predictable, which gave Caelan a critical edge. But he was bleeding, and every hit he landed on them barely registered as damage, while he will only grew weaker with every passing second.
Left with no better option, he sprinted toward his father's room. It took only a moment for all three of them to outpace him.
Which, as noted, was precisely what he had been counting on.
He threw himself out of their path and his body collided — smashed, more accurately — into the wall, hard enough to leave a significant dent. Which...was pretty disappointing, since he had hoped the wall would simply give way entirely and let him escape through it.
But his original plan worked anyway.
All three robots blew straight through the door. What they hadn't known was that a window sat directly on the other side, opening straight to the outside. Their momentum carried them through it, and they took the window with them as they went.
Of course, that alone wouldn't stop them. But it did buy him a few precious seconds to escape. The only thing he was worried about now was where he would escape to.
'Both the front and the back are blocked. There's nowhere left.' Thoughts fired one after another in rapid succession, each one sharp and deliberate within his slowed perception.
Then it came to him. His gaze settled on the front door — or rather, on the doctor standing in front of it.
The doctor hadn't yet realised Caelan was looking at him. The devastated expression on his face was almost amusing. He had probably never expected Caelan to last this long, not when he was fighting three robots that outclassed him by an entire core level.
'If I kill him, would the robots stop coming after me?'
It was worth testing. And leaving him alive would only be a liability.
'Do or die.'
In his slow-motion state, his body couldn't naturally match the speed of his mind. But if he pushed time mana through his muscles, he could move in sync with it.
So he — Ren, actually — did exactly that. In one long, stretched moment, he moved through the slowed world. Behind him, the others were already launching themselves back toward him, less than a meter separating them from cutting him apart. He widened that gap steadily until he was standing directly in front of the doctor.
Surprisingly, even in this slowed world, his eyes widened in terror as if he could somehow perceive the situation.
It didn't last long however before Caelan broke into a sprint, leaving the robots behind and the doctor alive.
'I would really love to kill him. But my mana won't last long enough for me to kill him.'
It was indeed a huge concern, since by the time he managed to kill him — assuming he even could — both of his cores would be completely drained. That would leave him entirely vulnerable to any attacks, especially since he didn't know whether the robots would stop after the doctor died.
So...he ran.
And ran.
And ran...
He barely even stopped to catch his breath. Every turn felt like a life-saving choice. The crowds didn't even dare block his path, seeing his battered state and wisely choosing not to stick their noses into something that didn't concern them.
For Caelan, this was a blessing. After all, his mana had completely hit rock bottom, leaving him with nothing but his feeble body and stamina as he snaked through the alleys. Every turn he made might have seemed random, but that was exactly his goal.
He intentionally took the longer, winding routes, skirting the edges of the city and pushing steadily outward toward the outskirts.
To where?
To the only place most people were reluctant to go. Not only was it on the opposite end of the city from the main gate, but it was also where the gangs were thickest, where territorial wars played out in a city that had already abandoned any pretense of law.
The slums.