NOVEL WEB Chapter 604: It's Still A Stalemate
Hmm… The AI still seems oddly smug despite us burning all of the nanobots sent at us…
Also… Takehashi was looking at Amber, Mara and me in shock but now wasn't the time to explain what was going on to her so I ignored her for now.
And I guess the fact that it still has that shield around it being the reason for that…
Mara reached out her hand towards the orb and the shield appeared around the orb, the entire thing undulating like something was pushing against it but it refused to crush the orb that it was protecting inside it.
Amber also joined in and the two of them tried to push on opposite sides of the shield to try and crush the orb, but the nanobots that were being affected by their powers simply moved away from the orb to squeeze away from it, leaving the orb still safe from harm.
The mask grinned down at us, "I see now. The only reason you managed to get this far is the fact that you not only have one, but two Psionics on your side. Factoring that in, everything makes sense now."
Well… Even though it's true that we do have two Psionics on our side, they never used their powers throughout our advance through the facility…
Or at least… I don't think they did? I didn't really see any obvious instances of them using it at least.
I didn't bother correcting it since it worked in our favour if it thought we were completely reliant on Amber and Mara.
The AI continued, "It seems like we are at an impasse, are we not? You cannot destroy me and I am unable to kill all of you easily as well."
I tilted my head at it, "So… Are you suggesting that you let us go?"
The grin on the mask turned sinister, "Hahahaha! That's what you think I'd say, don't you? I said I can't kill you easily, not that I can't kill you~ I just need a bit more time to prepare. But as for you, the chances of you killing me is at a solid zero percent~"
Amber scowled at the AI, "Zero percent? Well zero percent this!"
She stretched out her arms and fire gathered around her palms before she swung them in the direction of the AI.
The fire she had materialised smashed together in front of her to start blasting a huge wave of flames at the orb's direction, bathing it in its fiery embrace.
The light from the fire was so bright that I had to avert my gaze, right before I noticed that the edge of the platform was actually starting to melt from the heat.
I think… This would be able to melt through the nanobot shield this AI had put up, right?
And sure enough, I could hear the cracking sounds of those nanobots shorting out before they started to fall one by one like dead leaves in autumn.
But just as it looked like this was going to work, a wave of darkness shot up from below to meld into the shield around the orb.
It took me a moment to realise that the AI was directing even more nanobots from somewhere else to bolster and replace any nanobots that were lost in Amber's fire and the shield even seemed to get bigger despite Amber's best efforts to incinerate it.
Amber furrowed her brows and cut off her fire, the flames dying out almost instantly, returning the room back to its usual darkness.
"How impressive," The AI praised mockingly. "I will admit that I am not aware that Psionics are able to do that. It does not seem to be recorded in my database so either this is something that is beyond just a simple secret… Or are you the first of your kind?"
Amber did not grace it with an answer since she was gathering more fire in between her palms and compressing them into a white ball that was hovering in the space there.
Once she was ready, she thrusted out her palms once more and a white ray of light flew straight towards the orb at blinding speeds.
She must have converged the fire into a really small space and fired it off like some kind of laser? So she can even do that with fire huh…
The beam of fire burned through a good chunk of the shield but even that did not seem enough to penetrate the shield to reach the orb as the rate of replacement of the lost nanobots was faster than what Amber could burn with her powers.
Amber, however, did not give up and intensified her flames.
It seems like her idea was that as long as she could just burn through a single point in that shield of the AI's she would be able to reach the orb and destroy it.
The AI must have also realised her plan because the mask was no longer smiling and instead changed into one of deep concentration as it started to redirect most of its shield towards the single point that Amber was slowly burning through, getting closer and closer to the core.
I could even see that the AI was pulling more of its nanobots from the back of its shield to move them towards the front, thinning out the shield at the back just so that it could try to stop Amber's relentless burn.
Mara had her hands raised and I was assuming she had something planned once Amber either burned through the shield or if the AI had drained enough of its shield around one side, she could just jump in and take advantage of that and destroy it.
Ries, Lea and I also decided to help out as we started shooting at the same side that Amber was burning, forcing the AI to direct even more of its nanobots towards the side that was being attacked and leaving the back less protected.
The AI was no longer talking and the holographic projection of the mask was just floating up in the air and glaring at the surface of its shield like it was trying its best to figure out how to get itself out of this.
It tried to draw in more nanobots to try and supplement his shield but each time he did, Amber would respond in kind by increasing her power to burn through the AI's defences even faster.
Despite that, Amber was not having an easy time either as I could see her brows drenched in sweat and she even looked like she was shaking a little from the effort of keeping up the fire.
Just as I was worried that this might be too much for her, a panel was ripped away from the ceiling before it flew towards the back of the orb at a blinding speed.
It struck the back of the orb and instead of it being ripped to shreds because of the shield, the panel managed to blow through the shield due to the lack of protection after the Ai had drained it towards the front instead.
The panel struck the orb and there was a short moment when nothing else happened before the shield completely dropped and Amber's fire burned all the way towards the orb and pierced a single hole through it.
Amber did not waste that chance as she threw her hands to the side and the fire that had pierced through the orb exploded outwards, enveloping the entire orb in flames and incinerating it.
The mask hologram started to spasm and glitch out before its mouth opened wide to let out an inhuman scream sounding more like the screeching of a machine on the last legs of its lifespan.
Then, as suddenly as it had popped into existence, the hologram disappeared and the orb was burned away to ashes.
Amber then cut off her fire and we were plunged into darkness once more, the hall settling back down into darkness once the light source had dissipated.
We… Did it?
Well… That was easy…
Takehashi suddenly leapt in front of me, "Is… You… Did you already know you have two Psionics on board your ship?!"
I shrugged, "I dunno. Why don't you tell me?"
She opened her mouth and was just about to speak when another large wave appeared from beneath the ground to coalesce in the air, all of them forming together seemingly to start building something before they expanded outwards.
In just a few seconds, we found ourselves staring up at the orb again.
The voice of the AI let out a laugh, "Ahahaha! Did you think I did not come up with a countermeasure for being destroyed like that? You thought it was that easy?"
The mask once again materialised in the air and smiled down at us mockingly, "Too bad for you! I'm still here~ And I can just tell you that I can just keep doing this over and over again~"
Great… So this AI can basically rebuild itself…
Have I said that this AI is annoying? Because this AI is annoying as fuck.