"Aaaaaah! What the hell are these things?!"
Inside the base of a slave-catching crew somewhere in the Sabaody Archipelago, a group of slave traders were being chased every which way by a swarm of oddly shaped, human-height machines.
These machines all had three arms and three legs, with a weapon clutched in each hand.
They looked as though they had just looted an armory, carrying all sorts of weapons-longswords, axes, spears, firearms, shields... and they wielded them quite competently. Coupled with their sturdy metal bodies, this made the slave traders realize after a brief clash...
They couldn't beat them!
But the crucial problem now was that they couldn't outrun them either!
The Guardians moved extremely fast, and their three legs could not only extend and retract freely, but also climb using the claws attached to them.
At present, the main weakness of these Guardians was that their behavior patterns were too rigid. Once the slave traders scattered, they didn't know to split up in pursuit. Instead, several machines would chase a single person, leaving the slave traders who weren't being chased free to attack them.
"Hahahahaha! So these things are idiots! Whoever's being chased, run in circles and keep them busy! Leave the rest to us!"
Having discovered the Guardians' weakness, the slave traders soon turned the tables. Aside from a few unlucky souls who were accidentally shot by the Guardians, the others quickly dealt with the foolish machines.
"Damn it! What the hell are these things?"
After knocking all the Guardians down, the slave traders, whose losses... weren't all that severe, immediately gathered around, kicking the Guardians' wreckage and cursing angrily.
They completely failed to notice Xie Wen and the cats hidden in the nearby Yarukiman Mangrove.
"Hmm... their weakness is a little too obvious." Dissatisfied with the Guardians'