“Sir, I’d say it’s that stash of ons they’re carrying.”

  “N a’s greed!” Zack chuckled, leaning back as he watched the se unfold oellite feed. He had no iion of stepping in; Ego’s calcutions assured him that his two meical beasts were more than enough to hahe situation.

  Ihe pound, the meical spider, even after losing a leg, tio fight without hesitation. Its bat AI instantly adjusted, recalibrating its bao move smoothly on three legs while dodging the hail of Gatling guhe meical dog, however, demonstrated even more advaactics. The moment it identified the Gatling gun as a threat, it shifted its approach, strategically using the criminals as human shields.

  Yellow Dog, the gang’s leader, grew increasingly frustrated as every shot he fired at the meical dog ended up hitting one of his own men. “Damn it, this thing’s too smart!” he shouted, sweat dripping down his face as the relentless mae closed in on him.

  Regret crept into his mind as he thought back to his pns—his betrayal of Arthur and Scorpion, his grab for trol of the base, and his ambitions to dominate nearby survivor camps with the stolen ons. Now, all of it seemed futile as he faced the brutal precision of Zack’s creations. Desperate, he shouted to one of his men, “Keep them busy! Someohe bazooka!”

  Two of his followers scrambled to obey, rushing to the voy to grab a rocket uncher. But the maes were too fast, stantly shifting positions, making it almost impossible to get a clear shot.

  “Wait for my signal!” Yellow Dog barked, his voice tinged with desperation. He tinued firing wildly, trying to limit the meical dog’s movements. The chaos grew as more of his men were caught in the crossfire, but he didn’t care about the casualties anymore. “Now! Fire! Blow that thing up!”

  “But boss—uys are in the way!” one of his men stammered.

  Yellow Dog spun toward him, his face a mask e. “I said fire!”

  Relutly, the two men fired the rockets, each missile streaking toward the meical dog. The bsts roared through the air, leaving smoky trails as they closed in.

  The meical dog’s AI detected the ining projectiles instantly, calg its move in mere milliseds. It darted toward a nearby wall, using it as a springboard to leap into the air. Bounding from surface to surface, the meical dog skillfully evaded both rockets in one fluid motion.

  Boom! Boom!

  The rockets exploded against the wall, sending shockwaves through the room. The force propelled the meical dog forward, but it twisted mid-air, using its sleek, armored tail for ba nded gracefully, the shrapnel from the bst boung harmlessly off its reinforced shell. With a metalliarl, the dog surged toward Yellow Dog, ign the panicked criminals scattering in its path.

  The entire terattafolded in seds. Yellow Dog barely had time to react before the mae was nearly upon him. “Damn it!” he yelled, unloading his magazi the approag beast. In his panic, he didn’t notice the meical spider creeping closer from his blind side.

  BAM!

  A sharp, bded leg from the spider pierced straight through Yellow Dog’s chest. His eyes widened in shock, his mouth opening and closing as if to speak, but no words came out. Blood trickled from his lips as the limb retracted, leaving him to colpse lifelessly on the ground.

  “N... no…” he whispered, his voice fading as he slumped into the dirt. Behind him, the two men who had fired the rockets fumbled to reload, but their hands shook so badly that they dropped the on. It didn’t matter—the meical dog leapt over Yellow Dog’s corpse, closing the gap in an instant.

  “No! Please, don’t—!”

  Their cries were cut short as the dog’s alloyed teeth tore into them, ending their lives in seds.

  From the satellite feed, Zack observed the aftermath with a grim expression. He shut off the dispy and walked to the helicopter waiting nearby. As the chopper touched down in the prison courtyard, the se outside was grim—bodies and debris scattered everywhere, the metallic st of blood hanging thi the air.

  Stepping out, Zack spotted a group of terrified criminals on their kheir ons tossed aside. They were trembling untrolbly, fling every time the meical dog, its eyes glowing a menag red, circled them. The sharp, acrid smell of urine joihe stench of blood ah.

  Zack wrinkled his nose in disgust. “Finish them,” he said ftly, turning his ba the prisoners as he strode toward the voy. Behind him, the sound of screams aal slig through flesh filled the air, followed by silence.

  “Ego,” Zack called out as he began iing the loot, “give me an iory report.”

  His AI assistant’s voice was calm and effit. “M16 automatic rifles, F2000 assault rifles, RPG-7 unchers, M24 sniper rifles, fragmentation grenades…”

  As Ego listed off the ons, Zack’s attention nded on a Gatling gun. He picked it up, feeling its weight with a smirk.

  “M134 Minigun,” Ego expined. “Caliber: 7.62mm, firing rate: up to 6,000 rounds per minute.”

  “This’ll make the MV-02 a real war mae,” Zack muttered, already pnning modifications. The other ons wouldn’t go to waste either—they’d fit nicely into his mansion’s auto-defense system or be mounted on his meical creations.

  Looking around, Zack sighed. “Could’ve used those idiots to haul this stuff to the chopper,” he remarked dryly. With everyone dead, the task now fell to him. Mildly amused, he started loading the gear himself.

  “Ego, are there still people alive in this prison?”

  “Yes, sir. Survivors are locked in the cells. They were lured here by fake radio broadcasts,” Ego replied.

  Zaodded, his face hardening as he headed into the building with the meical dog at his side. He left the spider behind to guard the helicopter and ons.

  Ihe stench of rot and filth was overp. Activating the MV-01’s air purifier helped slightly, but the foul smell g to the air. Each cell he passed was the same—cramped, filthy, and filled with malnourished survivors. Their hollow eyes stared back at him with ion, just a vat emptihat spoke of their suffering.

  The farther Zack walked, the worse it got. Garbage and waste covered the floors, the toilets overflowed, and the prisoners had clearly been surviving on barely edible slop. Many looked too weak to stand.

  “If it weren’t for you, Ego,” Zack muttered under his breath, “I’d probably be rotting in a pce like this too.”

  At the end of a dim corridor, he came upon a group of women huddled together. Their eyes widened in terror as they spotted Zad the meical dog blog their only escape.

  “KYAAA!!!”

  One woman dropped to her krembling. “Please, do me!” she begged.

  The others followed, g out for mercy, their voices crag as fear overwhelmed them. Zack stood silently, his gaze cold as he took in their desperate pleas.