Synthetic Survivor: Machine Age

"The rain is nice, isn't it?" One looked down on the Count. 

He was the only person left on the platform that was about to be executed. The other nobles had their heads chopped off already.

The rain wasn't going to be friendly with him either. One had a rod of metal built specifically on top of where the Count knelt.

"You see this metal rod?" One asked him.

"Y-yes," Drian said.

"Then you know it's made of metal right? I'm sure a Count like you is at least educated in the ways of smiths?" One said.

"Of.. course!" Drian said. 

"Then be wowed," One stepped away from the Count and ordered everyone to leave to platform except for the Count.

The Count, sensing that his death was coming, began to struggle against his chains and begged for mercy.

"Wait! wait! Please! Please don't do this to me!" Drian begged.

One stared at him and the angry mob cheered his wails on. 

"Die bastard!" They all shouted. 

Even the little children among the peasantry cheered for his death. One took a liking with their bloodlust. 

The death of the Count would bring Wog his needed legitimacy among the people. Since nobody was going to mess with the King whose subordinate single handedly instigated a rebellion, defeated a paladin, and did not fear to execute the nobility within the city itself.

The crowd was excited as to what One was going to do now. William and Jorn looked anxious as they waited.

Toby, on the other hand, sensed a disturbance with the magic forming on the platform and the sky. It seemed as if the magical molecules were forming a sort of pillar from the sky to the Count.

"Could this be his magic?" Toby looked at the man in black.

Wog and Patricia sensed it too. The accumulation of magic in a pillar like formation over the Count.

"How is he able to manipulate magic like this?" Patricia whispered. She looked at Wog, Wog had his mouth open throughout the entire ordeal. 

"Ben.." Patricia leaned forward over the balcony. 

A bright flash of light appeared and temporarily blinded everyone looking at the Count. The soldiers let go of their weapons and covered their eyes in pain and so did the peasantry and everyone else who was watching.

One, however, had his eyes wide open when the light flashed. It wasn't just some ordinary light, it was a light that came from the heavens that brought forth the same energy that powered humanity back on Earth since the industrial revolution.

Lightning. 

The metal rod acted as a sort of beacon wherein the lightning would strike. However, he did not expect that the magic in this world would also be the cause for lightning.

And then he asked himself.

Does this world have positively and negatively charged particles? 

The temporary blindness caused by the bright flash of light had begun to fade and everyone was soon greeted by the smell that resembled that of roasted meat.

"What happened?" Jorn asked William.

"Why the hell are you asking me?" William said.

"He.. he.." Toby stuttered beside them.

"What did he do?" Jorn asked Toby.

"He summoned the rod of light..." Toby said.

William and Jorn's faces went blank at what Toby said.

"Oh my God.." The peasantry was shocked.

The Count, the same Count that was begging for his life a few seconds ago, the same Count that oppressed them for his own greed a few days prior, was reduced to nothing more than an burnt husk of his former self.

His teeth charred and jaw open. He looked like a demon that even hell had decided to reject for entry. 

"Not even the demons would accept him, he's too ugly even for them," Toby commented. 

Everyone then looked at One who then walked to the platform and grabbed Drian's burnt and lifeless body. He then held it up in front of him for everyone to see.

"This is the man who took everything away from you," One announced.

"But look at him now, everything has been taken from him. His woman, his treasures, his allies, his power," One said.

He then threw it over the platform. The body bounced a bit when it hit the stone ground below. 

He then looked up towards the balcony where King Wog and Patricia were standing.

"I hereby give that man over there, my liege, my lord and my sworn King, that power. Let it be known throughout the surrounding lands that his Kingdom shall prosper and the people of which shall not suffer!" One announced.

"Aye!" The peasantry shouted.

"And let it be known, on this day, on this very hour, that justice, the long thirsted justice that the people yearned, has been fulfilled!" 

"Aye!" The soldiers shouted with them as well.

William and Jorn held their swords up high against the wind and the rain that poured. Everyone was drenched in rain water, the peasants, the soldiers, but not One. 

William had just noticed. The man in black's clothes deflected the water drops from sticking. As if it was a magical item that had a passive magical skill.

"He is dangerous," William whispered.

He had heard the stories and the rumors that circulated about the great archmages and the mages who had formed pacts with exiled Gods for more strength. 

But he had also heard about the new race that took the southern peninsula by surprise. A race of creatures who resembled men but had neither flesh nor fur. Their skin made of metal, their eyes glowed blue, they had a leader whom was said to be a man who wore jet black clothes, the same man that took out the best of the Freetan Theocracy alone.

William looked at One closely from the side. 

"He must be one of them,"