Waking the slumbering creature hiding in the depths

John really didn't enjoy the way he took care of these robots. Sure, kiting and taking potshots at the enemies with his Mana Daggers was quite effective when he hit (which was actually quite hard once he had to throw below him), but it was just such a boring tactic. He already hated doing it while playing MMOs because that relied heavily on abusing the enemy pathfinding and often dodgy animations. Sure, there was some point to it that he had to have enough Agility to do that, but other than that it was just a totally boring way to play any game...

But, if his options were either that or get killed by an angry mob of super-strong robots, he would rather take the boring route that would ensure his survival. And thanks to his Parkour and his Flash Step he sure as hell was faster than the bot crawling up the wall and climbing the stairs behind him while he wall-jumped himself up the stories.

Once he reached the top he was left with three robots climbing up behind him, either killing the rest with the daggers or by kicking them off the structure and letting the fall damage do the rest. But up here, there were no real obstacles and he was able to look over the whole dome. All in all, it wasn't really that big, maybe a kilometer in diameter, but from below it sure seemed like it was a lot larger than that thanks to its streets and the fill of deserted cars. Taking the time to hastily catch his breath, John quickly looked at the scoreboard:

Enemies remaining: 7
Time Left: 9:39
John N.: 96
Brunhilde G.: 97
Astrid G.: 0

Brunhilde was ahead of him now, damn! Now he really needed to push himself, especially because there had to be four bots still roaming around that weren't on his tail, seeing as how there were four more than he had on his tail. Thankfully, he should be able to deal with these bots quickly by now.

As the first one climbed over the ledge, it was instantly greeted by a Mana Dagger into the head.

38 DMG

Sadly, he did not have enough time to create another dagger to throw at the next two bots, because John was attacked from behind. A slash of cold metal went through his back as his eyes widened in pain.

Backstab! 2x Damage!
-32 HP (Defense Subtracted)
New Status: Bleeding 2, lose 2 HP/s for the next 10s. Additional stacks of Bleeding will extend the time and increase the damage

John's mind could barely react with a dodge roll to the side as the weapons swung down at him again, and as John could see now, these weapons were claws. Standing above him was a different kind of robot, very different from the robots he had fought so far. Where the 'low' robots had barely any plating and had a lot of exposed wires, these things were fully encased in plates with no wire protruding from anywhere. This robot was designed... distinct. It was mostly black and white in color with various details, like the claws coming out of the hands, glowing in a kind of gold. The robot was humanoid as well, but it was a lot more slender and feminine than the rest of the robots and it had big cat-ear-like things on top of its head. It also had paws like a cat, one of which was still stuck in the ground.

This robot also seemed to be smarter, or at least smart enough to talk, "Nyaa~ Why did the stupid fleshbag dodge? We want to play!" Okay, John wasn't really sure if he preferred that to the silent jittering of the other bots, but it was certainly unnerving hearing a "neko-bot" with his blood dripping off its claw and talking in such a cheery voice. He looked at the robot with doubt in his eyes and carefully asked, "And why do you want to 'play' with me?" Was this the boss? It didn't make any sense that it would spawn already... Hopefully, Observe would solve that mystery.

John could see why they were assassin bots, seeing as how the thing was able to sneak up on him without him hearing it. The bot sounded really cool and could be highly useful for John, but there were some questions nagging in the back of his head. Namely, would he be able to use Bond on it? This was the first enemy that was a higher level than him that he was considering to bond with, and would that even properly count since he had to kill all the enemies in this Barrier? (Would it even count towards the amount? Or was it counting as some kind of special mini-boss that he triggered with the alarm?)

The assassin bot started to purr, "Because you've been naughty, fleshbag, and naughty people nyeed to be dealt with~" Meanwhile it started to pull the claw out of the ground, leaving deep gashes in the floor. John used that opportunity and took out another one of the bots with a Mana Dagger, taking it out immediately while it tumbled to the floor in front of the other robot, making it fall on the concrete of the rooftop

At the same moment, the dome above John cracked loudly again, but this time it wasn't as harmless as before. The lower parts of the dome started to become leaky and water started to flood in. John could see how the park he was in just a couple of minutes ago was starting to fill up with water, swallowing the trees and overgrowth in it.

John's mind was racing by now, but he didn't have the time to think about what to do next, as the cat-bot pounced on him and tried to slash him again with the claws protruding from its paws. As John dodged the wide attack, he quickly put his hand on the bot and tried to channel Bond, only to be met with this message:

Bond failed! Automatons and beasts have to be of equal or lower level than the user. Please try again later.

Oh ha ha, very funny... That thought left his mind though as another searing pain ran through his body, this time coming from his leg. While he dodged the bot's attack with its front claws, it extended its hind claws to slice at him while still in the air.

-10 HP (Defense Subtracted)
New Status: Bleeding 1

9 DMG (Armor), Elemental weakness, 3x Damage
Enemy stunned for 1.5 seconds

Right! He still had the effect on his armor that gave the hitter a small percentage of damage, but thankfully it was electric damage, which worked perfectly against these bots! Using the time the bot was stunned, John quickly used his Charge, Vault and Mana Charge to slam into the thing with his most powerful attack he could use right now. Aiming for the head was taking a too big risk of it dodging here, so he rather took the safe shot into the chest.

Vault Applied! 2x Damage, Bonus damage added!
**** Area! 1.5x Damage!
Enemy Stunned! 1.5x Damage!
Physical Damage multiplier: 4.5x
32 DMG + 20 DMG (Vault) + 5 DMG (Mana Charge)

Damn, that nerf might've hit him harder than he thought... By now the cat was starting to move again, but a helper he didn't really think about quickly helped him to get another strike: Gary. The little guy was by now on the roof as well (and John felt really bad for the fact that he forgot to take Gary with him) and shot his sticky fluid onto the legs of the assassin bot, making it stumble, while also gnawing on the ankles of the last robot, who didn't really know what to do. John meanwhile took the time throw everything he could into another attack against that bot.Mana Dagger, Charge,Vault, Mana Charge, striking at the chest once again.

Vault Applied! 2x Damage, Bonus damage added!
**** Area! 1.5x Damage!
Enemy Trapped! 1.5x Damage!
Physical Damage multiplier: 4.5x
44 DMG + 20 DMG (Vault) + 6 DMG (Mana Charge) + 38 DMG (Dagger)

The cat bot then hissed at John and cut itself free from the webs, pinning it to the ground, "The fleshbag doesn't play nice! He has buzzy things and sticky stuff! Bad Fleshbag!" then the automaton jumped at him again, trying to slash him.

Thankfully, the thing took long enough with its talking to refresh the cooldown on Mana Dagger, which he then proceeded to ram into the chest of the bot.

Counter successful! Bonus damage added
**** Area! 1.5x Damage!
Physical Damage Multiplier: 1.5x
Critical Hit! 2x Damage!
114 DMG (Mana Dagger) + 57 DMG (Counter)

The cat collapsed in on itself, hissing in its last moments as it shut down, "Baaaaad Fleshbaaaaaag!" and then it was quiet once again. And once again, John's last attack was a total overkill.

Well, it wasn't really quiet, now that John actually had a second to catch his breath; there was quite a lot of sound from the water rushing in around him and the spider hacking away at the last remaining robot.

Speaking of water, John immediately tried to contact both Brunhilde and Astrid while moving in the direction of the latter once he finished Gary's work and took him with him. For now, he would travel on the rooftops so he didn't have to bother with the water underneath him. Astrid was the first one to respond and it immediately made John worry, "John I tried to reach you, but you were seemingly very busy with something. There's something coming into the alley, I think it's searching for me." Shit, that wasn't good, especially if that was another one of those assassin bots. 'Don't move, I'll be there soon!' Meanwhile, he got a response from Brun, 'Yo, did you have one of those fucking bouncy cat robots as well?'

'Yeah, I did, and I think another one's going for Astrid!', was his mental response as he kept jumping and flinging himself from rooftop to rooftop.

'FUCK! And now the water is getting here as well, great.' So the water wasn't coming in from every side equally, that's good to know, so maybe Astrid was dry still? Looking beneath him onto the street he could indeed see that there were parts of the street that were yet dry. But his relief about that quickly got washed away as he didn't receive another answer from Astrid.

'Astrid? Astrid!' He could feel she was there, and he could feel her emotions, stress, uncertainty, and most of all: fear. And just as he was getting to the point above the alleyway, there was a big explosion in the alley that blew him back from the edge. Pulling himself up, he quickly crawled to the corner of the roof and looked down. There was only smoke and he couldn't see anything. Now fear was gripping his own heart as he desperately screamed her name into the smoke. Brun arrived a couple of seconds later and landed next to John, her face pale and void of emotions. Both of them didn't really expect anything to rise up from the smoke, but after some time a figure rose from the burning alley that was quickly getting doused from the now arriving masses of water. The thing that rose from the alley was something that stopped John's heart for a second.

From that alley rose the mechanical angel that John saw killing him in his vision, holding the cat bot in her clawed hand.