No, it couldn't be a robot. It had to be something else. A piece of metal shouldn't show up in thermal scans, right? The scanner must be broken. After all, his perception should have alerted him already if anyone was around him.
That's what Ashton would have thought before increasing his intelligence. But now he knew better than that.
"What am I even thinking? Of course, they can show up on the scans. They have to have a power source within themselves and the power source would inevitably release heat." Ashton faintly mumbled as more and more automatons walked into his sights, "Damn… I've started talking like Baiter."
Slowly more and more of them revealed themselves. They kept coming until their number was well over 30. At that point, Ashton stopped counting them and began thinking about countering them instead.
The robots didn't attack him like before but calmly walked towards him. As they did, he realised his go to classes were useless against these metallic bastards. They don't have blood so using [Aggravate] was out of the question and so was [Blood Poison].
Also, the necromancy skills were in cooldown and would remain so for about an hour. So calling out Sven and the wolves was out of the question.
As much as Ashton wanted to use [Revenge] on them, he had to save it for later. According to his assumption, these zones within the maze were more like trials. Trials that one needed to overcome in order to reach the treasury of the palace.
That being said, Ashton was more or less sure of the fact that these robots weren't the last of his enemies. More would come and when they did, he would need his abilities more than ever. He simply couldn't use them as he pleased. Especially the skills with absurdly long cooldown periods like that of Revenger class.
"Well, looks like it's time to go old school."
At that moment, Ashton realised how much he had been depending on his class abilities rather than the strength of his fighting style and techniques.
[Skill: Battle tactics has been activated.]
[Perk: Reflex has been activated.]
It was Ashton's turn to go offensive now. The human-sized robots did not hesitate either. A dozen of them charge into the fight while the rest of them watched the action carefully. Ashton thought it was weird considering their initial attack. But he wasn't complaining.
As long as they attacked him in small groups, he was more than happy to indulge them. On top of that, the automatons had their weakness exposed to him… their glowing chest.
It took Ashton little to no effort to recognise what it could have been. It was their power source, their heart. As long as he was able to destroy that, the automatons wouldn't be able to do shit.
But coming up with a plan and executing it were two different things. Ashton had no difficulty in destroying the first couple of automatons that were within his reach. But things quickly took a turn.
As Ashton went to destroy the next automaton's heart, it got buried deep within its chest. Instead, what he ended up destroying was some sort of an explosive.
"Son of bitch!" Ashton snarled as blood dripped out of his pale white cheeks.
The egg-shaped explosive was filled with poisoned shrapnel, most of which had met their mark. The [Nemean Hide] was able to protect his torso, but not his face. If he hadn't turned his head around at the last possible moment, at least one of his eyes would have been lost right then and there.
On a positive note, neither he was feeling any pain, nor was the poison strong enough to hurt him in any way. Both pain resistance and poison resistance were doing their job well. Also, Ashton was a bit more… attentive now.
'These fckers are full of tricks… I need to be careful.' Ashton carefully took some steps back.
His eyes were scanning the automatons, noticing their slightest movements. Earlier Ashton thought it would be easy to handle these metallic shells. But now he was realising how wrong he had been.
These robots weren't simply boxes of metal. They were more sophisticated than anything Ashton had ever fought. Even the night creatures weren't as unpredictable as them. But just that, Ashton had a light bulb moment.
"If I'm having a hard time against them, there are a lot of people who will feel the same." he smirked while wiping the blood off of his face, "I guess, I should let Baiter have a look at them. With the reproduction skill of his, he just might be able to make some for me."
At that moment, Ashton had made up his mind. Earlier he wanted to get rid of automatons to proceed to the next room. But now, he wanted to store them in his inventory in as perfect condition as possible.
But while he was planning his next move, the automatons had already made their own. Ashton was completely surrounded. Without wasting a single moment, one of the automaton's lashed out. This time, with a short blade that was attached to their forearm.
Thanks to [Battle Tactics] and [Reflex], Ashton was easily able to dodge the attack by sidestepping at the last moment. But as he did, yet another automaton lunged at him.
However, this time Ashton wasn't fazed. He had more or less expected something like this to happen the moment they had surrounded him. He executed a flawless backflip over the automaton, grabbed its head and ripped it off with ease.
"Tsk… so much for keeping them intact." Ashton shook his head before throwing the severed head at the automaton standing next to him, knocking it over as well.
He then proceeded to rip its power source out and stored it inside the inventory.
"Baiter's automatons wouldn't be of any use if he couldn't replicate the power source in some capacity." He turned to face the automatons once again who now had a variety of weapons drawn, "I guess keeping one or two of you intact would do. As for the rest…. well, you'll have to make do with being spare parts."