I pretended like I was going to drag things into a chaotic melee, then abducted a single robot and promptly withdrew.
In a free-for-all, they'd have to hold their fire for fear of friendly fire — but that only applies when the enemy is made of flesh and blood. When the opponent is a mindless robot, it'll gleefully shoot right through its own allies to get at me.
And while a single hit does massive damage to me, the robot barely gets a scratch on its armor.
A suicide charge would be a terrible deal.
Using the abducted robot as a makeshift shield, I desperately observed the machines, trying to find a way out of this situation.
Specifically, I was analyzing the sorcery woven into the robots.
The sorcery interference that had been torturing me — I needed a countermeasure.
The robot legion operated just fine despite the sorcery interference.
They possessed absurd defensive capabilities, and they were clearly using sorcery of their own.
The answer was that each robot had been fitted with sorcery that neutralized the interference.
Sorcery that interfered with the interference.
My plan was to analyze it, replicate it, and use it to turn the tide.
The construction was incredibly complex, and it had been cleverly hidden, so the analysis took a painfully long time — but once it was complete, I should be able to flip the situation in one stroke.
I focused on evasion while advancing the analysis simultaneously.
Even with thought acceleration pushed to its limits, I couldn't dodge by watching the bullets.
I had to read the robots' movements, predict the trajectory of the projectiles before they were fired, and get out of that trajectory in advance.
If I waited until they were shot, it was already too late.
If it were just one robot, that would've been manageable — but with a whole swarm of them, my processing capacity couldn't possibly keep up, and frankly, there wasn't even enough space to dodge with bullets filling the air.
Still, to minimize the damage, I darted around this way and that, trying to keep the robots off-balance.
It had been a while since I'd pushed my brain to its limits.
Evasion, analysis.
My head felt like it was about to explode.
No, it actually did explode.
I—I'm—getting—shot!
The humanoid head was cleanly blown off.
Idiot!
That was part of my main body!
Oh no.
Bad, bad, bad.
With the humanoid brain gone, my processing speed plummeted.
In this environment where recovery was unlikely, this would normally be a fatal injury.
Well, I had Endurance and Immortality.
Even the sorcery interference couldn't shut down those two Skills.
Truly, those were broken-as-hell abilities.
Despite the sorcery interference laid across this facility being advanced enough to significantly cripple even my capabilities, those overpowered Skills functioned without a hitch.
As long as my body stayed somewhat intact, I could still move.
With the humanoid head crushed, though, if the spider-type brain also got destroyed, things could get dicey.
And just as I was thinking that, the leisure I'd had to take my time ran out.
Without the humanoid brain, my evasion became sloppy.
My right arm, which had already been half-severed, got blown clean off.
Several of my legs were taken out as well.
Bullets grazed the torsos of both the humanoid and spider bodies.
Now I was truly in trouble.
And just when things reached that critical point, the analysis finally finished.
Based on the results, I immediately deployed a hastily replicated sorcery.
Spotting and breaking an enemy's spell formula mid-combat in such a short time — I really am a genius.
The effect was spectacular.
Since it was an improvised spell, it was inferior to the original versions embedded in the robots, but at the very least it was enough to restore my Status somewhat.
From there, things became fairly one-sided.
Bullets that had previously grazed me and peeled away my flesh no longer inflicted fatal damage even on a direct hit.
The damage wasn't zero, but I didn't even need to use a robot as a shield anymore.
My wounds had begun to heal too — slowly, but steadily.
In the end, I couldn't cast proper magic, but I was able to beat the robots into scrap.
I punched them, slashed them with my scythes, and even flung them around.
And just like that, I wiped out the entire robot legion.
I had braced myself for a Death Return, but I managed to pull through.
After annihilating the robots, I disabled the sorcery interference covering the facility.
All it took was destroying the machines generating the interference.
The instant I did, my battered body began to regenerate.
The humanoid head that had been blown off grew back to normal, and my right arm sprouted anew.
Ah, that was brutal.
But I did it.
Hehehe.
Now came the fun part.
I thoroughly searched the facility.
Robots that maintained other robots.
An air purification system for functional preservation.
And so on.
And in the deepest part of the facility, I found what I had been searching for.
A massive machine.
The energy contained within it was of an inconceivable magnitude.
And yet, that energy continued to grow with every passing moment.
An MA Energy Generator.
That machine was the root cause that had spawned the greatest Taboo of all.
A thing whose very existence was unforgivable — the thing that had set the world on its path to destruction.
Well, well — so one of them was still operational.
I destroyed the device and recovered a palm-sized orb called the core, where energy was stored.
With this, the machine could never collect energy again.
But all the energy it had accumulated up to this point was concentrated in this core.
I placed the core into my inventory and retraced my path through the facility, destroying everything as I went.
Then I returned to the spot piled high with robot wreckage and began dismantling them one by one.
What I was after were the cores embedded in the robots.
Their capacity was smaller than the one from the MA Energy Generator, but each robot should have had a core built in.
The cores were located inside the torso, and I extracted them from each unit.
I spread the collected cores across the floor.
Some had been damaged in combat and had lost their energy, but even so, I had gathered a considerable number.
If I added up the energy from every single one, the total would be insane.
If it were converted into pure destructive power, it would vaporize the entire surrounding area.
It should be enough to casually trigger a natural disaster.
The energy the ancient people of this world had created to satisfy their own greed.
An energy that could be called the life force of this planet itself.
Hehehe.
This is it. This is what I came for.
I forced my way through a disadvantageous situation for this, after all!
I have every right to claim these as war trophies!
If Girigiri were here, he'd definitely confiscate them.
Well, I can't exactly leave something this dangerous lying around, can I?
But Girigiri isn't here.
The odds of beating the robot legion had been slim, and there was always the chance Girigiri could have crashed the fight midway.
So I'd gone in thinking I'd be lucky just to walk away with anything — but to actually pull it off like this?
Thank you, God!
Ah, but that's not you I'm talking to, D!
If I integrate this much energy, a substantial level-up should be in store.
The knowledge of the Taboo included a spell formula for absorbing this kind of energy.
For a human, absorbing this much energy would be suicide — but for me, I should be able to handle it.
If things went well, this might even let me surpass the Demon King.
And so, I cast the spell on the gathered cores.
The spell magically bound me to the cores, channeling the energy stored within them into me.
...Huh? Not much of a change?
That's strange?
Still thinking that, I finished absorbing the energy from every last core.
Hm?
Wait...
Something's off?
I expected some kind of change — a level-up, something — after absorbing the cores.
But nothing.
Did it fail?
No, no.
The spell formula was perfect.
The energy in the cores was clearly depleted now.
It had definitely transferred into me.
Just as a hint of anxiety began to creep in, it happened without warning.
[Proficiency has reached a certain threshold. Skill "Divine Domain Expansion LV9" has become "Divine Domain Expansion LV10"] [Conditions met. Divinization will now begin] An unbearable shock surged outward from within me.
And then, I simply lost consciousness.