166 The Power Of A Juggernau
The blue beams met with a thundering boom just steps away from Altair. Altair had instinctively closed her eyes when she saw the attack coming, so she had no idea that a red dot had intercepted the attacks aimed towards her. She felt a pulling sensation that seemed to want to yank her forward but it wasn't powerful enough to do that. She did feel the water in the pond move away from her before it splashed back on her.
At that point, she opened one of her eyes and saw that the attack didn't reach her. She also saw that the two androids were still staring at her, which sent a chill down her spine, as there was a gaping hole in the ground where she had sealed the Mana Fog. It didn't consume the entire box she created as the Mana Fog was quickly emerging in all its glory to cover her vision, but it was enough to cause her to feel absolutely unprepared for what she was seeing right now.
She quickly stood to her feet, turned on her heel, and bolted away. She planned to use her Transference Magic while she was stepping out of the pond, but the Mana Fog wrapped around her legs and yanked her back in. Her vision turned to the ground and then to the bottom of the pond before she was, once again, submerged in the water.
Within the operations room, Major Murphy let out a sigh of relief. The Juggernauts had almost obliterated their target. He was surprised the SND Neutralizer had even tried to defend her. But it was a good thing it did. He didn't know how he was supposed to explain how two of the new SND Neutralizers he was given for this mission had wound up destroyed and they ended up killing the target.
When he saw the target try to run only to be pulled back into the pond again, he felt a little conflicted. He wanted the target to hide away while the juggernauts were distracted, but he also didn't want her to vanish on them again. They still didn't know how she managed to escape from the room they had her in even now.
But all of that had to be pushed aside because he needed to distract the Juggernauts for the SND Neutralizer could do its job.
Thus, Major Murphy quickly sent out orders to the black agents to distract the Juggernauts. Those machines were absolute terrors when they were deployed. In order to prevent hackers from hijacking them, they had no communication receivers so they couldn't receive new orders once deployed. This was a double edged sword. It meant that they were safe from being taken over but also made orders that were given to them before they were sent out had to be as exact as possible.
Unfortunately, they didn't have time to give them exact orders because they didn't know the situation within that black box that appeared. They were simply given the orders to exterminate things that they ran into inside the box. The SND Neutralizer was labeled as an ally before they were even booted up so they had temporarily ignored it.
Of course, they did have ways of stopping the Juggernauts when they were active. They just needed a member of the Imperial family to show up and command them to stand down. They had already sent an emergency request to have someone come immediately. But they needed to stall for time and thus: The black agent team was up to the job while the SND Neutralizer was commanded to retrieve the target.
Then the two Juggernauts turned their attention to the SND Neutralizer. This was something that Major Murphy did not expect but the special tech engineers had started shouting about the moment they saw the SND Neutralizer intercept their attack. He turned his attention to the engineers and they let him know in very simple terms.
Basically, a Juggernaut can deem an ally or non-combatant as a threat and enemy if they interfere in its mission.
This caused Major Murphy to panic and issue emergency orders to the black agent team to intercept the Juggernauts and stall for time immediately.
Altair herself was trying to roll over in the Pond. She had already started to burn Mana to infuse her blood so she would be able to keep her head and wouldn't drown. She also burned an excessive amount of Mana on Body Reinforcement Magic but, unlike before, she was unable to break free from the Mana Fog that was restraining her.
Oddly, this time the Mana Fog did not bother stopping her from rolling over, but it did completely prevent any other kind of movement. So, as Altair struggled to see the sky, she found herself staring straight at where she was running from instead. The Mana Fog had apparently taken a huge hit from the attack earlier as there was a lot less of it in the air and Altair could see relatively clearly even while her head was underwater.
The two Juggernauts were approaching the SND Neutralizer, who was in turn approaching Altair while completely ignoring the two.
Altair blinked.
The SND Neutralizer was gone along with the female Android. She didn't see where they went. She didn't even see them move. They were just gone as if they, themselves, had teleported away. She heard a muffled boom through the water in the next moment and, before Altair could blink, the other android had vanished from her sight.
It took a long moment before Altair's eyes opened wide in horror as she realized that she caught minor slips of movement in the air. She didn't know who was the source, but she did know that the androids were moving and not teleporting.
'I want to go home,' she thought to herself as she panicked. 'These things can't be stopped. How can something move so fast? The Empire is too terrifying!'
She thought herself strong. Her little fights she had with Joshua, his friends, and Celestine were nothing compared to this. They couldn't even be constituted as training. At best, they were light exercises and at worst, minor playing around. She was basically a gnat before a storm, a weed before a hurricane, a branch before a typhoon. She was nothing compared to them.
She had managed to overwhelm one of the SND Neutralizers but, since she couldn't tell exactly what was happening in front of her, she figured they were going completely easy on her. While she didn't know why they were fighting amongst themselves, it didn't matter.
Altair only knew that she was completely insignificant in the face of technology as she was now. She was terrified, frustrated, and wanted to leave.
The Juggernauts had completely dismantled the SND Neutralizer. Rather, one of them had. In the moment that Altair had blinked, the female Juggernaut had already tore the SND Neutralizer to pieces and scattered it amongst the wind. The moment after that, the female Juggernaut got attacked by the black agent team as the Dominus fighter rammed into her. With his subordinates supporting him against the lone Juggernaut, the other Juggernaut couldn't stand idly by.
It had deemed Altair a low risk threat it had to eliminate so it could ignore her for the time being. It, instead, turned its attention to the black agent team that attacked its ally. In the immediate surroundings, a battle that only Warmaster tier martial fighters and Master Mecha Pilots inside their Mecha could keep up with was happening.
Altair did not know the details only that she had to leave. She also knew that if she tried to get away with her Transference Magic, given how fast those androids were compared to her, she would be caught in no time.
This left her with one option to escape that she came up with in desperation. But, now that she had settled on it, she decided to build in some safe guards for herself.
She burned some Mana while lightly drinking the Manamium enriched water to make small vials out of her Shadow Magic within the water. She also used her Thread Magic to secure them to her body, which the Mana Fog completely ignored as they went through the water and were tied to herself. She then sealed the vials after they were filled with the water of the pond, or so she figured they would be as she couldn't exactly examine them.
Since she had been submerged in the pond, her Mana Pool had barely grown. However, it did grow beyond the small pond she had to a barely larger pond. Overall, she estimated that she had a couple dozens of buckets more Mana than before and it was growing even now.
With them secured to her body, she began to burn her entire pond while bringing in more Mana from the water while she drank from the pond. She then pictured that small room inside the building that Renald had set aside for herself. It was the same room she left for the Kingdom in and had returned to the Empire in.
She took one last gulp before she filled her mouth one last time and activated her Teleportation Magic.
In a flash of blue light that caused everything around where she was to pause instantly, Altair fled the battlefield that she was unprepared for.
Major Murphy couldn't believe his eyes when she vanished out from underneath them. However, in the next instant, he got word of two massive energy signatures that appeared on two difference places on the planet.
The special tech engineers immediately gushed as they put the pieces together and loudly proclaimed that they had found someone who had discovered Teleportation technology. Now they just had to find that girl again and thoroughly question her on where the people were that created such technology, what the device looked like, where she was hiding it on her person, and how to use it.
However, first things first. They had to stop the Juggernauts that were currently crushing the black agent team before they all wound up dead for no reason.
Major Murphy sent a shortmail to the people watching over the building that was highlighted in a massive burst of energy. Its contents were simple: capture her by any means necessary. He then turned his attention back to the Juggernauts and put Altair out of his mind for the time being.