Synthetic Survivor: Machine Age

She stayed for a while. She watched as her bodyguard crashed against the hard stone. Blood smeared against her face. The man placed his feet on the fallen mage's head before turning his attention towards Anna.

"Hm, you're the mage who summoned that anomaly," The man said. His voice gurgled slightly with a pinch of lowness.

They both stared at each other, not one of them was backing down. Anna, with what was left of her strength, pushed herself up and she stood. She stood although her body shook, this was to show that even in such a weakened state, she was not going to back down just yet.

"Hm," The man then walked over the fallen mage and stood a few meters away against Anna.

"You've been a torn in our side quite some time," The man pointed out. His face was devoid of expression or emotion. He gave off an aura of pure darkness, an aura which only Anna could see at full-strength. His aura stretched towards a dozen feet above and to the sides, he was an immensely powerful being.

She needed to be careful, and so she decided to talk first.

"Who are you?" She asked as she dusted off her robe. One was not listening, rather, he was actually watching the dust get yeeted off her robe.

"Hm, strange," One uttered.

Anna looked at him in the eye.

"What is strange?"

One stared back, his eyes gleamed with ferocity. But Anna was not backing down.

"You did not answer my question, who are you?" Anna repeated her question from a while ago.

"Like you, I have power, Like you, I am a leader, but unlike you, I don't have magic," One said.

"Well, that is easy to see," Anna finished dusting her robe.

"Wait, let me rephrase that, I DON'T need magic, unlike you who completely rely on such a technique,"

Anna was insulted. She frowned at the man who was called One and magical energy manifested around her, calling upon a gust of wind.

"You have the ability to manipulate the wind and summon a wind monster, I thought I'd have trouble with you but seeing as you are now, your body is about to collapse, isn't it?"

Anna looked at her body and felt weakness. The man in front of her was right, after seeing his aura, she came to the realization that she was no match against him.

But, she was resolute.

"You, what's your name?" Anna asked again.

"I am, One,"

She stepped forward with assistance from her wind. The landscape was dark, death and destruction surrounded them. It was the idle fighting ground for both. As they stared at one another, the armies of the machine empire advance further into the theocracy with nothing in their way. The city had been completely occupied with the rest of the surviving population having been evacuated through the use of teleportation magic.

Fary was the only mage left when the last batches were teleported out. The teleportations, however, were severely hampered due to the missile strikes and the subsequent continuation of the Empire's offensive. The garrison was completely overwhelmed the moment the drones breached each wall. A short skirmish followed with the drones emerging victorious and the entirety of the garrisons massacred.

After an hour of further bloodshed, it all boiled down to this.

One and Anna continued their staring competition. Even the drones were eager to see who would blink first.

A few minutes passed. Both of them were yet to blink.

Another few minutes passed. The exact same result.

One's two elite drones watched from the eastern watchtower. Five arches and a knight were scattered across the room with their blood smeared on the walls and floor.

"Bloody hell, why aren't they doing anything?" Micheal complained.

"Let's wait," John assured. There was no need to rush, no, they had all the time they needed.

It should be worth mentioning, the council had not left the city.

Nobody knew where they were but when Anna summoned the wind elemental, they were inspired and decided to unite one last time. If they were to meet their demise, they were going to meet it together. The council was once a united and powerful organization within the church that spearheaded advancements both in magic and society, the fact that it has degraded to such a level shows how weak the theocracy had become.

When the city finally fell, they hid themselves and waited for Anna to wake after they saw her fall. They saw within her the image of the goddess, her hand saving her from the fall and thus saving her life. These rowdy and mostly incompetent old men and hags were about to put their minds to good use one last time.

"So, are we not going to finish this once and for all?" One broke the silence between them.

Anna's hair fluttered as the wind around her gained speed and momentum. After which a tornado formed around her with herself as the eye of the phenomenon.

"Huh," One posed to fight.

"By the guidance of the gods, lest ye be worthy of thy name, thy kingdom shall burn!" Anna shouted.

"Thy kingdom, my arse," One charged at her head-on.

One had no weapon but his fists. He lunged into the tornado without getting affected by the 100 kph winds and managed to catch Anna off-guard.

"Impossible!" She uttered before being punched in the face. She lost a bit of concentration and the tornado lost a bit of strength before returning to top speed. One was now inside the tornado with her, she had to resort to hand-to-hand combat.

The two engaged in a furious battle of fists and feet. Anna's martial arts training and more than a hundred years of experience proved life-saving in this situation of hers as her enemy launched punch after punch with immense force. As the fight inside went on, each punch by One became faster and faster.

'Tsk! A monster!' Anna thought. She would be defeated if she did not do anything to her enemy's speed. Seeing an opening, she directs a concentrated spear of wind at her enemy's face. The spear of wind knocked him aside successfully but dealt little damage.

With this, Anna directed more spears at One and pushed him out of the tornado, this time he was caught by the 100kph winds and flung off. One landed on his feet and skidded across the ground.

One stood up, unscathed.

"Tsk!"

One then stopped for a moment and tilted his head.

"Why is it that you people like saying 'tsk' or making that sound?" One asked.

"Huh?" Anna replied in confusion. She did not even notice that she was making the sound in the first place and thus did not get what her enemy was saying.

"Enough of your nonsense!" Anna thought that One was just confusing her, making her lose focus so that the battle would turn his way. In particular honesty, One was actually curious an confused as to why they make that sound.

One stood for a minute or two, his eyes glowed brighter than usual prompting Anna to maintain a defensive posture. Anna anticipated her enemy to attack after he finished powering up, still thinking that One followed the basis of magic but used a different kind of magic instead. Although her deity had specifically told her before that their enemy required no magic, Anna still thought they were using a more mystical and godly form of magic.

Her thought was further reinforced by the fact that One excreted a powerful aura enough to crush her's. The fact also that One's eyes glowed brighter meant that he was indeed acc.u.mulating a form of magic power.

Although in actuality, One was just evaluating her and their surroundings. One had upgraded himself exponentially through the use of modified prewar military enhancement technologies. Modified in a sense since Hailey could not fully reverse engineer the technology and thus had to fill in technological gaps and remove some key parts.

But still, the modified instruments that One now possessed greatly enhanced his ability to compute his enemy and the variables around said enemy.

Through this rapid and careful computation, One asked himself. Why did he resort to fighting alone? They had eliminated almost all opposition in the city, the city was already theirs! Nobody was going to intervene, with his army alone, the mage would stand no chance of winning.

But that brought him to another realization, he's been acting rather brashly. His focus had deteriorated significantly over the past months. Hailey noticed the abnormality in One.

Little did he know, his humanity was slowly returning and was hampering most of his systems. But that's not to say that One would lose all efficiency and ability as a machine, no, he will regain all that he has lost but his actions will be more human in nature if he so chooses to embrace the change.

One, however, did not know of this and had no plans of embracing humanity although he wonders why his drones are becoming more human-like than him.

"What's taking you so long?" Anna asked mockingly.

One then redirected his attention towards her after being lost in thought.

"I suggest we take a break maybe? I am willing to answer your questions with full honesty but I will ask some questions myself and expect the same honesty," One suggested in a nonchalant voice.

"How am I supposed to trust the enemy? You expect me to be stupid?" Anna refused to cooperate.

"Well, if that's the case, I will reveal my own secrets to you, if you still won't concede, well, suit yourself," One broke a fake smile.

Seeing One's smile made her back off a little. It was a nightmarish sight to behold, how can someone be so emotionless yet so terrifying?

It was very out-of-character for One to show a smile.

"Alright, let me start," One began.

Anna was still on the alert, moving her head from left to right in anticipation of an ambush. She noticed that the metal men around them have begun to increase in numbers, now they were arguably by the thousands around them. They formed a large circle that seemed to serve as the boundary of their 'arena' in which they will fight if they do decide to continue.

'I'm surrounded," Anna thought.

"We don't use magic, I believe you already know that," One said.

"A lie," Anna immediately replied.

"How can you say for sure that it is a lie?" One challenged her.

"Your aura," Anna pointed out.

"O, child, there is no such thing as an aura around me, I prefer to call it as a physical manifestation of one's fear that surrounds a person," One did not know that the mage was older than him by a mile.

'He's older than me!?' Anna thought in despair. To think that her enemy called her a child, was he a hundred years older maybe? A thousand? Ten thousand more? Does her enemy predate even the great forgotten era? Both sides had no idea.

"Fear?" Anna asked. "What fear?"

"The fear I propagate, The fear I make you all feel,"

Anna was silent.

"Fear is a major factor in human development and character, without fear humanity would have gone extinct in the first place. The most important fear of all.."

"What?" Anna asked after One cut his sentence short.

"The fear of the unknown, I do not understand why you don't understand such a simple concept that reigns true? you are a human and you fear the unknown just as much as I do, likewise, I am unknown to you and the residents of this world. We are unknown, why? For we come from another world, a world that was once vibrant as yours but humanity reigned supreme. That past, I wish to return, and return it I will, even if I need to take the lives every single one of you pests,"