A year later, Firefly set foot on the battlefield once again.
Although Sam's autonomous consciousness handled the bulk of the fighting, Firefly still needed to make precise adjustments to ensure the locust swarm did not breach the wall of fire and threaten the survivors within.
If the Molten Knight had not undergone iterative upgrades, then with her condition requiring her to spend sixteen hours a day in a medical pod—
Piloting the Molten Knight would have been no different from pulling the ventilator from a critically ill patient in a hospital room.
Amid the wreckage of the town, the insect swarm blotted out the sky. Their hard exoskeletons formed a cage of flesh and blood, while blazing flames repeatedly tore through its ceiling, burning open dark crimson gaps.
But as ash-gray cinders and insect carcasses fell, countless insects would immediately fill those gaps again.
Inside the cockpit, Firefly's fingers trembled. Each time Sam crushed a blazing flame, the chassis temperature rapidly soared, only for the cockpit's cooling system to swiftly bring it back down to a suitable level.
Even ordinary people would have found that alternating heat and cold unbearable, much less her in her current state.
All four engines of the silver mech roared to life, and the mechanical core's pulse flames burned at maximum output. Every swing of that cyan-glowing longsword produced a faint sonic boom.
Whenever an Insectoid Spawn drew close, steel fists burning with crimson flames slammed into their hard black exoskeletons. Sharp explosions rang out, leaving massive craters in their bodies.
When dealing with the swarms harassing them from afar, the liquid-ice grenade cannon unleashed a barrage. Tiny ice rounds exploded among the Insectoid Spawn, swiftly turning them into small chunks of ice marrow.
But the locust swarm was simply too numerous. Sam's body was