At the System’s acknowledgment, the valves inside Arthur’s mind turned. All but one snapped shut, leaving only the Generator with a steady flow of Ether.

  It felt strange, to say the least.

  Before giving the order, every part of his vessel had been within reach. Yeah, they were destroyed and pretty much useless, but he could still touch them with his mind and even try to give them commands.

  Now though?

  That was no longer possible. Aside from the operational machine gun, everything else felt dead, cold to the touch. He could still reach for the triggers responsible for his cannon, but unlike before, they didn’t even acknowledge his presence. Just silence.

  Freaky, Arthur muttered internally, his Core—spirit?—shuddering. Maybe let’s just leave that alone for now.

  Happy with his decision, he turned his attention back to the storm raging above and the growing mass of black and red energy in the distance. He narrowed his nonexistent eyes, hoping to find something there that might tell him just how much time he had left before the Fiends would arrive to chop his poor vessel into pieces.

  It didn’t work.

  Arthur would have pouted if he could. He had hoped for some System bullshittery to kick in, but obviously, he was out of luck. Oh, well, he just had to pray that the Generator would return to operational status before this gate finished… forming? Growing?

  No way he got reborn as a goddamn tank, just to die again an hour after waking up, right? Right?!

  Uh… System? So… how long is that repair gonna take?

  This time, the entity didn’t leave him hanging.

  Generator will become Operational in: 113 minutes. Generator’s full recovery in: 2 days, 1 hour.

  What?! Arthur gaped. Hello? A Hell Gate is literally RIGHT THERE! Can we maybe… speed it up a bit? Make it like… five minutes? Please?

  Silence.

  He snorted, even as panic rose within his Core.

  Okay… Guess I will just die then. Third time is the charm, right?

  But there was nobody here to laugh at his quip, nobody to help him with the growing sense of dread. Just like he had faced the truth of being reborn as a tank all alone, now he also had to deal with the possibility of dying again.

  Nobody was coming to save him. He had to do it himself.

  Right.

  Before panic could take him over completely, he canceled Silent Observer. The world around him went dark, and without wasting another moment, he imagined himself taking a few deep breaths. It was the best he could manage without lungs, and surprisingly, it helped.

  Bit by bit, his mind relaxed, returning to the state it had been in before the mission notification arrived. There were still pieces of existential crisis and dread tucked somewhere inside his mind, but he pushed them as deep down as he could.

  He would deal with those later.

  Or never.

  All right… back to work. Focus!

  Arthur opened his eyes, or rather just the single eye available to him via the machine gun. The forest appeared in his sight once more.

  Now for the next step.

  Just like sometime before, he forced the massive muscle within his vessel to move. The loud shriek of rusted gears grinding against each other filled his mind again. But this time, he didn’t stop it right away.

  No, instead, he watched as the image in his eye shifted. It took a few seconds, but soon the forest was gone, replaced by the distant view of the forming Hell Gate. That was when he paused the movement of his turret, satisfied.

  Huh… That’s pretty much all I have for now.

  Arthur tried to move some of the other ‘muscles’ he could sense within his vessel, but they remained frozen even after he poked at them from every possible angle. Still, he did make one important discovery.

  His machine gun, despite looking completely static, could tilt slightly a few degrees in each direction. It wasn’t much, but it should make aiming this ancient thing much, much easier. His turret moved a bit too slowly, after all.

  Still need ammo, Arthur thought, glancing at the timer. A hundred minutes left… I can do this… Yeah, I can totally do this.

  Generator will become Operational in: 11 minutes.

  By some miracle, even after over an hour had passed, the Hell Gate still hadn’t finished forming. The red and black energies became more stable, now looking like a literal tear in reality, but there were still no Fiends anywhere in sight.

  Which left Arthur equally happy, worried, and well… bored.

  Apparently, becoming the Core of an almost immobile, half-blind war machine wasn’t all that exciting. Who would have guessed? Certainly not him!

  Sure, he could have used Silent Observer again to inspect his new body in detail, but after considering its limitations, Arthur had decided against that. He didn’t have any Ether to spare, so saving up the thirty minutes of the skill’s free usage could be important for the battle against the Fiends.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Which was why, to stave off his boredom, he decided to poke at every single bit of the System he could think of. Which honestly wasn’t much, the worried part of him stopped him from being too creative…

  Still, he had discovered a few interesting things about his… systems? Parts?

  The functions of Primary and Secondary weapons were pretty self-explanatory, as were those of the Engine. Armor was also quite simple, though apparently, its strength also affected the durability of other parts to some degree, not just his hull. Quite nice.

  Mobility and Sensors, though? That was where the biggest surprises came in.

  The first wasn’t just about what he used to move. It also affected the mobility of his subsystems. Turret rotation speed? Mobility. Range of motion of his Primary and Secondary? Again, Mobility.

  There was more, but that was the gist of it.

  As for Sensors? The System’s description explained it pretty well.

  [Sensors - A secondary, but no less important part of your vessel. Its main purpose is to detect movement around the Warrior and act as an early warning system for all incoming attacks. However, it can do much more than that. Detecting traps. Enhancing the Warrior’s existing senses. This is only the tip of the iceberg of what proper Sensors can accomplish.]

  Arthur understood almost all of that. And honestly? It sounded pretty damn useful. Like his own special sixth sense. Or was it the first or the second sense now? He didn’t really have many of these in this form.

  Ah, whatever, who cares anyway…

  He definitely did, but it was easier to say and pretend otherwise. Less things to panic about that way. Besides, he had other problems to worry about.

  Like the pulsing Hell Gate. It wasn’t doing that before.

  Shit… Still four minutes left.

  Unfortunately, the Hell gate didn’t care. After another bright crimson pulse, a tiny figure stepped out, followed by another and another. Dread returned to the forefront of Arthur’s mind as the numbers kept growing and growing.

  The only thing that stopped him from outright panicking was the appearance of these Fiends.

  They were tiny, no larger than a ten-year-old child. And honestly, they looked a bit like goblins, very fat ones, but goblins nonetheless. Only the dark red skin and two tiny horns poking out of their foreheads didn’t match.

  Overall, they didn’t look that dangerous, at least not to a block of steel like Arthur’s vessel. He almost let out an internal sigh of relief, only to freeze when one of the Fiend’s clawed hands caught fire. Another summoned an infernal spear.

  Uh-oh. Right… Demons. Mana world equals magic. And magic equals fire. I’m so screwed.

  Machine gun’s crosshairs still on the monsters, Arthur watched them create more weapons of pure fire. Axes, spears, hammers, swords. They had it all, and he had the distinct feeling that, if given the chance, they would use them to crack him open like a rusty can.

  Not a pleasant thought.

  That said, the Fiends still hadn’t noticed him. They were too busy summoning their tools and growling at each other. A language he couldn’t understand, or just a way to assert dominance. Or maybe both?

  Not that it mattered. Only the timer in the corner of his vision did.

  Come on, come on! Faster!

  Of course, that did nothing to help. Worse still, one of the Fiends at the edge of the group just turned, its ruby, cat-like eyes falling on Arthur’s vessel. It grinned, revealing a row of razor-sharp teeth. A loud guttural growl followed.

  Suddenly, Arthur had the attention of over twenty monsters.

  In the immortal words of a certain captain… Parley?

  The Fiends charged. Quite rude, especially as there were only five seconds left on the timer. Not that it mattered, the Generator still had to produce the ammo once it came online.

  Arthur laughed.

  I would say I had a good run, but damn, that would be a lie. Just let it be known, whoever placed me here, I hate—

  His thought cut off as a notification flashed before his eyes.

  Generator is now Operational. 90 units of 7.62mm ammunition produced. Loaded and ready.

  Arthur’s internal laughter turned into a full-blown cackle.

  Scratch everything I just said. I love you!

  With that, he pulled the trigger.

  Instantly, a choking metallic rattle joined the roaring skies above as the machine gun came to life. Fire and smoke erupted from its barrel, raining down bullets upon the unsuspecting Fiends.

  Arthur didn’t pay any attention to the noise. Only the demons in his crosshairs remained.

  The first few bullets tore through the three Fiends at the front. Their fire weapons vanished, their bodies dropping to the ground, a hole or two in each of their heads.

  Arthur aimed a bit to the right, the mechanisms of the machine gun and his turret working together to grant him almost perfect accuracy.

  Five more Fiends fell in a blink. Another two joined them on the scorched ground as he snapped the gun back to the left.

  Thirty-three bullets, ten monsters dead, his mind supplied, cold and focused as he kept firing at the now-panicking horde. He couldn’t stop, wouldn’t stop. He even ignored the heat building up inside his weapon.

  Stopping now meant death. Stopping now meant returning to the endless darkness.

  Arthur refused to let that happen, and thus, he didn’t let go of the trigger. Not until his machine gun gave out. Not until all the Fiends lay dead on the ground, bathing in their own blood. And even then, he still tried to fire, to destroy the distant Hell Gate.

  Only the sudden appearance of new notifications snapped him out of his hyper-focused state.

  Warning! Your Secondary is close to overheating. Stop to avoid unnecessary damage.

  Mission success! Summon the System to redeem your rewards.

  Arthur gasped internally, feeling as if he had just run a marathon despite not having a normal body. Then came the scorching heat radiating from the machine gun. Even reaching for its mental trigger hurt his mind—his Core.

  I’m alive… I killed them all.

  Despite the momentary wave of exhaustion, he had never felt better, or maybe he did and just didn’t remember. Either way, the sight of the Fiends lying dead before him, their blood staining the ground… it was almost indescribable, but definitely satisfying.

  Was it wrong to feel this way?

  No, he didn’t think so. He simply did what he had to. He fought for his survival. He killed and won. He was the Warrior, the one they sent to deal with threats to the natural order. The demons lying before him? They were just the first of many.

  Arthur’s thoughts ground to a halt.

  What? The hell was that?

  The thoughts about fighting for survival and being right in what he did? These were his. But the ones about the Warrior? About his purpose? He had no idea where these came from. It was like something had nudged him toward them. So subtle, he hadn’t even noticed.

  Not good… Turning me into a monster-slaying machine is one thing. But manipulating my thoughts? Yeah, no. That’s where I draw the line. Either tell me what you want now, or stay the hell out of my head. Got it?

  Yet nobody answered him. Hell, Arthur didn’t even know who he was addressing. The System? Some unknown entity responsible for his rebirth? His own broken mind?

  No, don’t go there, he stopped himself, a brief memory of the void flashing in his mind. It’s fine. Everything is all right. Just gotta watch my own thoughts. I am still me. Nothing will change that.

  With a mental nod to himself, Arthur reached for something to distract him—the notifications and his rewards. He had ignored them long enough, even if the safety of his mind was more important.

  Then there was also the Hell Gate that had suspiciously remained active even after he had killed all the Fiends. Not much he could do about that, though… well, aside from firing more bullets at it.

  Yeah, let’s not. Might need the ammo later.

  Arthur reached for the System, and with it came the rewards.