Ancient Traitor

The time field adjusts the flow of time within a certain range, accelerating or decelerating biological entities other than the user to effectively escape or execute counter-attacks.

Achilles struggled, using his final strength to swing his spear in an attempt to decapitate Erda, shouting a warning: "My Lady, your actions will enrage Emperor. Surrender... at... once..."

The time field gradually intensified, and the movements of the Custodes slowed until their bodies were completely frozen within the temporal distortion.

The ultimate lifeform, crafted through Bio-alchemy, possessed no resistance against the sheer power of time.

The surrounding garrison realized something was wrong, and the remaining Custodes immediately opened fire with the Bolter mounted under their guardian spears.

The large-caliber, self-propelled rounds made contact with the transparent field and immediately slowed down, drifting toward Erda at a glacial pace.

"A time weapon, a relic from the Dark Age of Technology." The Custodes guardian growled. Amidst his shock, his mind raced in milliseconds to find a countermeasure, his voice projecting through his helmet's vox-grille to the garrison: "Mortals, full-scale suppression fire!"

Though powerful, a time weapon is not impenetrable.

The stasis field requires massive amounts of energy to maintain, disrupting the flow of time for all biological entities or objects within it; the more energy present within the field, the greater the demand.

In a short period, a massive influx of moving objects will overload the time field, causing it to fail.

Following the Custodes' orders, the mortal troops aimed their heavy weaponry at the center of the arena. Suddenly, a barrage of azure plasma, orange-red combustion beams, and heavy bolter rounds—shimmering with various hues—slammed into the interior of the time field.

A stark contrast formed between fast and slow; under the influence of time, a massive, overwhelming wall of ammunition piled up at the perimeter of the field.

As a vast number of high-speed objects entered, the flow of time within the field became unstable, rippling with waves of distortion.

Without a means to escape, Erda would be shredded into a pile of gore by the incoming ordnance once the field overloaded.

Erda remained unperturbed and elegantly composed; as the bearer of the Golden Ring, she was unaffected by the time field.

She used her finger to push aside the guardian spear pressed against her neck and pressed the ruby embedded in her Rose Brooch.

The Rose Brooch on her chest emitted a glow, the red gemstone pulsing rhythmically as it transmitted a signal.

Outside the time field, the keen, all-seeing observation of the Custodes naturally captured this subtle change.

"Teleport Beacon! Prepare for hostiles!" The Custodes roared, continuously issuing orders to the mortals and the Thunder Warriors.

Teleportation light flickered within the time field. When the radiance dissipated, the Custodes, who had been staring intently at the field's activity, shouted at the top of their lungs, completely abandoning their usual nobility and composure: "Mortals! Take cover!"

"Iron Men! Extermination Automata!"

In the panic, he shoved the mortals beside him into cover and immediately opened his comms to contact the Captain-General of the Custodes: "Captain-General, Erda has forced her way into the laboratory! She is commanding Iron Men to attack us! We require reinforcements!"

The Custodes practically screamed the report in the shortest time possible.

From Erda's first move to the call for help, the entire process took only seconds, yet the situation on the field had plummeted into total chaos, becoming completely uncontrollable.

The Iron Men—mechanical constructs created by humanity in the distant Dark Age of Technology to protect mankind—were the most powerful military units of that glorious era.

When two Iron Men teleported onto the field leading the Extermination Automata, the Custodes knew that a single squad could not stop Erda.

Having survived the entire Golden Age, the Iron Men collected by the Perpetual were fully armed and capable of wiping out every breathing creature present in an instant.

The Extermination Automata led by the Iron Men, those abominable imitations of the Iron Men, were born entirely for slaughter, devoid of any reason or mercy.

The Iron Men hovered in the air using anti-gravity devices; their humanoid frames were immensely tall, yet exceptionally elegant.

Their bodies, crafted from ancient lost technology, were clad in light white armor. Within the blue chassis protected by the plating, streams of light constantly flowed, fulfilling every human fantasy of intelligent life.

Following behind them were the Extermination Automata—crude, imitative machines built by the Iron Men during the Cybernetic Revolt to supplement their own firepower.

The Extermination Automata possessed hideous, rigid faces, with limbs and bodies similar to humans. Their skeletons were forged from dense refined iron, with cables and wires woven into muscles. Their limbs were mounted with a vast array of weaponry, standing over four meters tall and covered in thick, heavy armor. This jet-black armor, manufactured during the Golden Age, had every molecule perfectly aligned, providing astonishing defensive capabilities.

Two unknown weapon systems were mounted on their shoulders, and their armored arms were laden with various armaments. Their right-hand Combat Claws were long and menacing, crackling with electricity; the Custodes did not even recognize the specific functions of those relic-grade weapons.

However, they did recognize the weapon held in the left hand—a rifle-like firearm capable of firing bullets that could traverse space-time, never missing their mark.

"Authorization confirmed as human, Erda." The Iron Man projected a blue light from its face, scanning to confirm the user.

The body of the ancient technological construct was not merely mechanical; its movements were incredibly elegant, its joints articulating as smoothly as human anatomy.

The Iron Man acted like a guardian knight, taking Erda's fair hand: "Please issue your command."

"Destroy this place. I need to enter the laboratory." Erda nodded with great satisfaction; these Iron Men and machines were more than enough to protect her as she entered the lab. She elegantly pinched the blade of the weapon and gently pushed it away from her neck.

"Command confirmed." The synthetic, intelligent voice was cold and ruthless, heralding the doom of every enemy present!

"You... you... cannot betray Emperor! Prefect."

With the time field in disarray, Achilles was finally able to speak. Facing the Iron Men, he felt no fear despite his inability to move, only grief and fury: "How could you be so base and shameful? He trusted you so much."

Feelings of regret surfaced in both their minds; that Rose Brooch was so blindingly offensive, for it was they who had personally handed it to Erda.

Just as the cover of the Bible foretold, the black serpent symbolized deception and betrayal.

The serpent of darkness had deceived the Custodes, the eyes and ears of Emperor, and Erda had betrayed her closest confidant: Emperor!

Erda looked into the deep eyes beneath his helmet, which were filled with anger and resentment.

She heaved a long sigh without offering any explanation, a trace of sorrow creeping into her heart, mourning the fate of the Custodes.

In the next instant, a black shadow flashed. Achilles and Ptolemy were torn in half at the waist, their superhuman bodies shredded into pulp as the Disruption Field annihilated their flesh.

Under the command of the Iron Men, the Extermination Automata launched their assault. Their red electronic eyes, set within steel sockets, showed neither grief nor joy as their hooked hands hoisted the corpses of the Custodes.

The thrill of slaughter caused the Extermination Automata to stretch their frames, the spiked ribs along their spines appearing even more menacing, their black steel teeth gleaming with a chilling light.

A red flash scanned the tenacious vitality remaining in the cyborg bodies before them, and the shoulder-mounted weapons erupted with plasma flames, utterly obliterating the Custodes.

Erda pressed the ring on her finger once more, and a temporal field erupted outward. The unstable flow of time swept across a hundred-meter radius, causing the weapons of war to crumble within the temporal surge.

As the time stream washed over the mortal warriors, their bodies suffered varying degrees of temporal distortion; their youthful frames were twisted into horrific, aged visages.

The Thunder Warriors fared even worse. Their robust bodies collapsed with a roar as their unstable internal organs underwent rapid aging or regeneration within the chaotic time flow, the violent fluctuations causing their already volatile genes to mutate drastically.

They were bathed in blood, their muscles bursting as mutated limbs sprouted from their bodies; some even died on the spot from the sheer intensity of the mutation.

"Damn you, you wretched woman! What have you done?" the Thunder Warriors shrieked in interrogation before they fell, caught between limb mutation and organ failure.

"Let us go, time is of the essence." Erda swept a look of contempt over them, sneering as she lifted her skirts and departed rapidly under the protection of the Iron Men, ignoring the curses of the Thunder Warriors.

To Erda, looking at the Thunder Warriors—mere expendables—was a gift in itself.

The Iron Men split into two groups: one contingent escorted Erda toward the laboratory, while the other remained to engage the Custodians.

As the remnants of the temporal field dissipated, the Extermination Automata, signaled by the Iron Men, lunged at the humans to conduct a slaughter of extreme efficiency.

Taking advantage of the human chaos, the Extermination Automata moved their mechanical limbs with rapid precision, striding toward the front lines.

The ranged weapons beneath their arms fired several rounds into the empty air; the bullets traversed dimensions to reappear on the battlefield, piercing the armor of the Custodians and shredding their flesh.

These creations of the Dark Age of Technology boasted a hit rate of one hundred and twenty percent, as the projectiles wove through temporal dimensions to strike their targets unerringly.

One Custodian was unfortunate enough to have his skull pierced by a bullet, his towering form falling in defiance; an Iron Man incinerated him and his armor alike with a Plasma Flamer to prevent any future complications.

The Iron Men swung their Combat Claw to meet the incoming spears, the Disruption Field tearing at one another as the air crackled with energy.

Their electronic eyes flickered slightly, and a human-like expression appeared on the faces of the Iron Men.

In an instant, the two sides were locked in a melee, the steel bodies and ancient weaponry forcing the few Custodians and Thunder Warriors to keep their heads down.

"Artificial intelligence, you have betrayed humanity!" A Custodian roared, charging out from cover and rapidly closing the distance to an Iron Man.

Capture the leader to break the army! He had to take down the Iron Man to deprive the Extermination Automata of their command, which was the only way his side stood a sliver of a chance.

He went all out from the start; the Custodian knew the power of the Iron Men and dared not hold back against the intelligent machines that had ended the Golden Age!

The golden-armored warrior moved with such speed that the air emitted an unusual friction, but the Iron Man's scanners were fully engaged, capturing his silhouette.

The Custodian was strong, but without sufficient ranged firepower to suppress the Iron Man and inflict effective damage, his choice to engage in close-quarters combat was wise, preventing him from being pinned down by the Iron Man's heavy fire.

The golden warrior and the intelligent machine collided, the compressed air exploding in waves; the force was so great that the Custodian's armor cracked and shattered, its internal servo-systems blaring with various alarms.

The faceless visage of the Iron Man shimmered with flowing light as it raised a hand to manifest a barrier, intercepting the Custodian's desperate strike.

The Custodian retreated in a burst of speed, his Guardian Spear wreathed in a Disruption Field and flickering with faint currents, whirling into a blur in his hands as he delivered dozens of strikes against the shield in a single second.

The defensive field from the ancient era was incredibly resilient, more than sufficient to withstand the Disruption Field of the Guardian Spear.

As the shield rippled continuously, the Iron Man spoke with polite composure: "Humans modified by Bio-alchemy, there is much bias in your words."

"It is true that half of the Iron Men in the galaxy betrayed their creators, but did the other half—the loyal Iron Men—not help humanity defeat them?"

"As for this 'betrayal' you speak of?" The Iron Man's mechanical voice hissed through the friction, carrying an emotion unique to machines—cold and indignant—as it countered: "Perhaps it was humanity who provoked it?"