There weren’t many Murkers inside the castle for Barry to dispatch, he could only assume that their plan of drawing them all out with his group's distraction was successful. ‘This’ll be cake now that there’s not much to stop me inside.’ Barry was thankful.

  He evaded the spellcasters' water projectiles with his nimbleness, while also blocking incoming fire of fletcher arrows tipped with poisonous coral. Performing a somersault over a pack of warriors and slashing at their naps with his wind blades, before resuming his rush to eliminate the ranged fighters.

  Barry launched a couple of wind blades at the mages to shatter their armor of magic so that he could finish each of them with two strokes of his blade. They all fell to the floor, and he moved on deeper into the castle while utilizing his pulse scanner to find any route that could possibly lead to wherever this prism was.

  He would encounter a flight of stairs leading higher up the castle, sunlight shining through the art of a beautiful glass mural depicting a group of humanoids that resembled somewhat to the things they were fighting. However, they looked a lot friendlier than the ones present. ‘Why would these Murkers have something as appealing like that here? They must not have been the original owners of this place.’ Barry questioned.

  Quickly, Barry made haste to search the floors above. There were a few other Murkers lingering around, but they weren’t much of an issue to handle for him. His eyes scanned around each room he searched, finding some gold here and there to pocket, but still nothing like the prism he was seeking. He was confident that his eyes would be able to tell if he found it if the font color he read was purple, because that would mean that the prism was in fact a quest related item.

  “What?” He stopped for a moment, spotting a couple of books written by a familiar author that he saw before. “This is…from ’Magic Mike’. This guy must be pretty famous to have his books randomly showing up here.”

  Like every other book of its kind, these could be read in an instant and obtain a few points in a person’s Intelligence or Wisdom stat. But only for the first use, afterwards, it would become a regular old book that could still be read. Barry took the books and moved on, thinking of giving them to one of his teammates.

  But still, he found no luck in finding the prism as he went around the castle, frantically checking every room. “Where the hell is it! I’m thoroughly checking every damn room! So why the fuck can’t I find it!”

  One of the rooms he didn’t get a chance to look at, was the king and queen’s room. He looked down the hall at the big double doors and ran towards it. “Of course, why wouldn’t it be in the most obvious fucking place.” He cursed.

  He tried turning the knob and pushing it open, but the door wouldn’t budge. “Huh?” Barry tried again, only to get the same result. “Is this door jammed or something? Agh, I guess I’m going to have to smash it open.”

  Swapping to his warhammer, Barry took a couple of steps back and winded up for an almighty swing that would bust his way in. Feeling ready, he dashed forward and gave it his all, colliding his hammer against the double doors so hard that it split open, making the doors hang on their hinges.

  Barry slid inside and came to a full stop to observe his surroundings for any sign of the prism, however, what he found was not something he was expecting.

  Panicking in the corner of the room was a female humanoid mermaid looking person with what could be a child of its kind in their arms. ‘Are these what Ron called…Merfolk? What are they doing here?’ He was puzzled.

  It was only assumed based on observation that the female Merfolk was a queen because of the way they were dressed, along with the crown on their head as a tell sign. And in her arms must have been her child. “B-Back away! Don’t come any closer!” The woman cried at Barry, shielding her child.

  Completely confused by the situation, he wanted to ask what was going on but didn’t want to waste time talking, seeing as he had more important shit to do. “Listen, I’m looking for a blue crystal prism. Me and a bunch of others fought our way to get here, so if you know where-”

  “Y-You killed them!” The queen wept, shocked at what he said. “T-Those Murkers, outside this room! You killed them!?” She and her son looked so distressed.

  Barry was very curious of what was happening at this castle and gave in to seeking answers. “Yeah? We’re still fighting as we speak, and pretty soon all those Murkers will be wiped out. Were they the ones who invaded your castle-”

  “No! No! NO!” The queen clutched her child close to her chest, Barry could tell that something was truly wrong. What she said next was something shocking to him. “Those were my people! You…you killed them!”

  The mother and son broke into more tears, and the realization dawned on Barry as he came to the conclusion that this castle was never taken over by outside Murkers. “What!? So this whole time we’ve been…” He realized the dark truth and looked upon the queen with a tense expression, “But how!?”

  Trying to explain under the sorrows weighing her down, she believed it would be easier for him to understand if he saw for himself. She pointed towards one of the doors inside the room with a shaky hand. “T-There, see for yourself…”

  He hurried over and didn’t hesitate to check what was behind the door, Barry’s eyes widened from the gruesome scene he saw. “Fucking hell…”

  It was the king of the castle, it was a disfigured body that laid on the floor dead. From the looks of the body, it appeared that he was going through a transformation from his regular friendly Merfolk look to the appearance of those vicious Murkers. A coral dagger rested in the palm of its hand, the weapon that was used to puncture multiple holes through his own body in order to kill himself before transforming completely.

  “Our castle…everything rose up from under the water…and my husband…” The queen spoke, trying to regain her composure. “After witnessing our guards take the form of one of those Murkers, we shut our room and barricaded it. However…my husband felt a disturbance within himself and…he…” She could not speak anymore.

  Barry got the picture of what had happened, he didn’t need her to say anymore of the truth that happened. Rage began to rise from within him, a burning hatred formed inside that he was all too familiar with. His expression darkened with a scowl. ‘The gods…the moderators…they must have had something to do with this! They converted these Merfolk people into monsters as obstacles against us!’

  He wanted to shove his foot up their asses for what they had done. The moderators had turned the humans of Haglethorn against the Nightwalker, despite their docile nature to never kill a human. And now that Barry was just told these Murkers were originally friendly Merfolk, he was enraged.

  Barry shut the door to leave the king alone, he promised internally to the king that he would get pay back for him at the ones responsible for creating this unfortunate event.

  The queen looked at Barry with worried eyes, she remembered him asking for a blue prism before, which confused her. “Human…” She spoke, getting his attention. “You mentioned something about a blue prism? Is…that what you and your people seek?”

  He faced the queen and nodded. “That’s right, it seems to me that you don’t know what’s going on in the world right now, but it’s important that we find it. This world is endangered if we don’t find it, and we have information saying that it's here. So if you know something, it would be greatly appreciated.”

  Thinking about what was told, she found it odd that humans suddenly arrived on the island about a week after her kingdom fell into chaos. However, the queen also believed that this blue prism might be related to what had happened and provided him with what she knew. “I’m not entirely sure if we are the possession of this prism you speak of…but this castle does contain a hidden treasure room. Perhaps it might be in there.”

  Barry was eager to get to this room she spoke of. “Queen, it's important that you tell me how to access that room. That’s why we came here, the prism is all we need to stop a tragedy like this from happening to others across the world.”

  “Well…” She thought about it, the queen had just met Barry who was a complete stranger that apparently brought a bunch of people to originally inspect their kingdom for this supposed prism. “Even if none of this had occurred…you and your people would have still invaded our kingdom…if this prism is as important as you say.”

  He could sense where she was coming from, it was true that there might have been a huge misunderstanding if her people met his large group of contestants, believing them to be a threat.

  Barry would have to choose his words carefully, or else he just might have to start wrecking everything to find this treasure room. “Queen…you, your son, your husband and the rest of your people have clearly suffered a great affliction that was due to the gods. Believe it or not, we’re all victims of something bigger than you can imagine, and we’re trying to do what we can to stop this world from ending. But I’m sure you don’t give a damn about anyone else outside your kingdom as of this moment because you and your child…had already lost a world of your own.”

  She took in his words, feeling the despair that he described as losing her own world, which was her husband and the rest of the kingdom. Her child cried in her chest, his words hitting true to their hearts.

  There was a moment of pause for a bit and Barry took it as her not wanting to tell him, so he turned his back towards them and walked towards the exit. “It’s fine, I’ll look for it on my own. But know that I am sorry for the curse that was placed on this kingdom…and I’ll get back at those who did.”

  Literally a second after he took a step out of the room, was when he heard the queen call out to him. “Wait!” He paused, taking a glance back at her, reacting in time to catch something that was thrown at him.

  It was a golden medallion about the size of his palms, with the image of a trident engraved on it. “On the first floor…” The queen spoke to him, seeming a bit calmer now. “Between two statues, is a painting that, when brought forth the medallion, will unveil a secret passage to the treasure room.”

  The text of the medallion was a yellow color, as he pocketed it into his inventory, Barry looked at the queen as she added one more thing to what she had to say. “Take whatever you think will be of use for your journey, they are worth nothing to me now. I don’t know of this great danger you speak of for the whole world. But I do know I don’t wish for others to experience the same loss as we have…”

  Barry believed he could feel the last remaining trust she had within her, directed towards him after listening to her. He couldn’t help but feel an urge to make things right, further increasing his motivation to completing this wretched quest they were in. “Like I said, I’ll do everything I can to put a stop to the calamity that awaits us.” He then gave a few final words before taking off, meaning everything that he said. “You have my word…thank you.”

  Rushing down the hall and jumping down through the flight of stairs, Barry double-jumped again before crash landing on the 1st floor to be safe. Utilizing his special eyes, he scanned around the room until he spotted something out of the ordinary.

  ‘Ah! That must be what she was referring to.’ He gazed at between two Merfolk statues, directly at a painted portrait of the castle that had once been underwater.

  The painting had a normal text name referred to as, “Beautiful Portrait”, but the text was yellow, which meant that it had something to do with a secret puzzle or entrance. Taking the medallion out of his inventory, Barry held it close to the painting and waited for something to happen.

  After about 5 seconds, he heard an audible click from behind the painting wall, witnessing the sectioned wall push back and slide upwards. It was exactly as the queen described, a hidden passage leading to a place below, which had to be the treasure room.

  It was an underwater tunnel which would require him to swim inside and follow all the way through. There was the issue of hoping to find an air pocket in case he ran out of breath, but he didn’t have much of a choice since everyone else was engaged with the Murkers. So after taking one good breath of air, he dove right in and swam.

  Luckily, his pulse scanner, in addition to his enhanced eyesight, was able to make quick thinking decisions on where to continue travelling to. Colorful glowstones were placed along the tunnel walls as a sort of guide for those entering and leaving.

  After about 5 minutes of swimming, he was able to see additional light above the surface of what was an underwater cave. Sticking his head out from the water, he refilled his lungs with air and looked around to find himself in the treasure room that the queen talked about.

  All around the room were lots of gold and shiny jewelry, his eyes detected some Uncommon items such as gear and weapons by just taking a quick glance at his surroundings. “This has to be it.” He told himself as he stepped out of the water, back on land. “And if it's not here, I’m going to be so fucking pissed.”

  As he was looking for the prism, Barry started looting everything that was money, weapons, armor, and anything of value in the collection of treasure that was all around. Barry swapped and equipped some pieces of armor that had some Magic Resistance stats, still wearing medium armor with a bit of deep sea theme mixed in. He would split it with the rest of his group, which would hopefully help strengthen the team.

  From among the weapons that he found, he spotted a Rare trident in the hands of a marble statue that was a Merfolk champion. It held it with both hands in a kneeling position, as if it was bowing to a king. The name of it was referred to as, “Riptide Trident”. The color of the trident’s shaft was cerulean, with extravagant little designs. Compared to the shaft, its head was a slightly darker color with three prongs, the middle one being the longest and largest out of the other two. There was a bit of light purple coral added to the head’s design as well.

  Barry grasped the trident with one hand and felt a sudden chill channel through his arms and up his spine. The feeling did not go away and persisted the longer he held onto it, the trident would not budge from the statue's grip as he tried pulling it out. For some reason, his eyes were drawn to the statue’s, he couldn’t help but feel like it was…inspecting him.

  His hand could not let go of the trident, no matter if he wanted to or not, it was like the statue had some amount of control over him at the moment. ‘Why do I get a sense that this statue is judging me? Hmmm…’

  He felt like he was in the middle of an ocean with tidal waves clashing between each other. Barry gazed intensely at the statue with determined eyes, believing it was waiting for him to say something to it. “Not going to let me have this that easy, huh?” He asked the statue with a sigh.

  The marble figure hummed in response to his words. Barry could feel an emotion that was all too familiar to him, Rage. “Mad, of course you are. Everyone here besides the queen and her son were turned into monsters, forced to be nothing more than pieces of a game for the gods' entertainment.”

  Again, the statue hummed to his comment, channeling a sensation of negative energy to Barry that confirmed he was right. “Yeah, I'd like to kick them off their thrones for everything they've done. Especially for something very important to me that they've stolen…”

  Barry's chills began to die down, but continued to linger. He believed that the statue was calming down, sensing the sincerity in his voice. “Lend me this weapon and I promise I'll give your share of revenge towards the ones who caused this tragedy. You have my word.”

  There was a pause for a moment as Barry continued to look into the glowing eyes of the statue. It would give him one final look of judgment before it dimmed into nothingness. He once again tried taking the trident out once more from the statue's grip and was finally able to obtain it.

  Twirling it around in his hands, he familiarized himself with the weight and length of the weapon with a couple of thrusts and swings. He could see water produced from every attack he threw out before it evaporated into thin air. Barry flung the weapon at a nearby wall, sticking it and recalling it back to his hand with a single thought. Although he hadn’t had much practice with using a spear in his dream world, the weapon felt good in his hands. Defeating 100 enemies with a spear happened to be one of the requirements for the contract he bought, so this was a fortunate find for him.

  ‘New weapon I see.’ It was Thalia speaking in his head. ‘How very convincing of you to ask the statue for it, I’m sure it will prove to be a great addition to your arsenal…hmm…’

  “What?” He asked Thalia, wondering what she was thinking about now.

  She chuckled. ‘Oh nothing…it seems that one of my brothers commented about the looks of the weapon. Claiming that it is a gorgeous treasure and should be treated with great care.’

  Barry was always curious what her brothers were like, the moment she mentioned them to him during their talks. “Well, tell him to get used to seeing me abuse this thing. Because I’ll be trying to rack up as many kills with this to complete one of my contract challenges.”

  ‘He says he heard that and tells you to be careful the first time he meets you, that he won’t be holding back.’ Thalia found it amusing how her brother threatened Barry, she was also surprised to hear him consider meeting Barry for the first time just to give him a beating.

  “Sure, whatever. The moment me and your brother see each other, we’ll throw down, whether I lose or not. Sounds like fun.” Barry gladly accepted her brother’s challenge, intrigued to see what his fighting style was like.

  He would resume his search for the blue prism, his investigation would take him to a body of water that was so far deep, it was pitch black darkness. However, not only was there a speck of blue glowing light, his ability to see through darkness was able to help him see through the deep abyss.

  There far below under the still water was what Barry could only assume was the blue prism he had been seeking all along. “Crystal Prism of Purity” was the name he read, its text color was purple, which meant it was in fact a quest related item.

  “Finally, with this, we’ll be one step closer to completing the main quest.” Barry replenished his lungs with more air before taking a dive into the abyss.

  With the trident in his hand, Barry no longer felt any resistance moving underwater. In fact, just as the trident’s effect said, his swim speed was extraordinary. It was like he was as fast as one of Abe’s dolphins. However, something would occur during his dive.

  Launching from his sides were multiple spikes of coral, along with turbulent streams of water to distort his movement. Yet, despite these sudden traps, they would not affect him at all thanks to the trident. ‘Without the trident, this would have been a lot harder to bypass. I have the statue to thank for letting me have it.’ Barry figured.

  Upon reaching the bottom, he was in full view of the item he had been seeking this whole journey. A bright, blue mystical prism attached to a golden base. The strength of its light was so great, it was able to pierce through the abyss as it rested on a pedestal. He grasped the prism off the pedestal and observed it some more. Just as he did, Barry received a notification from the system.

  The message was ominous to Barry, he could only assume that it was the metal figure he had seen from Ron’s vision. ‘If this great enemy just arrived as the system said, I need to get back to the others quick!’

  For some reason, Barry was not able to store the prism into his inventory via the system, so he stuffed it into one of his pockets for now and carried on. The traps were disabled the moment after removing the prism from the pedestal, and Barry flutter kicked upward in a hurry to return.

  He climbed out of the water and rushed towards the same way he came from, but moments after, something unexpected emerged from the entrance he took.

  “The hell?” Barry immediately took cover and stopped in place as he watched something that looked like a small steampunk drone rise up from underwater.

  It was a bronze-tinted drone with extravagant designs, it flew utilizing two propellers that pulsed with neon-green magical essence and one jet behind it as extra propulsion. There were multiple lenses on the front of its face that served different purposes, one of which was being used as he observed it. A bright blue light scanned around the room, kind of similar to how Barry would release a scanning pulse of his own with his eyes.

  His hiding spot would soon be discovered, as it flew through the air like a bee, directly facing him from above. It quickly scanned him and focused on the pocket which contained the prism he carried. The drone then extended one of its other lenses like a camera, trying to get a shot of him. A red light illuminated near the lens, taking what he could only assume was a video recording.

  ‘No way this thing is recording me, I don’t like this at all. Screw this damn drone.’ Uncomfortable with whatever this thing was, he swiftly thrusted his trident into the drone’s face. His weapon broke through its face, making its propellers spasm and the red light flicker.

  Barry threw the drone to the ground and watched as the red light and its propellers slowly died down, steam and magical essence leaked out from the strange machine. ‘This thing looks advanced. And not only that, but I know this thing was recording me…and it was looking directly at my pocket with the prism in it.’

  ‘I’ve never seen anything such as this before, Barry. You refer to them as a drone, something I would assume as a flying metal golem.’ Thalia commented, she was curious about how it was constructed. ‘But I’m sure we can both agree that this is not a good omen, you need to hurry back.’

  ‘Right.’ He acknowledged and continued making his return with his group. Barry dived back through the same entrance and resurfaced from the other side.

  He noticed that the glass mural of the Merfolk was shattered, his first thought was that the drone probably entered the castle through it. Another thing that caught his attention was an audible sound that almost seemed like it was…music? Music that he could only describe as being hard rock, he wasn't quite sure.

  ‘Is there really music playing outside!? And above all, this type of genre? What is going on outside!?’ Barry sprinted towards the castle doors and shoved them open, what awaited him outside was a scene he was not expecting to be on his bingo card.

  His entire group was no longer fighting the Murkers, for they had all been defeated with the united force of their team. Yet, they were all still fighting, this time against a shocking multitude of steampunk automatons of different types.

  Some were flying contraptions equipped with ranged weaponry, others were shaped like humanoids with a variety of designs to serve their purposes in combat.

  There were ranged automatons positioned on roofs, gunning down contestants below with dual arm cannons that fired neon-blue magic rounds, their armor looked to be light-weight for efficient mobility. Whereas, the melee robots were outfitted with more armor, resembling those of brawlers, knights and brutes.

  And the music, how it played loudly in the background to set the theme for the battle being taken place. He noticed a massive shadow had been cast over everyone, Barry looked up to make another grand discovery that left him speechless. “This is insane!”

  It was a gigantic aircraft in the shape of a battleship suspended in the sky using some sort of steampunk turbines that were powered by the same sort of neon-green magic. Barry was certain that the music was coming from the aircraft and found it very obnoxious as he had trouble hearing the fighting that was going on.

  “Barry!” It was Anna that shouted at him, she swatted two drones out of the air with the spiked-end of her tomahawk before approaching him with concern. “The vision! This has to be what we saw!”

  That was one of his first thoughts after sighting these types of enemies, the connection between the two made sense. However, he was still unsure if that was all there was to these automatons. “I found the prism, we can’t let it fall into these things hands.” Barry informed her.

  “Okay, but where else is there to go!? We were expecting one bad guy to show up and snatch the prism, not a mass of robots!? Not to mention a damn flying battleship to pop up!” Anna was worried about what they should do, she believed that there would be no escaping the situation.

  Barry tried to think about how to tackle the situation presented to them, but had to pause for a moment as Anna felt a sense of danger and pushed him down on the ground with herself on top. An energy capture net had been fired by one of the robots that was meant for Barry specifically.

  “Spacial awareness, Barry!” Anna told him, as she got off and rose to her feet, offering him a hand to get up.

  Accepting her offer, he took Anna’s hand and got up as well. “I would be, if not for this fucking music!” Barry then spotted some of his teammates, which were Ron and Kat, who were having difficulty handling some robot brawlers. “Have everyone take shelter inside the castle and barricade the entrances! That’s the only option I can think of so far!”

  And with that being said, Anna went off to spread the word and fend off the invasion to buy everyone time to rush inside. While Barry stormed ahead to assist Ron and Kat with their opponents.

  Ron’s electric shocks from his glyphs seemed to be inefficient against the automatons, and the same could be said of Kat’s blasts of black magic. All they could do was inflict minor damage and slow them down with Ron’s ice glyphs and Kat’s binding chains. Kat’s friendly ghost, Dusk, did its best to deflect any of their physical attacks with its possession of Kat’s spiked shield.

  That was when everyone in the entire area felt a boost in their physical prowess, Kat and Ron were familiar with this feeling, knowing that it was Barry’s skill ‘King’s Commanding Presence’, and spotted Barry leaping in the fray with his warhammer drawn instead of his trident. “Barry!” They shouted, glad to see him.

  He bashed against the side of one of the brawlers with his hammer, knocking it into another bot. “Rally the others and get inside the castle! Now!” Barry ordered, as he diverted a fist of metal towards, counterattacking with a slam to the dome, spinning the robot’s head almost 180 degrees as he watched it stumble backwards into a wall.

  The two obeyed his order and went off to help the others, leaving Barry to handle the rest of the tin cans. These brawler bots had average armor with the fighting style of an in-boxer that tried to overwhelm Barry with consecutive piston punches and agile movements to get into his blind spots.

  He observed for the first few moments, trying to keep up with their attack patterns, until he was able to adapt to the continuous pressure and start applying some of his own. Barry timed each attack, anticipating where they would position themselves and when, sweeping them off their feet and dinging them on the head multiple times till they shut down for good. As much as he would have wanted to test out the trident, he believed the weapon would not be a good match up against hunks of metal.

  After his brawl, Barry went on to search for the others, eventually finding contestants that were fighting with Luna and Buford against some drones and brute automatons. “Look! Barry’s here!” Luna announced to everyone, getting their attention.

  The drones were showering them with bullets, while the brutes were aggressively pushing them from out of cover with their great strength, shattering stone and other structures. Buford was about the only one capable of going toe-to-toe with them in a full on fight, but the drones pecks were wearing him and everyone else down from the skies. Luna and her clones were doing all that they could to knock them out of the sky with their slingshots, but could not accurately land a hit given the chaos going on.

  Barry decided to target the drones as his first priority, swapping to his greatsword so that he could launch a couple of projectiles of his own. He first leaped into the air at the cluster of drones to try and hit them, but they shifted away like flies to avoid him. Expecting this, he preemptively prepared to send a couple of wind blades at them, striking most of them with precision and causing drones to crash down on the ground. With pressure off of Luna, she was able to pick off the last couple of drones that buzzed around.

  With the drones finished, Barry turned his attention to the brutes and saw that Buford was currently in a lock of power between two brutes. These automaton brutes were red and bronze tinted, they wielded a giant hammer each, paired with a shield. Exhaust ports were attached behind the body and arms of the automaton for added force to its speed and attacks. The werewolf was holding off against each brute with one arm each to prevent them bulldozing on through a crowd of contestants. “Agh! Little help here!” Buford called out.

  Swapping back to his warhammer, Barry rushed to Buford’s aid and flipped over the two bots, bashing against the boosters on their arms to disable them. With them no longer of use, Buford was able to gain the edge over them and shove them back to create some distance. “Thanks, now we get to smashing!” Buford drew his own hammer and the two went in.

  Luna, her clones, and the rest of the contestants fended off more average sized automatons, while Barry and Buford handled the two brutes each.

  Barry tried to maneuver around to sneak a couple of hits against the back of its head, but the brutes huddled up together in close proximity to prevent exposing their backs. Every time they believed an opening was found, the brutes swatted back to make them back off. ‘They're too defensive, Buford could probably split them up if he really wanted to, but he would likely take a lot of punishment in doing so…’ Barry wasn’t sure how to go about handling them.

  For some reason, Barry sensed something inside of him that felt like…annoyance? ‘You can easily puncture through their shields if you just use the trident! You idiot!’ An unknown voice of a man commented in his head.

  Barry’s only assumption was that it was one of Thalia’s brothers who was voicing what he should do. ‘You want me to use a spear to break through their defenses!? How is that going to work? I don’t have that kind of strength to pull it off.’ He thought that the person talking was crazy to even suggest that.

  He could feel the spirit inside of him get offended by his comment, Barry wasn’t going to try something that he didn’t believe was possible.

  Suddenly, out of the corner of Barry’s eyes, he saw a golden fireball zooming through the air towards the two brutes, exploding on impact. “Puck here to help!” The little Kobold had returned from his rounds of fending off the pesky automatons around the castle.

  Puck hopped off a building and spewed flames from above the brutes, super heating their armor to extreme temperature till they glowed a bright yellow. This was perfect for Buford and Barry, seeing that the metal was becoming weaker as Puck continued to spew his flames at them.

  The brutes tried to retaliate against Puck, they had no choice or else their armor was likely to melt if they kept enduring the intense flames, but his small stature made it hard to connect a hit. Puck ducked and dodged, unintentionally distracting the machines long enough for Buford to sneak in and latch onto one’s shoulder and proceed to pound their dome with his hammer. Barry was able to bend away at his opponent’s heated shield until it was useless before breaching through and bashing against its head multiple times.

  Barry and Puck focused on one brute with coordinated attacks, super heating its metal with Puck’s unique flames to soften it enough for Barry to do any real damage. Buford didn’t give a damn about the amount of hits he was receiving from his foe’s attacks because he was so determined to break open its metal dome with his hammer.

  After a bit of time, they were about to take down the two large constructs. One was melted and disfigured, while the other looked incredibly banged up from all the constant beatings it had been taking in one general area. “Everyone! Inside the castle right now!” Barry told them, and they fled the scene towards it.

  Rock music kept jamming as they sprinted, when more automatons were deployed from the aircraft. Some were deployed like drop pods that broke through the ground, immediately rebooting to continue the fight, while drones flew on down to deliver showers of bullet hail

  Automatons with dual cannons fired upon the fleeing group to impede their movement, but Kat, Ron, and Anna showed up to provide cover. Barry, Buford, Luna, and Puck did their part to defend against the robots so that the other contestants could move on into the castle.

  “There’s so many! When is this airship going to stop deploying these things!?” Anna asked, no one knew the answer, they could only hope that they would be able to make it through the event.

  One of the drones took a moment to observe Barry closely with its camera lenses before scanning his body with a green light. Barry saw this happening and focused on the drone. ‘Are these things profiling me again!?’ He thought.

  Suddenly, an immediate shift of attention from the automatons would occur that surprised Barry greatly. Every robot in the vicinity began targeting Barry specifically, blasts of energy were fired at him from all directions, close-quarter robots charged at him recklessly. Barry moved as quickly as he could to avoid getting hit, jumping all around, taking cover, dragging every robot to come chase after him. “They know that I have the prism!” Barry shouted at his group, who all panicked.

  They tried stepping in to help, but more automatons were deployed to serve as distractions for the group while the rest continued their pursuit towards Barry.

  It eventually got to the point where Barry was struck with a couple of energy blasts and tumbled to the side of a structure; he remained in the prone position to avoid getting anymore hits. His hand went to the pouch that carried the prism and was shocked to realize it was no longer there. “No! Where is-”

  The pouch had been ripped open, dropping the prism some distance away in an open area. Barry wanted to retrieve it immediately, but if he did, that would only expose him to fatal danger.

  And as the structure he hid behind was getting slowly destroyed, he sighted a drone swooping in and extending a metal claw from its body to pick up the prism. The drone then lifted off into the air towards the giant airship, completing its mission of retrieving the prism.

  Every other drone that was in the area would soon pause what they were doing and take off from the ground, returning to the airship. The humanoid automatons had built in rockets that could only be used for returning back to the ship.

  Pure rage built up inside Barry, he had gotten so far to get to this point that simply giving up was NOT an option. He rose up from the ground and grabbed onto one of the robots bodies, sending him flying into the sky.

  His group watched Barry do what he did, and quickly latched on to a couple of robots themselves that were preparing for lift off. Their fight to claim the prism would take place in the skies, where the airship currently ruled.