However, the charge of the crowd did not stop for even a moment. Very soon, another group took advantage of the opening, braving the shockwaves and flying debris, and managed to get in close.

...The brutal melee of close combat began.

The entire battlefield became increasingly chaotic, fast, and intense, making it impossible to see anything clearly.

At a certain moment, amidst sudden screams, severed limbs fell to the ground, blood gushed from the wounds like a spring, soaking into the earth and staining the dirt and stones red under the pale moonlight.

Henry Clark did not run, nor did he dare to get up. He just lay there in the pit, staring blankly and dazedly at everything happening. It wasn’t because he was brave, but because... he himself didn’t even have time to think about it right now.

“Looks like we can’t win.” After a while, he even subconsciously made a mental assessment of the strength of both sides on the battlefield.

“Humans” didn’t seem to be able to beat “robots.”

They had the advantage in numbers, but those two robots were clearly much stronger.

The knives in their hands seemed special, sharp and tough enough to slice through iron armor with a muffled clang, but the two pillar-like swords in the robots’ hands, which looked like “giant folded black umbrellas,” were even bigger and obviously more powerful.

Moreover, the two robots were nothing like the clumsy, sluggish machines people usually imagined—they were extremely agile and fast.

They dodged, darted, sprinted, stopped abruptly, then moved in the opposite direction, their speed and transitions so quick that... at the very least, if someone tried to run them over with a car—ten cars, twenty cars—it still wouldn’t stand a chance.

When Transformers stop and turn, their brakes screech and spark, and they still have some inertia to overcome, but these robots looked as if that simply didn’t apply to them.

Of course, they didn’t have the exaggerated size of Transformers either. Visually, they looked much more human than Transformers.

In short, the disadvantage of being human was simply overwhelming.

In just a short while, five or six “humans” had already fallen, at least two of them dying on the spot. The others looked badly injured, unable to stand up at all for the moment.

Henry Clark saw a “human” with a pierced chest, temporarily hanging from the robot’s umbrella-shaped greatsword as it swung, blood spraying everywhere.

But, through their sacrifice, they still managed to accomplish one thing: splitting the battlefield.

The two black-armored robots were now separated into two different combat zones, each fending off attacks from all directions as the human groups took turns assaulting or ambushing them.

The battle seemed to have entered the strangling phase after the split and encirclement.

Unfortunately, the gap in individual strength between the two sides was still enormous. The side trying to strangle the robots couldn’t win head-on, relying heavily on attacks from behind or the sides. If the robots anticipated and caught their intentions, it only led to more casualties.

Henry Clark continued lying there, watching...

“Whoosh... thud.”

It seemed a shard of metal, shattered and flung from a blade, suddenly shot diagonally over his head and embedded itself solidly in the dirt.

The sharp sound of it cutting through the air spoke of its speed and force. If the shard had been just a bit lower, it might have sliced off a part of him.

In an instant, cold sweat drenched his body.

Iron and blood yanked Henry Clark out of his previous state of confusion and ignorant curiosity as a bystander.

In the face of life and death, failing the college entrance exam suddenly seemed like such a trivial thing.

This nineteen-year-old rural boy finally began to realize the threshold between life and death, that real, bone-chilling fear, and understood just what kind of extraordinary event and dangerous situation he had stumbled into.

The fighting on the field grew ever fiercer, the sounds of impact surprisingly not sharp, but rather a constant, muffled thudding.

If he tried to run now, the chances of not being discovered were too slim. Pressed close to the ground, buried in the pit, Henry Clark clung to his last shred of hope, trembling uncontrollably as he prayed for the battle to move farther away or end quickly, so that no one would notice him.

But, as luck would have it... suddenly, there was a “thud” in the midst of the battlefield.

A figure was abruptly flung a dozen meters through the air, flapping like a duck kicked into flight, landing in a tangle of bushes and weeds less than two meters from Henry Clark...

“Looks like he’s not dead yet.” Henry Clark heard the person still gasping in pain.

“But... probably not for long,” he thought.

At the same time, Henry Clark finally became completely certain that the group carrying metal boxes on their backs were indeed human.

Because he finally heard them speak clearly—several voices at once, shouting in his direction because of what had just happened, “The Lane Team,” their tones filled with anxiety, worry, and anger.

Amid the cries of alarm, Henry Clark looked up.

On the battlefield, a robot with visible damage was facing his direction, raising the arm that wasn’t holding a sword.

Was it... going to finish them off? Could it be a laser cannon? A sleeve arrow, a throwing knife? Was the mechanical arm about to detach?

Henry Clark turned his head and saw the guy lying under the bushes... staring back at him with weak, open eyes.

Given the situation, it didn’t seem right not to do something.

Almost instinctively, the honest rural boy Henry Clark reached out and dragged the person into the pit with him.

Fortunately, because of the slight slope, it wasn’t difficult.