After the sharp, stuttering clicks of spinning gears, the gatling gun roared.
Then came the storm — bullets tore through the mist in a relentless downpour.
Ragta slammed his hands with a roar into the ground once more, conjuring a second wave of crystal growth — not just walls this time, but coffins.
The crystal pillars wrapped around Midi and Dilim's broken bodies, sealing them inside translucent sarcophagi.
Protecting and preserving what was left as the alloy shells rained down from the golemite.
Turning back to the fight, he reached for his weapons, Ragta slammed the bottom shaft of the first scythe against the top of the second.
Both scythes began to connecting with one another, mechanical click snapped through the air — the second blade slid upward, locking in with a snap.
The two weapons fused into one monstrous scythe, its blade now stretched into a monstrous length — heavy, curved like a crescent moon meant to reap not crops, but worlds.
Ragta's fury boiled over, with a bellow that shook the mist, he surged forward.
A low sweep from ground to sky, as if he were cutting grass rather than stone and metal.
Clang! A crack like a mountain breaking rang out, a screech of stone and steel surrendering to force.
The weapon connected and it carved — cutting through the golemite's midsection with horrifying efficiency, slicing up through nine meters of alloy, rock, and evolving mechanisms.
The golemite staggered, bisected halfway up its frame.
But it did not fall — instead, it reacted with eerie, mechanical instinct.
It gripped the embedded scythe rod jammed right at it's chest, then it clamped down with all four of its reinforced arms, locking the weapon in place like a vise.
Ragta smirked as he saw it — his body thinned by prana, trading bulk for raw, explosive strength.
He gripped the scythe's extended shaft tight — and began to swing.
The golemite, easily the size of three conventional tank, became nothing more than a bludgeon in Ragta's hands.
Cain, still hidden in the mist, watched the impossible sight unfold — he knew the real battle had just begun.
He moved quickly to the crystal coffins where Midi and Dilim were entombed, his fingers brushing across the slick, polished surfaces.
He tapped experimentally, searching for weakness.
Nothing, the crystal was dense — too dense.
Even with his best explosives, he wouldn't be able to breach it.
Cain exhaled sharply, glancing back at the battlefield.
The golemite's predicament was getting worse by the second.
Ragta swung it around like a club, venting his fury with each whiplash arc. The alloy creature wouldn't last.
Cain didn't hesitate. He pressed another button on his remote — this time not for explosives, but for something embedded earlier.
A speaker, hidden deep in the twisted amalgam of metal that formed part of the golemite's frame.
Piercing, high-pitched tone screeched out across the ruins, slicing through the mist.
Cain's eyes scanned quickly.
A projector rigged into the ground.
Simple axle spinning inside a wheel, a crude rhythmic cue system he had installed earlier.
The axle stabbed through the wheel — driving in, tearing out, plunging back again in a relentless rhythm.
Ragta vented his rage while the golemite tried to understand what it meant.
But on the third iteration — the golemite understood.
Like a wheel locking into an axle, the golemite slid itself deeper onto the scythe's shaft — its chest morphing, rounding subtly to mimic the motion, as if trying to embody the wheel on the hologram.
'Fair enough'
Cain knew the golemite could only mimic what it understood — and so far, his plan was working.
But Ragta narrowed his eyes. He wasn't stupid.
He sensed the bait and abandoned the scythe without hesitation, letting the weapon jam uselessly into the stone creature.
'Ah, Shucks! Should've seen that coming.'
He hadn't anticipated Ragta being so pragmatic.
The golemite was embedded with kilograms of magitech explosives — it needed Ragta to hold the weapon to trigger maximum damage.
The golemite sensed that the scythe embedded in its body no longer carried foreign energy — shifted tactics, choosing to devour the weapon.
It began assimilating the blade — its arms warping, metal fingers unfolding to absorb the fallen weapon into its own body structure, piece by piece.
Cain tensed — ready to pivot to another plan when he heard it.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
A soft metallic rattle — like distant chimes carried on a dying breeze.
'What was that? Am I hearing things?'
At first, he barely caught it.
A faint sound going — zing zing zing.
Like strings tightening — he recognized the sound, but from where?
Cain's hearing was sharper than most.
He caught the glint in the mist — a shimmer no thicker than fishing line, so fine it was nearly invisible.
Tens to hundreds of strings.
Threads so fine they could've been strands of hair — and Cain hadn't even noticed he was already caught in the web, revealed only by a faint glint of moonlight.
'He... He... He's an assassin all along?! But how?'
Emerging from the mist like a phantom, Ragta stood, his hands spread, each finger intricately laced with these threads.
With a slight taut of Ragta's fingers, the golemite stopped in its tracks.
Then with a tug — the golemite jerked violently, convulsing as if seized by some unseen force Its limbs spasmed, sparks vomiting from the joints.
The monster was torn apart piece by piece — like a toy, pried open by a curious child, reckless to see what lay hidden inside.
Armor plates snapped off and clattered to the ground.
Alloy ribs tore free, scattering in fragmented shards. Joints buckled and twisted with surgical cruelty.
Entire limbs separated as if peeled away by invisible blades.
Cain didn't watch the end — he ran.
Snatching his last potion from his belt, he ripped it open with his teeth, swallowing the liquid without hesitation.
He didn't care about efficiency anymore nor about the golemite.
'Investment? Who cares.'
All he cared about now was the only thing that ever mattered — his life.
Without wasting a moment, he sprinted toward the jagged cliff face a hundred meters away.
He even made sure the mist was undisturbed as he passed.
Was Ragta strong? Too strong.
Cain found himself questioning everything — whether the battle doctrines, the fighting manuals, the so-called wisdom of the scholars mattered.
'Or Maybe... maybe Ragta was just beyond it all. A monstrous genius.'