Justin Bringer didn't take any of them seriously.
Please—he was surrounded by elite soldiers, armed with the finest equipment the Public Security Bureau had.
The group across from him? A motley band of irregulars. Hardly worth comparing.
Leaning back comfortably in his seat, he watched the scene ahead like a man enjoying a show, idly estimating how long it would take for his convoy to clear the path.
From the corner of his eye, though, he noticed Billy. What was that overconfident android planning to do?
"Starlight Knight—transform!"
Billy threw his arms wide and shouted to the sky. In an instant, a set of armor identical to the Starlight Knight's iconic design snapped into place around him.
Black and crimson plates interlocked with a gleam of energy.
Those black lenses—oh, they were perfectly cool.
In that moment, Billy felt raw power flood every circuit of his body. The suit—sleek, radiant, magnificent—was a flawless one-to-one recreation.
He looked down at himself in delight, a surge of pride welling up from his mechanical core.
"What the hell is that?!"
The undercover agents in combat gear gawked in disbelief.
They'd never seen a transformation like that outside of a kids' show—an armored hero appearing out of thin air.
"Wait… isn't that the Starlight Knight?"
One of the more romantically minded soldiers muttered uncertainly.
The name alone made several others freeze in recognition.
The Starlight Knight was everywhere—toys, shows, advertisements, cross-brand collaborations.
But… could that thing actually fight? Or was it just a fancy collector's item?
Before they could finish doubting, the Starlight Knight launched himself straight toward the ten autonomous robots.
In a heartbeat, every one of them locked onto him.
Over five hundred red targeting points covered Billy from head to toe—he was lit up like a crimson constellation.
Even the weakest of those machine guns could punch through anti-tank armor. The strongest cannons could vaporize an upper-tier Etheric Knight with ease.
In New Eridu, plagued by Hollow outbreaks and rampant rebel gangs, only such monstrous weaponry deserved to be called "advanced fire-control units"—the Bureau's ultimate riot-suppression force.
"Uh—what?"
Billy skidded mid-air, his heroic momentum grinding to an awkward halt.
As a combat-type android built for firepower analysis, his instincts screamed in alarm.
Being locked on by that much weaponry? Yeah, he was definitely panicking.
"Seriously? Don't these guys know how this is supposed to go? I'm supposed to fight one noble villain at a time—not a whole platoon!"
After all, the Starlight Knight transformation device hadn't come with a manual. He had no idea what it could actually do.
"Forget it! I believe in you, Boss Sol!"
Gritting his teeth, Billy decided to gamble everything—and shot skyward.
That's right. The Starlight Knight could fly!
His joy spiked as he streaked through the air, weaving effortlessly through the crossfire.
He was fast—so fast that even the overlapping fire grids couldn't keep up.
Dozens of crimson tracers missed by inches as he danced between them, dodging every line of death with dazzling precision.
Grinning ear to ear, he shouted, "Boss Sol, you're amazing!"
Caesar, Qingyi, and the others watching from below all exhaled in relief. Looks like Sol's gear was the real deal.
As long as Billy could hold off those ten monsters, the rest of the elite troops would only be a matter of time and effort.
"Interesting," Bringer murmured, watching the red blur darting across the sky. "Some sort of high-tech armor? I didn't expect civilians to have access to that. But fire-control automatons don't just aim and shoot."
He would know—he'd personally overseen the Bureau's joint development program with the TOPS Consortium.
Sure, the project had been a convenient cover for leaking intel to them, but he still understood the tech better than anyone.
He trusted these ten high-end autonomous combat units completely.
A single one could rival an upper-tier Etheric Construct. Ten of them together—that was another level entirely.
As if to validate his confidence, the robots stirred in perfect unison.
[Target detected: High-mobility unit. Initiating cooperative computation protocol. Forming synchronized fire grid. Predictive trajectory lock engaged. Executing total annihilation directive.]
Red data streams flashed through their optics as all ten robots linked their sensors, pooling data into a shared network.
The red targeting points that had been chasing Billy suddenly dispersed—now scattered across the sky in what seemed like random formation.
But it wasn't random at all.
Over five hundred cannons had aligned into a kill cage, sealing off every possible escape vector.
Billy tried once more to break through using speed—
—but this time, he failed.
The predictive system anticipated his movement perfectly. Beams of energy converged on him from all sides.
"Hey—! That's cheating!"
Billy's eyes widened as massive plasma cannons lit up his visor.
Each one had the power to flatten a building.
"Too big! Too strong! I'll break if I take that head-on!"
His earlier thrill turned instantly to horror—he could almost feel the coming explosion in his circuits.
And then—impact.
A blinding surge of etheric energy engulfed him in midair, mushrooming into a cloud of white-blue light.
"Goodbye, Boss Sol… Boss Nicole… I failed you both…"
Billy's voice wavered through static as a few droplets of machine oil rolled down his faceplate.
No regrets, though. If there was another life… he'd still want to be the living-room TV in the Lucky Rabbit House.
That dash under the sunset—that was his lost youth.
"Billy!"
Qingyi, Caesar, and the others cried out amid the chaos, their hearts sinking.
They didn't want to lose another comrade—but reality could be cruel.
The etheric smoke thinned, slowly revealing the figure suspended in the air.
And there he was—completely unharmed.
The Starlight Knight patted his chestplate in disbelief. Smooth. Untouched. Not even a scratch.
"I'm fine? Boss Sol's gear is insane!"
Those cannons could've sent a real Starlight Knight straight to the underworld.
But Billy had taken several blasts full-on—and didn't even flinch.
He was awestruck. Tonight, he'd have to thank Boss Sol in person.
Only now did he realize—the transformation belt Sol had given him wasn't just on par with the original Starlight Knight's armor.
It surpassed it.
Billy roared and dove back down, fire gleaming from his heels. "Starlight—shine forth!"
No fear. No hesitation. Only the beautiful, overwhelming power of his form.
His right leg blazed like a miniature sun as he unleashed a perfect Rider Kick, radiant and fierce beyond measure.
BOOM!
Half of the autonomous robots exploded instantly, molten metal raining down into the smoking craters below.
The remaining five barely survived—if they hadn't been spaced apart, they too would've been vaporized.