Aldred sent her through the world of dreams and hallucinations. And, after a few seconds, she was ready to answer any question.
"Ask her away," Aldred said.
"Where is Victor?"
"He is in Anley."
"Where is Anley?" Aldred asked.
"It's our capital city," Naley answered.
"What is his secret weapon?"
"I don't know."
"What did he do to you?"
"He augmented my body."
The three of them looked at each other.
"So it was true," Naley said. "The secret weapon is body augmentation. I believed he was planning to make an army of super human."
"But why did he augment Sofiel. She wasn't a fighter," Stella said.
Naley frowned. She was confused by this situation as well. What good would it be to augment Sofiel? She wasn't a really good singers. Her lyrics were mediocre at best. Why pick someone so under-talented to augment?
"Did you see her fans?" Aldred asked.
"Why? Something wrong with them?"
"No. It's just they are extremely fanatical. They treated her as if she was their god. Victor did not augment her out of curiosity. He was experimenting with something. I believe he was a genius that could create robots that obey him, but people… some always manage to revolt. Like you. But what if he could create something that could make every people move according to his intention?"
"You're saying that he wants to control people with super humans?"
Aldred nodded. "True power does not only come from fighting prowess, but the ability to control others. An Emperor could be as weak as ants, but if he could order 200 Diamond Ranks, he would still be considered powerful."
"Victor… so caging the people isn't enough. He wants to control them even more."
"It's normal for dictators wanting full control over its people. But I believe he only used Duria as an experiment. Once the result was to his satisfactory, he would sent singers all over the continent, stole the hearts of every people and took over every nations from within."
"He don't even have to spill a drop of blood once that happen."
"It's a lot scarier than bigger explosions and beams attack," Stella said.
"Definitely, scarier."
"THEN YOU SHOULD KNOW NOT TO CROSS ME!" a harsh robotic voice came from Sofiel's body. Suddenly, her whole body shook and her twinkling eyes were replaced by a pair of metallic eyes.
Sofiel opened her mouth and strange sounds depicting metals grinding against metal came out and filled their head. The usual soothing and calming sound was no more. She was like an instrument from the reaper of life itself. The sound she produced could be used to torture sinners in hell.
Aldred and Stella turned off their hearing senses, but Naley could not do that. She gritted her teeth in pain.
She was after all a normal human being. One of the reason why Aldred respected her was her ability to be so brave despite being so weak.
Stella casted a spell over her, and she began to feel better.
"MY POWER CAN PIERCE THROUGH THE SENSES!"
The pain return with greater intensity this time.
But what shocked Sofiel was how disaffected Aldred and Stella were. To them. The pain was nothing. Because they were Diamond Ranks, they had greater resistance to pain and could still think logically.
But it was more like being bitten by ants.
They approached her calmly.
"Are you Victor?" Aldred asked.
"So you are Aldred. No wonder this trash couldn't harm you."
"You know my name… are you Thinker's creator?"
"Take your guess."
"So I was correct. I have been meaning to find you. Who would have thought that I will meet you so soon."
Victor was kind of annoyed that Aldred was smart to guess correctly. It was indeed him who sent Thinker and Bafni Heartwatcher. He could have sent a far stronger robots, but the curse would affect him.
"You're still a youngling in my eyes. I have lived before the Ceraisian Empire even formed."
"I know someone older than you." He pointed at Stella.
"Don't get in my way."
"You tried to kill me during my journey, threatened the safety and peace of my Empire, and now you ask me to give way? Are you a comedian? Because I really want to laugh right now."
"You will not win."
Something clicked inside Sofiel's body. Using his godly eyes, Aldred saw that a bomb was about to detonate right in Sofiel's heart.
Aldred reacted quickly. Right as the flame came out of the bomb, Aldred used his power to contain with a powerful barrier. The bomb went off but not even a sound came through. The flame and power were stuck in this small barrier the size of his palm.
Aldred teleported it away.
Sofiel rubbed her eyes and opened them. "What happened? Can I leave now?"
"You can. After I take all the device off your body," Aldred said.
"No! Don't take it away from me. They're the only reason I am loved. I don't want to… I don't want to be casted away anymore."
"Uhhh… we can give you magic. It's much better than the bombs that they put in you."
"Bombs???"
"Believe it or not, but you were about to explode earlier."
"Of course, Victor is trying to kill us."
Suddenly, a bunch of heavy robots crashed from the ceiling. They aimed their weapons and fired their plasma rifles.
"Get behind me!" Aldred slapped the plasma beam, but he failed to deflect it and it burned his skin. "These beams, they're comparable to Diamond Ranks attacks."
Aldred rushed forward and slashed thousands of times in a fraction of a second. The robot was cut into pieces almost instantly. Then Aldred moved again, magic circles forming around him, shooting fire bullets, fire spears, and fire fist at every robots accurately.
Stella moved as well. Runes appeared all over her body, and she moved nimbly, dodging all the beams, and then firing a star particles beam back which deleted everything it touched.
One robot got its upper half body completely vaporized.
After killing all the robots, a man suddenly landed from the hole on the ceiling. It was a massive man, standing nearly 2 meters tall with a green tubes all over his body, and exhaust pipes coming out of his back.
Green smokes came out of the exhaust pipe and the man rushed towards Aldred, swinging its fist.
Aldred raised his arms to block, and the ground beneath his feet cracked. "Is this the human augmentation?"
"Why are you surprised by how powerful I am?" the man asked with glee.
"Yeah. I am surprised, but because of how weak you are." Aldred spun and cut off the man's right arm, then ducked, and cut off his left leg.
The man screamed.
"Even after all of these augmentation, you still feel pain?"
"I am merely a failed experiment. My only use is to test you."
"Then Victor should see that nothing can defeat me." Aldred swung his Phantom Doomblade right at the man's neck, beheading him.
When the head rolled, Aldred engulfed the body in flame, turning it into ashes.
Aldred looked at the scared Naley and Sofiel. "Let's get out of here."
