‘Easy headshot!’

After Kayden destroyed the first T-1 he approached by blasting its head apart at point blank, all the other T-1 tanks behind paused for a second. The T-1s were probably confused that a someone who appeared to be a normal human could last for so long under their bullet storm without dying, and he had even managed to destroy another one of their fellow T-1.

The T-1s cocked their heads, looking like they were trying to get a better look at Kayden in order to figure out a much more effective and efficient method to kill — or according to proper machine lingo, terminate — him.

Kayden did not wait for the T-1s to make up their minds about whatever they seemed to be trying to decide — he did not feel like he should be polite to enemies who were currently trying their best to murder him. Besides, he needed to wrap up the fight as soon as possible and rejoin his group. So, he continued his calm and slow walk towards the other T-1s further away from him.

After their few seconds of pausing to observe Kayden, T-1s seemed to have come to a decision.

But it seemed like the AI program installed in a T-1’s CPU chip was not a very bright and intelligent one.

Kayden came to this realization because after the T-1s had finished observing him, the T-1s next action was nothing to write home about. The T-1s just went ahead to repeat their original tactic which was to unleash their miniguns on Kayden and hope that he would be killed after being struck by many bullets.

“Tch. You guys should really try something else. Just shooting at me won’t cut it.” Kayden said, shaking his head and looking at the T-1s in pity.

Amidst the outpouring of bullets, Kayden slowly and calmly walked up to the front of another T-1, standing face-to-face before it.

Just like before, he placed the muzzle of his Phased Plasma Rifle on the head of the T-1, making sure to touch the muzzle to its head, and smirking arrogantly, he pulled the trigger.

“Whew!” Kayden whistled. “Another easy shot.”

“I’m in the zone right now! I can do this all day!” Kayden exclaimed in exhilaration. “Taking out trashy machines with ease sure feels amazing!”

And a second later, the seconds T-1 stopped moving. Its head was already missing from the rest of its body, having been blasted into slightly melted metal scraps like its fellows.

“Ha-ha! Watch them drop like flies!”

Kayden had been so focused on his highly enjoyable work of dispatching the T-1s that he did not notice that the T-800 Terminators at the back had started to push the last T-1 in front of them to the side in order to create the space for them to pass through to get to Kayden.

The T-800s looked like they did not want to wait for their turn and wanted to engage Kayden in battle as soon as possible. They must have realized that Kayden was too much for the T-1s to handle on their own.

Just as Kayden was about to approach and put a new hole in the head of the last T-1, he felt a cold shiver passed through his body.

He immediately looked around and saw that one of the T-800 Terminators had cleared enough space in front of itself, and instead of passing through the space to get to the front of the line, the T-800 had chosen to aim its Phased Plasma Rifle at Kayden using the space that it had freed of any obstructing T-1s.

So, Kayden found himself staring down the muzzle at a Phased Plasma Rifle pointing straight at his chest.

But instead of feeling scared, Kayden smirked arrogantly.

‘This is nothing new. I have been shot before.’ Kayden thought.

He was still in his mental state of extreme confidence due to his newly-discovered abilities.

He had full trust in his invincibility.

But in his overconfident state of mind, Kayden seemed to have forgotten that a plasma weapon was unlike a gunpowder-based weapon and that its destructive power was totally in a class of its own.

Looking at the T-800 Terminator, Kayden said, ‘You will die like all the rest. I can heal from minigun bullet wounds. Your Phased Plasma Rifle is just a bigger toy.’

After Kayden said those words, he resumed his slow walk towards the machines, but this time he chose to focus his attention on and walk towards the T-800 pointing its gun at him. He walked forward boldly, seeming to not have any fear or apprehension about the gun aimed at his chest.

The T-800 did not shoot immediately, especially after it heard what Kayden had said to it. It cocked its head slightly to side as it watched Kayden walk towards it. Withing the eye sockets of its skeletal metal head, the red glow in its eyes flashed brighter for a second before returning to its original brightness.

And then the T-800 Terminator raised its Phased Plasma Rifle’s aim higher. This time, it aimed the rifle at Kayden’s forehead.

And then, it pulled the trigger.

Fuck!

When the T-800 raised its gun and aimed it at his head, Kayden’s smirk froze and disappeared from his face soon after.

This was because of the sudden burst of activity within his HUD, with glaring red warnings appearing in his HUD.

[POSSIBLY LETHAL DANGER DETECTED]

[ACTION: EVADE]

Kayden saw that his HUD had especially marked the Phased Plasma Rifle that was now pointing at his forehead as highly dangerous. He realized that he should definitely not allow the plasma shot from the gun to strike his head.

He had to dodge that plasma shot!

But Kayden knew that it was already too late to dodge the plasma shot. In his carefree overconfidence, he had carelessly given the T-800 enough time to aim its gun and pull the gun’s trigger. He could already see the initial flash of light coming out of the rifle’s muzzle.

Even with his current mental state which had greatly boosted his response and reaction speeds, Kayden knew that he will not be able to dodge that plasma shot.

So, he did the only thing he could do to protect himself.

Kayden used his left arm as a shield to cover his forehead and block the incoming plasma beam.

A bright bluish-white flash of light struck his left forearm.

“Arghhhh! It hurts! It fucking hurts!!!” Kayden screamed, trembling as extreme pain, like nothing he had felt before, washed over him, starting from his blocking left arm and extending to the rest of his body.

The smell of burning meat filled Kayden nose, and his pain-addled mind thought that the smell had a pleasant and appetizing aroma to it.

But the wisps of smoke rising from his raised left arm quickly brought his attention to his left arm.

What he saw shocked him!

The current state of his arm was too shocking to say the least. Most of the skin and flesh on his left forearm had been burnt off completely, with only a few mostly charred pieces of flesh remaining on the forearm and connecting his mostly intact but slightly burnt upper arm and hand.

And that was when Kayden saw the true form of his skeleton.

With the skin and flesh on his left forearm now having been burnt away, the complex internal structure of his left arm were clearly visible to his eyes.

Within his left forearm, in addition to some cybernetic and robot-looking mechanisms, Kayden could also see two bones which had a similar shape to a normal human’s forearm bones.

But that was where the similarity ended.

The two bones had a metallic-white color. There was also a metallic luster to the bones. They were obviously metal bones.

In addition to that, there were many tiny holes and perforations on the surface of the bones, looking like openings to allow something to either enter into or come out of an inner chamber — or something of a similar nature — in the bones.

Like that of normal humans, Kayden’s bones seemed to have mainly depended on the contraction of their genetically-engineered and cybernetically-enhanced connected muscles for the various body movements, but there were also several other cybernetic mechanisms added to allow for normal movement even in the absence of the muscles or when the muscles are critically damaged — like what had happened right now.

As soon as saw the two bones of his forearm, he realized that the bones had been created completely from some kind of strong and durable but light enough metal, and then he quickly guessed that all the other bones of his skeleton should also have a similar metallic form.

‘I have a metal skeleton!’ Kayden thought as he gasped from the realization.

He had just realized that usually hidden under all his flesh and skin, which looked identical to those of normal humans, was most likely a complete metal skeleton!

And that was when Kayden gasped as he finally understood the true meaning of what he had read on the computer screen in the experimentation room where he had woken up in the beginning.

“Model Type: Human-Terminator Hybrid.” Kayden whispered.

Only now did Kayden really understand what those words had actually meant.

The words meant that he was a part-man and part-machine cyborg.

He was really a human-Terminator hybrid!

 

*****

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