The giant swung his scourge whip in a wide arc, its spiked length snapping through the thick air as he used the momentum to haul himself free from the mud.
Bullets rained down from the golemite's gun-like appendages.
Ragta simply spun the whip faster, creating a shield of whirling steel and chain. Each bullet ricocheted off the flailing weapon, sparks and steam bursting where collision.
The giant's ominous grin was telling, Cain needed to have a back-up — fast.
'Golemite, you better check out those moves.'
The golemite had been watching the whip for a while now. From the moment the it appeared, its spinning mind never ceased.
Seemingly finished watching, one of its rear arms morphed — shifting from the gatling gun a flexible limb, ending in a misshapen mimicry of the scourge whip.
On its first attempt, it couldn't handle the weapon. The chain cracked awkwardly, slamming into one of its own sensing crystals.
It almost broke it's own eye in every literal sense.
The second attempt fared no better. Nor did the third.
But the fourth... the fourth was clean.
The motion refined, the rotation tighter. The whip spun in a full circle, forming a nearly perfect shield. It had learned the physics, the balance, the function.
Just as the Ragta had planned.
He spun his whip a fraction faster this time — then, mid-spin, released it.
The weapon flew, flailing up in the sky like a flying serpent.
The golemite responded instantly, copying the maneuver.
It mirrored the same throw with mechanical precision, hurling its newly forged whip into the air.
But in that moment of obsession of mimicry — its attention too locked in on the act.
And the Ragta struck.
With calm precision, he reached to his belt, pulled a second scourge, and lashed it forward in a flash of spiked steel.
The whip coiled around a golemite arm and tore it free, shattering a sensing crystal along with it.
Ragta didn't grin. He didn't taunt — he had simply outplayed it, aiming for an early finish.
In the end, golemite learned nothing.
It wasn't angered. It couldn't be. But confusion glinted faintly through its shifting posture—an alert, mechanical vigilance.
It still fired at Ragta, but the giant spun his scourge whip again, letting the bullets scatter uselessly against its whirling arcs.
He caught the whip on his left hand, with two scourges — something came anew.
Ragta twisted his arms, sending both chains into intersecting loops.
Crossers and tangles — patterns where chains overlapped and separated in a rhythm only a veteran could control. Metal sang as the links collided, rebounded, and coiled through the air with chaotic grace.
He spun faster and faster — with two sensing crystals the golemite barely kept up.
Each turn layered complexity into the motion — loops folding into themselves, angles shifting just slightly off-sync.
To the untrained eye, it was a dance. A form of art imbued into combat.
But to the golemite, it was a puzzle. A new pattern. A challenge.
It paused. Curious. Its limbs flexed, legs coiling low as if preparing to lunge.
'Don't do that golemite! No! No! No!'
Cain watched the scene unfold from his position behind a ridge of scorched rock, he saw the golemite take the bait — about to leap to its demise.
He didn't hesitate.
Cain triggered a small charge he had planted earlier around the area — an the size of a frag grenade, a small cause for concern for Ragta.
The detonation snapped the ground beneath it, just enough to stagger its stance, forcing it to take a half a step.
He hadn't been idle during the battle.
Between the exchange of gunfire and parlor tricks, he had been tossing rocks — sometimes pebbles, sometimes fist-sized.
Cain observed something yet he was uncertain.
He calculated the bounce angles, how each the general numbers of bullets bounce off and where they go.
'Too uniform, they all ricochet too unilateral.'
That small explosion wasn't a simple distraction. It was part of the scheme — to test something.
Cain had been watching closely.
While the spinning scourge whip deflected bullets and debris, something hadn't sat right with him.
Not every projectile bounced with the same velocity.
Some passed through, others seemed to curve off-course unnaturally.
What is even more telling than anything — was the dust.
The giant's armor shimmered faintly, almost glass-like.
But the layer of dirt clinging to it was inconsistent — denser on some angles, absent in others. That shimmer wasn't just surface sheen.
It was shielding — three barriers activated simultaneously similar to his current stealth.
An inner core, a flexible outer membrane, and a directional barrier that activated mid-rotation.
It gave the illusion of ricochet while actually absorbing or rerouting the bullets trajectory.
Each layer activated in tandem — but the brief delay between them revealed a window.
'A tenth of a second. No more.'
Cain timed it.
When another explosion burst nearby, the shields flickered back on — and Cain moved.
Amid the raining debris, he flicked a small object from his sack.
A pale red vase, no larger than an infant's fist. It tumbled through the air, catching no attention.
He had colored it red on purpose — not for aesthetics, but to avoid confusion in the chaos.
It wasn't the one with the dung, blood and spice mix back then — it was refined pure capsaicin.
The compound responsible for the burning fire of peppers — only this batch had been scavenged from a region so irradiated the plants grew with chemical vengeance.
'Good thing I picked this up earlier, otherwise...'
What was once spice had become a biological weapon.
The vase arced perfectly — lodging straight into the giant's exposed tear duct.
It had been watching the golemite with idle amusement, fascinated by how it tried to mimic the chain whip. It had no idea Cain had struck.
Ragta blinked. A simple, thoughtless gesture.
Every creature over ten meters tall shared the same flaw. They ignored the little things — flecks of dust, shifts in dirt, the signs that currently mattered most.
The vase cracked between his eyes — fine, near-invisible mist bloomed.
Then there comes the heat.
Not from spell or flame — but pure, searing, sensory overload. The capsaicin invaded every nerve around the eye socket, melting calm into chaos.
The giant staggered back, roaring in confused agony, its hands clawing at its own face.
Cain didn't smile. Didn't speak. He clenched his fist as his plan succeeded.
Rescuing the golemite was a success.
[Timer - 00:09:22]