"And how are we going to do that?" Sairi said, watching the battle.
Sairi didn’t get a reply. He looked toward Ares, and his eyes widened in astonishment. For a fleeting moment, he thought Gaia had teleported and was now standing next to him. Before he could react, the response came.
"Don’t be afraid, this is me, Ares. And now, I think you understand the plan well."
Suddenly, Ares’s voice changed, becoming remarkably similar to Gaia’s. He said, watching the bullets coming toward them, "That fool Gaia made a big mistake. In the video he showed us, he said that the robots are controlled by voice. So I’m going to take a risk and try to stop them."
Sairi smiled a sly smile as he imagined the upcoming scenario. He leaped to his feet again after catching his breath, his body slightly reinvigorated, and whispered to Ivanov to move forward and get them closer to the generator. He nodded and began to walk forward, the bullets hitting his steel body without having the slightest effect on him. As humans and machines fell one after another, and women and children screamed in fear, Ares felt he had to hurry, or everyone would be wiped out. He returned to his normal form and motioned with his hand for five young men to follow him. They followed his orders without hesitation, firing from behind Ivanov, who was a human shield for them. They took down the robots one by one until they had covered half the distance. Ares transformed into Gaia, and the young men behind him were terrified, but Sairi signaled for them not to be afraid. Ares took a deep breath, knowing that this was a risk that could cost him his life, but it was necessary to get out of this predicament. Ares signaled for Sairi to protect him if the plan failed, so he could go back and hide behind Ivanov again. He came out from behind Ivanov in the form of Gaia and began to walk forward with Sairi behind him, on high alert. The machines stopped firing for a moment and began to stare at him, recognizing their master’s face.
"Stop firing," Ares commanded them.
The machines stopped, and his plan succeeded. The humans took advantage of this situation and fired fiercely at the machines, destroying them one after another. Ares said to himself, "I can’t believe it, the plan worked because these machines are not the intelligent type I saw in the city. They are cold war machines that only do what their owner commands."
Ares signaled for one of the men holding a rocket launcher to fire at the generator. He jumped up with enthusiasm and fired at the generator, which exploded with great force, its parts scattering throughout the building. The energy it was broadcasting throughout the city began to die out, and the crystal stopped supplying it with power, but it remained suspended in the air. Suddenly, the machines stopped working and fell one after another. The prisoners cheered loudly, tears of joy streaming from their eyes. Hope was renewed in their hearts as they had escaped this imminent death. But many of them had fallen and died (about twenty people), including women, children, the elderly, and men. Those who had a loved one who had died wept bitterly over their bodies, while some refused to leave the bodies of their loved ones and escape. But the rest forcibly dragged them to flee this hell, or they would join them. Ares and Ivanov returned to their normal forms. Ares began to give orders to everyone.
"We have to escape from here now," he said, pointing to the exit door as the building began to collapse on them. "I don’t know when that wretch might return. And now, it’s either escape or we die here."
Everyone decided to escape. Ares ran out of the building, and everyone followed him. They came out into the magnificent city, and its beauty and amazing architecture, which was characterized by a strange style, enchanted them. Some buildings were spiral-shaped, others circular like a coffee cup, some were triangular, there were buildings that extended high in an undulating manner, and some looked like a glass sphere, while the colors of the buildings were vibrant and very beautiful, a mixture of all the breathtaking and bright colors. The ground beneath them was made of glass, and under it flowed a stream of overflowing blue energy. But this was not the time to admire it. They focused all their concentration on escaping from this place. Ares noticed that the power source had stopped flowing under the glass.
Ares didn’t know where to go, but he remembered the place he had come from well. It was an aircraft hangar. He headed toward it and continued to run with everyone at his heels.
A little girl fell to the ground. A man picked her up from the ground and continued running. Everyone was helping each other to get out of here. The young men helped the elderly to escape, and some carried the children and ran with them, while they looked at the sleeping machines in the streets because the crystal’s power had been disconnected from them. But these machines were different from the ones that had been fighting them; they looked more human. Gaia had made machines that resembled his people, to create his own living world. But what aroused Ares’s curiosity was that the flying cars were suspended in the air without moving and did not fall despite the loss of power to the city and the robots stopping their movement. He didn’t pay much attention to the matter and turned right and left throughout the city while everyone followed him, hoping that he would guide them to safety.
"Do you know the way, or are you just running us around the city randomly?" Ivanov said in a gruff tone as he ran behind him.
"Don’t worry," Ares said, panting. "I... know... where... we... have to go."
Ivanov fell silent and put his trust in him. After running for another three minutes, they finally reached the aircraft hangar. Everyone entered it, and inside were many strange-looking aircraft. The aircraft were without wings or propellers; they were more like a large, rectangular room, curved at the front. Ares knew they were for transport only, not for war, so he was amazed by their mechanism. Everyone began to jump into the aircraft, but Ares stopped them and asked who had experience in flying aircraft. Ten men raised their hands. There were more than a hundred aircraft, but ten were more than enough to carry them all. Ares distributed them among the aircraft, and everyone jumped inside, then they began to try to understand their mechanism. They were no different from human aircraft in anything but the language, but who needs language when you have experience? Nᴇw ɴovel chaptᴇrs are published on 𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹✶𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗲✶𝗻𝗲𝘁
Ivanov went to one of the aircraft and sat in the driver’s seat. He then opened the map and began to look at the unfamiliar places on it. He realized his destination: it was the neighboring continent. This planet consisted of two large, adjacent continents connected by a strangely shaped bridge, and some small continents around them.
"It’s true. We are not on our planet", Ivanov said bitterly.
They all looked at him with dark eyes.
He pressed some buttons on the control panel until the aircraft started to work. The engines roared loudly as the aircraft rose smoothly into the air, followed by the rest of the aircraft carrying the remaining prisoners. They then began to head toward the other continent. But before they moved, one of the aircraft behind them exploded. Everyone looked back toward the city and saw Gaia standing on the shoulder of a giant, armored robot covered in a mixture of brown and yellow, resembling the ancient pharaohs of Egypt.
"That bastard is stealing human heritage and shaping it into damned robots," Ares said, his eyes wide with astonishment.