Yu Sheng lay beside a pillar, feeling his blood and vitality slowly draining from his body, while the "Artificial Saintess" lay heavily atop him, motionless like a lifeless chunk of iron.
A low, chaotic noise came from her metallic shell. It sounded as though some critical component had suffered a severe malfunction and was now spinning uselessly for the last time. A viscous liquid resembling blood plasma slowly seeped from the gaps in her shell, carrying heat and corrosiveness. It gleamed with a metallic sheen, mixed with a suspicious tinge of dark red.
Yu Sheng pushed hard, barely managing to pull the two blades that had pierced him out of his body, but he lacked the strength to push her completely inert shell off himself.
"Hey, are you really dead?" He gasped for breath as he looked at the motionless Iron Doll, speaking in disbelief.
After clashing with this terrifying and troublesome enemy so many times, he had nearly believed she was impossible to kill. Yet he had never expected her to actually fall before him like this, apparently never to move again.
Yu Sheng shook his head, feeling groggy. He could not help recalling the fragmented scenes he had read from the Iron Doll's "thoughts" through their blood connection earlier, and his confusion only deepened.
After resting there for a while, Yu Sheng let out a soft sigh.
Dead was dead. There was nothing he could do about it. He would probably die soon as well. After this death, it was about time for everything here to end.
With that thought, he laboriously propped himself up on one arm, trying to push the Artificial Saintess's "corpse" off him.
Flesh supported metal, and blood mixed with "mud."
Suddenly, a vague voice, seemingly drifting from the depths of a distant memory,