Chapter 369: Steel Earth Cleared

Iron Commandment obviously did not expect that after Edward and the others left, they would show up once again with a whole bunch of people.

In fact, its processing speed lagged for a moment before it directed the teapot and cage automatons once again to capture the Players.

Still, in contrast to the automatons who fought in a singular style, once there was an increased number of Players with their diverse skills, their combat ability increased exponentially

Holy Lancers and other heavy-armor units would assume formations that easily stopped the teapot rush, while mages staying at the rear would fire their spells. Using the three-stage tactic as one would employ a matchlock squad, they would bombard the advancing foes with an endless, all-encompassing attack.

At the same time, aside from killing more targets, Shadow Rogues and Spirit Swordsmen who could summon spirit familiars had the more important task of finding a breakthrough.

And after about half an hour, the good news was posted on the player forums.

(Terrosche: We found a hidden room that the Boss might be in.)

[Silva: The one inside is called ‘Iron Guardian’, a teapot we never saw before.)

(Edward: Good job. Now come back and don’t do anything reckless.)

(Terrosche: Got it!]

[Edward: What?]

(Edward: No, wait. What did you guys get?]

(Terrosche: We’re going in!]

(Silva: In the name of the God of Games!)

(Edward: ???]

[Terrosche: We died!]

(Silva: The teapots breathe fire.]

(Edward: …]

Were those two here to have a laugh?

Whatever the case might be, the location of the hidden room where they died was marked on the shared minimap that the Players all charted.

Hence, a small division of elite Players built around Edward’s party split out of the Players’ ranks, and charged confidently towards the hidden room.

And when he eventually saw the building marked on the map, Joe can’t help being surprised, “Isn’t it a little obvious for a hidden room?”

It was a cross-shaped steel building that stood around fifty meters tall. While it did not stand out in Steel Earth, it was still rather conspicuous-no wonder the Lucky Koi Brothers found it so quickly out of all the buildings nearby…

And when the teapot and cage automatons realized that the Players’ target was the cross-shaped building, their attack became fiercer, which only proved that the Players found the right target. The Boss of this floor, or indeed their target was definitely inside!

But just as they were about to break into the building, Edward who was in the lead suddenly paused and slowly turned around.

Although the others were confused at least, they followed Edward’s gaze and realized what he was doing, and therefore stared in the same direction.

That naturally startled Marni, who was being stared by every other Player. Though they did not say it, their eyes were communicating the intention, ‘Do you want to try dying as an offering?’ “I’ve already died once!” He therefore cried in fright. “A cleric brought me back!”

Even though there was no telling if that offering works, the Players had yet to completely lost their humanity and really demand that Marni die.

And after making some adjustments, the group charged into the cross-shaped building

And as the Lucky Koi Brothers had reported, the monsters there were elite monsters called ‘Iron Guardian’ instead of the normal teapots. Almost each of them had level 40 basic stats and were most immune to debuffs, making them quite tough.

If not for their lack of variety in attack and simple combat tactics, Players of the same level would not win against these bucketheads.

It was therefore fortunate that the Players present were all elites, and though they were constrained by facing those level 40 targets in a narrow path, they did not have a hard time aside from being slightly obstructed.

Soon, they broke past the Iron Guardians’ blockade and charged into the core area of the building

At first, Edward thought that he would find a room full of ice-cold magitek equipment laden in heavy iron plates, the Players were left stunned when they entered.

The central room of the building was like a fairytale realm. There were gentle, beautiful sights everywhere with trees and mushrooms that grew up into the air-even the screen that displayed the state of all of Steel Earth was made into the reflection of a lake, making it appear both lively and interesting.

Nonetheless, a careful look would reveal that everything within the room was made from metals as well. The lake was liquid mercury, the tree leaves composed of malleable alloy slides-even the butterflies that occasionally perched on the flowers had gears for wings…

And at the center of the room was a sphere composed of gears, axles as well as various other machine structures. It seemed that every part had been working flawlessly until now.

The words ‘Iron Commandment’ hovered above the machine sphere.

“It’s over now, surrender! We will spare you because you did not intend to kill us from the start!” Edward shouted loudly then.Iron Commandment, however, was unmoved, and continued repeating itself, “Friends of my master needs to be protected. You need refuge and accommodation… please do not resist, it would soon be over and everything would be better…”

Edward frowned.

“It’s broken,” Marni said, clapping him on his shoulder. “We can’t communicate with it, and the only thing we could do now is to completely destroy it. If you really feel bad about it, you can bring its remains to Miss Kinley and see if she could rebuild it.”

“No, I’m not that weak.” Edward remained impassive as he shrugged off Marni’s hand. “It’s regrettable, but it seems that we can’t ask it about the Eternal Archives.”

“Accommodation… accommodation…” Iron Commandment’s spherical body began to shift then as it materialized chainsaws, drills, bone cutters, spears, and many other weird things, seemingly intent on attacking Players.

Nonetheless, it was merely an object similar to an AI that occupies the rear, and its actual strength was lacking-in fact, the teapots of the fourth stratum were simply weaker than the mutated monsters of the third stratum.

Upon the combined strike of several Players, Iron Commandment’s body was promptly destroyed and reduced to a pile of spare parts littering the heavy-metal style fairytale room.

Steel Earth, the fourth stratum of the Elven SIN—cleared!