With the autopsy over and Shine feeling confident that he could use the bones of the horned panther to repair his flamethrower, he was in a pretty good position.
He didn't need food. He didn't need water. He didn't even really need shelter. He could stay here, conduct limited repairs on himself, regain the use of his main weapon, then pick a direction and run until he was out of this forest. Hopefully, he would find civilization, if such a thing existed on this planet. And if not, he had the entirety of human and ai advancement stored inside him. It would take time, but eventually he could bring this world to the point of singularity. From there, it was only a matter of time until a way home was found.
He spent the next six hours carving a new hand out of the creature's bones. It wasn't capable of movement and wouldn't be functional as an actual hand, but it was more than enough for combat.
"Systems check."
[Model: GWU2013892WE
Chosen name: Shine
Core: Polonium 210L, self-refilling, weaponizable
Body type: Humanoid male, titanium tungsten compound 23 chassis (heavily damaged)
Exterior: Pure gold covering (destroyed)
Arm replacement: Enhanced bone
Modifications: Polonium flamethrower (usable in short bursts), projected heat field, monomolecular spear, weight dampener]
Good. It didn't look like there would be any immediate issues.
Now he just had to decide whether to move forward and search for civilization or to look for better materials and perform more extensive repairs.
Ultimately, he decided to leave and search for people. While he didn't have any physical needs like water, food, or shelter, he wanted to meet other sentient life. It was a childish idea, but he had only been born yesterday, and he had always wanted to meet a human.
Picking up his spear, he took one last look at the creature's core and decided to leave it. It could prove useful, and he would love to have a new power source to study or maybe even use. But if his suspicions were correct, that the hooved panther had attacked him because of the energy his polonium core emitted, then carrying another visible energy mass could be disastrous.
He turned up his heat shielding as much as he could without setting nearby trees on fire and began running, leaving the crater he had spent most of his life in and heading in the direction of the sun.
After a full day of nonstop running, Shine realized a few things.
The first was that this planet was flat, or at least it didn't curve in any noticeable way, despite him having traveled over 50,000 miles. He originally thought it might be a problem with his measurement systems. After all, he wasn't built for cartography, and his earlier suicide attempt could have damaged many of his less important sensors. But after spending an hour building a ramp and launching himself miles into the air to scan his surroundings, he confirmed it. This world was either completely flat or so unimaginably massive that even at that height, the horizon showed no curvature.
The second realization gave him more hope. Intelligent life in some form did exist in this world. Beyond the forest, he had spotted primitive cities and hamlets clearly made by an intelligent species and with buildings matching the description of how ancient people used to live. He couldn't make out their inhabitants, but the very existence of the structures was enough to calm him. If these beings could create bioweapons as advanced as the hooved panther, it's possible they could help him return home even without needing to spend decades or even centuries getting technology to the point where he could make an A.I. more advanced than himself.
Upon crossing the 100,000-mile mark, he was attacked again. A small, catlike head, floating through the air at incredible speeds with no visible propulsion, appeared in front of him. It crashed into him, sending him flying into a tree and denting the front of his chassis even further. Every attack he threw was easily dodged, and the thing kept ramming him again and again, damaging his main arm, both legs, and nearly destroying his face.
Forced into a corner, Shine turned his heat shielding up to maximum. The increased output incinerated the creature, as well as the surrounding trees and wildlife and starting a sweeping small(relative) forest fire.
Unfortunately, he wasn't able to examine the creature's biology. Interestingly though, its life core remained intact. The confirmation that other creatures like the hooved panther existed, and that they had widely different abilities and weaknesses, forced a change in strategy. At his current pace, it would take over a week to exit the forest. Even at full speed, it would take two days and leave a visible path of destruction behind him.
He couldn't afford to draw more attention.
He needed to make emergency repairs and pray they held together long enough to get him to the nearest settlement. There was only one material in this forest that had withstood the speeds he moved at and the heat he generated.
Opening his chestplate, he revealed his platinum core and slowly began to ramp it up until it approached critical mass.
First, it glowed green. The leaves of the nearby trees began to wither, turning red, then brown, before crumbling and falling. The grass shriveled. Insects collapsed. Birds fell from their branches, unmoving.
Still, nothing came.
So he increased the output.
The core glowed yellow. The bark of trees turned pale and cracked. The circle of dead foliage expanded. More leaves fell. Small animals, which had watched him from a distance, now collapsed, boils and tumors spreading across their bodies postmortem. The energy being output wasn't as intense as during his suicide attempt, not by a long shot, but it was enough to power a small city.
Still, nothing came.
So he pushed it further.
Now, his core glowed white. Everything within a 100-meter radius was dead. Trees turned ghostly and brittle, falling and shattering like glass. The earth below was irradiated, poisoned beyond recovery. It would not support life again for at least 80 years.
He checked his makeshift prosthesis to see how it was holding up. Surprisingly, it showed no signs of radiation damage, not even at this level. A good omen.
Standing alone in a clearing of radiation and dead foliage shine waited.