?

  Once their eyes glowed that same ruby red as the Calamity Dragon’s, the drones could, in fact, see me just fine. I could tell by the way their glowing eyes snapped to me as they began gaining their feet. So be it, I am Lu Bu; it is a rare day that I am one to stand around and wait for my foes to come to me. Despite my new body’s astounding level of weakness and lack of agility, I threw myself at the closest of the rising corpses.

  As I ran, I sought to send Qi from my Diantians to my muscles and found that my Cores weren’t just empty, they were gone entirely. My shock at the discovery was so great that my charge almost faltered.

  I’ve always been strong, but even as a child, I had utilized my Qi to increase that strength. I was just going to have to go without it for now, I supposed, if nothing else, fighting in this body with these limitations should be an interesting challenge.

  Driving my fist into the midsection of the first reanimating corpse I encountered, I sent the thing sprawling right back to the ground.

  Despite its previous awkwardness, the drone leaped back to its feet with surprising agility. As it did, the metal of its left arm seemed to warp and run like liquid for a moment before igniting into a blade of red-orange energy that utterly replaced the corpse’s hand.

  ‘Noted.’ I now knew that they could arm themselves by directing the red non-Qi energy through their limbs to form blades of light that probably cut like hot steel. I had seen such techniques before and remained unfazed.

  Slipping around one of the drones that threw itself at me from the side, I pressed the drone I had already struck. Blitzing the reanimated corpse, I snagged its blade arm by the elbow and made to force its weapon through its own head.

  It should have been a short explosion of movement that left the drone dead almost instantly. Unfortunately, I had overestimated the strength of my new body. I did manage to force the blade arm into the face of my opponent, but its strength was enough that I found overpowering the drone a challenging task.

  In the time it took for me to force the glowing blade back and up while the red-eyed former person struggled against me, two rather irritating things of note took place. First, the rippling of the metal parts of the drone continued, leaving every inch of its flesh covered or replaced with dull-looking steel.

  Secondly, a pair of the drones that seemingly could not craft such weapon limbs for themselves barrelled into me from the right. While my new body was far lighter than I was used to, I was still strong enough to contest both of them at once. It was galling to feel how much these two could push me. The pair of drones weren’t able to force me off my feet, but they did prevent me from finishing off the one with the bladed arm.

  According to the spirit, I would soon have access to special skills, the way it had talked about them, and from the vague glimpses I had caught of the writing, it had insisted on trying to show me these ‘skills’ would be similar to Qi techniques. Of course, the spirit was gone now, and the writing in front of my eyes didn’t say anything about such abilities.

  With a little sigh I truly started to truly try. Rather than simply testing my might against these foes I began to employ mundane fighting techniques. It had been a long time since I had been forced to care about the fundamentals against common soldiery, something I was confident these drones were.

  They had been resurrected by the Calamity Dragon that now did battle with the squad of flying warriors, so it stood to reason the reanimated bodies were its minions.

  Setting my feet in a grappler's stance, I used both my physical strength and the full weight of my body to force one of the two drones to let go of me; the other was still trying to force me off my feet, but I had accounted for that.

  Driving it back, I slipped my arms around its neck and twisted my body to begin turning its head in an altogether unnatural manner. Once more, it took longer than I expected or would have liked, but soon I felt the telltale snaps and clicks as I broke its neck.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  A moment after I let the slack and once more dead thing slump to the ground a familiar set of the strange writing flashed and changed in front of my vision.

  I didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded positive, and this time there had been none of the ‘taxation’ that had been mentioned before. When I had accidentally killed the man on the street before this madness began, the gauge had only filled by one. This time it had gone up by twenty-five….whatever that meant.

  My pondering almost got me killed as the blade-armed drone, the survivor of the two that had tried to grapple me, and a third that had just pulled itself to its feet charged me.

  Imagine that, I Lu Bu, was forced onto the back foot by three nameless warriors. Two of them weren’t even armed! If I weren’t already dead, I think I may have died of shame right there on the spot had one of my old foes witnessed it.

  Many of the drones did not turn to aid their compatriots, but rather charged off in little groups to attempt access to one of the nearby towering buildings. Unfortunately, this still left six or so other drones that had turned my way and were moving to assist against me.

  Between the three already doing their best to come to grips with me, and their reinforcements, I knew I was likely in a rather desperate situation. As embarrassing as that was, it remained the reality of my position and one I had to find a solution for rather quickly.

  ‘Actually, no, fuck that! I require no clever strategy or last-minute maneuver. I don’t care how weak this new body is. I am going to rip that blade arm off its owner’s corpse and then carve the rest of them up with it.

  “You have the honor of facing Lu Bu,” I declared to the swarming mass of red-eyed drones. I knew they likely couldn't understand me, but it didn’t matter. “I hold all heroes of the world in contempt! I! Am the peerless one!”

  Their charge did not falter, but neither did the one I threw myself into. It isn’t like I had never been this weak and this slow before; I distinctly recall struggling to lift a horse earlier in my life. It hadn’t stopped me from crushing all of my foes then, and it wasn’t going to stop me now.

  Just as I was about to collide with the first of the drones, I leaped over it, grabbing the reanimated monster by its face as I flew past. I had expected to feel the normal face things. You know, eyes,nose, skin, maybe some saliva. Instead, it was like I had grabbed a metal face mask, as though the skin had somehow been an illusion.

  ?

  Whatever the reason for this continued strangeness, I didn’t really care, and soon it wouldn’t matter. The creature I had grabbed was yanked off its feet, and as I landed amidst the drones, I slammed the back of its skull into the hard stone ground with the full force of my twisting body, along with my own and the drone’s body weight.

  The result was a sickening crunch followed by a series of red sparks surging out of the reanimated corpse’s head. I had already been struck by one lightning technique today, and didn’t feel like getting zapped again. Fortunately, I had already let go of the once more dead body, and dashed at the blade-armed drone.

  While my target was seemingly the best armed, it wasn’t acting as a leader or anything special. In fact, with how they swarmed, I doubted the drones had any leadership at all beyond the general will of their Calamity Dragon creator. The drone raised its energy blade and, along with three others, rushed to meet my dash.

  Given what I now knew about the strength, speed, and ability of these drones, I remained confident that I would be able to kill the blade wielder and turn its weapon on its allies before they could overwhelm me.

  As it turns out, I needn’t have bothered; above me, the group of flying soldiers had employed a series of explosive techniques upon the dragon and evidently to great effect. Stumbling back, the huge monster collapsed directly in front of me, crushing the blade-armed drone, the three next to it, and several others besides. I came to a wide-eyed skidding stop, arresting my movement about half a foot from the now convulsing beast of metal.

  Spinning about, I prepared for the drones that I had leaped over to be descending on my position, and while they certainly had been. By the time I faced them again, the group of red-eyed corpses were trapped in violent convulsions of their own.

  “Alright, good,” I grunted.

  I began to look about to see if the energy blade had survived its owner being crushed when I noticed a new phrase flashing red in the corner of my vision.

  I frowned for a few moments as I tried to decipher what that meant,which is, of course, when the dragon and all of the drones exploded.