Murdershrimp was a loyal little death machine.

It had spent probably centuries hanging out at the mite fountain, and from what Kres had told us, had done so alone without any other machines nearby. A solitary predator.

Its primary source of pleasure, other than killing humans, had been meticulous grooming and keeping all its silver, white and purple colors pristine and shiny.

The Odin knew about it as ‘the guardian’ and so far it’s shown to be completely uncaring about general animals of any kind in its domain. It guarded the mite fountain here, and made sure no smelly humans could get close and start putting their dirty little mitts over it.

Which made the plan of having Kres find and track it perfect.

“Well, that kind of sucks.” I hissed over the comms as the two of us sneaked across the forest. “Murdershrimp’s a fast mechanic. Arms are back, and the hole on the carapace looks patched up. Did you get a better look at it in between the trees?”

I got a green confirmation ping. “It’s a giant machine with eyes everywhere, I’m not going to take too close a look. I’m more worried about how it’ll adapt.” Drakonis said. “Machines learn fast. What we did last time might not work.”

Murdershrimp was up ahead, close enough I could sense him through the occult sight.

With full repairs completed, it now moved along the forest with a happy little gait, its fifty tiny feet under the carapace flapping over the ground it hovered, as if they were helping the huge thing scuttle around.

It could certainly hide from our sensors, and that seemed to be a double-edged sword - it couldn’t actively sense our own presence without tipping its location. So we could actually sneak up on it, if we knew where to look. And made sure not to be seen by the dozen eyes it had looking every direction. “The giant scythe arms don’t bother you at all? I’d have thought they would, they almost made you a meal last time.”

“You cut the arms once, you can do it again.” Drakonis said.

“I wanted to complain more and you’re ruining it with all that supportive confidence.”

“You get chatty when you’re nervous, you know that Winterscar?”

Cutting right into my weak points felt like cheating. “Just you and everyone else I know telling me the same thing. Maybe I’ll get that checked up.”

Drakonis stayed silent for a moment, then his head pointed up. Murdershrimp was getting out of range again. It hadn’t stopped moving. So we stood up from our crouched position and began to stalk behind it.

“You’re nervous. This machine’s a threat. I get that,” Drakonis said, as we took careful steps through.I didn’t give him an answer, too focused on making sure our steps were light and soundless.

We avoided shrubs, opting to use the trees to keep us obscured. Didn’t think a few leaves would actually hide us. “Golden tits, I’ve never fought a machine that big either. And knowing you of all people are nervous about fighting it doesn’t fill me with any confidence I’ll survive the fight a second time.”

“Great pep talk, I feel better already.”

“I’m not done.”

Kres flew above, swaying back and forth, giving loud shouts that were coded messages about direction and heading. From far up in the air, the bird could both see Drakonis and I stalking through the forest, as well as the giant metal monster up ahead equally swimming over the ground, minding its own business.“You’re a surface knight. And you’re skilled enough to have a dozen other knights follow your banner. That didn’t come by luck or accident. We’ve got to kill this machine, and we’ll get it done one way or another. No one else can do it, and you already have all the skills and gear to do it. Trust the plan.”

“Fine, but if I kill it, you buy me a drink. Not a cheap one either, I want the most expensive one you see on the menu. Deal?”

He rolled his entire head backwards at that.

The plan was simple: Hit it real hard, real fast and don’t let it say or do anything other than curse the day it met us. Which is to say, I’ll open up with a knightbreaker to knock the shields down, and then follow up with as many occult bullets as possible, while Drakonis would equally try to kill it with his own set of firepower. It had a few redundancies and Plan B, C, and D sections to it, but that was the main point - overwhelming firepower.

I eyed the massive mechanical monaster feeling the limits of the range the occult sight granted me. With one quick final pace forward, we were only a single tree away from it. Drakonis could die a few times and shrug it off; I had only one life. That’s the crux of my issues. Even with all my gear and earned skills, I was still mortal under it all.

“We’re here.” I said, “Draw blades.”

Drakonis nodded, slowly taking out his own blade soundlessly. As for me, I brought out my heavy hitter.

The knightbreaker launcher’s shoulder guard pressed down against my armor’s shoulder, braced and ready to unleash. “All right, you glorified can opener,” I muttered to myself, “Round two.”

I aimed down the sights, leading my target as it skittered through the underbrush. Kres gave one final directional caw from above. My finger tightened on the trigger. Then I sent a confirmation ping and stepped out of the tree’s shadow.

Drakonis sprinted ahead.

The knightbreaker bucked as it launched its payload with an explosive whoosh.

It spun through the air, ready to slice apart Murdershrimp’s shield and carapace like a blender of death.

Murdershrimp's gait stopped, violet eyes lifting up on their small stocks to look around in every direction. Most of them didn’t even get halfway up before they dove right back down. It had seen the danger, and had already analyzed exactly what was about to ruin it’s day. The machine pivoted with utterly absurd speed for the size, rolling into itself in a barely working dodge. The knightbreaker whizzed by, slamming against a rock outcropping, chains spreading out and digging into the stone harmlessly.

“Scrapshit!” I swore. “Drakonis, plan B!”

“On it,” He called back over comms. The goal wasn’t to do damage right now - it was to drain Murdershrimp’s shields. And the knightbreaker wasn’t our only means of doing that.

Occult pulsed out from his hand, launching out into the world in a blast of power racing toward Murdershrimp. It hadn’t seen that before, but it also didn’t want to have anything to do with whatever scrapshit we threw at it.

So it tried to dodge the Deathless’s ability, and largely succeeded. Until Drakonis slashed his hands vertically, as if sending an unworded command.

The occult orb flying above Murdershrimp detonated, and then imploded, trails of power and occult being sucked from all direction into the vortex - including Murdershrimp’s shields.

It screeched, not out of pain, but some mix of fear, annoyance and sheer fury.

Shields flared, flickering in and out as they struggled to repel the attack. After a half second, the vortex of occult collapsed into itself, then exploded out.

The wave struck Murdershrimp right over its top - and its shields flared out to block the blade.

“Need to hit it again!” Drakonis yelled out, “One blast isn’t enough!”

Murdershrimp rotated, fixing its many-eyed glare on the Deathless, likely re-assessing the danger profile. Its remaining arms unfolded like petals on a particularly murderous flower, occult blades humming with a crackle. In a burst of speed and distorted battle shout, it lunged.

Drakonis didn’t run, instead he met the charge head on, one fist pulled back, wreathed in occult and flame. I’d seen that trick before, the same one he’d opened against me in the first fight. Cathida had kicked his elbow away, forcing the blast to fire harmlessly over me, so I never did get to see the full effects.

This time I got to see what the spell actually did.

He punched forward. Fire and power blasted in a concentrated beam, which slammed hard into murdershrimp. The critter screamed out, and tried to duck under the flow of power, only for Drakonis to shift his hand - channeling the beam of fire.

One clawed arm sliced through that beam, causing the whole thing to unravel into regular fire that dissolved into the air. Drakonis stumbled on his leg, helmet looking up.

Murdershrimp was on fire, its arms were frantically trying to smother the flames that burned on the hull, but they didn’t go out and kept on glowing red-hot, melting small parts of the giant machine.

The eyes popped out, turned, and glared down at the Deathless. Drakonis got back up on his feet, then stumbled for a moment, likely recovering. “I… can hit it again. Winterscar, buy me twenty seconds!”

Murdershrimp smelled weakness, and it was upset at the current undying fire. So it did exactly what a machine in that position would do - dive right at Drakonis.

Twenty seconds, he said. “Start counting.” I hissed as I sprinted from the treeline, sending mirror images outward. The ghost images harried Murdershrimp from all sides, spectral blades testing its defenses. Murdershrimp stopped, reared up, chittered in an angry distorted voice, and tried to slice through my small army. The distraction gave Drakonis an opening to disengage and fall back.A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

I took his place at the front. And Murdershrimp dove down after me, still on fire from the earlier onslaught.

I’d have Cathida running defense here, but she was offline and that forced me to do the fighting personally. The Winterscar longsword did the job, singing as it deflected stabbing pincers and slashing claws. The bastard had way too many hands and arms for any normal creature. My mirror images were far shorter and more primitive, but they helped keep Murdershrimp off me and that’s all I needed. Anything that was too difficult to deal with, my armguard covered for me. For a few precious seconds, the Winterblossom Technique and the clear heat damage kept the mechanical monstrosity at bay.

But I wasn’t Father, nor Cathida. And my mirror images were only as good as I could focus, which made multi-tasking like this the fatal flaw. And whatever Drakonis had done in his innitial attack isn't lasting as long as his mentor’s fire bullets had. The flames licked the chassis one last time and faded off.

Murdershrimp’s speed grew twofold.

A pincer slipped through my guard, latching onto my leg, and yanked me right up off my feet. In the same moment, a scythe arm instantly went for my throat, occult burning bright.

It happened so fast, I didn't even have time to curse. Warning sirens blared in my helmet as shield strength plummeted. Murdershrimp hadn’t gotten all four of its arms around me, just one, so that meant my shield was still holding it off. Gritting my teeth, I focused hard, diving deeper into the soul fractal. Seven copies of my arm flung out of my armor, each biting down hard on Murdershrimp’s arm, in addition to the mirror images already keeping the other arms busy.

It screeched, trying to squeeze across my throat harder, as if the occult edge pressed there wasn’t enough. The other arms were desperate to also latch onto any part of my exposed body, but mirror after mirror kept it busy.

Shields flared for us both, and the giant shrimp seemed to crunch some numbers on the pro’s and con’s of this stalemate.

Sure, it could crush through my armor’s shields faster than I could cut its arm off. But once it’s shields were too low, it had the other Deathless to deal with - and that meant possible occult bullets and all the same ratshit I had thrown at it. Too much of a risk.

Murdershrimp cut its losses. It shrieked in anger, opened up the arm, and threw me away using the pincher grab it had on my ankle, sending me flying right for a giant shrimp-sized boulder.

It was like getting hit by an airspeeder. HUD warnings flashed, showing my skeleton and highlighting red factures detected across a few different sections. Journey could soften the landing, but inertia was still a law of the land. I felt the wind get knocked out of me as I slammed deeper into a giant rock. Cracks formed across it as the armor refused to break - and then I was falling back down onto the ground, leaving a small impact crater in the boulder.

Anyone who was human would have been having a hard time getting wind back in their lungs and moving around. Fortunately, I was mostly inside the soul fractal, and didn’t actually need to exert any kind of physical movements when the armor could do that for me.

So I rolled right back to my feet as if nothing had gone wrong.

I considered my options. The armor’s shaped charges could probably mulch the rest of the shields that overgrown hydroponic roach had, but I also didn’t want to waste them just yet. That was plan C. If I took out my anti-shield weapons, I wouldn’t have time to use my anti-armor ones.

Drakonis reengaged to cover me, sprinting past, his helmet giving me a side glance before locking back on his target.

He said he could handle the shield, and I’d be the bullet hose. Stick to the plan. I got back up and my hands passed right by the occult shape charges, down to my sidearm loaded up with occult bullets. The shield wasn’t down yet, but Drakonis wouldn’t be rushing past me unless he knew he was going to handle his part.

As if on cue, the Deathless unleashed another pulse of shield-sapping energy. The giant machine clicked its mandibles together and tried to draw away from the orb instead of ducking under it. It wasn’t able to backpedal fast enough before the detonation caught it. This time, Murdershrimp’s shields winked out entirely even before the vortex could collapse on itself, unable to withstand the occult assault.

“Shields are down!” Drakonis shouted. “Shoot the fucker!”

It dove right through the fading mist. Eyes glared down at the Deathless, arms reaching out to scoop him up from every direction and squeeze down, gibbering out angry unknown mechanical curses.

I obliged, having already pre-aimed right at Murdershrimp’s giant head. A hail of occult bullets fired forward, tunneling into Murdershrimp’s hide. The rounds punched through the armor plating as if there hadn’t been anything there. No yellow sparks of impact, just small black holes appearing across the shell. Piercing delicate machinery beneath. Oil and fluids sprayed from a dozen spots, bleeding down the chassis.

“What are you gonna do now?” I hissed, advancing with slow steady steps as I emptied a magazine into the hide, then reloaded another one with practiced efficiency, and began assaulting the enemy again.

Apparently, it was going to try to attack me again. And if I’d remained with such low shields, that might have worked. Instead, a white orb of occult flew right into the side of my shoulder and exploded out into a fine mist. That was all quickly sucked into journey’s armor plates, digging through the cracks. My HUD flashed green, as shields registered completely recharged.

Murdershrimp decided discretion was the better part of valor at exactly that moment, same as it had before at the same point in time. It scuttled backwards on its many legs, then rolled under itself, and raced away into the dense foliage and trees.

But that’d been part of the plan.

As it turned to flee, Drakonis launched out an occult lash, looking to nail the creature and tie it down. From there, it would be game over. The lash flew through the air, then struck the center carapace of Murdershrimp.

And that’s when Murdershrimp revealed it had also cards ready to play. It jettisoned the carapace. The entire thing snapped off as the giant bastard ran, leaving the armor lashed behind.

“Fuck.” Drakonis hissed, dissolving his occult lash as we both sprinted past the discarded armor. “If it gets away, it’s going to adapt.”

And it was getting away fast. Already it was out of my occult range.

“It can’t get away as easily anymore.” I said, hand pointing down ahead. “Look, it’s bleeding.”

Oil and power cell fluid was splashed on the ground ahead, not a lot but enough for the armors to point out in giant orange. Any amount could be detected. “Just don’t stop hunting after it. It’s not going to be able to fix up everything before it runs out of energy.”

“That’s a wild gamble Winterscar,” Drakonis said, equally sprinting neck to neck, valuting over rocks and felled trees. “Don’t know how many power cells there are inside that thing, it could run for an entire week for all we know.”

“You got a better idea?”

He continued chasing, then shook his head as he leapt over a creek. “No. We’ll keep after him.”

The comms pinged. Not from Drakonis. But from Kres. “The guardian, it’s taken shelter inside a ravine, and it’s gone invisible. I saw the air blur where it vanished, I can see it move around. It’s gone still now, I cannot see any of it.”

“It knows we’re going to chase after it.” Drakonis said. “It’s going to try to ambush us.”

I laughed. “Finally, it makes a mistake.”

It took only thirty seconds to catch up to it, and we saw exactly the ravine Kres had warned us about. Wide rip in the ground, large enough to have put a stop to anyone running on ground, but not relic armor. We could have jumped over it.

It hadn’t been dumb either. Murdershrimp had splashed oil and bled over the trees up ahead, even knocked one down with a clean occult slice, making it look as if it had continued through the forest. And then it had doubled back and crawled down the ravine.

We reached the edge, and looked down. Absolutely nothing down there, just rocks as far as I could see.

And inside the soul sight, the concept of the giant machine loomed just a few feet away from us, arms spread out wide, ready to snap shut as soon as we jumped.

My sidearm aimed right down and opened fire in the empty rocks below.

It was amazing to see how detailed the illusion had been. It felt as if the ground itself was suddenly racing up to meet us, with small black holes being punched into the mirage by the dozens every second I held down the trigger. Occult edges lit up on the sides of the maw, but then Drakonis unleashed a shockwave right into the center mandible, forcing it off target while I continued to mow it down.

The creature screamed, aborted its attack, and crashed into the other side of the ravine, scrambling up the falling rock and crawling over the edge.

Color flashed through it, and once more I could see the full details of the giant machine.

Its carapace shimmered again, and then it simply vanished from view, blending in perfectly with its surroundings. It was either pretending to have teleported away or hoping we were too foolish to think it wasn't just staying perfectly still.

“A little on the nose there.” I muttered, loading one more magazine.

“Does it think we’re idiots?” Drakonis agreed, winding one hand backwards, letting fire begin to wrap around the fist, while his other hand glowed in blue occult.

“Ready.” He hissed.

“Fire.” I ordered.

Occult bullets flew right into the empty rock face, followed by a beam of bright flames from Drakonis’s punch. It lit the monster on fire, while my bullets gave the fire extra holes to sink into.

Murdershrimp howled like a wounded animal, shimmering back into visible view, scrambling over the rock face, its many legs digging deep into the ground and ripping out entire chunks in its haste to escape.

An occult lash landed right back on the carapace, and this time it couldn’t jettison anything to shake the lash off. Drakonis grabbed my arm with his own free one, and we were both yanked forward as the giant machine tried to run once again.

He threw me forward with everything the relic armor could, in combination with the picked up speed the lash gave him. And the moment he let me go, an occult shockwave pushed right into my feet, launching me far faster.

I zipped right through the air, my armguard lifted up and aimed right at the rapidly approaching monster. A dozen of the violet eye stocks were looking right back at me with horror.

The shotgun shells rang out, all in succession. Occult pellets peppered the monster in dozens of places, putting even more holes into Murdershrimp. One of the hits finally ended the creature’s ability to hover, and it crashed hard into the ground, its speed falling to a crawl.

I slammed into Murdershrimp’s bulk and held on tight, feet finding purchase, while my hands wrapped around the exposed exoskeleton. Now stuck to the backside like a bloodsucking tick, I focused everything on my mirror images. They manifested around me and set to work with ruthless efficiency, blades shearing through eyestalks and sensor clusters. Anything that looked expensive was getting cut in half. The machine bucked and writhed beneath me, trying to dislodge my hold, but Journey’s grip was iron tight. It rolled and smashed itself against rocks and trees, doing absolutely nothing to get rid of me. I was fully in the soul fractal trance, sending image after image to cut, rip and break everything I could slice a sword through.

I could feel my teeth rattling as I rode the thrashing metal behemoth.

Dripping ichor and trailing sparks, Murdershrimp dragged itself forward on its last few functioning limbs, then collapsed on the ground and rolled over, trying to squash me under the bulk. That’s when I decided I had enough fun and hopped off.

In the brawl I’d forced it into, Drakonis had caught up. And he was getting busy in his own way.

Murdershrimp tried to right itself, legs flailing weakly, but Drakonis was having none of it. His occult lash cracked out, coiling around the few working limbs, lashing the arms and limbs against rock and ground. Murdershrimp tried to cut through those with it’s occult scythe arms, and all that did was cut one or two strands while exposing the arm to be grabbed and pinned. He proceeded to follow through with every other dangerous arm he could, or outright make a personal cut himself if he saw a chance during his mad sprint around the monster.

On my end, I got back up on my feet, and jumped onto the monster’s belly. And then started slicing in a fury of physical and occult strikes, like a blender slowly making its way up to the throat.

Something vital broke inside the mechanical body. Murdershrimp spasmed and fell, smoke pouring from rents in its frame. Then it collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, legs and arms going from moving to frozen. I sliced a few more times, and found no reaction. Lights were dead, smoke was drifting from a few spots, and oil leaked out the backside.

An unsettling silence fell over the forest, as an apex predator that had stalked these trees for centuries was finally brought to an end. I jumped down off, as Drakonis stepped into the light, and we both turned to survey our work. The dead curled up giant, looming twice our height, motionless and dead.

In that solemn moment, I knew exactly what I had to ask my teammate.

“You are going to pay for that drink, right?”