Although he didn't know the exact configuration of the three Sentinel robots, Richard wasn't surprised to see them emerge. After absorbing the memories of the original body, he already knew that the Mutant Affairs Department had successfully developed and deployed these machines. They weren't experimental toys. They were operational weapons with a track record.
According to what the original body had learned, Sentinel units had participated in numerous capture and elimination missions. Their success rate was terrifyingly high. Only one operation had ever failed—the attempt to capture Magneto. Every other mission had been completed with brutal efficiency.
No one knew exactly how Magneto had done it, but rumors claimed he had faced five Sentinels alone. Not only had he destroyed all five, but he had walked away without a scratch. Whether exaggerated or not, the story alone was enough to cement the Sentinels' reputation as mutant hunters.
Richard gave the three towering machines a brief glance and made a decision.
He didn't use his X-gene abilities.
Instead, he raised his right hand and activated Sephiroth's skill—Great Thunderbolt.
A low rumble of thunder rolled across the sky as if the clouds themselves were reacting to his command. Silver-white lightning began to coil through the night air, twisting and writhing like a living serpent made of pure electricity.
The unnatural phenomenon immediately drew the attention of Benjamin and the surrounding personnel. Heads tilted upward instinctively, tension spiking as the air charged with static.
Lightning manipulation?
Benjamin's mind flashed back to the report he had reviewed earlier that afternoon. Three members of Aiden's squad had been killed by high-voltage electrical trauma. The documentation hadn't detailed the exact mechanics, but the conclusion was clear: Richard had done it.
Neither Sabretooth nor Clarice possessed lightning-based abilities. That narrowed the source.
Most agents in the Mutant Affairs Department were still flesh and blood, no matter how enhanced they might be. Against something like this—against a strike straight from the sky—they would have no chance. A 9mm round could end most of them. A direct lightning strike would reduce them to charcoal.
The silver-white arcs intensified overhead, pulsing brighter and brighter.
Richard lowered his hand.
Boom!
A deafening explosion of thunder split the night as the lightning crashed down onto one of the Sentinels. The impact engulfed the machine in a storm of electricity. Violent currents crawled across its armored surface, dancing over the scale-like plating in chaotic patterns.
If it had been an ordinary machine, the damage would have been catastrophic. Internal chips would fry. Circuits would melt. Core processors would burn out under the surge.
But these were not ordinary machines.
If lightning alone could destroy them, they would never have earned the title of mutant natural enemy.
The strike didn't obliterate the Sentinel. Instead, it blasted through a section of outer armor, exposing a glimpse of the internal structure beneath. The plating blackened and cracked, but the unit remained standing.
Richard wasn't surprised.
Under the watchful eyes of Richard, Benjamin, and the scattered staff, the Sentinel's scale-like armor began to shift. The metallic layers reconfigured in a fluid, almost organic motion. The electric arcs that had been writhing across its body gradually faded, then vanished completely, as though absorbed.
Several tense seconds passed.
Benjamin braced himself, expecting retaliation—perhaps a mirrored lightning discharge.
But nothing happened.
The three Sentinels stood motionless.
"What's going on?" Benjamin muttered under his breath, his brow tightening. The machines' chest cores and eye lenses still glowed yellow, indicating power. Yet they didn't move. They didn't recalibrate. They didn't counterattack.
On the third underground level, in the remote monitoring room, confusion spread just as quickly.
The Sentinels didn't require manual piloting. Their autonomy had been refined through multiple updates. They continuously collected combat data and transmitted it back in real time. Operators could monitor status metrics and battlefield conditions instantly.
Yet now, the massive display screen in the control room filled with strings of unreadable garbled characters.
"What is this?" one technician whispered.
"System fault?"
The diagnostics indicated only superficial armor damage. Structural integrity remained within acceptable parameters. Power output was stable.
And yet, the Sentinels in the square stood frozen, as if their energy had been drained.
Neither Benjamin nor the technicians realized what had truly happened.
Richard did.
System crash.
The internal processing frameworks of the Sentinels had collapsed.
These machines didn't possess true consciousness. They operated according to complex but predefined adaptive combat programs. When struck by a mutant ability, their core directive was clear: analyze, replicate, counter.
They had attempted to copy Richard's lightning.
If he had used his X-gene-based lightning manipulation, the replication process would have functioned normally. The Sentinels could have mirrored it, possibly even deployed stored abilities against him.
But Richard had anticipated their copying mechanism.
What he used wasn't an X-gene power.
It was magic.
Sephiroth's Great Thunderbolt didn't belong to the mutant evolutionary spectrum. It wasn't a genetic anomaly. It was an ability drawn from an entirely different metaphysical framework.
The Sentinels had tried to process it using mutant replication protocols.
The result was catastrophic.
Attempting to copy a magical skill with a mutant-adaptive algorithm was like trying to execute foreign code without an interpreter. There was no compatibility layer. No shared architecture.
Even masters of mystic arts couldn't simply "copy" such abilities. These skills originated from another world entirely, structured by a system that translated energy into something Richard could understand as "magic power." That energy bore no true resemblance to the mystic energy used by Earth's sorcerers.
The Sentinels had tried to interpret an alien operating system.
Their response framework collapsed under the contradiction.
Richard hadn't expected this outcome. He had merely intended to test their defensive capacity. The system crash was an unexpected bonus.
He didn't waste it.
Flash.
He vanished and reappeared directly in front of the nearest Sentinel.
Eight Blades Flash.
In one fluid motion, he unleashed eight lightning-fast slashes. The authentic blade carved through armor with brutal precision, cutting at structural joints, exposed seams, and weakened sections.
Metal shrieked under the assault.
Under Benjamin's stunned gaze, the Sentinel was sliced into multiple sections. Limbs separated. Core split. Components scattered across the square in a rain of mechanical debris.
The unit was reduced to scrap before it could execute a single countermeasure.
The true danger of Sentinels lay in their adaptive replication. Without that function, their threat level dropped sharply. They were still formidable machines—but no longer nightmare-tier predators.
Benjamin reacted instantly.
He launched himself forward at full speed, asphalt cracking beneath his feet. Even at maximum acceleration, he was too late to stop the first destruction.
Richard had already shifted targets.
Eight Blades Flash erupted again.
The second Sentinel met the same fate. Armor fragmented. Internal systems exposed. The machine collapsed into lifeless wreckage.
Benjamin roared as he closed the final stretch, muscles straining, steel body gleaming under the broken lights.
Just as Richard moved to eliminate the third unit, Benjamin reached him and slammed forward like a charging bison.
Flash.
Richard vanished a split second before impact.
Benjamin's charge tore through empty air, but it accomplished one thing: it delayed Richard's follow-up strike.
The third Sentinel remained standing.
For now.
Richard reappeared more than twenty meters away. He didn't spare Benjamin a glance. His attention locked onto the final Sentinel, which still stood motionless, frozen by its internal failure.
It posed no immediate threat.
But Richard had no intention of allowing it to be recovered and repaired.
He raised the authentic blade calmly and gave it a casual swing.
Dimensional Slash!
.....
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