Chapter 6: Escape
Hugo sat there listening to the sudden explosion of sound and violence, his mind scrambling to process the chaos. For a moment, he was paralyzed, caught between two terrifying realities.
On one hand, he had a dreadful premonition of what this was: the arrival of the apocalyptic force he had witnessed in at the beginning of the nightmare , the terrifying army that shattered this advanced civilization.
Which meant one thing, The end was beginning.
But on the other hand, a more immediate, practical problem consumed him: he was stranded in an impregnable cell with no way out.
He was practically a caged animal awaiting the fire. The grand scale of the doom outside was irrelevant if he couldn't take a single step beyond these four walls.
'What to do, what to do...' The thought was a frantic drumbeat in his skull. His eyes darted to the section of the wall the Galvans used for food delivery, moving to the left wall quickly, He pressed his ear against the cool, seamless onyx.
His senses, sharpened to a preternatural acuity by [Anatomica] cut through the muffled roars and distant booms. He could make out distinct layers of sound, First, there was the high-pitched, searing crack-hiss that were incredibly fast and numerous.
'It's the blasters...' he thought, recalling with chilling clarity how a single, precise shot had effortlessly caved in the skull of the four-armed demon. It seemed The Galvans were deploying their full arsenal.
But they weren't the only ones firing. Beneath the blaster fire was another sound—a deeper, angrier thrum-crack of plasma discharges, these ones were more violent and slightly different from the blasters the galvans used
Which sugguested the existence of an intruder, or perhaps a mass prison break was underway.
'whatever it was, it was powerful enough to force the Galvans into a pitched firefight...'
Suddenly, a new sound joined the symphony of destruction snapping him out of his thoughts. It was a rapid, mechanical beeping, close and insistent, It wasn't a weapon it was a countdown.
Hugo's eyes widened as the Realization dawned at him.
He threw himself backward, scrambling across the floor in a desperate, graceless crawl, putting as much distance as he could between himself and the wall.
He barely made it two seconds before the world exploded.
The section of the wall he'd been listening at detonated inward with a concussive WHUMP.
A storm of shrapnel and pulverized onyx filled the air, pelting his body and clattering against the far wall. Light, harsh and artificial, flooded the perpetual twilight of his cell, stabbing at his light-starved eyes and forcing him to blink away tears.
Shaking debris from his hair, Hugo peered through the newly formed opening. The hallway outside was a warzone. Barrages of emerald green and bloody red energy bolts crisscrossed the corridor, painting the pristine white marble with scorch marks and molten slag.
And He was trapped in the doorway with no other path of escape. Which meant that the moment he stepped out into the hallway , he would nstantly be vaporized.
Through the reflection, Hugo managed to glimpse the source of the red blasts.
The creature displayed were not organic , but instead a mechanical hulking, bipedal drones with armored carapaces of brown and red that moved with a clanking relentless purpose.
'Great...' he thought
For a long, tense minute, the exchange of fire was a relentless storm. Then, as abruptly as it began, it stopped. A final, sizzling red bolt struck home, and an eerie silence descended, broken only by the drip of molten metal and the faint crackle of dying electronics.
The hallway was once again silent.
Hugo's heart hammered against his ribs as He moved cautiously toward the jagged hole that was once a wall.
not wanting to die a stupid death, He grabbed a fist-sized chunk of debris and lobbed it out into the hallway. It clattered noisily against the floor and rolled to a stop.
Nothing happened. No blaster fire and more importantly no movement nor sound.
Still not convinced, he slowly, carefully, edged his head out to peer into the corridor.
It was a scene of devastation. The long, wide hallway was littered with wreckage. On one side lay the smoldering, tiny forms of several Galvan soldiers drowning in their own blood, their advanced armor broken and scorched. On the other side , the shattered remains of the brown and red assault drones lay in sparking, inert heaps.
Hugo confirmed the fact that the enemy the Galvans are fighting was a mechanical force.
Not that he cared who was fighting whom. Freedom was freedom.
As he stepped out when, he saw something on the edges of his vision. It was a slight, twitching movement among the Galvan corpses. One of the small grey creatures had survived, but only barely, Its armor was a cracked ruin, and a dark, viscous fluid –its blood– pooled beneath it.
The little creature was a fighter, as It was trying to crawl to safety, its movements feeble and pathetic.
A cold, focused fury ignited in Hugo's chest. All the helplessness he had felt since the beginning of the nightmare, the violation of the experiment and the sheer terror he had felt due to these creatures.
it all coalesced into a single, white-hot point of hatred deep inside his soul.
He walked toward the dying Galvan, his steps measured and heavy.
The tiny creature looked up, its large black eyes meeting his. It tried to speak but only a wet, gurgling rasp escaped its mouth accompanied by a fresh trickle of blood.
Hugo felt no pity. is only regret was that the galvan he was killing was not albedo and so Without a word, he picked up a sharp, jagged piece of broken debris from the floor and raised it high, his knuckles white, then slammed it down with all his enhanced strength, crushing the Galvan's small torso.
The body convulsed as it was hammered by the large rock.
Then the sweat familiar voice of the spell resounded in his ears
[You have slain an awakened beast: Galvan Soldier.]
[You have received a Memory: Proto-Tech Armor.]
A grim, savage grin stretched across Hugo's face as He brought the shard down again and agai a cathartic release of pent-up rage before the Spell's notification finally registered and then he stopped, breathing heavily.
Calming himself, Hugo looked around trying to find a better weapon then a shard of rocks but sadly The Galvan's weapons and armor were comically small for him, and the drones' integrated weapon were fused into their bodies and thus destroyed during the clash.
A flicker of disappointmen washed over him as he realized he won't be using any Lazer shooters anytime soon.
But that did not mean he didn't posseses any equipments anymore
Hugo quickly summoned the Spell's runes to inspect his prize.
Memory: [Proto-Tech Armor]
Rank:Awakened
Memory Type:Armor
Memory Description:[Despite their lack of physical prowse, The Galvans were hailed as the greatest of the gods creation due to their intelligence and as such Their inventions were simply unmatched throughout all the realms.]
Memory Enchantments:[Modification]
He couldn't see the specifics of the enchantment which was a shame but at least he now had an amor to protect himself.
He willed the Memory to manifest.
A shower of brilliant white sparks erupted in the air before him, coalescing and weaving together into solid form. In moments, the armor was fully materialized. It was sleek and biomechanical masterpiece of alien engineering. Interlocking plates of dark blue, black, and light gray hugged his frame, emphasizing mobility without sacrificing protection. It felt both lightweight and incredibly durable with segmented panels at the chest, shoulders and limbs that moved with him like a second skin. A compact, unidentifiable tech-module was integrated seamlessly into the back. It was nothing like the blocky green suits the Galvans wore, and for that, Hugo was profoundly grateful.
He stretched, testing the suit's limits. It was a perfect fit, moving with a silent, fluid grace.
'Now what to do...'
His immediate problem was the lack of a weapon.
Walking over to the drone wreckage, he wrenched free a long, sturdy strut of brown metal hefting it like a club.
It was crude, but it had solid weight to it.
'gosh i feel like a caveman...'
He looked down the long hallway. It stretched in two directions, both identical and both lead into the unknown and Both were equally terrifying.
With a sigh, he chose the direction from which the drones had come, hoping it to be the direction of the exit.
---
'This place is a labyrinth!' Hugo grumbled internally, ducking behind a large, shattered food dispenser. He had taken multiple turns, navigating a complex web of identical white and green hallways, only to find himself more lost than before.
Eventually He had stumbled into what appeared to be a massive cafeteria, and it had immediately become a fresh battlefield.
Across the vast room, a remaining squad of Galvans was trading frantic blaster fire with a new wave of brown drones.
Just as the firefight seemed to be reaching a stalemate, a purple blur shot from the drone's flank. It moved with impossible speed like a phantom weaving through the chaos. It didn't use blasters instead, it wielded two long, vicious blades of crackling red plasma as It cut through the remaining Galvans with brutal, surgical efficiency, a whirlwind of death that left dismembered bodies in its wake.
The figure finally paused it's relentless killing spree, its helmeted head turning as it scanned the room as if looking for more targets to slice.
It was about to move on when it suddenly stopped. Slowly, with an unnerving, predatory precision, it turned its head. Its blank visor fixed directly on the broken dispenser Hugo was hiding behind.
It dashed straight for him.
Cursing Hugo exploded into motion. He heard the sharp SHING of a plasma blade and the sound of tearing metal as the dispenser he'd just been behind was cleaved in two. He didn't look back, sprinting deeper into the cafeteria's service area, weaving between cooking stations and storage units.
His body, enhanced by [Anatomica] moved with a speed and agility he'd never known before, his legs pumping and his heart a frantic drum in his ears. But it wasn't enough.
The purple assassin was faster, closing the distance with terrifying ease. He could hear the sizzle of the plasma blades as they sliced through everything in their path behind him, getting closer with every second.
Just then, Hugo Spotted a large tray filled with a glowing green nutrient paste and so without breaking his stride. He swung his metallic bat like a golf club, connecting with the tray and sending a wave of the viscous substance hurling toward his pursuer.
As expected, the assassin smoothly bisected the tray with a flick of its wrist. But in doing so, it caused the paste to splatter across its armor and crucially around its visor, obscuring its vision.
It was the opening Hugo needed. He didn't retreat knowing the figure was impossible to outrun.
And sl he charged closing the short distance instantly and brought his metal bat down on the figure's helmet with a resounding
BAM!
He swung again.
BAM!
And again.
BAM!
The force of the blows, amplified by his enhanced strength and the material of the metallic bat was enough to stagger the creature forcing it to drop one of its plasma blades
But the figure was clearly a trained killer.
Blinded and disoriented, it didn't crumble instead just As Hugo wound up for another swing, the assassin's arm snapped up, catching the bat mid-air, stopping it dead in it's tracks
Panic flared in Hugo's chest and Without a second thought, he abandoned the weapon and threw his entire weight forward, tackling the figure to the ground.
They landed in a tangled heap. Hugo, riding a surge of adrenaline, rained down blows with his armored fists, aiming for the head, the neck, anywhere vulnerable.
This was a desperate, stupid gamble. a Dormant human brawling with an Awakened assassin But Hugo was no ordinary Dormant. [Anatomica] turned his fists into jackhammers and [spirit core] secretly enhanced Hugo body with spirit essence.
Finally there was the [Proto-Tech Armor] which was currently encasing his entire body including his fists turning them into awakened rank fists capable of breaking the figure's own armor.
It was then that a particularly vicious blow connected with the figure's visor causing a web of cracks to spread across it, and then another piece chipped away, revealing mottled, greyish skin and a grotesque, noseless face with a maw of needle-like teeths
Hugo felt repulsed at the creature ugliness But that only served as fuel for his punches.
Then The creature suddenly snarled and in response, a nest of metallic, robotic tentacles erupted from its armored collar, slamming into Hugo's chest with the force of a piston. The air exploded from his lungs as he was hurled backward, crashing into a metal cabinet with a deafening clang.
Before he could even gasp for air, the assassin was on its feet, a plasma blade back in its hand. It leaped, aiming to plunge the weapon down into Hugo's chest.
Hugo rolled, the red blade sinking deep into the floor where his face had been a second ago casuing molten metal spray.
He scrambled backward as he got up but the assassin was already on him, delivering a powerful, armored kick to his midsection causing him to spew a mouthful of blood.
The impact lifted him off his feet and sent him skidding across the floor as agony blooming through his core despite the armor.
The purple figure jumped again, propelling himself forward like a living missile aiming to crush him underfoot.
This was it. He was out of moves, out of space and As he slid, his hand brushed against something familiar.
It was the cool, energized hilt of the second plasma blade his attacker had dropped. His fingers closed around it in a heartbeat
Then The assassin descended.
With a final, desperate surge of strength, Hugo didn't try to stanw instead hd aimed the sword upward sending it back to it's master with incredible speed.
A spear of red plasma erupted punching a hole straight through the assassin's torso as it landed.
The creature's momentum carried it forward, the blade carving a gruesome path through its body until it collapsed in a heap beside him, the light dying in it's strange bugg like eyes.
[You have slain an awakened monster: SixSix.]
The voice of the spell spoke as Hugo lay there, breathing in ragged painful gulps.
Every part of his body screamed in protest reeling from the kick to his abdomen
"Shit..."he cursed, the word a wheezing exhale. He had just brushed off with his first near death experience...
He only alive due to Pure, dumb luck which had miraculously saved him.
'Who the hell names himself SixSix anyway!' he thought, the absurdity of the name a stark contrast to the creature's lethal efficiency.
His body, already knitting itself back together thanks to [Anatomica], allowed him to slowly and painfully push himself to his knees.
He also took the liberty of picking up the two plasma blades considering he hadn't received a memory from killing the awakened assasin so this was the next best thing.
the twin hilts felt strangely comfortable in his hands.
'of coure they would feel comfortable, they're lazed blades!' he thought, happy that he had a proper weapon now.
It was then that he noticed the remaining brown drones that had finished their sweep of the cafeteria. Their blank optical sensors swiveled, locking onto the new movement—onto him.
A chorus of targeting lasers painted his chest.
Cursing again, Hugo dove for cover behind the cafeteria's main service counter as a fresh volley of red plasma bolts shredded the air where he'd just been standing making him start crawling once again.