Ayla didn't care whether it was Titan or not; she was checking the structure one last time.
"One job is enough."
As the road was cleared in Black Iron City, Ayla activated her machine.
The first time I stood up, I miscalculated my center of gravity and ended up kneeling on one knee.
Everyone felt a chill; she quickly adjusted the hydraulic output and the load on her legs.
The second time, the mech stood up.
Eight or nine meters tall war machines emerged step by step from the shadows of the hangar.
The ground trembled with each step, white smoke billowed from the still-warm welds, and crane chains and exposed wiring clung to the structure.
It's like a monster that forcibly crawled out of the corpse of industrial civilization.
The first reaction of the Black Iron City officers upon seeing this thing was to focus fire.
Mortars, heavy machine guns, and rockets bombarded the area simultaneously.
The temporary armor was constantly being destroyed, but the main structure was originally the chassis for the Dreadnought test and heavy loading and unloading equipment, so it could withstand the damage for a short time.
Instead of engaging in ranged combat, Ayla charged directly into the mechanized formation, braving the enemy's firepower.
The first armored vehicle was cut open from the side by a cutting arm, and the second was grabbed by the front by hydraulic clamps, and the entire vehicle was forcibly overturned.
She then used it as cover to shield herself from heavy machine gun fire.
The right arm's machine gun swept across a mortar position, while the shoulder-mounted rockets slammed into the enemy's heavy artillery vehicles.
Several elite Black Iron City soldiers, clad in heavy industrial exoskeletons, charged forward.
To the scavengers, they were steel monsters, but standing in front of the eight- or nine-meter-tall Titan, they looked like a few rats.
Ayla kicked one of them away.
With a hydraulic leak in her right leg, she shut off the damaged circuit and overloaded the other two pumps.
The machine gun jammed, and she manually switched to the backup ammunition supply while driving the submachine gun.
Despite constant reports of structural risks from the core leadership, she simply ignored them and continued working!
This scene was undoubtedly shocking to both Black Iron City and the scavengers.
No one knows how Ayla did it; this thing that looks like junk is far more powerful than it appears.
It even has a certain resemblance to Imperium Titan walking on the earth.
Could this guy be Orks? Does he possess the Power of Belief?
The commander of Black Iron City naturally noticed that his troops' morale was starting to decline, so he decided to use the trump card he had just brought.
"Damn it, Second Battalion Commander!"
"Arrive!"
"Where the hell is your mining melt-through blasting cannon?!"
"Pull him up!"
A huge mining transport vehicle drove up from behind, with a massive cannon barrel mounted on its tracked chassis.
Mining penetration guns were originally designed to cut through thick underground mineral layers. They have an extremely slow rate of fire, but pose a significant threat to large targets.
"Shoot! Aim straight at them and blast them to smithereens!"
The first launch deflected, and the molten rays burned a terrible mark on the airport's concrete floor.
The second shot hit the little Titan's left leg.
The temporary armor and part of the structure were burned through, the hydraulic system ruptured on a large scale, and the machine collapsed.
Black Iron City immediately unleashed saturation firepower, destroying the machine gun on its right arm, causing the auxiliary reactor on its back to overheat, and tearing open the cockpit armor.
Ayla herself was wounded for the second time in the battle, and her blood splattered on the control panel.
The system concluded via a remote data interface. "The aircraft has lost the ability to continue operating; the pilot is advised to abandon the aircraft immediately."
Ayla attempted to restart, but the power to her left leg completely failed, and the hydraulic system on her right side could not withstand the pressure of the entire mech.
But just then, through the broken cockpit, she saw that the scavengers hadn't run away.
After dragging the previously captured heavy machine gun to the ruins, some people began moving ammunition, preparing for a counterattack.
Or they would fire at Black Iron City with the most ordinary scrap guns, and some would drag the wounded through the artillery fire.
They were still afraid, even firing their guns while crying, but not one of them ran away.
An extremely strong sense of conviction resonated within Ayla's heart.
In the past, she influenced those around her; this time, the will of dozens, even hundreds, of ordinary people surged in to support her.
They weren't waiting for a strong person to continue protecting them; they wanted to fight alongside her and show Ayla that she wasn't alone.
A drop of blood from Ayla landed beside the operating table, and a very faint golden-purple light slowly emanated from it.
There was no sound, no words, and not even anything that could be clearly identified.
But a sliver of golden light silently shone amidst the blood and grease.
The Gorgon Legacy Core has, for the first time, presented a report that completely contradicts engineering logic:
"The broken hydraulic actuator started moving again, the disconnected power line resumed output, and the unsupported mechanical leg resumed bearing weight."
"No damage has been repaired; the cracks are still spitting oil, the armor is still broken, and the reactor is still overheating. Some unknown force is forcing this dead machine to keep working."
After repeated calculations, the core arrived at an absurd conclusion. "Unknown Psychic Power interference, estimated duration: sixty seconds."
Ayla looked at the number.
One minute is enough.
The next second, Little Titan stood up again.
The monster that had already been killed suddenly rose up, instantly shattering the psychological defenses of some of the Black Iron City soldiers.
"Holy crap?! Is this really Titan?"
" The God-Emperor has manifested! We'd better run!"
A group of people abandoned their position and fled in all directions.
Ayla seized the opportunity, refusing to clear out the remaining enemies, and charged straight at the mining melt-through cannon.
In the first fifteen seconds, Ayla crashed into the position before the Mining Melt-Break Cannon could complete its third charge, using its remaining melting and cutting arm to tear the cannon barrel and energy structure apart together.
In the second fifteen seconds, she destroyed the remaining communication vehicles and artillery command nodes of Black Iron City, and the entire army lost unified command.
In the third fifteen seconds, the commander of Black Iron City realized the situation was out of control and immediately retreated in an armored command vehicle.
Ayla grabbed a multi-ton piece of machinery from the rubble and smashed it overturned the vehicle.
With the last fifteen seconds left, she dragged the already disintegrating machine to the command vehicle, used her mechanical arm to pry open the upper armor, pulled out the commander inside, and threw him on the ground.
There are only a few seconds left.
Ayla did not continue killing; she turned on the severely distorted loudspeaker.
"Put down your weapons."
The soldiers of Black Iron City looked at the destroyed heavy artillery, the lost positions, the captured commander, and the steel giant shrouded in purple-gold light, which, though it should have been dead, had risen again.
The first gun hit the ground, followed by the sound of more and more guns falling to the ground, and large numbers of people began to surrender.
They had lost all will to resist.
Arriving in sixty seconds.
The mech didn't explode, nor did it dissipate spectacularly; the purple-gold light simply went out.
In the next instant, all the mechanical problems that had been forcibly kept running erupted at once.
His left leg was completely broken, his right leg joint was locked, the reactor behind him shut down, the smelting arm detached from his shoulder, and the temporary armor welded to his chest crashed to the ground.
The small Titan, eight or nine meters tall, collapsed like a crumbling iron tower that had lost its support.
Ayla jumped out of the ruptured cockpit ahead of time. When she landed, she swayed and was covered in blood and oil.
The last minute she spent forcibly maintaining the mecha had taken a heavy toll on her mental energy.
Gunshi and his men rushed over immediately. They glanced at the completely destroyed war machines and then at the five or six hundred surrendered men scattered on the ground, speechless for a long time.
Someone muttered, "Awesome..."
Ayla looked at the completely destroyed wreckage.
"There are still problems with the structural design."
After the war, some suggested killing all the prisoners.
With over 500 mouths to feed, the pressure to provide food is considerable.
And even if they survive, they might continue to be enemies.
Gunshi also tends to simply get rid of some of it.
Ayla refused.
"They have lost their weapons and command capabilities; killing them is not in the best interest of the authorities."
She walked up to the prisoners and asked directly, "Who can repair engines? Who can maintain vehicles? Who is a medic? Who understands power generation equipment? Who can operate heavy machinery?"
The prisoners, who had been kneeling and waiting to die, looked at each other, and then slowly raised their hands.
Ayla began to rapidly dismantle the army she had defeated into technicians, drivers, engineers, and soldiers who could be retrained.
She promised that if they did well, they would be freed from slavery and become free scavengers again in a year.
That night, she returned to the Gorgon Legacy Core.
The red figure lit up again, and the first thing it said wasn't to continue arguing about "the suffering and weakness of flesh and blood."
"Based on its current mechanical condition, the machine should have completely stopped operating sixty-one seconds ago."
Ayla didn't look up.
"I know."
"So, how do you explain that it continued running for another sixty seconds?"
Ayla remained silent for a moment.
"I have no idea."
"This is a question that cannot be answered with engineering data." The core's voice remained indifferent, but his speech was a beat slower than before.
"Your existence is creating variables that existing data cannot accommodate."
Ayla looked up at the huge red outline.
"Then continue recording."
She turned and walked out of the underground.
Outside, Seventh Dock was brightly lit.
The surrendered Black Iron City soldiers are being resettled in batches, and Gunshi is leading a team to count the captured weapons and equipment.
A group of scavengers were gathered around the wreckage of the small Titan, arguing about whether to salvage any usable parts.
Someone saw Ayla come out and called out from afar, "What should we do with all this stuff?"
Ayla walked over.
Next to the wreckage were piles of parts removed from the machine: twisted joints, broken hydraulic pipes, and several fragments of the welding and cutting arms.
"Repair what can be repaired, and melt down what can't be repaired."
"And what about this?" The man pointed to the completely destroyed main frame.
Ayla watched for a while.
"Keep it."
What's the point of keeping it?
She didn't answer, but simply reached out and touched the still-hot load-bearing beam.
Cold, rough, carrying the fighting spirit of ten thousand years ago, like something she couldn't describe in words.
"The unification of Vedtal requires a true Imperium Titan."
Ayla's eyes shone with a fiery light.