Ruler Of Iron And Flesh

After Inian heard the sad news, he sat outside and waited until Janae woke up.

An hour passed by, and Janae came out of the tent, fully dressed and ready to move.

"Janae, you've gotten a radio message to return to Irigia with me."

Janae's face dropped from joyful to depressed in a moment. "Okay, I guess we need to go back now."

Inian shook his head, "I don't know if I can face the Queen at all or Burt for that matter. Burt warned me multiple times to be careful about the power I have, and I went and used it, creating chaos and destruction around me."

Janae grabbed Inian's face and moved it so he would look at her straight in the eyes, "there's nothing you can do about the past Inian. All you can do is focus on the future. Refrain from using your abilities for a bit, and maybe that will humble you."

Inian nodded, and they hopped in the vehicle.

They only rode a day to a city on the outskirts of the Trostan Kingdom, and there they got a ride from the company Flite to go to Preah.

It took them four days total to get to Preah.

They were greeted at the landing platform by Burt and a few guards.

Inian looked towards Burt, but couldn't meet his eyes, "hey Burt."

Burt stood with his hands on his h.i.p.s, "Inian, you best look me in the eye when you talk with me."

Inian looked up to meet Burt's eyes, and Burt was smiling at him.

"It's good to have you back Inian."

Inian's eyes welled up with tears, and he hugged Burt, who hugged him back.

"Let's go you two; we have a great new invention to fight the remaining descendants with."

Inian looked towards Janae with a raised eyebrow, and she simply shrugged her shoulders.

Burt began walking towards the castle with a giddy walk as if he really had to use the bathroom.

"Is he alright?" Inian asked Janae.

Janae answered, "He said that they were working on something incredible before I left to get you, but I don't know what it is."

Inian pondered, 'perhaps a new exosuit?'

The pair followed Burt into the castle. There they saw the whirring machines and many contraptions around them.

"This place is one of the few science factories in Irigia. The Kotus Empire has always won when it comes to technological advances, but this is one of the only times that Irigia will win the race."

Burt paused for dramatic effect before opening the door leading to the showing room.

Inian's eyes widened as they saw the machines that looked like knights. They stood tall, even taller than Burt, and there were about a dozen lined up in two rows.

"These are the world's first automatons. We are going to use them to help fight the descendants."

Janae sputtered, "D*mn! That's really impressive. How do they work?"

Burt explained, "these automatons are only made for battle, and they can only obey simple commands, such as, 'attack' or 'protect me.' You can ask them specific questions about their systems, but that's about it. We have programmers trying to make them more complicated, but we'll see how soon we can get them."

Inian laughed out of sheer awe, "I never thought I'd see a machine fighting by itself! This is incredible! We can fight the other descendants, and perhaps I won't even need to use my abilities that much."

Burt raised an eyebrow, "you've stopped using your abilities? Since when?"

"Since Janae came and got me from Kairo."

Burt shot Janae a dirty look, and Janae whistled and looked at everything else but Burt.

Burt sighed, "we need you to use your abilities Inian. We can help with the automatons, but we are in no way close enough to only use them to defeat the descendants. Besides, we gathered info on the descendant of the sand, which really helps us. C'mon, I'll show you the plan."

He led Inian and Janae to a table with several sketches and papers were strewn about. One sketch showed what looked like a flying train except it didn't have the components to fly.

"So this is what we plan to use. Inian, we were really unprepared to fight the descendant of the sea when we took a ship out to fight it. It was really just you and me and we nearly died. So this time, we are going to use a newly made battle train!"

Inian was almost not surprised that Burt had something else in addition to the new automatons.

Burt continued, "we tried to get it to fly, but it was too heavy with all the machinery and weaponry on board, plus, we used really high-quality armor on the side. But the best part is this."

He pointed to a massive cannon on one of the sketches. It sat towards the front of the train, and it took over two whole train cars.

"We decided to call it a Mato cannon. This cannon uses a high-tier monster core up in a single burst to create the most devastating weapon on the planet! It's definitely expensive to shoot a single round, but its power is unmatched."

Inian observed the sketches and glanced at the automatons, "What exactly are we preparing for? What kind of monster is it?"

"Now we get to our enemy. The descendant of the sand resembles a giant worm underneath the sand in the Kotus Empire. We plan to use the battle train to disturb it and move quickly alongside it. The automatons will be our main support for you when you battle the monster head-on. Sadly, the Kotus Empire will only give us minimal support because they don't approve of fighting a descendant within the Empire. Empress Sophia says that 'it hasn't bothered us before, so why fight it now?' and that is really too bad. They'll only keep smaller monsters away from our fights, but they won't help against the descendant."

Janae asked, "when do we get started?"

Burt smiled, "we head out tonight to go fight the descendant!"