Zane

  No no no no no. Why? Why is everything going so wrong? What am I supposed to do?

  Zane watched his sister's struggle from afar, knowing that to jump into a struggle between that weapon and three monsters was a fool's errand. But he had to do something.

  The frenzy that had seemed to take control over every single being within the tutorial was something far beyond his or anyone's control.

  At first Zane had assumed only the humans had gotten the death threat emergency quest, but the overseers accompanying his movements had received it as well. He'd had to kill them faster than they could register that the quest had turned them into enemies. As things currently stood, it seemed as though everyone within the tutorial was his enemy.

  Of course, he wasn't excluded from the death penalty looming over their heads. But his goal, the one thing he cared about, was that Nix survive this place. He'd been content being the villain who signed the death warrants of all the humans within the tutorial, of course he'd be content to sacrifice his own life if it meant Nix would live.

  I'd willingly accept such a punishment for my actions if it meant I could save her from this. But what am I supposed to do?

  The enemy this time wasn't an alien or even a person. It was the god-like system that seemed to govern this world. How was he supposed to fight against that in the single hour the emergency quest gave him before it would kill him?

  He once again tried to open a message channel with Nix, only to be denied once again.

  If I can convince her to deactivate or destroy the weapon then maybe the system will rescind the emergency quest. That's the only thing I can think of.

  But simply having an idea wasn't enough to change the situation.

  Nix wouldn't answer him. Getting close would only get him caught up in a brawl he'd die in.

  There was nothing he could do but watch.

  Nix

  Nix's system wasn't responding, and she had no idea why. She also wasn't in a situation where she could figure out why it wasn't responding. It was good that the ancient weapon seemed to bypass whatever was wrong with the system, otherwise she wouldn't be able to control the weapon.

  But even with the weapon, the situation wasn't good.

  Before it had gone on the fritz it had left that cryptic message about eradication. She didn't know what that meant, but it didn't matter. What mattered was that she had no idea what was going on with the battle between the two camps.

  If only Eve hadn't roped these two into this fight I could have already gotten back to what matters! Damn this wooden bastard!

  Of her three adversaries, the lord of the forest was by far the most troublesome. It didn't matter how many of the roots or branches she destroyed, more and more were pulled from the forest around them to assault her endlessly.

  Eve and the lord of the plains dashed around in the background, occasionally making attacks that did negligible damage.

  But the weaponized forest threatened to tear the ancient weapon apart. For all the restoration she'd done, the thing was still built upon a horribly aged and weathered frame. She was confident it could still bear the load of the machine, but the roots were forcing their way around the armor plating she'd worked tirelessly to attach to the exterior.

  They put strain on the frame in ways Nix hadn't anticipated, and she was afraid if she let it continue then something critical might get damaged.

  She once again ripped apart the roots assaulting her beautiful machine and tried to back away before the lord could renew its relentless assault. As she did the sensors alerted her to the lord of the plains once again jumping forward to attack her rear.

  Stupid beast, She thought as she kicked at it with one of the machine's legs. The lord of the plains was a stark contrast to the lord of the forest in how dangerous it was. It avoided her kick with ease and slipped past to land a slash with its claws against the armored plating. It did no damage whatsoever.

  It's slippery, but it lacks weight behind its attacks. Should I just ignore it completely? No, it would be a mistake to assume it doesn't have any hidden abilities. That tiger is shrouded in some kind of mist. If it has a corrosive effect… I can't let it do whatever it pleases.

  But while she was distracted by the lord she felt the entire machine shudder from the weight of a massive blow. Yelling in fury, she swung one of the arms at Eve, who'd used her distraction to slip past her detection and land a blow against the machine. The infuriating woman managed to leap off and avoid the blow.

  Shifting the sensors, Nix saw one of the pieces of armor on the back of the machine's torso was slightly dislocated.

  She knows she can't deal any real damage to it, so she's attempting to peel the armor off. It won't let her!

  In the instant her focus shifted once again, she felt the machine shudder as roots crashed against it. Her focus was being divided three ways, leaving her unable to deal with each problem on its own. If this continued it wouldn't end well.

  The strain on the frame wasn't the only issue. The sphere taken from the island's core was shining with worrying intensity. If she stressed it too much she wasn't sure what would happen, only that it wouldn't be good.

  The longer this continued the worse things were going to get. She needed to take a risk.

  [Warning]

  Power source unstable.

  Risk of firing sequence malfunction: Significant

  I didn't ask for your opinion, machine!

  She knew initiating the firing sequence in this situation was extraordinarily risky, even without the power source instability. In its prime, the cannon may have been able to suffer some abuse before malfunction. But in the barely restored state it was in now she was afraid any interference would result in disaster.

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  Nix heard the orb of power nearby hum with energy as the weapon that took the place of the head activate. Her optical display showed all three of her opponents realizing what she was attempting to do and taking action.

  The roots bound the machine's legs in place as they snaked into the crevices between the armor. This time, Nix didn't bother to stop them. They'd burn away in a moment.

  She turned her focus to the other two. The lord of the forest was frantically dashing atop the roots and repeatedly attacking the machine's legs.

  Eve launched herself into the air, intent on striking while the lord of the forest bound the machine's feet. Nix was about to knock her from the air again when she realized the roots had bound one of the arms as well. She quickly raised the other arm out of the root's range, but that small distraction allowed Eve to reach her mark.

  The machine shuddered again as Eve unleashed another devastating attack, knocking the plate of armor she'd hit before off completely.

  Firing sequence: 68%

  Shit!

  Just as Nix heard the sound of Eve's axe piercing the hull of her central compartment she saw a flash ascend the side of the machine's exterior. In an instant Eve was struck in the side, forcing her to leap away from the side of the machine.

  In the place Eve's axe had pierced through the hull claws appeared, and Nix heard growling as the lord of the plains started ripping through the much weaker metal of the hull.

  Heh, so you got attacked by the monster you brought here yourself, huh? Serves you right, Eve.

  Nix tried to reach around the machine's back with its free arm, but it was no use. It couldn't reach where the lord had latched on and was tearing up the hull.

  Still, the thing seemed to have far less strength than the gorilla woman, so it was having trouble creating a gap to fit itself through. There was a slight amount of mist leaking into the compartment, but that wasn't something Nix could worry about at the moment.

  As she saw the firing sequence gauge fill to max she forced the massive machine to bend forward and aimed the weapon downwards.

  The optical display was overloaded with red light as the weapon fired at the ground, obliterating the ground beneath her and bathing the surrounding area in a sea of flames.

  The explosive force wasn't nearly enough to throw the machine itself back, but the thing shook enough that Nix was thrown to the floor of the compartment.

  Kill - [Loksri Ipra, Lord of the Forest - Level 60] - 0 Talons

  Kill - [Karl Arkival - Level 28] - 0 Talons

  Kill - [Ordan Tern - Level 37] - 0 Talons

  Kill - [Patricia Lost - Level 26] - 0 Talons

  Kill - [Tony Irving - Level 19] - 0 Talons

  Kill - [Kate Young - Level 35] - 0 Talons...

  The names continued until they almost completely filled her vision.

  What the…?

  She didn't have any time to think about her display filled with kill notifications. The weapon had reduced the majority of the roots and branches binding the machine's lower half to carbon.

  Just as the lord of the plains made a hole big enough to squeeze through, the now free hand of the machine came up to swat at it. It lunged into the compartment as the metal arm slammed into its back half. With half of it inside the compartment, it was thrown against the hole it had made and was torn in half from the extreme force from the machine's metal arm.

  Kill - [Yurnak Trandar, Lord of the Plains - Level 60] - 0 Talons

  As the blood pooled beneath the half of the tiger's bisected corpse left inside the compartment Nix took an unsteady breath as she surveyed the devastation around the machine and examined its condition.

  The armor on the legs had almost completely melted away, yet it seemed like the frame was still miraculously intact. Even so, the exposed metal glowed red from the intense heat it had been subjected to.

  [Warning]

  Thermal tolerance exceeded. Recommend ceasing operations until cooling complete.

  Now that's a suggestion I can accept. Once I figure out what's going on with the battle, at least.

  She looked over the wall of kill notifications and widened her eyes at the realization that she knew a few of the names displayed.

  Why? The flames wouldn't have been so widespread they'd have reached the battlefield. The only thing I can think of would be that they were running towards me. But why? Nobody in their right mind would have tried to interfere with a conflict like this.

  Nix's attention was ripped from the display as she heard the scraping of metal. Her head whipped around and she saw John stand up knife in hand.

  They didn't need to exchange words. She understood his intent just by looking into his eyes, but she'd been knocked to the side a few too many times by the conflict and wasn't close enough to stop him.

  "No!" Even as she yelled, John plunged the knife into the core.

  A discharge of energy blew the knife out of the sphere and shredded John's body to pieces, splattering yet more blood across the inside of the compartment.

  Nix looked on in horror as the core destabilized before her eyes, gushing an absurd amount of energy outwards.

  She didn't waste any time, immediately heading for the gap the lord of the plains had created. There was no way she could prevent the core's detonation. Her weapon, everything she had wanted to achieve with it, was a lost cause.

  She stumbled over the corpse of the fallen lord and threw herself out of the hole in the compartment. Sliding down the still bent-over machine, she made her way to the ground as quickly as possible.

  When she made it back to the ground she couldn't help but wince at the residual heat. Some of the ground was covered in molten earth, while other places had already cooled enough to solidify into obsidian.

  Dammit. I should have made sure he was dead.

  Something in the back of Nix's mind told her that was wrong. That voice wasn't hers. She owed John a lot and had repaid him by betraying his trust and getting him killed.

  What's wrong with me? It's like I'm losing myself. No, I can think about this later. For now I need to get away from this thing before it goes.

  "Nix!" A familiar voice called out to her, and she saw Marcel running across the patches of safe earth.

  "Marcel? What are you doing here? I thought you were leading-!"

  Her question was interrupted as Marcel plunged his blade straight into her chest.

  "W-Why?" She asked as blood rose from her throat.

  "I'm sorry!" Marcel yelled desperately, tears running down his cheeks. His dismay didn't stop him from pulling the blade back out and swinging it at her head.

  At that moment the core above exploded, and Nix could just barely see Marcel's head caved in by scrap shrapnel before she met the same fate.

  Trey

  The explosion threw huge pieces of metal all over the surrounding area. One of the larger pieces demolished a tree next to Trey before it continued careening into the forest behind him.

  He'd been lucky to remain outside the blast radius of the mech's final attack. Only a few dozen feet in front of him the forest, the little that remained of it in this area, was covered with flames.

  There was no doubt that the fools who'd rushed into that conflict blindly seeking a resolution to the system quest that would kill them upon failure had all died. Trey was willing to bet there was nothing left of the ones closest to the blast.

  [Notice]

  Emergency Quest [Kill Nix] resolved. No rewards or penalties applied.

  So that's that.

  "No! Fuck! Nix!"

  Trey walked through some of the remaining underbrush and saw Zane collapsed to his knees. Tears ran down his cheeks in streams.

  Huh. I never assumed Zane actually cared about anybody but himself.

  Zane's head tilted to the side and he saw Trey standing there.

  "You…" Zane's voice was so filled with loathing that he sounded like a completely different person, "This is all your fault."

  Trey opened his mouth to respond but thought better of it. There was little point in reasoning with this man. Zane had been useful a few hours ago, but now the man was simply a nuisance that he needed to get rid of.

  Even so, Trey wasn't so confident in his strength to believe that he was Zane's match. The man had been number two for the entire duration of the tutorial.

  He looked at the message request that still hung suspended, his futile attempt to contact Devon, and closed it with a sigh of resignation. He'd have to settle this battle with only what he had on hand.

  much more feasible.