*Zoooom*
It was deep at night under an unknown moonlit sky that suddenly a never before seen turquoise colored portal opened up high up the ground- shooting out a small metallic cocoon before quickly extinguishing itself like it was never there.
The cocoon slowly gilded itself into a nondescript patch of soft, muddy ground, landing safely, before quickly activating itself.
As it was written in its command, the unit first turned on its mana powered powered radar, scanning the surrounding area for terrain features.
It found the entire place appeared to be a stretch of boundless wasteland, only filled with rotting forests, putrid swamps, and festering bogs, eerily devoid of any intelligent life- at least the radar failed to pick up any significant pulses of thermal or magical energy.
The artifact did a couple of such long range searches, double checking its findings, until it managed to form a preliminary topological map of its vicinity.
After which eight spider like metallic legs quickly jettisoned from the sides, letting the cocoon stand up.
Then based on a series of pre set criteria, it started to head off along the direction where the mana pulses were the weakest, wishing to avoid any significant human settlements.
The reason behind this action was simple- such a place was unlikely to have a high ranking mage- someone who might be able to recognize the boy's special origins, such as the ultra pure ambient mana embedded within him, or worse, notice the high level artifact that he possessed.
This was also the exact reason the artifact changed the original coordinates of the teleportation portal at the last second, choosing a place with the thinnest mana density within range.
At the same time, the artifact itself was bestowed with quite potent defensive capabilities.
Thus in this low threat environment, even if some danger befell the boy, this autonomous drone would be more than capable of keeping the boy safe.
This was the best the boy's father would do for his dear son.
….
Having obtained its preliminary vector, the spider like automaton surged through the barren lands like the wind, neither the soft ground of the bogs nor the patches of muddy quicksand proving any match for the lightweight and nimble machine.
Scuttling on its eight independent long legs, it was easily able to traverse the uneven ground and any obstacles like fallen trees and rocks, even climbing over the various huge earth mounds which stood like unnatural mountains around the whole place with little trouble.
Its in built glide spell helped it cross over any small ravines and against stagnant lakes or deep rivers, the artifact could simply change its legs into oars, propelling forward at a surprisingly fast speed.
Hence the machine and master pair continued on unhindered, through rain, sun and even a freak snowstorm, their destination still nowhere in sight.
The desolate lands were fantastically huge, even for the untiring mechanical legs that kept moving at great speeds nonstop,
But nevertheless, the challenge did nothing to deter the artifact from carrying out its duty, as it simply kept on moving according to the instructions coded into it, perfectly obeying.
As long as the magic crystals in it had power, no exhaustion or boredom would ever overtake him.
While the one riding inside it, the infant Adonis never felt the slightest bit of discomfort, as its needs were always taken care of.
This over qualified magical artifact had ample stores of suitable food for nourishment in its subspace that it fed the boy through IV, while the baby's bodily activities were cleaned quickly and efficiently through other spells.
He was kept entertained using magical projections of various plays and music, while the ride was as exquisite as a baby's bottom.
Regardless of how fast they traveled, or over what terrain, the magical suspension array installed there let the infant eat, sleep, and even comfortably wet himself without a care in the world.
The machine's ultimate wish was to find a low level human settlement, and hand the boy over to an orphanage or even better an elderly couple, while it disguised itself as a bracket, protecting the boy incognito.
In that endeavor, it ventured deeper and deeper into the wastelands, wishing to cross it, until it reached the very epicenter of the eerie place, where the trees were the densest and the sunlight was able to barely filter through.
Yet, the artifact had no problem navigating this dark and confusing terrain, the plethora of radars, sensors and imaging apparatus letting it map out its surrounding topography into a 3D form easily.
It also did not sense any danger from its mana detectors, only spotting little signs of life such as small wild critters and insects flying around it.
Even animals like rats and mice were surprisingly absent, laying evidence of the utter barrenness of the place.
The spider like artifact thus felt comfortable climbing over a particularly huge mound of earth, just like it had so many times before, when suddenly,
Roar!!!
The absolute tranquility of the place was suddenly broken by this huge roar, loud enough to shake the earth and destroy the sky.
*Beep*, *Beep*, *Beep*
And the readings in the mana detectors immediately went completely haywire, reaching the very limit of the scale.
Oh no!
There was a concealed monster here, one that had somehow managed to evade even the sensors from the higher realms until it decided to reveal itself.
And since it could do that, naturally it meant it was very formidable, easily confirmed by the artifact's instruments.
A Tier 5!
The reading confirmed it was to be categorized as a Tier 5 beast- something worthy enough to be an absolute behemoth anywhere in the lower planes.
And due to the monster concealing itself, Adonis had mistakenly stepped into its territory.
"Ahhhh! So hungry! No food! Ate all the food! " The humongous beast gave a low guttural sound that seemed to come deep from its belly, lifting its humongous body and taking a huge whiff of the surrounding air,
"*Sniffff*, delicious food! *Sniffff*, where is the delicious food? I can smell the most delectable of magic crystals nearby. Ahhhhoooooo!"
Bad!
This was bad!
The beast seemed to have an extremely keen smell, capable of sensing the ultra high quality magic crystal powering the artifact even when it was very well shielded.
And its growls also showed just how formidable it was- the entirety of this wasteland had likely become as such because of it- this had eaten everything around and then having exhausted its food supply, chose to hibernate to conserve its strength.
And now the aroma of delicious food had once again stirred its hunger.
Awakened by this scuttling spider of an intruder, the hillock like mound gave away to reveal a huge, wolf like monster, with jet black 'fur' that seemed to meld into the ambient dark.
Upon closer inspection though, the creature could really be only called 'wolf like' and not a wolf.
It only had the general outline.
Reaching more than four stories in height, this absolutely gigantic entity stood magnificently not on four legs but eight, all of different thicknesses and suffering various deformities- such as many of the limbs being unnaturally bent and deformed in all the wrong places.
The creature had no skin, only a writhing layer of worm like red and black tendrils flowed over its muscle, some digging into the exposed flesh and producing pure black pus, while others burst out from the various large boils it had all over its body, producing yellow acid splashes on to the surrounding 'skin' and creating a burnt, sizzling smoke.
It had three eyes, the ones on its sides being the normal, grey slitted pair typical of a wolf. It oozed with pain and discomfort.
While the one on the forehead was a topaz iris embedded within a black sclera, and it shined with eternal greed and hunger.
Snifff!!!
And as the beast sucked in the ambient air for a second air to try and locate its concealed prey, its long snout like mouth suddenly cut itself vertically into two, turning more like a sucker with four sets of razor sharp teeth.
"Found you!"
The increased sense of smell worked for the ravenous beast, letting it quickly catch onto its prey's track.
Then with a manic glint in its eyes, the beast turned its huge body at a speed that really betrayed its size, pouncing towards that direction like a cat hunting mice.!!!