First, let me check which of my available Skills are still usable.
I said I had no Skills, but that doesn't mean every single one is unusable.
Skills that work within the body are still effective.
Super-Accelerated Thought is working without issue. If it weren't, I wouldn't have the luxury of thinking at this leisurely pace.
Super-Accelerated Thought is good to go.
Future Sight, though — no good.
Evasion, Accuracy, and High Probability Correction — these work, right?
These Skills use the system's power to automatically make micro-adjustments to my actions, enabling me to perform the optimal movement for any given situation. In essence, they're correction Skills that let even a layperson replicate the evasion and accuracy of a seasoned warrior.
Since they're originally Skills that enhance my own technique, they don't seem to be affected by the interference.
For the same reason, Throwing should work too, probably.
I can't use the full Golden Evasion combo, but my evasion is still reasonably solid.
Magic-related Skills are completely wiped out.
Anything that exerts influence on the outside world — Telekinesis, Projectile Launch, and the like — is a no-go.
Losing Spatial Movement hurts.
Eye Skills are also wiped out.
Poison Synthesis and Potion Synthesis — any generation-type Skills — are out.
Thread is classified as a generation-type too, so it's unusable.
The various attack-boosting Skills probably don't work either. They externally supplement damage bonuses based on attributes that the system determines, so I'm thinking they're shut down as well.
This area gets a little murky, so even I can't say for certain.
The Demon God Arts and Battle God Arts Status Enhancement Skills are partially usable.
They work fine outside of that paper-thin layer.
Dragon God's Power is the same, except I can't use Magic Nullification.
Dragon Barrier is a bust.
I was hoping to counter the magic interference with the magic-nullifying effects of Dragon God's Power and Dragon Barrier, but it wasn't that easy.
The magic interference layered in this place is apparently quite advanced — it just brushed my attempts aside.
The only Skills that work are basically the ones that reinforce the physical body.
In other words, when it comes down to it, my only option is to level up and punch things with brute force.
HP Hyper-Recovery would be nice if it kicked in, but I'm not counting on it.
The robot army on the other side is fully armed — or rather, their very existence is a weapon.
They're probably not even affected by the magic interference, so I'm at a massive disadvantage.
On top of all that, these things operate on the same technology that drove the pre-system world to ruin.
Without the magic interference, I probably wouldn't lose outright, but I should assume each individual unit has dragon-class power.
And there are a hundred of them.
What do I do?
I can't just leave this place alone.
But do I even have a chance of winning?
Should I pull back for now and notify Gülie-Gülie?
No.
Even if it means reverting to a death return, I should rampage as far as I can.
If I can get back to a death return — the kind that let me escape even from the Demon King — then even magic interference shouldn't be able to stop me. Supposedly.
Fortunately, I've set up tons of escape routes. Even if I burn through them here, it won't hurt.
My Status will drop temporarily, but even if the Demon King attacks before I respawn, I can just death-return to a different egg.
And if, by some miracle, I can subdue this place on my own, I might get my hands on one of those ahead of Gülie-Gülie.
A facility this large — there's no way they don't have one.
I want it. Badly.
If I get one, I might be able to accelerate my plans.
Even factoring in death returns, it's worth the try.
And if I fail, Gülie-Gülie will just clean up after me anyway.
So, with that lengthy chain of thought concluded, I switch over to combat.
The robot is getting back on its feet and reaching for its weapon.
I spent that long thinking, and the opponent only just entered battle stance.
Super-Accelerated Thought is truly something else.
Without magic, all I can do is fight up close.
If I let an armed opponent keep their distance, I'm done for.
I dash toward the nearest robot and close the gap.
My speed — hasn't dropped that much, has it?
Or am I imagining it? My feet hurt.
I grit my teeth through the pain and use my forward momentum to slam a punch straight into the robot's torso.
The robot goes flying.
Hard!?
Painful!?
Whoa.
The skin on my punching hand is torn open.
Come to think of it, my paper-thin layer of defensive power is gone.
Even the recoil from my own attacks deals damage to me.
That's why my feet hurt, too.
Without Pain Nullification, that alone would've made me flinch.
But thanks to Pain Nullification, I can acknowledge the pain and ignore it.
Recovery — nothing.
There's a tiny bit of healing happening, it seems, but visually there's almost no change.
It's just a graze, but full recovery will probably take over an hour.
I should assume there's no healing available.
While thinking that, I move to follow up on the robot I sent flying.
Or rather, I try to.
The other robots opened fire to cover it.
Without Future Sight, my evasion was a split-second slower than usual, but I managed to escape the line of fire before they could pull the trigger.
Bullets streak past me at speeds I can barely perceive even with Super-Accelerated Thought and my enhanced senses.
Are you serious.
Even with Super-Accelerated Thought and full sensory enhancement, I could barely see them.
If those are aimed at me, there's no dodging.
At this rate, I'll be Swiss cheese in no time.
The worst part is that the robots' guns appear to be rapid-fire machine guns.
Automatic fire at that speed? It's a nightmare.
I immediately close in on the downed robot.
Me using the robot as a shield and the hail of gunfire from the squad happened at nearly the same instant.
Countless bullets slam into the robot I'm using as cover.
A part of my body that wasn't hidden gets blown off by the rounds.
Not pierced — blown clean off.
What kind of firepower is this!?
And how is this robot's armor holding up to that!?
But even the robot's armor is starting to give way.
If this keeps up, the bullets will punch through before long.
I wrench the gun from the robot's hand.
A round grazes my arm and tears through it in the process, but I can't afford to worry about that right now.
With my right hand hanging on by half and flopping uselessly, I switch the gun to my left hand.
I poke the barrel through a gap in the robot's body and pull the trigger.
The recoil jolts through my arm like crazy.
Good thing I switched hands.
If I'd pulled the trigger with my right, it would've been completely torn off.
I return fire at the robots.
But it's one versus roughly a hundred.
Given the size of the building, only about ten are firing at me directly, but that's still a factor of ten.
I'm also running low on ammo, and it's obvious I'll be overwhelmed soon.
I keep pulling the trigger while pressing forward, using the robot as my shield.
Every time a bullet hits the robot, the impact nearly knocks me off my feet, but I clench my teeth and keep moving.
Then I charge body-first into the squad of robots that had formed a firing line.
I toss the shield robot — which has lost all semblance of its original shape — aside and grab the next robot in front of me to use as my new shield.
At this point, I'm fully prepared to go down in a blaze of glory.