“Ha, pain shall not stop me.” The Predecessor spat out a mouthful of blood as it sank to the floor. It stared at Alan. “Go, take it!” It began laughing madly as spittle and blood was coughed up even as it started to spasm vigorously. The collar continued to send out brilliant white sheets of lightning. Using the settings in his cybernetic eye, Eve managed to dim the light, protecting Alan from blindness.

The other AI, which Eve confirmed was the main prison warden AI with 97% certainty, tried to reconnect to Alan once more. He denied the connection, running forwards to the cylindrical power generator before him. He grabbed the black crystal in an attempt to pry it out. It wouldn’t budge.

With extreme precision, he grasped the soulsteel knife and under Eve’s careful direction began to cut the crystal out. Luckily, no surges of energy tore out. Instead, the knife seemed to negate them, absorbing the energy like it did all sources of light. Finally, Alan managed to free the baseball sized black crystal.

The room plunged into darkness. Alan put the crystal behind his right leg in one of his power armor’s compartments. Electricity continued coursing through the Predecessor. Alan glanced at it, then looked away. The sight of its bloody laughter was too much. A message popped up:

Alan began to consider the implications of this message, when Eve interrupted his thoughts.

Gather one of the empty crystals.

Alan quickly cut one out. He put it in the compartment behind his left leg. Unfortunately, he didn’t have room for any of the others. He reminded himself to ask Phantom for an advanced bag or something as soon as he got back. Alan deactivated hypercognition and re-sheathed the knife. He activated the Advanced Stealth Mode on his armor.

Reminder: Devoting primary resources to control Advanced Stealth Mode well, please do not task me with complicated tasks. Combat modeling will be slightly delayed as well.

What? Why’s that?

Basic Stealth Mode hides you from sight, from a small spectrum of electromagnetic waves. Advanced Stealth Mode allows armor to replicate and mimic nearly all other types of waves in addition to light waves. Sound, smells and all other manners of commonly used ways to detect someone may be mimicked as if the armor simply isn’t there. This near-perfect mimicry is extraordinarily taxing due to the fact you do not meet the requirements of the armor. Be quiet and let me focus.

Alan did so, calmly watching as the Predecessor’s life fell below 10%. One second ticked by, then the next. Its HP drain began to slow, from 1% a second to .5%. Alan watched. Then, finally, the HP bar reached zero. A couple of messages popped up before Alan, accompanied by a sudden crash.

ACTIVATE HYPERCOGNITION.

Alan immediately did so, quickly reading over the messages.