[/System_power_reserve:82%]

[/System_effectiveness: 93%]

[/System_power_consumption: 155%]

The machine tags the unknown creature as it quietly watches the wounded Evolved Hiveravagers hissing and screeching loudly while standing near the unknown creature. The machine has never seen nor fought against anything like that before, but the machine has seen what it is capable of, and the machine assumes it gonna be a hard fight.

"Urchin...You first?."

Erika whispers with a worried chuckle as she moves her head a bit to look up at the machine, however, this action has startled evolved hiveravagers and greater hivewarrior as they screeches loudly and leaps toward the machine and the knight with their pincers and blade arms wide open.

[/Collision_warning]

[/Forcebladev1_maximum_power]

"Aura slash!"

Both the machine and the knight reply by swinging their sword at the leaping evolved hiveravagers to cut their exposed wings as they jump aside to dodge the leaping greater hivewarrior in the middle.

As their swords slice off the evolved hiveravagers' wings, the greater hivewarrior extends its arm-blade even wider as it screeches loudly, both Pioneer and Erika got grazed and lost a bit of their armor in the sudden attack, but they are still fine and only consider their injuries to be 'minor wound' as they quickly make some distance between themselves and the greater hivewarrior.

[/Scanning_lifeform]

[/Running_simulation]

The machine spends some of its dedicated processing power into finding the creature's weak points as it raises up the air rifle and tries shooting at the creature while Erika performs another Aura Slash, their attacks even when combined only do minimal damage to the armoured spider however, and it is actually making the creature even angrier as the evolved hiveravagers nearby quickly charge at the two again to distract them for the greater hivewarrior to pick its desired prey.

"Spirits of the void, heed my calling, grant me power and take my mana, shroud me in darkness and strike my enemies!, Ethereal Accel!"

Erika focuses her skill on the weakened evolved hiveravagers to finish them off before switching her target to the greater hivewarrior, but before she can leap at the creature to deliver the final blow of her skill, the greater hivewarrior struck her down first with its magical skill.

"Specter of Blizzard...consume my mana and crush my enemy!. Poison Ice Lance!"

Erika was blown away by the purple ice lance as it almost pierced her torso armor, fortunately, the girl's body was caught by the machine as it saved her from getting impaled into the wall by breaking the ice lance with its other hand.

[/Objective_failed: Erika was wounded]

The machine quickly steps away from the greater hivewarrior as Erika casts Greater Heal on her body again, her mana reserve is going low and she soon won't be able to cast Greater Heal if this keeps up.

"Thanks...Urchin."

Erika coughs a few time while speaking as the machine lowers her down on the ground gently before it looks over at the greater hivewarrior, who is now preparing to leap at the two again.

"Run."

The machine speaks with its secondary text to voice system as it sweeps its hand to push the girl away before it quickly charges at the greater hivewarrior with the force blade retracted to prepare for a heavy strike on the bug. The greater hivewarrior also leaps toward Pioneer with its arm-blade extended and readied to impale the machine as soon as it is in range.

[/Kinetic_barrier_online]

[/Overcharging_kinetic_barrier]

[/Kinetic_barrier_at_30%]

The machine plays its last hidden ace as it activates the power hungry kinetic barrier and lures the monster into striking it while swinging its left arm at the bug's head.

As their attacks connect, the spider's arm-blades get severely burned by the super heated green plasma cloud as it penetrates and de-stabilize the kinetic barrier's ionized forcefield, and the spider also gets punched and has an electrified sword pierced through the carapace on its head and is now zap-frying its brain up.

However the creature is not going to get killed that easily, the spider is still alive and it want to be the one who will come out of the battle alive as it screeches loudly before pushing both of its arm blades down on the machine, piercing its shoulder platings and ripping the synthetic muscle fibers beneath it in the process.

"Don't even think about hogging this kill for yourself, you 4 legged urchin!"

Erika shouts loudly as she runs to the side of the spider and tries cutting one of its legs by quickly slashing it multiple times, however, the young paladin without any mana left to use her magic is only as good as a normal B rank footman as her sword harmlessly hitting the spider's foot as if she is trying to chop a block of thick iron ingot with a wooden stick. And all she gets in return is a simple kick that sends her flying out of the chamber and slides on the floor for quite a distance.

"...OK...You can have it for your-"

"RUN!"

The machine repeats the same word with its secondary text to speech voice system while making the 'go away' gesture at the girl without looking back, then the machine turns the waving motion into a slap for the bug's head before pulling the force blade out and dashes backward quickly. The machine is freed from the spider's arm-blade and dealt quite a good amount of damage on it, however, the machine itself also received a considerable amount of damage and its force blade is at its limit.

Erika at this point could understand the machine does not want her to stay in the area, however letting Pioneer killed by the Greater Hivewarrior here is a waste, the girl still wants to study it more, she is curious about it. And besides, she wouldn't be able to call herself a paladin anymore if she ran away from a fight and left Pioneer behind to fight for itself.

"Greater...Healing."

Erika is surprised as the monster casts a high ranked healing spell on itself and recovers from most of the damage it got previously in the fight. Creatures in this cave are certainly more powerful and scary than she has predicted.

"Go!"

Pioneer does the 'go away' gesture again to Erika as she tightens her grip on her sword and steps forward, the girl still has no intention of turning away from a battle yet as she can still fight, however before she could get back into the chamber, the machine picked up the broken door and blocked the path, stopping the girl from getting any closer as Erika quickly runs toward the door and try pushing it open.

The girl is too late, the machine has already jammed a still working metal bar through the locking holes to seal the door, effectively turning the fight into a private matter between the machine and the spider only as Erika can only watch, but she couldn't stay there for long as the bug's new reinforcement is coming toward the area fast. In her current situation, Erika has no option but to flee from the area as fast as she could, looking back for the last time, the young knight hopes her special 'friend' will make it out alive as she casts an illusion spell to make herself less visible to the bugs while running away from the area.

[/Objective_completed: 'Erika' safety is ensured.]

The machine and the spider stares at each other for a moment before they both charge at each other to fight, once again the bug is burned by the machine's kinetic barrier de-stabilizing effect as it deals heavy damage to the machine using its arm blades, however, the bug have an upper hand in the fight as it is fighting a heavily damaged opponent. The bug has a high chance of winning the fight.

[/Warning: Catastrophic system damage]

[/Warning: Power reserve bank punctured-Capacity is down to 25%]

[/Warning: Leg left 2 is heavily damaged]

[/Warning: System critical-34%]

[/Warning: Catastrophic system failure imminent]

The machine's force blade finally breaks into pieces as the machine tries to stab the bug's leg joint, the rifle also has run out of ammo, the machine is on the brink of destruction as it watches the bug slices off half of its damaged head.

[/Warning: Catastrophic system failure]

[/Warning: Primary Command Module destroyed]

[/Lifting_directive_44: Act of self-harming and self-destruction is allowed]

[/Warning: Unable to self-destruct]

[/Warning: Low power-11% remaining]

[/Ejecting_RTG1]

[/Ejecting_RTG2]

As the bug begins screeching in enlightenment as it has finally come close to finishing off the machine, Pioneer quickly grabs the two enriched uranium fuel rods from the RTGs in its hull and raises it up high as it looks at the bug. The bug seems to know something is up, its spider sense is tingling and it wants to take that away from the machine despite getting kicked by its remaining legs, however, the creature is too late.

"Termination progress...Completed, Kinetic ba-"

The machine's text to voice system reads out what it sees in its eyes as it pushes the two fuel rods against each other with all the strength left in it, the action squished the two fuel rods and compressed them to the point of supercritical mass, the result is a small yield nuclear explosion with the equivalent energy of nearly 8 tons of TNT that wipes out nearly everything in the chamber and causes an earthquake in the surrounding area.

"What th-!"

Erika stumbles around as she lost her balance because of the sudden earthquake and the tunnel collapsing just right behind her.

"...What have you done now...Urchin..."

Several hours later after the fireball settled down in the glassed chamber, a black box-shaped object can be seen flickering in a dim, eerie green light for a few times as it vibrates very slightly in the darkness.