Hikmar noticed out of the corner of his eye that the soldiers in the small, hastily established ammunition area on the sands were panicking. It was as if Azrak was hovering over their heads, creating the sensation that an invisible shadow could collapse upon them at any moment. Like a priest whose soul had been drained, he approached the energy shield with heavy steps and pressed his hand against its surface.
"Quick! It seems we don't have much time!" one of the soldiers shouted. "The bomb isn't ready yet! Damn it!" "But we might not have any time left! Hurry up!" "Is that old cybernetic looking at us?" "I don't care if he looks or not. Fire that damn bomb!"
In front of the soldier preparing the bomb lay an open tool kit. On the table was an ordinary EMP bomb; but to turn it into a special energy shield disruptor, manual modifications had to be made. Especially if these bombs were cheap productions, the task was even more laborious.
Hikmar moved toward the transport vehicle with heavy steps. The moment he touched the metal body of the vehicle, he infiltrated the internal systems. First, he opened the crate. The Cryo-V case inside was revealed. Then he entered the case. He didn't wait. He didn't have time to wait anyway.
And… he released it.
Hikmar could no longer hold up his exhausted body. He leaned his back against the truck and slowly slid to the ground. While he sat on the sand, breathless, Volem emerged cautiously from the vehicle.
At that moment, Volem looked like a helpless human. It was clear he hadn't fed for a long time; his scrawny body was barely moving with its colored cable-like veins. With his massive circular mouth and horns stretching upward, he came to the front of the energy shield and stopped.
"What is this?" one of the soldiers asked. The armored soldier behind him pointed his weapon. "I saw it come out of the crate." "Is that the cargo?" "Maybe…" "So what do we do?" "What do we do? Continue your work! Blow up that damn shield!" "Are you sure?" asked the soldier holding the bomb. "Yes! We can't wait here while a cybernetic is mowing down our men up there!"
The soldier ran and threw the bomb at the energy shield. Hikmar, with a mocking smile on his face, deactivated the shield. As the bomb hurtled toward Volem, the creature ducked; it opened its mouth and tried to catch the bomb. But the bomb struck his chest.
A massive explosion of energy tore through the sand and the air. As smoke rose, Volem collapsed face-down on the ground.
"What was that now?" "Is he dead?" "Watch the old man!" said the massive armored soldier. "Catch him first." The armored soldier approached Volem with his rifle and poked his body. "I think he's dead…"
Just then, as a soldier advancing toward Hikmar raised his weapon… Volem shivered. A short, sharp tremor. As if an instantaneous electrical charge had surged through his body.
His veins began to glow with a faint light. As the cables pumped energy into the muscles, his body swelled; his stature grew visibly.
The armored soldier tried to pull the trigger. He couldn't.
A moment later, his knees buckled and he collapsed. Because all the energy inside his mechanical armor had been drained through a microscopic leak in the suit. The armor slammed into the ground like a lifeless heap of metal. Some soldiers moved to save their friends. But the moment fire was opened, Volem leaped forward. He began to tear the soldiers apart one by one with his massive claws.
Now, there was something much bigger for the soldiers on the sand to worry about. Hikmar, however, knew the truth. The moment the energy of the armored soldiers was depleted, Volem would not be able to renew himself. Then, a few bullets would suffice. If the soldiers realized the creature was eating energy… this battle could end very quickly.
As Azrak struggled to extract himself from the pile of metal he was impaled on, he noticed the chaos on the beach. The other soldiers must have noticed it too, because many were abandoning their positions and running toward the shore.
But at that moment… at that very moment, the war truly arrived from an unexpected place.
The thing coming from the opposite side of the road they were on was advancing with rhythmic, heavy steps. Each step shook the ground, echoing like a giant mallet striking the crust of the planet. The armored soldiers momentarily forgot about the creature on the beach; they turned all their attention to this new threat approaching from the end of the road.
The thing coming down the road advanced by smashing through everything in its path. Mechanical armors weighing tons were tossed aside like scraps of paper, flying meters into the air and falling to the ground with a hard crash.
Looking out of the corner of his eye, Azrak realized that this scene was not a battle, but a crushing. "Is it… a tank?" he thought.
But no… it was too fast for a tank. Too agile. Then he saw the truth. It wasn't a tank. It was a shield.
An inclined, thick, and solid metal shield… It advanced by deflecting incoming bullets and missiles, completely concealing what was behind it. As the soldiers opened fire under the rain, bullets threw sparks off the shield's surface but left no impact.
Then the shield slowly opened. And the thing behind it was revealed.
This… was like nothing familiar.
He was about two and a half meters tall. It was impossible to tell if he was made of flesh and bone; his skin reflected light with a silvery sheen, looking like metal but breathing as if alive. This skin covered his entire body like armor, except for the eye sockets. Even missile explosions left only soot and smoke on him. A missile striking him directly in the face only seemed to bother the creature with its smoke.
But the real issue wasn't his height or his skin. The creature had four arms. When he tilted his head slightly, the darkness inside his eye sockets glowed.
This wasn't a soldier. This wasn't a vehicle. This thing… was a war doctrine.
Azrak understood then: the moment this creature stepped onto the field, fronts, positions, and plans became meaningless. Because this had been sent not to fight the war, but to end it.
With a single hand, as if it carried no weight for him, he gripped that massive metal shield. The shield was as thick as a tank's front armor, yet it looked as insignificant as an ordinary sheet of metal in the creature's palm.
Only two things covered his naked body. First, massive bullet casings draped from his shoulder to his waist, wrapped around his neck. Each was half the height of a human, and the cannon weapon hung between them seemed not like equipment, but like a natural limb of the creature's body. The second was a pair of tattered green soldier shorts he had pulled on. This small and humiliating detail made the creature's majesty even more chilling.
One of the armored soldiers walked forward, shouting as if screaming, and fired without letting go of the trigger. These bullets were powerful enough to shred Azrak's body. But the bullets striking the creature's face… they were shattering.
The casings fell to the ground like a metal downpour even more violent than the rain; the soldier froze amidst the meaningless noise of his own weapon. Then the creature made his move.
The ground exploded as if it couldn't carry him. It wasn't a jump; it was as if he were torn from where he was and dropped at another point. He landed on the massive robot that was firing at him. The armor collapsed inward under his feet. The metal folded like tin. The scream of the human inside was stifled by the sound of breaking steel. People began to retreat. Truthfully, they weren't running; they were scattering like cowardly vermin.
An armored soldier, in desperation, brought his metal fists together and slammed them onto the creature's head. One blow. And then nothingness… Both arms of the armor shattered upon contact. The metal scattered in the air. The owner of the fist fell to his knees; because he no longer had arms.
The creature gripped the armored machine with one hand and slammed his head forward. The blow didn't crush the armor; it crushed the man inside. Then he accelerated.
With an agile movement that mocked his size, he dove among the people. Skulls cracked in his palms, bodies were thrown meters away with simple swings. Commands were shouted, radios chirped, but no one was listening anymore.
As the armored soldiers tried to retreat in screams, the creature took the cannon rifle hanging from his shoulder. And began to fire randomly.
"This…" whispered Azrak, his voice trembling. "This is incredible power…"
The creature caught an armored unit that leaped at him. He shoved his hand into the armor, pulled the man out. When he gripped the man's head and squeezed his palm, the body split in two. Internal organs spilled to the ground, striking the creature's torso.
This was no longer a war. This was a slaughter. Those armored units Azrak thought were unstoppable… mechanical death machines… had snapped like toothpicks the moment they faced a real death, scattering in fear.
Azrak was in pain. But the horror of the scene he witnessed surpassed even the pain. He gripped the metal rod sticking out of his waist tightly. His chest trembled with agony. As tears filled his eyes, he couldn't help but burst into laughter.
Because… because the thing in front of him could only be a joke. A monster that broke armored units like toothpicks could not be explained any other way in this universe.
As the creature looked out of the corner of his eye at the cybernetic laughing in agony, the organs on his head were falling down his body. The cybernetic didn't stop; he continued his laughter in the face of this creature.
Hikmar had exhausted the energy in his body to such an extent that walking was no longer an action, but a form of collapse. He couldn't lift his head, couldn't keep his spine straight. He swayed from side to side; like a drunken homeless person, he wasn't trying to stay on his feet, but merely postponing his fall. Finally, his knees could no longer carry him, and he let himself go onto the sand.
Was the war over? If it was, where was this ear-splitting scream coming from? The metal grinding, the muffled groans… and that laughter… It was the laughter of a madness that was neither human nor machine, erupting from the throat of a cybernetic and spreading across the battlefield. It wasn't an expression of victory, but a twisted manifestation of having survived.
Hikmar tried to straighten up, leaning on his trembling arms. He took two steps. He couldn't take the third. His feet sank into the sand, as if even the planet no longer wanted to carry him. The lenses in his eyes were slowly coming back to life. As the images sharpened, the reality grew even heavier. What moved his body now wasn't advanced systems or calculated reactions. The primitive had taken over.
Muscles. Joints. Flesh. Organic systems that had perhaps not been used for centuries, having functioned only at the moment of birth… now they were the only things trying to keep him on his feet. His body, abandoned by metal, software, and energy, was carrying a forgotten humanity.
Hikmar shuddered at this thought. If these primitive systems hadn't existed… if flesh and bone hadn't replaced the mechanical systems… could he have moved? Or had he already turned into a living wreck?
He tried to lift his head. The battlefield stretched out before his eyes. Shattered armors, fallen bodies, blood mixed into the sand… This was not a field of victory. This was a graveyard where even those left behind were not forgiven.
Hikmar's chest tightened. So much death… so much noise… and all that remained was a silent exhaustion.
As he stepped slowly over the sand, he tripped over a mangled corpse. His eyes caught a severed head. With every step he took, he could see a piece of the hell mentioned by old religions. And the thing causing all this hell…
The moment the laughter rose again, he followed it with his eyes. On the road, a four-armed creature with a shield was looking toward the beach. He looked away from the creature and continued walking toward the end of the sands.
Volem…
That creature was different from when he had last seen him. He had evolved… That spindly body had swollen like muscles pumped with hormones. Now the veins appeared like thin threads wound around those thick muscles. But this image was a distorted one… His muscles looked like lumps merging into each other. While his skin appeared thick in some places, it was almost transparent in others. This creature, which was previously only slightly larger than a human, had now reached nearly three meters in height. But as he grew taller, his lower body had expanded; his upper body remained just as scrawny. His head, in particular, looked quite small compared to his body. Especially with those long horns leaning backward…
With blood flowing from the bullet holes on him, his body covered in bruises and scratches, he had reached the edge of the beach, watching that poisonous lake of sand. He looked at the pitch-black, tar-filled, waste-filled lake, where no life could survive and whose smell pierced the nostrils, as if longing for a lost old love.
While there was a man's severed arm at the side of his mouth, he was rolling the body he gripped in his hand in his mouth as if eating a kebab skewer. As blood flowed down from his mouth, it encountered many folds on his distorted body; the blood traces moved invisibly.
Hikmar came toward the creature, walking in pain with heavy steps. He placed his cold metal hand on the creature and, using him for support, tried to stand; he set about watching the same view with him.
Labiba's war robot, that semi-ship semi-robot that was meters high, had finally fallen. Hikmar could even see the robot, with large fires breaking out on it, slowly collapsing as he looked out of the corner of his eye.
"What a pity… a great pity…" said Volem.
Hikmar knew that these creatures didn't have human emotions, but… but at that moment, it was as if the creature was speaking tearfully. Hikmar leaned his head toward Volem. It created an image as if he were hugging him.
"What is a pity?" "It was a huge robot… it was full of energy inside. It had a magnificent energy. It sparkled brilliantly. Now it has gone out…" "The people you killed had energy too."
The massive creature looked at Hikmar standing behind his arm out of the corner of his eye. "Yes… I know that. That's why… that's why I hate myself." "But this is the law of nature, dear Volem. You shouldn't hate it…" "Law of nature?" "Life is the act of destroying. To exist, you must be able to destroy. This was the purpose of your creation… to consume other resources to produce energy."
The tearful tone returned: "But… I… I don't want this." "Now that you are out of that crate, you are free," said Hikmar. "You are under no one's control. You can live as you wish." "Well…" said Volem, and there was a moment of silence. Then he pointed his finger toward the lake. It was as if he was trying to point at something beneath the lake. "…won't we go there?" "Where is 'there'?" "My… my home…"
Hikmar moved toward the lake with the help of the creature's body. Nothing was visible where he pointed. He wondered exactly what it was he called home beneath those dirty waters of the lake. "You don't have to go there either," he said, and Hikmar lifted his head with his last strength to look at Volem. Volem tossed aside the corpse in his hand. Since the creature had that strange circular mouth, no eyes, and backward-leaning horns, no facial expression could be read. But from his tone of voice, it could be said the creature sounded moved.
"Thank God…" But before this godless creature could even say 'Thank God', a sound was heard. A very powerful sound coming from a massive weapon. With the blast of the weapon, Volem's head had been shattered before Hikmar's eyes. While Hikmar took a blood bath with the pieces of flesh torn from Volem's shattered head, he followed the sound of the weapon with his blood-stained eyes.
This was a four-armed, metallic silver-skinned, horned, and four-eyed creature.